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Christmas in America: A History
by Penne L. RestadThe manger or Macy's? Americans might well wonder which is the real shrine of Christmas, as they take part each year in a mix of churchgoing, shopping, and family togetherness. But the history of Christmas cannot be summed up so easily as the commercialization of a sacred day. As Penne Restad reveals in this marvelous new book, it has always been an ambiguous meld of sacred thoughts and worldly actions-- as well as a fascinating reflection of our changing society. In Christmas in America, Restad brilliantly captures the rise and transformation of our most universal national holiday. In colonial times, it was celebrated either as an utterly solemn or a wildly social event--if it was celebrated at all. Virginians hunted, danced, and feasted. City dwellers flooded the streets in raucous demonstrations. Puritan New Englanders denounced the whole affair. Restad shows that as times changed, Christmas changed--and grew in popularity. In the early 1800s, New York served as an epicenter of the newly emerging holiday, drawing on its roots as a Dutch colony (St. Nicholas was particularly popular in the Netherlands, even after the Reformation), and aided by such men as Washington Irving. In 1822, another New Yorker named Clement Clarke Moore penned a poem now known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," virtually inventing the modern Santa Claus. Well-to-do townspeople displayed a German novelty, the decorated fir tree, in their parlors; an enterprising printer discovered the money to be made from Christmas cards; and a hodgepodge of year-end celebrations began to coalesce around December 25 and the figure of Santa. The homecoming significance of the holiday increased with the Civil War, and by the end of the nineteenth century a full- fledged national holiday had materialized, forged out of borrowed and invented custom alike, and driven by a passion for gift-giving. In the twentieth century, Christmas seeped into every niche of our conscious and unconscious lives to become a festival of epic proportions. Indeed, Restad carries the story through to our own time, unwrapping the messages hidden inside countless movies, books, and television shows, revealing the inescapable presence--and ambiguous meaning--of Christmas in contemporary culture. Filled with colorful detail and shining insight, Christmas in America reveals not only much about the emergence of the holiday, but also what our celebrations tell us about ourselves. From drunken revelry along colonial curbstones to family rituals around the tree, from Thomas Nast drawing the semiofficial portrait of St. Nick to the making of the film Home Alone, Restad's sparkling account offers much to amuse and ponder.
Christmas in America: A History
by Penne L. RestadThe manger or Macy's? Americans might well wonder which is the real shrine of Christmas, as they take part each year in a mix of churchgoing, shopping, and family togetherness. But the history of Christmas cannot be summed up so easily as the commercialization of a sacred day. As Penne Restad reveals in this marvelous new book, it has always been an ambiguous meld of sacred thoughts and worldly actions-- as well as a fascinating reflection of our changing society. In Christmas in America, Restad brilliantly captures the rise and transformation of our most universal national holiday. In colonial times, it was celebrated either as an utterly solemn or a wildly social event--if it was celebrated at all. Virginians hunted, danced, and feasted. City dwellers flooded the streets in raucous demonstrations. Puritan New Englanders denounced the whole affair. Restad shows that as times changed, Christmas changed--and grew in popularity. In the early 1800s, New York served as an epicenter of the newly emerging holiday, drawing on its roots as a Dutch colony (St. Nicholas was particularly popular in the Netherlands, even after the Reformation), and aided by such men as Washington Irving. In 1822, another New Yorker named Clement Clarke Moore penned a poem now known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," virtually inventing the modern Santa Claus. Well-to-do townspeople displayed a German novelty, the decorated fir tree, in their parlors; an enterprising printer discovered the money to be made from Christmas cards; and a hodgepodge of year-end celebrations began to coalesce around December 25 and the figure of Santa. The homecoming significance of the holiday increased with the Civil War, and by the end of the nineteenth century a full- fledged national holiday had materialized, forged out of borrowed and invented custom alike, and driven by a passion for gift-giving. In the twentieth century, Christmas seeped into every niche of our conscious and unconscious lives to become a festival of epic proportions. Indeed, Restad carries the story through to our own time, unwrapping the messages hidden inside countless movies, books, and television shows, revealing the inescapable presence--and ambiguous meaning--of Christmas in contemporary culture. Filled with colorful detail and shining insight, Christmas in America reveals not only much about the emergence of the holiday, but also what our celebrations tell us about ourselves. From drunken revelry along colonial curbstones to family rituals around the tree, from Thomas Nast drawing the semiofficial portrait of St. Nick to the making of the film Home Alone, Restad's sparkling account offers much to amuse and ponder.
Christmas in the Movies: 30 Classics to Celebrate the Season (Turner Classic Movies)
by Jeremy Arnold Turner Classic MoviesTurner Classic Movies presents a bucket list of the best and most beloved holiday films of all time, complete with spirited commentary, behind-the-scenes stories, and photos spanning eight decades of Christmastime favorites.Nothing brings the spirit of the season into our hearts quite like a great holiday movie. "Christmas films" come in many shapes and sizes and exist across many genres. Some, like It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story, are perennials, while others, such as Die Hard, have only gradually become yuletide favorites. But they all have one thing in common: they use themes evoked by the holiday period - nostalgia, joy, togetherness, dysfunction, commercialism, or cynicism - as a force in their storytelling.Turner Classic Movies: Christmas in the Movies showcases the very best among this uniquely spirited strain of cinema. Each film is profiled on what makes it a "Christmas movie," along with behind-the-scenes stories of its production, reception, and legacy. Complemented by a trove of color and black-and-white photos, Turner Classic Movies: Christmas in the Movies is a glorious salute to a collection of the most treasured films of all time.Among the 30 films included: The Shop Around the Corner, Holiday Inn, Meet Me in St. Louis, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, White Christmas, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Little Women,and The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Christmas on the Farm: Wintry tales from a life spent working with animals
by Adam HensonWrap up warm and retreat to the wintry countryside with farmer and Countryfile presenter Adam Henson, as he recounts his Christmas memories tending to an assorted cast of animals, and celebrates the farmers who make our celebrations possible.Adam Henson has spent his whole life on Bemborough farm - over 50 winters and Christmases. During that time, the troughs have frozen over, snow has fallen so thickly riding shire horses out to the fields has been the only option, puppies have been found under the Christmas tree - and crises out in the world have almost brought the farm to a close...Christmas for a farmer takes a different shape to everyone else's, because the animals always have to come first. So settle down - ideally by a fireside and with a cup of something hot - to hear the tales that have defined festivity for the Henson family, and the turbulent times that have ensured Christmas is now more important than ever for Adam and his loved ones.Heart-warming and full of Christmas spirit, Christmas on the Farm will give you a new respect for the people who work on them.
Christopher and His Kind: A Biography (FSG Classics)
by Christopher IsherwoodIn November 1929, Christopher Isherwood - determined to become a 'permanent foreigner' - packed a rucksack and two suitcases and left England on a one-way ticket for Berlin. With incredible candour and wit, Isherwood recalls the decadence of Berlin's night scene and his route to sexual liberation. As the Nazis rise to power, Isherwood describes his dramatic struggle to save his partner Heinz from persecution.
Christopher Marlowe and English Renaissance Culture (Routledge Revivals)
by Darryll Grantley Peter RobertsFirst published in 1996, this volume asked the question: who – and what – was Christopher Marlowe? Dramatist, poet, atheist and possible spy, he was a man in contrast with his time. The authors here gather to explore Marlowe on the four hundredth anniversary of his death. They include significant interdisciplinary elements and focus on dramaturgy, textual criticism and biography. It is hoped that the diversity of approaches can further debates on both Marlowe and Renaissance culture.
Christopher Marlowe and English Renaissance Culture (Routledge Revivals)
by Darryll Grantley Peter RobertsFirst published in 1996, this volume asked the question: who – and what – was Christopher Marlowe? Dramatist, poet, atheist and possible spy, he was a man in contrast with his time. The authors here gather to explore Marlowe on the four hundredth anniversary of his death. They include significant interdisciplinary elements and focus on dramaturgy, textual criticism and biography. It is hoped that the diversity of approaches can further debates on both Marlowe and Renaissance culture.
Christotainment: Selling Jesus through Popular Culture
by Shirley R. Steinberg,Joe L.For more than two thousand years Christian expansion and proselytizing was couched in terms of `defending the faith.? Until recently in the United States, much of that defense came in the form of reactions against the `liberal? influences channeled through big-corporate media such as popular music, Hollywood movies, and network and cable television. But the election of Ronald Reagan as a Hollywood President introduced Christian America to the tools of advertising and multimedia appeals to children and youth to win new believers to God?s armies. Christotainment examines how Christian fundamentalism has realigned its armies to combat threats against it by employing the forces it once considered its chief enemies: the entertainment media, including movies, television, music, cartoons, theme parks, video games, and books. Invited contributors discuss the critical theoretical frameworks of top-selling devices within Christian pop culture and the appeal to masses of American souls through the blessed marriage of corporatism and the quest for pleasure.
Christotainment: Selling Jesus through Popular Culture
by Shirley R. Steinberg,Joe L.For more than two thousand years Christian expansion and proselytizing was couched in terms of `defending the faith.? Until recently in the United States, much of that defense came in the form of reactions against the `liberal? influences channeled through big-corporate media such as popular music, Hollywood movies, and network and cable television. But the election of Ronald Reagan as a Hollywood President introduced Christian America to the tools of advertising and multimedia appeals to children and youth to win new believers to God?s armies. Christotainment examines how Christian fundamentalism has realigned its armies to combat threats against it by employing the forces it once considered its chief enemies: the entertainment media, including movies, television, music, cartoons, theme parks, video games, and books. Invited contributors discuss the critical theoretical frameworks of top-selling devices within Christian pop culture and the appeal to masses of American souls through the blessed marriage of corporatism and the quest for pleasure.
Chromosome Woman, Nomad Scientist: E. K. Janaki Ammal, A Life 1897–1984
by Savithri Preetha NairThis is the first in-depth and analytical biography of an Asian woman scientist—Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal (1897–1984). Using a wide range of archival sources, it presents a dazzling portrait of the twentieth century through the eyes of a pioneering Indian woman scientist, who was highly mobile, and a life that intersected with several significant historical events—the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II, the struggle for Indian Independence, the social relations of science movement, the Lysenko affair, the green revolution, the dawn of environmentalism and the protest movement against a proposed hydro-electric project in the Silent Valley in the 1970s and 1980s. The volume brings into focus her work on mapping the origin and evolution of cultivated plants across space and time, to contribute to a grand history of human evolution, her works published in peer-reviewed Indian and international journals of science, as well as her co-authored work, Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants (1945), considered a bible by practitioners of the discipline. It also looks at her correspondence with major personalities of the time, including political leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, biologists like Cyril D. Darlington, J. B. S. Haldane and H. H. Bartlett, geographers like Carl Sauer and social activists like Hilda Seligman, who all played significant roles in shaping her world view and her science. A story spanning over North America, Europe and Asia, this biography is a must-have for scholars and researchers of science and technology studies, gender studies, especially those studying women in the sciences, history and South Asian studies. It will also be a delight for the general reader.
Chromosome Woman, Nomad Scientist: E. K. Janaki Ammal, A Life 1897–1984
by Savithri Preetha NairThis is the first in-depth and analytical biography of an Asian woman scientist—Edavaleth Kakkat Janaki Ammal (1897–1984). Using a wide range of archival sources, it presents a dazzling portrait of the twentieth century through the eyes of a pioneering Indian woman scientist, who was highly mobile, and a life that intersected with several significant historical events—the rise of Nazi Germany and World War II, the struggle for Indian Independence, the social relations of science movement, the Lysenko affair, the green revolution, the dawn of environmentalism and the protest movement against a proposed hydro-electric project in the Silent Valley in the 1970s and 1980s. The volume brings into focus her work on mapping the origin and evolution of cultivated plants across space and time, to contribute to a grand history of human evolution, her works published in peer-reviewed Indian and international journals of science, as well as her co-authored work, Chromosome Atlas of Cultivated Plants (1945), considered a bible by practitioners of the discipline. It also looks at her correspondence with major personalities of the time, including political leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, biologists like Cyril D. Darlington, J. B. S. Haldane and H. H. Bartlett, geographers like Carl Sauer and social activists like Hilda Seligman, who all played significant roles in shaping her world view and her science. A story spanning over North America, Europe and Asia, this biography is a must-have for scholars and researchers of science and technology studies, gender studies, especially those studying women in the sciences, history and South Asian studies. It will also be a delight for the general reader.
Chronic Illness, Spirituality, and Healing: Diverse Disciplinary, Religious, and Cultural Perspectives
by Michael J. Stoltzfus, Rebecca Green, and Darla SchummFusing the disciplines of health care, spiritual care, and social services, this book examines the relationship between chronic illness and spirituality. Contributors include professionals working in traditional, holistic and integrative clinical settings, as well as religious studies scholars and spiritual practitioners.
Chronic Illness, Vulnerability and Social Work: Autoimmunity and the contemporary disease experience (Routledge Advances in Social Work)
by Liz Price Liz WalkerWhilst the body has recently assumed greater sociological significance, there has been less engagement in social work and social care on the bodily experience of health, illness and disease. This innovative volume redresses the balance by exploring chronic illness and social work, through the specific lens of autoimmunity, engaging in wider debates around vulnerability, resistance and the lived experience of ongoing ill-health. Moving beyond existing conceptualisations of vulnerability as an issue of mental distress, ageing, child protection and poverty, Price and Walker demonstrate the role that society has to play in actively engaging the physical body, rather than working around and through it. The book focuses on auto-immune conditions such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. Conditions like these allow for an exploration of the materiality of illness which exacerbates social and economic vulnerability and may precipitate personal and social crises, requiring a variety of interventions and support. The risks and challenges associated with chronic illness include disruptions to a sense of self and identity, altered relationships and the renegotiation of roles and responsibilities in a variety of relationships in addition to an economic impact, with the potential for disruption to employment status and financial insecurity. This text opens up a range of debates around some of the central concerns of the social work profession, including vulnerability, ill-health, and independence. It will be of interest to scholars and students of social work, nursing, disability studies, medicine and the social sciences.
Chronic Illness, Vulnerability and Social Work: Autoimmunity and the contemporary disease experience (Routledge Advances in Social Work)
by Liz Price Liz WalkerWhilst the body has recently assumed greater sociological significance, there has been less engagement in social work and social care on the bodily experience of health, illness and disease. This innovative volume redresses the balance by exploring chronic illness and social work, through the specific lens of autoimmunity, engaging in wider debates around vulnerability, resistance and the lived experience of ongoing ill-health. Moving beyond existing conceptualisations of vulnerability as an issue of mental distress, ageing, child protection and poverty, Price and Walker demonstrate the role that society has to play in actively engaging the physical body, rather than working around and through it. The book focuses on auto-immune conditions such as lupus, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. Conditions like these allow for an exploration of the materiality of illness which exacerbates social and economic vulnerability and may precipitate personal and social crises, requiring a variety of interventions and support. The risks and challenges associated with chronic illness include disruptions to a sense of self and identity, altered relationships and the renegotiation of roles and responsibilities in a variety of relationships in addition to an economic impact, with the potential for disruption to employment status and financial insecurity. This text opens up a range of debates around some of the central concerns of the social work profession, including vulnerability, ill-health, and independence. It will be of interest to scholars and students of social work, nursing, disability studies, medicine and the social sciences.
Chronic Pain, BDSM and Crip Time (Interdisciplinary Disability Studies)
by Emma SheppardThis book is a critical disability studies examination of the lived experience of chronic pain, engaging with and making a significant contribution to crip theory and the concept of ‘crip time’. Exploring experiences of pain and fatigue for people who live with chronic pain and based on narratives told through in-depth detailed interviews interwoven with theory at the cutting edge of critical disability studies, it demonstrates that our knowledge and understanding of chronic pain is incomplete without a critical disability studies approach. Through conceptualizing the concept of ‘crip time’ via participants’ narratives of living with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and variable disabilities, this book demonstrates how thinking about chronic pain and fatigue with ‘crip time’ exposes normative, ableist, assumptions underlying both how pain and the ideas of cure and recovery are understood. It will be of interest to all academics and students working in the fields of disability studies, critical disability studies, crip theory, medical sociology, sexuality, and studies of embodiment, corporeality, and temporality more generally.
Chronic Pain, BDSM and Crip Time (Interdisciplinary Disability Studies)
by Emma SheppardThis book is a critical disability studies examination of the lived experience of chronic pain, engaging with and making a significant contribution to crip theory and the concept of ‘crip time’. Exploring experiences of pain and fatigue for people who live with chronic pain and based on narratives told through in-depth detailed interviews interwoven with theory at the cutting edge of critical disability studies, it demonstrates that our knowledge and understanding of chronic pain is incomplete without a critical disability studies approach. Through conceptualizing the concept of ‘crip time’ via participants’ narratives of living with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and variable disabilities, this book demonstrates how thinking about chronic pain and fatigue with ‘crip time’ exposes normative, ableist, assumptions underlying both how pain and the ideas of cure and recovery are understood. It will be of interest to all academics and students working in the fields of disability studies, critical disability studies, crip theory, medical sociology, sexuality, and studies of embodiment, corporeality, and temporality more generally.
Chronic Poverty: Concepts, Causes and Policy (Rethinking International Development series)
by Andrew Shepherd and Julia BruntBased on a decade of research by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, this volume includes material on inter-generational transmission, the importance of assets and vulnerability, and conflict, and new thinking about the close relationship between social exclusion and adverse incorporation.
Chronic Poverty: Concepts, Causes And Policy (Rethinking International Development Ser. )
by Andrew Shepherd Julia BruntBased on over a decade of research by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, this volume analyses the challenges to be met if global extreme poverty is to be eradicated. Building on case studies from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and Uganda, it includes material on poverty dynamics, the inter-generational transmission of poverty, the importance of building assets and reducing vulnerability, the critical nature of conflict as a cause of impoverishment and chronic poverty, and new thinking about the close relationship between social exclusion and adverse incorporation. Current policy does not adequately support pathways out of poverty: neither the positives of getting a good job, or building assets, nor the negatives of preventing setbacks along the way. While social protection is increasingly on the policy agenda by way of preventing extreme setbacks, the pro-poorest economic growth and labour market policies, the rounded approach to providing enough education to poor children, all need much greater policy makers' attention. Policy makers also need to consider the norms which govern social groups and inter-group social relationships which determine how people make use of assets and capabilities, and how to change those norms where they are problematic for socio-economic mobility, or lead to conflict.
Chronic Poverty: Concepts, Causes And Policy (Rethinking International Development Ser. )
by Andrew Shepherd Julia BruntBased on over a decade of research by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, this volume analyses the challenges to be met if global extreme poverty is to be eradicated. Building on case studies from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and Uganda, it includes material on poverty dynamics, the inter-generational transmission of poverty, the importance of building assets and reducing vulnerability, the critical nature of conflict as a cause of impoverishment and chronic poverty, and new thinking about the close relationship between social exclusion and adverse incorporation. Current policy does not adequately support pathways out of poverty: neither the positives of getting a good job, or building assets, nor the negatives of preventing setbacks along the way. While social protection is increasingly on the policy agenda by way of preventing extreme setbacks, the pro-poorest economic growth and labour market policies, the rounded approach to providing enough education to poor children, all need much greater policy makers' attention. Policy makers also need to consider the norms which govern social groups and inter-group social relationships which determine how people make use of assets and capabilities, and how to change those norms where they are problematic for socio-economic mobility, or lead to conflict.
Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited: AIDS and Its Aftermath
by Andrew HolleranAndrew Holleran's Ground Zero, first published in 1988 and consisting of 23 Christopher Street essays from the earliest years of the AIDS crisis, was hailed by the Washington Post as "one of the best dispatches from the epidemic's height.” Twenty years later, with HIV/AIDS long recognized as a global health challenge, Holleran both reiterates and freshly illuminates the devastation wreaked by AIDS, which has claimed the lives of 450,000 gay men as well as 22 million others. Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited features ten pieces never previously republished outside Christopher Street, as well as a new introduction keenly describing and evaluating a historical moment that still informs and defines today's world-particularly its community of homosexuals, which, arguably, is still recovering from the devastation of AIDS.
Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians
by Pierre ClastresChronicle of the Guayaki Indians is Pierre Clastres’s account of his 1963–64 encounter with this small Paraguayan tribe, a precise and detailed recording of the history, ritual, myths, and culture of this remarkably unique, and now vanished, people. “Determined not to let the slightest detail” escape him or to leave unanswered the many questions prompted by his personal experiences, Clastres follows the Guayaki in their everyday lives.Now available for the first time in a stunningly beautiful translation by Paul Auster, Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians radically alters not only the Western academic conventions in which other cultures are thought but also the discipline of political anthropology itself.Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians was awarded the Alta Prize in nonfiction by the American Literary Translators Association.
Chronicles from Kashmir: An Annotated, Multimedia Script (Applied Theatre Praxis #2)
by Nandita DineshWhat is happening in Kashmir?’ Chronicles from Kashmir explores this question through a site-adaptive 24-hour theatrical performance. Developed between 2013 and 2018 by the Ensemble Kashmir Theatre Akademi and Nandita Dinesh, the play uses a durational, promenade format to immerse its audience within a multitude of perspectives on life in Kashmir. From a wedding celebration that is interrupted by curfew, to schoolboys divided by policing strategies, and soldiers struggling with a toxic mixture of boredom and trauma, Chronicles from Kashmir uses performance, installation and collaborative creation to grapple with Kashmir’s conflicts through the lenses of outsiders, insiders, and everyone in between. Due to varying degrees of censorship and suppression, the play has not been performed live since 2017. This book is, therefore, an attempt to keep Chronicles from Kashmir alive by including filmed scenes, a script, contextual questions, a glossary, and illuminating introductions by Nandita Dinesh and EKTA founder Bhawani Bashir Yasir. A valuable Open Access resource for practitioners, educators and students of performance and conflict, this book is also stimulating reading for anybody who has asked, ‘What is happening in Kashmir?’ This playscript includes: Twenty filmed scenes of the play in performance A range of contextual questions to stimulate discussion on staging site-adaptive theatre in places of conflict A helpful glossary
Chronicles of a Liquid Society
by Umberto EcoUmberto Eco was an international cultural superstar. A celebrated essayist as well as novelist, in this, his last collection, he explores many aspects of the modern world with irrepressible curiosity and wisdom. A crisis in ideological values, a crisis in politics, unbridled individualism – the familiar backdrop to our lives: a ‘liquid society’ where it’s not easy to find a polestar, though stars and starlets are not lacking.In these pieces, written by Eco as articles for his regular column in l’Espresso magazine, he brings his dazzling erudition and keen sense of the everyday to bear on topics such as popular culture and politics, being seen, conspiracies, the old and the young, mobile phones, mass media, racism, good manners and the crisis in ideological values. It is a final gift to his readers – astute, witty and illuminating.
Chronicles of Colonialism: Navigating the Naga Hills (SpringerBriefs in Archaeology)
by Alok Kumar Kanungo Prashant Kumar SinghThis book offers fresh perspectives on the legacy of colonialism in the North-east frontiers of India, especially the Naga Hills. The book interrogates the presence of British administrators and anthropologists in the Naga Hills as part of a popular discourse on (post) colonialism. It weaves a coherent chronological sequence of events and the prevailing attitudes of administrators-cum-anthropologists to understand the whole process of colonial intervention in the Naga Hills. It examines the conventional notions of 'tribes' and 'identity' within the context of the Naga Hills. It explores the transformation of Naga Hills through the lens of colonialism, providing a critical perspective on identity and the intricate web of historical narratives. It is a must-read for scholars, anthropologists, historians, and all those intrigued by the multifaceted legacy of colonialism in the Naga Hills.
Chronicles of Qalāwūn and his son al-Ashraf Khalīl (Crusade Texts in Translation)
by Translated by CookThis volume provides translations of texts on the Mamluk Sultan Qalāwūn (1279-90) and his son al-Malik al-Ashraf (1290-93), which cover the end of the Crusader interlude in the Syrian Levant. Translated from the original Arabic, these chronicles detail the Mamluk perception of the Crusaders, the Mongol menace, how this menace was confronted, and a wealth of materials about the Mediterranean basin in the late thirteenth century. Treaties, battles, sieges and embassies are all revealed in these chronicles, most of which have not been translated previously. The translated texts provide a range of historical records concerning Qalāwūn and al-Ashraf, and include the court perspective of Ibn `Abd al-Ẓāhir, the later biography by his nephew Shafī`, and the writings of the Mamluk historian Baybars al-Mansūrī.