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  Canaletto and Guardi - Views of...

  Lelia Packer, Charles Beddington

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  A gorgeous celebration of the beauty of Venice as conveyed in the paintings of Canaletto and his followers.
  Among the renowned Old Master paintings at the Wallace Collection in London is an important group of 27 eighteenth-century views of Venice, known as vedute, by Canaletto and his followers, including Francesco Guardi. They hang together in a dedicated gallery known as the Canaletto Room, but until recently the majority had not been cleaned since the nineteenth century and their original beauty was obscured by multiple layers of discoloured varnish.
  The paintings have now been restored and rephotographed, following a multi-year conservation and research project that has also led to a reappraisal of them. This book presents these pictures in their renewed splendour. It features essays and commentaries by Charles Beddington, the global expert on vedute, and by Wallace Collection curator Lelia Packer. Together they provide fresh insights into the artists' creative processes, the dating of pictures and their authorship.

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  Why Taiwan Matters - A Short...

  Kerry Brown

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  This program is read by the author.Taiwan expert Kerry Brown sums up the history of Taiwan and the danger of a Chinese takeover in this succinct and authoritative book.When the bloody Chinese Civil War concluded in 1949, two Chinas were born. Mao’s Communists won and took China’s mainland; Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan island. Since then, China and Taiwan have drifted into being separate political and cultural entities.Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy and an economic success story: just one of its companies produces over 90 per cent of the semiconductors that power the world’s economy. It is a free and vibrant society. For the United States and the West, the island is a bastion of freedom against China’s assertive presence in the region. And yet China, increasingly bellicose under Xi Jinping, insists Taiwan is part of its territory and must be returned to it. Should China blockade the island and mount an invasion, it would set off a chain reaction that would pitch it against the US – escalating a regional war into a global one. Taiwan is thus a geopolitical powder keg.Why Taiwan Matters helps us understand how and why we’ve arrived at this dangerous moment in history. With unparalleled access to Taiwan’s political leaders and a deep understanding of the island’s history and culture, Professor Kerry Brown provides a new reading of Taiwan, its twenty-three million people, and how they navigate being caught in this frightening geopolitical standoff. Why Taiwan Matters is the essential audiobook for understanding Taiwan’s unique story told in an accessible, expert and urgent way.A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

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  Southern Beauty - Race Ritual...

  Elizabeth Bronwyn Boyd

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  In a trio of popular gender rituals—sorority rush, beauty pageants, and the Confederate Pageant of the Natchez (Mississippi) Pilgrimage—young white southern women have readily ditched contemporary modes of dress and comportment for performances of purity, gentility, and deference. Clearly, the ability to "do" white southern womanhood, convincingly and on cue, has remained a valued performance. 
   
   
   
  Based on ethnographic research and more than sixty taped interviews, Southern Beauty goes behind the scenes of the three rituals to explore the motivations and rewards associated with participation. The picture that Boyd paints is not pretty: it is one of southern beauties securing status and sustaining segregation by making nostalgic gestures to the southern past. Boyd also maintains that the audiences for these rituals and pageants have been complicit, unwilling to acknowledge the beauties' racial work or their investment in it. 
   
   
   
  Southern Beauty moves beyond representations to show how femininity in motion—stylized and predictable but ephemeral—has succeeded as an enduring emblem, where other symbols faltered, by failing to draw scrutiny. Continuing to make the moves of region and race even as many Confederate symbols have been retired, the southern beauty has persisted, maintaining power and privilege through consistent performance.

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  Barracoon - The Story of the...

  Anonyme

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  A major literary event: a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade—abducted from Africa on the last ""Black Cargo"" ship to arrive in the United States. 
  In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States. 
  In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past—memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War. 
  Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo’s unique vernacular, and written from Hurston’s perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon brilliantly illuminates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

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  Moderate Conservatism -...

  John Kekes

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  Moderate Conservatism: Reclaiming the Center by John Kekes is a response to attacks on the United States' 300-year-old constitutional democracy by extremists on the left and the right. It makes a reasoned case for moderation and the defense of a political system that has endured because it has balanced the often-conflicting claims of justice, liberty, equality, prosperity, and security. That balance is now threatened by extremists who ignore all else but their grievances. They are blind to the destructive consequences of their attacks on the conditions on which the well-being of all Americans, including their own, depends. 
   
   
   
  The aim of Moderate Conservatism is to protect the United States' political system. It is a defense of what Americans have and are in danger of losing. Central to it is the rarely conscious patriotism of many millions of citizens who live private lives, earn a living, raise a family, and rely on the political system to protect the conditions in which they can continue to do so. They sustain life as Americans know it. And that life is now threatened by the destructive attacks of extremists. The United States is in urgent need of the balance and moderation this book describes and defends.

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  Sacred Texts and Teachings - The...

  Joseph Arston

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  The Jewish scriptures, known collectively as the Tanakh, serve as the foundation of Jewish religious and cultural identity. These sacred texts, developed over centuries, provide insight into the beliefs, laws, and traditions that have shaped Jewish communities. The origins of these scriptures trace back to ancient Israel, where oral traditions and early writings formed the basis of what would become the Hebrew Bible. 
  The Torah, also known as the Five Books of Moses, is the most revered section of Jewish scripture. It is believed to have been divinely revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai and encompasses the laws, history, and ethical teachings central to Judaism. The Torah consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, each of which outlines the early history of the Israelites and their covenant with God. These texts were initially passed down through oral tradition before being written and compiled into a unified body of scripture. 
  In addition to the Torah, other ancient Hebrew texts played a significant role in shaping Jewish scripture. The writings of the Prophets (Nevi’im) and the sacred poetry and wisdom literature found in the Writings (Ketuvim) were added over time. The historical context of these texts reflects the struggles, triumphs, and spiritual evolution of the Jewish people. The Book of Judges and the Books of Kings, for example, document the rise and fall of Israelite leaders, while the Psalms offer poetic expressions of devotion and supplication.

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