For author "Kenneth H. Thompson," childhood was anything but idyllic. In his memoir, he chronicles his life story and the lessons he learned in the process. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he grew up with two brothers and two sisters, but he suffered abuse at the hands of his step-father.

Hoping for a better life for her son, Thompson's mother adopted him out to another family. The joy was short-lived, as his adoptive mother was a saint by day and a devil by night, due to her drinking. In this memoir, he tells of his miserable childhood and the circumstances that led him to drug use, crime, and an eventual prison stay at Rikers Island.

This autobiography details Thompson's journey through the storms and the darkness in life, but it also narrates how God came to help and instilled light in his mind and his soul and facilitated a complete spiritual balance.

This book is about being human. Poetry is human. It is a look into the soul, daily living, and poetic presece of daily life. Every passion and pain of my own world has been turned into poetry, a story revealed. A book filled with beauty and surprise, unexpected gifts. This book is about the solitary moments in life, things that you have done and experienced and discovered that you've actually found them to be meaningful.

In 2008, the economic relationship between the United States and China almost collapsed due to a crisis at two American mortgage corporations, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This book explains how that crisis came about, and analyzes the consequences and implications.

In the very last year of the seventeenth century a ten-year-old boy in the city of Lucerne, Switzerland, announced to his parents that he wanted to become a Jesuit missionary and save souls in faraway lands. Philipp Segesser got his wish when he was sent to northwestern Mexico in 1731. For the next thirty years he carried on an active correspondence with his family and religious affiliates. His letters home, translated and edited in this fascinating book, provide a frank and intimate view of missionary life on the remote northwestern frontier of New Spain. The editor's introduction sets the letters in biographical and historical context.

"Gawain: A Casebook" is a collection of 12-15 classic and original essays on the hero of Arthurian legend that investigates the figure of Gawain as he appears in major medieval traditions, as well as modern literature and film. As with other volumes in the "Arthurian" "Characters and Themes" series, this casebook includes an extended introduction examining the character's evolution from the earliest tales to his most recent appearances in popular culture, as well as an extensive annotated bibliography. Students, scholars, and anyone interested in medieval legend will find a wealth of insight into the mystery of this most poignant and perplexing of Arthurian heroes.

In the midst of the American Civil War, Rita Goldstein, a beautiful, young cornetist, is abandoned in Cairo, Illinois by her faithless fiance Butch Lassiter, but she is a fierce and determined young woman who is not easily rejected and not easily discouraged. She sets out at once to bring him back and follows The Army of the Cumberland across Tennessee to find him. She is pursued by her heart-broken father, Ira, who wants to bring her home again. On their separate journeys, Ira and Rita are caught up in the hatred and destructiveness of two huge armies, one from the North and one from the South. However, both Ira and Rita find consolation in the power of music.

Men, Masculinities, and Aging introduces readers to the gendered nature of aging men's lives. Edward H. Thompson, noted for his work on men and aging, explores the intersections of ethnicities, class, geographies, generations, and masculinities. The book offers a fresh perspective on men's experiences with bodily aging, growing older in an ageist society, and navigating the virtual absence of cultural guidelines for being an aging man. The book also provides a sociological theory framework on how men navigate their social aging as they experience later life and very late life. Turning points such as grandfathering, the changeover from work to retirement, and the onset of health problems or becoming a career are discussed at length as Thompson frames these natural occurrences as now ordinary experiences as aging masculinities are no longer rarities. The book will provide educators, students, researchers, and practitioners a means to question standard assumptions about aging men and discuss what underlies most later-life masculinities.

Perhaps no aspect of social relations has stirred more academic controversy than the subject of race and ethnicity. Theories that explain the persistence and vitality of the "ethnic phenomenon"--as well as commentaries on these theories--abound in sociological and anthropological literature. This study is the first, however, to critique the field as a whole. Thompson offers systematic comparisons of current theories, testing both their internal consistency and their adequacy as analytical tools. Thompson's study focuses the debate on ethnicity in a constructive and original fashion. Thompson devotes a chapter to each of the major theoretical traditions that now dominate the field of ethnicity: sociobiology, primordialism, assimilationism, world-system theory, and neo-Marxism. He describes the basic tenets of each theory and demonstrates that the "facts" they seek to explain are embedded within their theoretical assumptions. He attributes disagreements among the theories less to differences over facts than to the way they are interpreted within different worldviews arising from divergent philosophical and scientific presuppositions. He shows that it is not possible to critique any theory using the assumptions of another theory, arguing that theories can be internally critiqued based on the relationship between their adequacy as theories and the framework they offer for making normative choices. Thompson's study focuses the debate on ethnicity in a constructive and original fashion. The book will be of interest to scholars, teachers, and students working the areas of race and ethnic relations or theoretical criticism.

A sweeping, policy-oriented account of the private and public management of the world's essential natural resource. Governments dominated water management throughout the twentieth century. Tasked with ensuring a public supply of clean, safe, reliable, and affordable water, governmental agencies controlled water administration in most of the world. They built the dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts that store water when available and move that water to areas with increasing populations and economies. Private businesses sometimes played a part in managing water, but typically in a supporting position as consultants or contractors. Today, given the global need for innovative new technologies, institutions, and financing to solve the freshwater crisis, private businesses and markets are playing a rapidly expanding role, bringing both new approaches and new challenges to a historically public field. In Liquid Asset, Barton H. Thompson, Jr. examines the growing position of the private sector in the "business of water." Thompson seeks to understand the private sector's involvement in meeting the water needs of both humans and the environment, looks at the potential risks that growing private involvement poses to the public interest in water, and considers the obstacles that private organizations face in trying to participate in a traditionally governmental sector. Thompson provides a richly detailed analysis to foster both improved public policy and responsible business behavior. As the book demonstrates, the story of private businesses and water offers a window into the serious challenges facing freshwater today, and their potential solutions.

Written by an international team of over 130 authorities, no other work approaches this A-Z guide to the legends of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table for breadth and depth of coverage. It is the ultimate resource for reliable information on topics as diverse as the Grail, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guenevere, Arthurian operas, the historicity of Arthur and much more.

First published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

States today play a major role in implementing and enforcing environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. A thirty year review of ESA identified state leadership in species conservation as a necessary element in better conserving the nation 's imperiled species, yet the theoretical and practical reasons and applications of an enhanced state role are little understood and have not been subjected to any meaningful analysis.This book, for the first time, presents the legal and policy analysis for federalism considerations in implementing ESA. The book undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the economic rationale for federalism in ESA administration; compares administration of ESA to other major environmental statutes; reviews various tools under the existing Act to enhance state role in species conservation; evaluates major case studies to determine roles the state can play in species conservation and recovery; and concludes with policy recommendations to encourage greater state involvement in species conservation.

Our landscapes have never failed to entice and capture the imagination of writers, painters and philosophers a " and in turn their work has influenced our landscapes for centuries.

This carefully selected collection of readings and commentary expertly guides you through the aesthetic, social, cultural and environmental foundations of our thinking about landscape, and explores the key writings which shaped the field in its emergence and maturity.

Provoking thought and discussion, this book does not provide answers, and will not conclude with an infallible theory of landscape. But with a range of readings from Vitruvius to Jellicoe, from Burke to Berlin to Berleant, from the Picturesque to Phenomenology, every reader will find something here to set them thinking.

Our landscapes have never failed to entice and capture the imagination of writers, painters and philosophers a " and in turn their work has influenced our landscapes for centuries.

This carefully selected collection of readings and commentary expertly guides you through the aesthetic, social, cultural and environmental foundations of our thinking about landscape, and explores the key writings which shaped the field in its emergence and maturity.

Provoking thought and discussion, this book does not provide answers, and will not conclude with an infallible theory of landscape. But with a range of readings from Vitruvius to Jellicoe, from Burke to Berlin to Berleant, from the Picturesque to Phenomenology, every reader will find something here to set them thinking.

This professional book for labor arbitrators, mediators, administrative law judges, practitioners in the field of labor relations representing either management or labor (or both), and others involved in labor relations and dispute resolution provides insight into the elements of an arbitrator's decision-making process in disputes involving employee discharge. Drawing on his own extensive background in the field, the author uses his own advisory letters of opinion, written to the parties of a dispute, to outline issues involved and the reasoning processes used in making decisions. These letters are from real-life dispute situations and provide sample case studies in a variety of settings and fact situations allowing the reader inside the arbitral resolution process.

The work sets forth the factors that an arbitrator will likely consider to be important in his or her determination of when an action by the employer should be sustained (judged fair and right) or overturned (judged to be wrongful). The work takes the process of dispute resolution out of the unpredictable, moving it instead to the methodical search for basic elements that have been considered by the Courts to be fair and supportable. Legal terminology is used within the context of particular cases, but is not so excessive as to create a problem for the average labor relations practitioner.

Co-published by The Vermont Fish & Widlife Department, The Nature Conservancy, and Vermont Land Trust--a revised and updated 2nd edition This book is a must-have for anyone wanting to understand Vermont's forests, wetlands, mountaintops, and shores. Richly illustrated with beautiful line drawings and stunning color photographs, this accessible field guide will delight outdoor explorers and armchair naturalists alike. The book starts with an introduction to the natural community concept and the factors influencing our natural systems, from wind and water to soil and rocks. Then, the book offers a lucid and enjoyable journey into Vermont's geologic past, with stories of colliding continents, sea floor sediments, and mysterious whale bones. This follows with a journey through all of Vermont's nine distinct biophysical regions, from the cold and wild Northeastern Highlands to the warm and dry Taconic Mountains. The bulk of the book describes Vermont's natural communities-its northern hardwood forests, dry oak woodlands, alpine tundra, cedar swamps, bogs, and marshes-in comprehensive detail. Ecological settings, including geology, soils, climate, and natural disturbance processes, are described for each community, along with complete lists of characteristic plants and animals, as well as places to visit. Wetland, Woodland, Wildland is the definitive guide to Vermont's natural communities, and is packed with information unavailable elsewhere. It offers practical information for naturalists, teachers, students, landowners, land managers, foresters, conservation planners, and all those with a love of nature who want to learn more about their surroundings. The first edition of this book, published in 2000, has become a mainstay for naturalists and students throughout Vermont and surrounding states and provinces. This second edition is completely updated to incorporate new research and a growing knowledge about natural communities, as well as a deeper understanding of climate change and its implications for conservation into the future. This newly updated book will be a prized addition to your natural history library, but it won't remain on the shelf. You will want to take it with you every time you explore the outdoors. Each paragraph will bring new insights and will deepen your understanding and appreciation of wild nature around you. You will surely want to share this book with friends.

As they reach middle age, most men begin looking forward to "what's next." They gear up to experience renewed productivity and purpose and are more conscious of their health. A Man's Guide to Healthy Aging is an authoritative resource for them, and for older men, as well. In collaboration with a variety of medical experts, the authors provide a comprehensive guide to healthy aging from a man's perspective. Edward H. Thompson, Jr., and Lenard W. Kaye - a medical sociologist and a gerontologist and social worker - offer invaluable information in four parts: "Managing Our Lives" describes the actions men can take to stay healthy. Here is information about how to eat well, reduce stress, and stay active for better overall health; "Mind and Body" considers how physical health and state of mind are connected. It explores sleep, drug and alcohol use, spirituality, and attitudes about appearance-and explains how all of these factors affect mental health; "Bodily Health" examines how body systems function and what changes may occur as men age. It covers the body from head to toe and reviews how to manage chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and heart conditions; and "Living with Others" shows the importance of interacting with friends and family. Topics include sexual intimacy, friendship, and caregiving, as well as how men can make the best decisions about end-of-life issues for themselves and their loved ones. Refuting the ageist stereotype that men spend their later years "winding down," this book will help men reinvent themselves once, twice, or more-by managing their health, creating new careers, and contributing their skills and experiences to their communities.