Editorial: Passerino
The Way of All Flesh (originally titled Ernest Pontifex or the Way of All Flesh) is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler that attacks Victorian-era hypocrisy. Samuel Butler (4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an English novelist and critic, best known for the satirical utopian novel Erewhon (1872) and the semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh.
An inventive blend of memoir and family history that ponders those who didn’t flee their German town in time: “Powerfully reclaimed—and imagined—reality.” —The Jewish Chronicle Winner, French Voices Award for Excellence in Publication and Translation For about eighty years, the Jonas family of Osnabrück were part of a small but vibrant Jewish community in this mid-size city of Lower Saxony. After the war, Osnabrück counted not a single Jew. Most had been deported and murdered in the camps; others emigrated—if they could, and if they managed to overcome their own inertia. It is this inertia and failure to escape that Hélène Cixous seeks to account for in Osnabrück Station to Jerusalem. Vicious anti-Semitism hounded Osnabrück’s Jews long before the Nazis’ rise to power in 1933. So why did people wait to leave when the threat was so clear? Drawn from the stories told to Cixous by her mother, Ève, and grandmother, Rosalie (Rosi), this literary work reimagines fragments of Ève’s and Rosi’s stories, including the death of Ève’s uncle, Onkel André. Piecing together the story of Andreas Jonas from what she was told and from what she envisions, Cixous recounts the tragedy of the one she calls the King Lear of Osnabrück, who followed his daughter to Jerusalem only to be sent away by her, returning to Osnabrück in time to be deported to a death camp. Cixous wanders the streets of the city she’d heard about all her life, digs into its archives, meets city officials, all the while wondering if she should have come. These reflections in the present are woven with scenes from her childhood in Algeria and the half-remembered, half-invented stories of the Jonas family, making Osnabrück Station to Jerusalem one of the author’s most intensely engaging books. “An inventive literary account of Cixous’s remarkable journey to her mother’s birthplace and of the Jewish community of a German town that was wiped out in the Holocaust.” —Literary Hub, “The Best of the University Presses” This work received the French Voices Award for excellence in publication and translation. French Voices is a program created and funded by the French Embassy in the United States and FACE (French American Cultural Exchange).Ver libro
A fascinating biography of the New York socialite who played a surprising role in the fight for suffrage. Born in the middle of the nineteenth century, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont was known to be domineering, temperamental, and opinionated. She married two millionaires, and pressured her daughter to wed an aristocrat. This resolve to get her own way regardless of the consequences stood her in good stead when she joined the American woman suffrage movement in 1909. Thereafter, she used her wealth, her administrative expertise, and her social celebrity to help convince Congress to pass the 19th Amendment and then to persuade the exhausted leaders of the National Woman’s Party to initiate a worldwide equal rights campaign. In this book, Sylvia D. Hoffert argues that Belmont was a feminist visionary and that her financial support was crucial to the success of the suffrage and equal rights movements. She also shows how Belmont’s activism, and the money she used to support it, enriches our understanding of the personal dynamics of the American woman’s rights movement. Drawing upon and analyzing Belmont’s own memoirs, she illustrates how this determined woman went about the complex and collaborative process of creating her public self. “Engaging . . . Highly recommended.” —ChoiceVer libro
Carl Williams' role as unlikely gang boss in the Melbourne Gangland Wars had made him one of the most infamous names in Australian criminal history.In 2007 he was sentenced to 35 years' jail in a high security unit. In 2008 he was given access to a personal computer where, confined to a tiny cell for most of the day, Williams began a daily correspondence with his friends and family, covering his life in jail, his thoughts and hopes for the future and his views and opinions on everyone from barristers and judges to fellow criminals and deadly rivals. 18 months later Williams was bashed to death by a fellow prisoner, a man he mentions in his letters as a warm and trusted friend.The letters are surprising, revealing, often manipulative, frequently self-serving, sometimes touching, and always a fascinating insight into the mind of one of our most notorious criminals.Ver libro
A breakout media and political analyst delivers a sweeping snapshot of American Democracy and the role that African Americans have played in its shaping while offering concrete information to help harness the electoral power of the country’s rising majority and exposing political forces aligned to subvert and suppress Black voters. Black voters were critical to the Democrats’ 2018 blue wave. In fact, 90 percent of Black voters supported Democratic House candidates, compared to just 53 percent of all voters. Despite media narratives, this was not a fluke. Throughout U.S. history, Black people have played a crucial role in the shaping of the American experiment. Yet still, this powerful voting bloc is often dismissed as some “amorphous” deviation, argues Tiffany Cross. Say It Louder! is her explosive examination of how America’s composition was designed to exclude Black voters, but paradoxically would likely cease to exist without them. With multiple tentacles stretching into the cable news echo chamber, campaign leadership, and Black voter data, Cross creates a wrinkle in time with a reflective look at the timeless efforts endlessly attempting to deny people of color the right to vote—a basic tenet of American democracy. And yet as the demographics of the country are changing, so too is the electoral power construct—by evolution and by force, Cross declares. Grounded in the most-up-to-date research, Say It Louder! is a vital tool for a wide swath of constituencies.Ver libro
On 17 September 1942 Admiral Karl Donitz, C-in-C U-boats, issued the following directive:To all Commanders - 'All attempts to rescue members of ships sunk, therefore also fishing out swimmers and putting them into lifeboats, righting capsized lifeboats, handing out provisions and water, have to cease. Rescue contradicts the most fundamental demands of war for the annihilation of enemy ships and crews'.This order ended what had hitherto been a war in which the opposing factions treated each other with a certain respect, seaman to seaman, showing mercy where mercy was due. It also marked the point at which the Battle of the Atlantic became a dirty war of attrition, with the U-boats hunting in packs snarling and snapping at the heels of the hard-pressed convoys. Ships began to go down like corn before the reaper, men were dying in their hundreds in the cold grey waters of the great ocean. This was a battle without quarter. A battle the U-boats would have won had it not been for the grit and determination of the convoy escorts and the unflagging resilience of the men who manned the vulnerable merchant ships.This book faithfully records the progress of the Battle of the Atlantic, which began within hours of the declaration of war on 3 September 1939 and continued without let-up until the last torpedo was fired on the night of 7 May 1945, just one hour before Germany surrendered. The story is told from both sides of the periscope.Ver libro
'Compelling' The Times 'Wise and honest.' Daily Mail Jenny Boyd's extraordinary life is the stuff of movies and novels, a story of incredible people and places at a pivotal time in the 20th century. As an up-and-coming young model, Jenny found herself at the heart of Carnaby Street in London, immersed in the fashion and pop culture of the Swinging 60s. With boyfriend Mick Fleetwood, sister Pattie Boyd, George Harrison and the rest of the Beatles, she lived the London scene.Ver libro
