This compelling and persuasive book is the first to explore all of the interrelated aspects of America's decline. Hard-hitting and provocative, yet measured and clearly written, The End of the American Century demonstrates the phases of social, economic, and international decline that mark the end of a period of world dominance that began with World War II. The costs of the war on terror and the Iraq War have exacerbated the already daunting problems of debt, poverty, inequality, and political and social decay. David S. Mason convincingly argues that the United States, like other great powers in the past, is experiencing the dilemma of "imperial overstretch"--bankrupting the home front in pursuit of costly and fruitless foreign ventures. The author shows that elsewhere in the world, the United States is no longer admired as a model for democracy and economic development; indeed, it is often feared or resented. He compares the United States and its accomplishments with other industrialized democracies and potential rivals. The European Union is more stable in economic and social terms, and countries like India and China are more economically dynamic. These and other nations will soon eclipse the United States, signaling a fundamental transformation of the global scene. This transition will require huge adjustments for American citizens and political leaders alike. But in the end, Americans--and the world--will be better off with a less profligate, more interdependent United States. More information is available on the author's website.
Religious practitioners and theatregoers have much in common. So much, in fact, that we can say that religion is often a theatrical phenomenon, and that theatre can be a religious experience. By examining the phenomenology of religion, we can in turn develop a better understanding of the phenomenology of theatre. That is to say, religion can show us the ways in which theatre is not fake. This study explores the overlap of religion and theatre, especially in the crucial area of experience and personal identity. Reconsidering ideas from ancient Greece, premodern India, modern Europe, and the recent century, it argues that religious adherents and theatre audiences are largely, themselves, the mechanisms of their experiences. By examining the development of the philosophy of theatre alongside theories of religious action, this book shows how we need to adjust our views of both. Featuring attention to influential notions from Plato and Aristotle, from the Natyashastra, from Schleiermacher to Sartre, Bourdieu, and Butler, and considering contemporary theories of performance and ritual, this is vital reading for any scholar in religious studies, theatre and performance studies, theology, or philosophy.
Children of all ages will delight in its song and story." —Charles Martin, author of Signs & Wonders "Davey McGravy, Davey McGravy, a name to conjure with, to dream with by the cedar trees out in the rainy woods." In a misty, faraway-feeling "land of rain," Davey McGravy lives with his father and brothers, but mourns his missing mother. He follows the rhymes in his head into a forest of ferns, moss, and cedar trees where he meets animals wise and strange. A coaxing crow urges him onwards. A consoling peacock tells him that nothing is really lost. A fierce lioness frightens him. Following their voices, Davey travels deeper and deeper into the mysterious woods. Then he must find his way home, to a father who is sad but loving, and brothers who care for him no matter how they fight. Caught between his forest-world and the world of school, shopping, and family life, Davey wanders his way through grief. With playful and evocative verse, poet David Mason delivers him back to his boyhood but leaves the mysteries of love intact. Full of humor and melancholy, Davey McGravy movingly captures the longing of a child for his lost mother. "Across a series of poems, accompanied by early-Sendakesque etchings by artist Grant Silverstein, we meet a little boy named Davey McGravy living in the tall-treed forest with his father and brothers. A few tender verses in, we realize that Davey is caught in the mire of mourning his mother. Without invalidating the deep melancholy that has set in, Mason makes room for the mystery of life and death, inviting in the miraculous immortality of love…Only a rare poet can merge the reverence of Thoreau with the irreverence of Zorba the Greek to create something wholly unlike anything else — and that is what Mason accomplishes in Davey McGravy." —Brain Pickings "From his first full-length narrative poem, The Country I Remember, to his extraordinary verse novel, Ludlow, David Mason's ambition to expand the realm of narrative in contemporary verse has been central to his poetic project, even as successive collections revealed him as one of the best lyric poets of his generation. The latest proof of Mason's necessity, Davey McGravy, is both a vibrant celebration of language as play and the moving tale of how a young boy discovers, through heartbreaking loss, the transformative powers of the imagination. Children of all ages will delight in its song and story." —Charles Martin, author of Signs & Wonders
Mason reveals a glorious passion for literature, as well as an almost Whitmanesque openness to the ideas and emotions that inspire creative acts at all levels."―Library Journal (starred review) "An illuminating literary cartography with many fascinating ports of call.”―Kirkus Reviews "Mason expertly weaves the stories of great writers and places both ancient and new together into an imaginative literary odyssey."―Publishers Weekly “How are voices like places? They move through us as we move through them.” Celebrated poet David Mason explores surprising connections in geography and time, considering writers who traveled, who emigrated or were exiled, and who often shaped the literature of their homelands. He writes of seasoned travelers (Patrick Leigh Fermor, Bruce Chatwin, Joseph Conrad, Herodotus himself), and writers as far flung as Omar Khayyam, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, James Joyce, and Les Murray. In the end, he turns to his own native region, the American West, with Wallace Stegner, Edward Abbey, Robinson Jeffers, Belle Turnbull, and Thomas McGrath. These essays are about familiarity and estrangement, the pleasure and knowledge readers can gain by engaging with writers’ lives, their travels, their trials, and the homes they make for themselves.
Brigham Young was one of the most influential—and controversial—Mormon leaders in American history. An early follower of the new religion, he led the cross-continental migration of the Mormon people from Illinois to Utah, where he built a vast religious empire that was both revolutionary and authoritarian, radically different from yet informed by the existing culture of the U.S. With his powerful personality and sometimes paradoxical convictions, Young left an enduring stamp on both his church and the region, and his legacy remains active today. In a lively, concise narrative bolstered by primary documents, and supplemented by a robust companion website, David Mason tells the dynamic story of Brigham Young, and in the process, illuminates the history of the LDS Church, religion in America, and the development of the American west. This book will be a vital resource for anyone seeking to understand the complex, uniquely American origins of a church that now counts over 15 million members worldwide.
Caught in the Crossfire presents a multifaceted explanation of why people participate in something as dangerous and uncertain as a revolutionary movement. Beginning with an analysis of the grievances that motivate peasant participation in political movements, the book also explores the additional factors_leadership, resources, and strategies_required to mobilize peasants for collective action. Collective action itself need not be violent, but a repressive state response can quickly transform a reformist movement into a revolution. Mason shows how different strategies on the part of various actors can result in a government victory, a rebel victory, or a negotiated settlement. The book concludes with a look to the future: Will the emerging trends toward political democratization and economic globalization make revolution in the countryside more or less likely?
Witty and heartfelt essays, shaken and stirred."—Kirkus Reviews "David Mason believes in literature as a weather event—even an extreme one. He reads to be changed—drenched, burned, blown away. He has no wish to have his standing position confirmed, and is alert to the ways in which his subjects are changed, both by their writing and its reception. These essays move comfortably from the lines of a Nobel Prize-winning poet to the dwelling of a Greek peasant who could have stepped out of Homer, on to the perils of literary biography. Mason is a reader as much as he is a writer. He looks into the political in order to find the personal—not the other way round. Incarnation & Metamorphosis is engaging all the way through, not least when Mason acts on the assumption, 'The imagination is free.'”—James Campbell, author of Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin “Literary criticism,” David Mason writes, “ought to entertain as well as illuminate.” In these essays Mason tells stories about embodiment and change, incarnation and metamorphosis, drawing connections between art and life without confusing the two. Mason considers the many kinds of change we encounter in our lives, our desire for justice, and the ways great writers complicate that desire. He discusses the lives and works of writers like Montaigne, Diderot, and Neruda as well as his colorful father’s fascination with a fictional character. He takes up such contemporary figures as the daring Australian writer Helen Garner, the playwright Tom Stoppard, and the poet-critic Dana Gioia; has fresh things to say about the perils of fame in the careers of Sylvia Plath and Seamus Heaney; and mourns the loss of poet Michael Donaghy. Incarnation & Metamorphosis is a book about living with literature—Mason writes that literature “is telling us that we are seen, warts and all. Criticism, such as the essays in this book, is a way of seeing back.”
These homilies, lectures, and essays vigorously champion the author's conviction that it is reasonable to believe in a God of "pure unbounded love" and, also, that the best religion is a reasonable religion. That is, "the God of Love" is "the God of Reason" and, as a seventeenth-century Cambridge preacher put it, "If you would be religious, be rational in your religion." Thus, these essays challenge both the New Atheists and Fundamentalists, who are twins like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. And they aim, positively, to unpack the meaning and implications of Jesus' dictum: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
It is 1963 and Edward Kilton knows he is approaching a pivotal turning point in his life. Even though he is already the chief financial officer of the fourth largest corporation in America, he is determined to eventually secure the coveted role of CEO. Edward’s wife, Dorothy, is a concert pianist and organist who seemingly only cares for two things in life: her piano and son, Michael. Quite simply, she has been pushed to her limits with all of his business affairs and the fact that he always comes first. After he urges her to perform at Town Hall in New York City to impress his board of directors, a surprising series of events unfolds that creates an incredibly unexpected result that guides both Edward and Dorothy to discover themselves, the true meaning of family, and life itself. And the Seasons Come is a compelling tale that perpetuates the eternal struggle between unrequited ambition and love as life comes full circle for a corporate executive and his wife.
David Mason was born in Washington State, forty-odd degrees north latitude, and now lives on the Australian island of Tasmania, forty-odd degrees south latitude. That Pacific crossing is the work of a lifetime of devotion and change. The rich new poems of Pacific Light explore the implications of the light as well as peace and its opposing forces. What does it mean to be an immigrant and face the ultimate borders of our lives? How can we say the word home and mean it? These questions have obsessed Mason in his major narrative works, The Country I Remember and Ludlow, as well as his lyric and dramatic writing. Pacific Light is a culmination and a deepening of that work, a book of transformations, history and love, endurance and unfathomable beauty, by a poet "at the height of his powers.
For most Americans, the savings and loan industry is defined by the fraud, ineptitude and failures of the 1980s. However, these events overshadow a long history in which thrifts played a key role in helping thousands of households buy homes. First appearing in the 1830s savings and loans, then known as building and loans, encourage their working-class members to adhere to the principles of thrift and mutual co-operation as a way to achieve the 'American Dream' of home ownership. This book traces the development of this industry from its origins as a movement of a loosely affiliated collection of institutions into a major element of America's financial markets. It also analyses how diverse groups of Americans, including women, ethnic Americans and African Americans, used thrifts to improve their lives and elevate their positions in society. Finally the overall historical perspective sheds new light on the events of the 1980s and analyses the efforts to rehabilitate the industry in the 1990s.
Thomas Timmons was an ancient grandfather of my grandmother’s family. My grandmother Geneva Josephine Timmons related the make up of the family as being English, Irish and Black Dutch, the Black Dutch having married into the Timmons family at least four times that I know of beginning with old John Calvin Timmons and Elizabeth in about 1740 in Frederick county Virginia. Then the Revolutionary war hero Abner Timmons and wife Hannah about 1785 in the old 96th District of Spartanburg, South Carolina. Then with Abner’s grandson Robert marring Matilda Brummett who’s family was from East Tennessee, Then William Timmons Robert’s oldest son married Melissa Coppock who was part Cherokee and Quaker. This Quaker family was also from South Carolina. My Timmons ancestors had migrated from Virginia to South Carolina to the Hopkins Kentucky area to Darke county Ohio, were the family lived for sixty years before moving again to Grant county Indiana and then back to Ohio in the Toledo area. The migration to Toledo took place in about 1913.
Exalting Jesus in Psalms, Volume 2, Psalms 51-100 is part of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series. Edited by David Platt, Daniel L. Akin, and Tony Merida, this commentary series, to include 47 volumes when complete, takes a Christ-centered approach to expositing each book of the Bible. Rather than a verse-by-verse approach, the authors have crafted chapters that explain and apply key passages in their assigned Bible books. Readers will learn to see Christ in all aspects of Scripture, and they will be encouraged by the devotional nature of each exposition presented as sermons and divided into chapters that conclude with a “Reflect & Discuss” section, making this series ideal for small group study, personal devotion, and even sermon preparation. It’s not academic but rather presents an easy reading, practical and friendly commentary. The authors of Exalting Jesus in Psalms, Volume 2, Psalms 51-100 are Matt Mason, David Platt, and Jim Shaddix.
A memoir of friendship, history, and longing in a Greek village that “introduces us to a rich cast of writers and ex-pats, shepherds and urbanites” (A.E. Stallings, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry finalist). In his twenties, an American manual laborer and poet found himself living with his beautiful wife in a village in southern Greece. Their first encounter with that country would prove an unrecoverable dream of intimate magic, but through decades of steadfast affection, David Mason grew to a deeper understanding of what it means to be a citizen of one’s own country and a citizen of the world. From a writer praised for his “often intoxicating language” (Kirkus Reviews), News from the Village is a lyrical memoir of Aegean friends, including such figures as Orhan Pamuk, Bruce Chatwin, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Yiorgos Chouliaras, and Patrick Leigh Fermor, each of whom comes fully alive, along with a brilliant cast of lesser-known characters. Fearing he has lost Greece and everything it has meant in his life, Mason goes back again and again to the country he knew as a young man. He encounters Turkey and Greece together in the shadow of 9/11; follows the lives of his friends, whose trials sometimes surpass his own; and brings them all together in the circle of this generous narrative. Ultimately, Mason’s memoir is about what we can hold and what slips away, what sustains us all through our griefs and disappointments. “Mason realizes he must confront shifting politics, village tensions, family tragedy, and history with blood on its hands before he can love Greece as she is rather than as he would have her be. Along the way, he introduces us to a rich cast of writers and ex-pats, shepherds and urbanites—and travels that stretch from the Rockies to the Bosphorus—the journey of a lifetime.”—A.E. Stallings, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Like
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