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Reflections on Stalinism (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)
by J. Arch Getty and Lewis H. SiegelbaumReflections on Stalinism distills decades of historical thought and research, bringing together twelve senior scholars of Soviet history who began their careers during the Cold War to examine their views of Stalinism. They present insights into the role of personality in statecraft, the social underpinnings of dictatorship and state terrorism, historians' attachments to their subjects, historical causality, the applicability of Marxist categories to Soviet history, the relationship of Soviet history to post-Soviet Russia, and more. Essays address the transformation of a peasant country into a superpower and the causes and scale of domestic bloodshed. Reflections on Stalinism ultimately tackles an age-old question: Do powerful people make history or are they the product of it?
We Make Each Other Beautiful: Art, Activism, and the Law (Publicly Engaged Scholars: Identities, Purposes, Practices)
by Yxta Maya MurrayWe Make Each Other Beautiful focuses on woman of color and queer of color artists and artist collectives who engage in direct political action as a part of their art practice. Defined by public protest, rule-breaking, rebellion, and resistance to governmental and institutional abuse, direct-action "artivism" draws on the aims, radical spirit, and tactics of the civil rights and feminist movements and on the struggles for disability rights, queer rights, and immigrant rights to seek legal and social change. Yxta Maya Murray traces the development of artivism as a practice from the Harlem Renaissance to Yoko Ono, Judy Baca, and Marsha P. Johnson. She also studies its role in transforming law and society. We Make Each Other Beautiful profiles the work and lives of four contemporary artivists —Carrie Mae Weems, Young Joon Kwak, Tanya Aguiñiga, and Imani Jacqueline Brown—and the artivist collective Drawn Together, combining new oral histories with sharp analyses of how their diverse and expansive artistic practices bear important aesthetic and politicolegal meanings that address a wide range of injustices.
Bounds of Blackness: African Americans, Sudan, and the Politics of Solidarity (The United States in the World)
by Christopher TounselBounds of Blackness explores the history of Black America's intellectual and cultural engagement with the modern state of Sudan. Ancient Sudan occupies a central place in the Black American imaginary as an exemplar of Black glory, pride, and civilization, while contemporary Sudan, often categorized as part of "Arab Africa" rather than "Black Africa," is often sidelined and overlooked. In this pathbreaking book, Christopher Tounsel unpacks the vacillating approaches of Black Americans to the Sudanese state and its multiethnic populace through periods defined by colonialism, postcolonial civil wars, genocide in Darfur, and South Sudanese independence. By exploring the work of African American intellectuals, diplomats, organizations, and media outlets, Tounsel shows how this transnational relationship reflects the robust yet capricious terms of racial consciousness in the African Diaspora.
The Equality of Flesh: Materialism and Human Commonality in Early Modern Culture
by Brent DawsonThe Equality of Flesh traces a new genealogy of equality before its formalization under liberalism. While modern ideas of equality are defined through an inner human nature, Brent Dawson argues that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries conceptualized equality as an ambivalent and profoundly bodily condition. Everyone was made from the same lowly matter and, as a result, shared the same set of vulnerabilities, needs, and passions. Responding to the political upheavals of colonialism and the intellectual turmoil of new natural philosophies, leading figures of the English Renaissance, including Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare, anxiously imagined that bodily commonality might undermine differences of religion, race, and class.As the period progressed, later authors developed the revolutionary possibilities of bodily equality even as new ideas of fixed racial inequality emerged. Some—like the utopian radical Gerrard Winstanley and the republican poet John Milton—challenged political absolutism through the idea of humans as base, embodied creatures. Others—like the heterodox philosopher Margaret Cavendish, the French theologian Isaac La Peyrère, and the libertine Cyrano de Bergerac—offered limited yet important interrogations of racial paradigms. This moment, Dawson shows, would pass, as bodily equality was marginalized in the liberal theories of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. In its place, during the Enlightenment pseudoscientific racism would come to anchor inequality in the body. Contending with the lasting implications of material equality for modernity, The Equality of Flesh shows how increasingly vehement notions of racial difference eclipsed a nascent sense of human commonality rooted in the basic stuff of life.
The Geopolitics of Culture: James Billington, the Library of Congress, and the Failed Quest for a New Russia (NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies)
by John Van OudenarenThrough the lens of James Billington and the institution he led as Librarian of Congress during a key period of US-Russian relations, The Geopolitics of Culture examines culture as a neglected area of US foreign policy. Billington advised presidents and members of Congress and mobilized the resources of the Library of Congress to promote reform in Russia. He believed that rather than preaching to the Russians, the United States should expose the rising generation of Russian leaders to what was best in America and encourage them to rediscover positive elements in pre-Bolshevik Russian culture.The Geopolitics of Culture is the first book to chronicle Billington's influence on US engagement with Russia as it transitioned from communism to democracy under Gorbachev and Yeltsin and back to authoritarianism under Yeltsin and Putin. Drawing on published and archival sources (including recently released papers) and interviews with current and retired Library of Congress staff members, John Van Oudenaren casts new light on this era.Billington's efforts led to a remarkable degree of cooperation between the Library of Congress and Russian cultural and political institutions. Yet these efforts ultimately failed as Putin turned back toward authoritarianism. The experience of the Library of Congress during this period nonetheless holds important lessons for today. Billington believed that a transition to democracy in Russia was essential if the United States was to head off the geopolitical nightmare of a Eurasia dominated by an alliance of hostile authoritarian powers. The "geopolitics of culture" thus remains a challenge for US foreign policy.
Creatures of Attention: Aesthetics and the Subject before Kant (Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought)
by Johannes WankhammerCreatures of Attention excavates the early modern prehistory of our late modern crises of attention. At the threshold of modernity, philosophers, scientists, and poets across Europe began to see attention as the key to autonomous agency and knowledge. Recovering the philosophical and literary works from eighteenth-century Germany in which "attention," "subject," and "aesthetics" developed their modern meanings, Johannes Wankhammer examines control over attention as the cultural technique underpinning the ideal of individual autonomy. Aesthetics, founded by Alexander Baumgarten as a science of sense perception, challenged this ideal by reframing art as a catalyst for alternative modes of selfhood and attention. While previous scholarship on the history of attention emphasized the erosion of subjectivity by industrial or technological modernization, Wankhammer asks how attention came to define subjectivity in the first place. When periodically recurring crises of attention threaten the coherence of the subject, the subject comes undone at the very seams that first sutured it together. Creatures of Attention offers the first systematic study of a foundational discourse on attention from 1650 to 1780. Presenting pre-Kantian aesthetics as a critique of the Enlightenment paradigm of strained attention, the book offers a fresh perspective on poetics and aesthetics in eighteenth-century Germany.
The Latecomer's Rise: Policy Banks and the Globalization of China's Development Finance (Cornell Studies in Money)
by Muyang ChenIn The Latecomer's Rise, Muyang Chen reveals the nature and impact of a rapidly growing form of international lending: Chinese development finance.Over the past few decades, China has become the world's largest provider of bilateral development finance. Through its two national policy banks, the China Development Bank (CDB) and the Export-Import Bank of China (China Exim), it has funded infrastructure and industrial projects in numerous emerging markets and developing countries. Yet this very surge and magnitude of capital has raised questions about the characteristics of Chinese bilateral lending and its repercussions on the international order. Drawing on a variety of novel Chinese primary sources, including interviews and official bank documents, Chen pinpoints the distinctiveness of Chinese bilateral development finance, explains its origins, and analyzes its effects. She compares Chinese policy banks with their foreign counterparts to show that the CDB and China Exim, while state-supported, are in fact also market-oriented—they are as much government organs as they are profit-driven financial agencies that serve both state and firms' interests. This approach, which emerged out of China's particular economic history, suggests that Chinese overseas lending is not merely a tool of economic statecraft that challenges Western-led economic regimes. Instead, China's responses to extant rules, norms, and practices across given issue areas have varied between contestation and convergence.Rich with empirical detail and penetrating insights, The Latecomer's Rise demystifies the little-known workings of Chinese development finance to revise our conceptions of China's role in the international financial system.
Mission Manifest: American Evangelicals and Iran in the Twentieth Century (The United States in the World)
by Matthew K. ShannonIn Mission Manifest, Matthew Shannon argues that American evangelicals were central to American-Iranian relations during the decades leading up to the 1979 revolution. These Presbyterian missionaries and other Americans with ideals worked with US government officials, nongovernmental organizations, and their Iranian counterparts as cultural and political brokers—the living sinews of a binational relationship during the Second World War and early Cold War. As US global hegemony peaked between the 1940s and the 1960s, the religious authority of the Presbyterian Mission merged with the material power of the American state to infuse US foreign relations with the messianic ideals of Christian evangelicalism. In Tehran, the missions of American evangelicals became manifest in the realms of religion, development programs, international education, and cultural associations. Americans who lived in Iran also returned to the United States to inform the growth of the national security state, higher education, and evangelical culture. The literal and figurative missions of American evangelicals in late Pahlavi Iran had consequences for the binational relationship, the global evangelical movement, and individual Americans and Iranians. Mission Manifest offers a history of living, breathing people who shared personal, professional, and political aims in Iran at the height of American global power.
Women, Life, Freedom: Our Fight for Human Rights and Equality in Iran (Brown Democracy Medal)
by Nasrin SotoudehThe Laurence and Lynne Brown Democracy Medal, presented by the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State, recognizes outstanding individuals, groups, and organizations that produce innovations to further democracy in the United States or around the world.Nasrin Sotoudeh is an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist who has been called "Iran's Nelson Mandela." Sotoudeh is a longtime opponent of the death penalty, advocate of improving imprisonment health conditions, and an activist dedicated to fighting for the rights of women, children, religious and ethnic minorities, journalists and artists, and those facing execution. As a result of her advocacy, Sotoudeh has been repeatedly imprisoned by the Iranian government for crimes against the state; she served one sentence from 2010 to 2013 and was sentenced again in 2018 to thirty-eight years and six months in prison and 148 lashes. Her work has been featured in the 2020 documentary Nasrin, by filmmakers Jeff Kaufman and Marcia S. Ross. For this important work, she is the recipient of the 2023 Brown Democracy Medal from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, marking the award's tenth year.
Beyond Borders: Exploring the History of Cornell's Global Dimensions
by Royal D. Colle, Heike Michelsen, Elaine D. Engst and Corey Ryan EarleBeyond Borders highlights and celebrates Cornell University's many historical achievements in international activities going back to its founding. This collection of fifty-eight short chapters reflects the diversity, accomplishments, and impact of remarkable engagements on campus and abroad. These vignettes, many written by authors who played pivotal roles in Cornell's international history, take readers around the world to China and the Philippines with agricultural researchers, to Peru with anthropologists, to Qatar and India with medical practitioners, to Eastern Europe with economists and civil engineers, to Zambia and Sierra Leone with students and Peace Corps volunteers, and to many more places. Readers also will learn about Cornell's many international dimensions on campus, including the international studies and language programs and the library and museum collections. Beyond Borders captures how—by educating generations of global citizens, producing innovative research and knowledge, building institutional capacities, and forging mutually beneficial relationships—Cornell University has influenced positive change in the world.Beyond Borders was supported by CAPE (Cornell Academics and Professors Emeriti).
The Big Book of Monsters: The Creepiest Creatures from Classic Literature
by Hal JohnsonLiterature is extra fun when it's spooky! This illustrated compendium of 25 of the spookiest and most nefarious monsters from classic literature—from Dracula to the Jabberwocky—includes a playful retelling of each monster's story accompanied by full-color illustration and sidebars about its literary origins, including authorship and genre. For ages 8-12.
Play Like a Girl: Life Lessons from the Soccer Field
by Kate T. ParkerA collection of black-and-white and color images of girls&’ and women soccer players, across a broad spectrum of age and skill from those just learning to kick a ball to the athletes who represented the United States on the 2019 World Cup championship team—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Heart of a Boy and Strong Is the New Pretty. Chapters are organized around life lessons derived from the game of soccer and include quotations from each of the subjects photographed.
Rook
by William RitterThis standalone adventure set in the world of the New York Times bestselling Jackaby series brims with humor, heart, and—of course—a hefty dose of supernatural mayhem. Abigail Rook never intended to be the mortal bridge between the human and supernatural world. But now, the power of the Sight--and all the chaos that comes with seeing the essential truth of everything, every human, fairy, werewolf, enchanted slip of paper, and municipal building, at all times--is hers alone. With this overwhelming new gift, she should be able to solve crimes and help New Fiddleham, New England find calm in its supernatural chaos. The only problem? She has no idea what she&’s doing. And New Fiddleham isn't waiting for Abigail to be ready. Local witches and other magical beings are going missing, as tensions between human and supernatural residents curdle into a hatred that could tear the city apart. Abigail's fiance, Charlie, works alongside her to unravel the magical disappearances, but as a shapeshifter, he's under threat as well. Then Abigail's parents appear, ready to take her back to England and marry her off to someone she's never met. Abigail has no choice but to follow her Sight, her instincts, and any clues she can find to track a culprit who is trying destroy everything she holds dear.
Myrtle, Means, and Opportunity (Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery 5)
by Elizabeth C. BunceIn the fifth book of the Edgar Award-winning series, Myrtle Hardcastle uncovers a string of murders during a treasure hunt on a haunted Scottish estate. When her governess inherits an estate on a Scottish island, amateur detective Myrtle Hardcastle couldn't be more excited. Unfortunately, the ancestral castle is both run-down and haunted. Ghostly moans echo in the walls, and there are rumors of a cursed treasure lost on the island—an ancient silver brooch that may have cost the former lord his life. But who had the motive, means, and opportunity to kill him? And could this Scottish trip mean the end of Myrtle's plans to get her father and governess together? Then Myrtle's investigation stirs a villain out of hiding. The estate&’s boat is stolen, so there&’s no escape from the island. Myrtle is forced to play a deadly game, hunting for the brooch with a thief breathing down her neck—someone who will stop at nothing to get the treasure, even if it means murder.
If I Promise You Wings
by A.K. SmallHold Still meets You've Reached Sam in this lyrical novel about one young woman's journey through the Paris fashion scene as she chases promises, overcomes grief, and falls in love. Alix Leclaire has a plan: graduate high school and land her dream job as a feather artist at Mille et une Plume, where her creations will help define high fashion. Her best friend Jeanne will get a record contract and they&’ll take over the Paris art scene together. But then Jeanne dies. Alix is lost, until the day she feels Jeanne pushing her to the feather boutique. Soon, Alix is living a life she hardly recognizes—pursuing a passionate affair with an alluring artist, stealing feathers for her own creations, risking everything as Jeanne once did. But then Alix meets Blaise, the dreamy musician who comforts her, centers her, challenges her. Torn between two beautiful boys and coping with grief, Alix&’s art takes on a frightening and wild beauty. Living like Jeanne has given her everything she thought she wanted—but she must decide whether to hide in Jeanne&’s shadow or soar on her own wings.
Myrtle Hardcastle Mysteries Digital Collection
by Elizabeth C. BuncePerfect for fans of Enola Holmes and Agatha Christie: an amateur detective obsessed with crime scene analysis investigates her sleepy village town in the Edgar Award-Winning series, now available for the first time in a complete paperback gift set! This highly acclaimed, Edgar Award-winning series features twelve-year-old Myrtle Hardcastle, Amateur Detective, who has a passion for justice and a Highly Unconventional obsession with criminal science. Armed with her father's law books and her mum's microscope, Myrtle keeps abreast of the latest developments in crime scene analysis and Observes her neighbors in the quiet village of Swinburne, England (often to their chagrin). In this complete paperback set, Myrtle, her governess, and her precocious cat Peony take on swindlers, murderers, and the occasional ghost, earning Myrtle a place among the most daring amateur detectives of her time. Join Myrtle as she puts her sparkling wit and nose for murder to the test in five thrilling investigations: Premeditated Myrtle How To Get Away With Myrtle Cold-Blooded Myrtle In Myrtle Peril Myrtle, Means, and Opportunity
Call It What You Want
by Brigid Kemmerer_______________From the author of the New York Times bestselling Cursebreaker series comes an emotionally complex, romantic story about two teens struggling to unpick the grey area between right and wrong, perfect for fans of John Green and Jennifer Niven_______________Rob had it all – friends, a near-guaranteed lacrosse scholarship to college and an amazing family – but all that changed when his dad was caught embezzling funds from half the town. Now he's a social pariah. Maegan always does the right thing. But when her sister comes home from college pregnant, she's caught between telling their parents the truth about the father and keeping her sister's trust. When Rob and Maegan are paired together for a project, they form an unexpectedly deep connection. But Rob's plan to fix his father's damage could ruin more than their new friendship …
A Brave and Cunning Prince: The Great Chief Opechancanough and the War for America
by James HornThe extraordinary story of the Powhatan chief who waged a lifelong struggle to drive European settlers from his homelandIn the mid-sixteenth century, Spanish explorers in the Chesapeake Bay kidnapped an Indian child and took him back to Spain and subsequently to Mexico. The boy converted to Catholicism and after nearly a decade was able to return to his land with a group of Jesuits to establish a mission. Shortly after arriving, he organized a war party that killed them.In the years that followed, Opechancanough (as the English called him), helped establish the most powerful chiefdom in the mid-Atlantic region. When English settlers founded Virginia in 1607, he fought tirelessly to drive them away, leading to a series of wars that spanned the next forty years—the first Anglo-Indian wars in America— and came close to destroying the colony.A Brave and Cunning Prince is the first book to chronicle the life of this remarkable chief, exploring his early experiences of European society and his long struggle to save his people from conquest.
Nobody's Fool: Why We Get Taken In and What We Can Do about It
by Daniel Simons Christopher ChabrisFrom two New York Times-bestselling psychologists, &“an engaging master class in how to foil purveyors of false promises&” (Philip E. Tetlock, author of Superforecasting) From phishing scams to Ponzi schemes, fraudulent science to fake art, chess cheaters to crypto hucksters, and marketers to magicians, our world brims with deception. In Nobody&’s Fool, psychologists Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris show us how to avoid being taken in. They describe the key habits of thinking and reasoning that serve us well most of the time but make us vulnerable—like our tendency to accept what we see, stick to our commitments, and overvalue precision and consistency. Each chapter illustrates their new take on the science of deception, describing scams you&’ve never heard of and shedding new light on some you have. Simons and Chabris provide memorable maxims and practical tools you can use to spot deception before it&’s too late. Informative, illuminating, and entertaining, Nobody&’s Fool will protect us from charlatans in all their forms—and delight us along the way.
Then I Am Myself the World: What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It
by Christof Koch"Deeply personal and infinitely digestible, Then I Am Myself the World is a remarkable must-read for anyone interested in knowing their mind.&”―Judson Brewer MD, PhD, New York Times–bestselling author of Unwinding Anxiety The world&’s leading investigator of consciousness argues that by understanding what consciousness does—cause change in the world—we can understand its origins and its future In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book&’s heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain and how this knowledge can be used to measure consciousness in natural and artificial systems. Enabled by such tools, Koch reveals when and where consciousness exists, and uses that knowledge to confront major social and scientific questions: When does a fetus first become self-aware? Can psychedelic and mystical experiences transform lives? What happens to consciousness in near-death experiences? Why will generative AI ultimately be able to do the very thing we can do, yet never feel any of it? And do our experiences reveal a single, objective reality? This is an essential book for anyone who seeks to understand ourselves and the future we are creating.
American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation—and Could Again
by Yuval Levin&“The most important voice in the political culture&” (Ben Shapiro) reveals the Constitution&’s remarkable power to repair our broken civic culture, rescue our malfunctioning politics, and unify a fractious America Common ground is hard to find in today&’s politics. In a society teeming with irreconcilable political perspectives, many people have grown frustrated under a system of government that constantly demands compromise. More and more on both the right and the left have come to blame the Constitution for the resulting discord. But the Constitution is not the problem we face; it is the solution. Blending engaging history with lucid analysis, conservative scholar Yuval Levin&’s American Covenant recovers the Constitution&’s true genius and reveals how it charts a path to repairing America&’s fault lines. Uncovering the framers&’ sophisticated grasp of political division, Levin showcases the Constitution&’s exceptional power to facilitate constructive disagreement, negotiate resolutions to disputes, and forge unity in a fractured society. Clear-eyed about the ways that contemporary politics have malfunctioned, Levin also offers practical solutions for reforming those aspects of the constitutional order that have gone awry. Hopeful, insightful, and rooted in the best of our political tradition, American Covenant celebrates the Constitution&’s remarkable power to bind together a diverse society, reassuring us that a less divided future is within our grasp.
The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need
by Ellen Karsh Arlen Sue FoxFrom top experts in the field, the definitive guide to grant-writingWritten by two expert authors who have won secured millions of dollars in government and foundation grants, The Only Grant-Writing Book You'll Ever Need is the classic book on grant seeking, providing a comprehensive, step-by-step guide for government, nonprofit, and individual grant seekers. Drawing on decades of experience in grant writing and professional development, Ellen Karsh and Arlen Sue Fox demystify the process of securing grants while offering indispensable advice from funders and recipients. This updated fifth edition includes:Vital information about grantsmanship in today's ever-changing economic and social climateIn-depth interviews with funders, nonprofit leaders, and policy makers about the grants processA new chapter on how to diversify funding and think "outside the box" when grants are scarceConcrete suggestions for developing each section of a proposalHands-on exercises that let you practice what you learnA detailed description of important websites for grant seekersStrategies for developing and presenting programs that are likely to receive grants
Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
by Edward J. LarsonThe Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the Scopes Trial and the battle over evolution and creation in America's schools.In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the setting for one of the twentieth century's most contentious courtroom dramas, pitting William Jennings Bryan and the anti-Darwinists against a teacher named John Scopes, represented by Clarence Darrow and the ACLU, in a famous debate over science, religion, and their place in public education. That trial marked the start of a battle that continues to this day in cities and states throughout the country. Edward Larson's classic Summer for the Gods -- winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History -- is the single most authoritative account of this pivotal event. An afterword assesses the state of the battle between creationism and evolution, and points the way to how it might potentially be resolved.
Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World
by Mark PendergrastThe definitive history of the world's most popular drugUncommon Grounds tells the story of coffee from its discovery on a hill in ancient Abyssinia to the advent of Starbucks. Mark Pendergrast reviews the dramatic changes in coffee culture over the past decade, from the disastrous "Coffee Crisis" that caused global prices to plummet to the rise of the Fair Trade movement and the "third-wave" of quality-obsessed coffee connoisseurs. As the scope of coffee culture continues to expand, Uncommon Grounds remains more than ever a brilliantly entertaining guide to the currents of one of the world's favorite beverages.
The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science of Bereavement Tells Us About Life After Loss
by George A. BonannoIn this thoroughly revised and updated classic, a renowned psychologist shows that mourning is far from predictable, and all of us share a surprising ability to be resilientThe conventional view of grieving--encapsulated by the famous five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance--is defined by a mourning process that we can only hope to accept and endure. In The Other Side of Sadness, psychologist and emotions expert George Bonanno argues otherwise. Our inborn emotions--anger and denial, but also relief and joy--help us deal effectively with loss. To expect or require only grief-stricken behavior from the bereaved does them harm. In fact, grieving goes beyond mere sadness, and it can actually deepen interpersonal connections and even lead to a new sense of meaning in life.