Private Pleasures describes the three-day sex, drink, and drug binge of a thirty-something newsreader in the back streets and crumbling apartments of his native Giza, that pullulating mass of humanity that, like an ugly sister, sits opposite Cairo on the Niles west bank.Pursued by an unshakable sense of impending doom that is only partly attributable to fear of retribution at the hands of a sadistic police officer with whose wife he is conducting a frenzied affair, the narrator observes, with fascinated horror, his own stumbling progress through a world of menace and wonder inhabited by philosophical prostitutes, nightmarish butchers, serene Quran-readers, pious family members, religious con-men, autistic tissue-sellers, and others. Milleresque in its treatment of sex, the novel captures the essence of the phantasmagoric world of the Egyptian mega-city, disintegrating under the pressures of its home-grown horrors while pining for the sublime.
The Birth of the Modern Constitution recounts the history of the United States Supreme Court in the momentous yet usually overlooked years between the constitutional revolution in the 1930s and Warren-Court judicial activism in the 1950s. 1941-1953 marked the emergence of legal liberalism, in the divergent activist efforts of Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, and Wiley Rutledge. The Stone/Vinson Courts consolidated the revolutionary accomplishments of the New Deal and affirmed the repudiation of classical legal thought, but proved unable to provide a substitute for that powerful legitimating explanatory paradigm of law. Hence the period bracketed by the dramatic moments of 1937 and 1954, written off as a forgotten time of failure and futility, was in reality the first phase of modern struggles to define the constitutional order that will dominate the twenty-first century.
This book chronicles the struggle among non-Communist leftists and liberals over American relations with the Soviet Union from 1939 through the 1950s. Few now care as passionately and as violently as people did then about Soviet-American relations. It was a time when friends became enemies, and others forged strange alliances, all in the name of commitments that today seem remote. A Better World evokes those times and their choices, and explains why these long-ago battles still arouse such deep feelings today - and should.Americans who were pro-Soviet without being members of the Communist party - 'progressives' as they called themselves - had a large emotional investment in the Soviet Union. From 1935 to 1939 literally millions joined the 'Popular Front' of pro-Soviet organizations. O'Neill takes us through the shock of the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939, through the revival of the Popular Front spurred by government and business support after Russia entered the war against Hitler. He traces the isolation of the anti-Stalinists, the rise and fall of Henry Wallace, and the eclipse of progressivism. And he explores the shifting allegiances of intellectuals as they struggled, often with each other, to influence the course of public debate, with long-lasting consequences for American intellect, culture, and morals.As O'Neill observes in his introduction, 'More than any of my other books A Better World inspired correspondents to send me probing or reflective letters.' It was this response, along with the extraordinary critical debate spurred by initial publication of this volume, that makes the book's continuing importance clear. The dream of achieving a better world through radical violence never dies, and the willingness of apologists to cling to utopian visions persists. As long as it does, the lessons of this book need to be available to us.
This is a journal spanning from October 30, 1942 to October 29th 1945 through which the author recounts his days abroad serving in the U.S. Army during WWII. Kennedy begins his memoir by admitting to a reluctance toward fighting in the war before bringing readers down a path fraught with detailed descriptions of life aboard a warship and in various countries around the world. Whether describing the war-littered desert streets of Tobruk, Africa, the grandeur of Rome, or the breathtaking sight of Capri, Italy, the author places readers deep into his penetrating remembrances. Kennedy's forthright honesty and unique experiences will give readers insight into the harsh realities of being away from home – and a new wife – for three years, as well as an insight into the bonds of friendship and camaraderie that result from soldiers serving together. The pictures not only add a personal touch to an already moving memoir, but help readers match faces with the colorful characters about whom Kennedy writes.
The inauguration of Robert Maynard Hutchins as the fifth President of the University of Chicago in 1929 coincided with a drastically changed social and economic climate throughout the world. And Hutchins himself opened an era of tumultuous reform and debate within the University. In the midst of the changes Hutchins started and the intense feelings they stirred, William H. McNeill arrived at the University to pursue his education. In Hutchins' University he tells what it was like to come of age as a undergraduate in those heady times. Hutchins' scathing opposition to the departmentalization of learning and his resounding call for reforms in general education sparked controversy and fueled debate on campus and off. It became a struggle for the heart and soul of higher education—and McNeill, as a student and then as an instructor, was a participant. His account of the university's history is laced with personal reminiscences, encounters with influential fellow scholars such as Richard McKeon, R. S. Crane, and David Daiches, and details drawn from Hutchins' papers and other archives. McNeill sketches the interplay of personalities with changing circumstances of the Depression, war, and postwar eras. But his central concern is with the institutional life of the University, showing how student behavior, staff and faculty activity and even the Hyde Park neighborhood all revolved around the charismatic figure of Robert Maynard Hutchins—shaped by him and in reaction against him. Successive transformations of the College, and the tribulations of the ideal of general or liberal education are central to much of the story; but the memoir also explores how the University was affected by such events as Red scares, the remarkably successful Round Table radio broadcasts, the abolition of big time football, and the inauguration of the nuclear age under the west stands of Stagg Field in 1942. In short, Hutchins' University sketches an extraordinarily vibrant period for the University of Chicago and for American higher education. It will revive old controversies among veterans from those times, and may provoke others to reflect anew about the proper role of higher education in American society.
Resistance arteries have been recognized for some time as key factors in the regulation of vascular flow resistance, where they determine the regional and local distribution of blood and arterial pressure. Chapters provide an overview of the physiological, biochemical, and electrophysiological characteristics of these vessels, as well as a critical evaluation of the methodologies for studying small arteries and an examination of the membrane and neural mechanisms involved in the control of vascular tone.
Ibrahim al-Mazini was one of the great humorists and stylists of twentieth-century Arabic prose literature. Like an Egyptian James Thurber, he captured the foibles and triumphs of Cairo's middle classes of the 1930s and 1940s in exceptionally stylish prose. This collection gathers in one volume some of al-Mazini's best short fiction, including two novellas: Midu and His Accomplices and Ten Again. Midu is an engaging, well-liked army officer who assisted by almost every other character in the story arranges a faux heist from his uncle's library in order to allow young love to run its course. In Ten Again, a man awakes to find that he has returned to childhood, on the day of his tenth birthday: his wife, who is being wooed by a most obnoxious suitor, is now his mother, and his two sons torment him mercilessly at his birthday party. In al-Mazini's skillful hands, the short stories included here illuminate a lively fictional world: from a drunken encounter with a parrot to an undertaker's attempt to provide a cadaver with a believer's contented smile. An unmarried woman dreams of her unborn daughter, who is impatient to be born; and a reclusive author who has chosen to disappear from Cairo's literary scene is tracked down to his obvious disgust by an intrepid researcher. Rich in insight, imagination, and humor, these stories are a splendid introduction to a major figure in the early generation of Egyptian writers.
The Puppet, a mythic tale of greed and political corruption, traces the rise, flourishing, and demise of a Saharan oasis community. Aghulli, a noble if obtuse man who has been chosen leader of the oasis, hankers after the traditional nomadic pastoralist life of the Tuareg. He sees commerce (understood as including trade in gold, marriage, agriculture, and even recreation) as the prime culprit in the loss of the nomadic ethos. Thus he is devastated to learn that his supporters are hoarding gold. The novel's title notwithstanding, the author has stressed repeatedly that he is not a political author. He says that The Puppet portrays a good man who has been asked to lead a corrupt society. The subplot about star-crossed young lovers introduces a Sufi theme of the possibility of transforming carnal into mystical love. The Puppet, though, is first and foremost a gripping, expertly crafted tale of bloody betrayal and revenge inspired by gold lust and an ancient love affair.
To many people, the suggestion that a kangaroo could live up a tree is fantasy. Yet, in the rainforests of Far North Queensland and New Guinea, there are extraordinary kangaroos that do just that. Many aspects of these marsupials' anatomy and biology suggest a terrestrial kangaroo ancestor. Yet no one has, so far, come forward with a convincing explanation of how, why and when mammals that was so superbly adapted for life on the ground should end up back in the trees. This book reviews the natural history and biology of tree-kangaroos from the time of their first discovery by Europeans in the jungles of West Papua in 1826 right up to the present day, covering the latest research being conducted in Australian and New Guinea. Combining information from a number of disparate disciplines, the author sets forth the first explanation of this apparent evolutionary conundrum. Features * Provides a fascinating and readable account of an unusual evolutionary conundrum * Written by a field biologist with more than a decade's experience working with tree-kangaroos
This volume brings together a collection of essays by William A. Reid that present and elaborate the deliberative tradition of curriculum theory, and examine the implications of a deliberative perspective for approaches to policy making and school systems. The essays illustrate the development of Reid's understanding of the deliberative tradition and his efforts to extend it from a focus on practice to one that embraces conceptions of schooling as an institution. Institution and practice are the key concepts which guide and illuminate the central thesis of the book: To be effective, a theory of curriculum must be able to talk not only about questions of desirable practice, but also about questions of how practice may be aided or constrained by the nature of the institution within which it takes place. This significant new contribution to the literature of curriculum studies: *represents a unique attempt to synthesize what have often been treated as quite separate issues: questions of the philosophical basis for curriculum decision making, questions of processes of decision making, and questions of the nature of schools and classrooms; *presents its material in an evolutionary way, focusing on the continuing development of ideas, rather than on a "rhetoric of conclusions"; and *offers a summing up of thought and achievement in the deliberative tradition that is not otherwise available.
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