Books published by Cambria Press

This book is an examination of sample companies that produce theatre with and for prison inmates. It is a careful compilation of comprehensive case studies of three such producing companies. Based on personal interviews, newspaper reviews and articles, and other testimonials from participants, each case study catalogs the working processes of the given company, the conditions they faced working in the prison environment, and how the theatre-artists tailored their work to meet these conditions. Alongside the empirical study of the companies, the author has employed prevalent theories from criminology and penology, as well as applicable performance theory, to discuss the significance of the theatre work as a social phenomenon within the very specific culture of the prison. From these individual studies, the author draws conclusions about the potential importance and place theatre could have in the penal system. This book, a first study of its kind, is a groundbreaking and important contribution to theatre studies.

Wal-Marts' ubiquity presents a potential problem for policymakers confronting local issues (zoning, infrastructure, taxation, etc.) which influence the location of new stores. Despite a proliferation of Wal-Mart related writing, the consensus among researchers writing peer review work is far less conclusive than either the critics or advocates of the retailer contend. This makes disentangling the effect of Wal-Mart on local economies increasing difficult. While there have been other books on Wal-Mart, none has provided scholarly economic analysis of the impact of this retail giant. The Local Economic Impact of Wal-Mart is the first to fill this gap with a critical review of the existing literature; it also provides significant empirical evidence which highlights important questions. This book will be a critical addition for all collections in Business, Economics, Political Science, and Sociology."The author is interested in facts. He asks the right questions and provides the answers that thorough research suggests. He surveys the weight of evidence and analysis in the existing literature, and adds some informed insights of his own. This is what good economists are supposed to do. There are no wild claims or hidden agendas here. This book is a triumph of empiricism over mysticism." - Lawrence W. Reed, President, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Midland, Michigan

Poverty-related problems facing Africa are not only overwhelming but are also monumental and worrisome. Some of Africa's poverty problems are self-inflicted and have increasingly become systemically chronic, while others are externally instigated. This book focuses on an aspect of those problems that are principally internal to Africa--the issue of corruption. The book picks out Zambia as a case study. Thus, the efficacy of the legal and institutional framework for fighting corruption in Zambia is examined. As an authoritative text on Zambian jurisprudence, this book brings out critically and analytically incisive legal perspectives. The book also makes reference to closely related developments in other jurisdictions. Weaknesses in the legal and institutional framework in Zambia are identified, and the book spells out proposals to strengthen the framework. "The book is an excellent attempt to set the record straight on the otherwise often confusing present situation in Zambia vis-à-vis the established legal and institutional mechanisms, which sometimes appear to compete against each other. This seems to work against the very raison d'être or objective for which they were instituted. The book attempts to provide some solutions on how this could be avoided or overcome. ... It is a highly recommended work for people in other countries, especially developing ones, who are also involved in the fight against corruption to draw lessons from Zambia's attempt to rid itself from this scourge." - Dr. Mpazi Sinjela, LL.B (UNZA), LL.M, JSD (Yale) Dean, WIPO Worldwide Academy; Professor, (Visiting), Lund University and Raoul Wallenberg Institute (Sweden); Co-Director and Professor, Masters Degree Program in Intellectual Property, University of Turin, (Italy)

Surprisingly little has been published on the questions of what theatre actually is and what participants in theatre derive from the experience. This book investigates theatre as a means of social connection. It begins by establishing a context drawn from contemporary research in public health, sociology, and political science on the decline of personal interactions, civic organizations, and the network of organizations that create "social capital." It then offers theatre participation as a means of overcoming the growing alienation of a technological society. Theatre and the Good examines the roots of theatre from an anthropological perspective, as well as theatre's capacity for liberation, using models of theatre in prison, dramatherapy, and a spiritual opening felt by many who have participated in performance and which has previously been only fractionally described. The book argues that the ancient needs for which theatre arose are still relevant and that theatre is a much needed and effective pathway to meaning. This book enters into the discussion of "performance" and, using terms accessible to any educated person, links that discussion to matters of social science, literature, philosophy and religious studies. An interdisciplinary study, Theatre and the Good will be of interest to theatre practitioners as well as academics in theatre, performance studies, sociology, philosophy, religious studies, and literature.

This theoretically-informed monograph provides a book-by-book analysis of the novelist's ouvre and gives a full picture of his Weltanschauung. A valuable reference for scholars in Australian Studies as well as those researching postcolonial, psychoanalytic and literary theories.

The 'Digital Divide' is now a part of the American lexicon. Legislators and public policy makers argue that computer access makes a significant difference in learning outcomes and test scores. But is this truly the case? This is the key question addressed in this meticulous investigation. This book determines whether students with Internet access at have higher standardized test scores than those without Internet access. It also measures a variety of other variables - including household income levels and parents' educational levels - as other predictors of performance on standardized tests. The objective and rigorous method reveals the truth of how Internet access impacts test score performance. The results are of obvious importance to legislators, policy makers, and parents concerned with enhancing student performance. The Impact of Home Internet Access on Test Scores should be part of any collection in education, public policy, and sociology.

This study examines the ways in which technological changes initiated during the Victorian period have led to the diminution of speech as a mode of critique. Much in the same ways that speech had been used to affirm intersubjectivity, print culture conditioned readers to accept uni-directional exchange of values and interests. It enabled the creation of a community of readers who would be responsive to the expansion of a industry and the emergence of a technical language and culture, a culture that precedes and predicts post-modern society. The purpose of this study is to employ Charlotte Brontë's Shirley (1849), Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854), and George Eliot's Felix Holt (1866) to evidence how the growth of capitalist production and the development of new technologies of industry within the early- to mid-Victorian periods inspired the prioritization of the printed word over oratory and speech as a means for fulfilling the linguistic power exchanges found common in spoken discourse. Inventions such as Friedrich Gottlob Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer's high-speed printing press enabled mass production and low-cost readership among the working class, who experienced literacy on multiple levels: to educate themselves, to experience leisure and diversion, to confirm their religious beliefs, and to improve their labor skills. Much in the same ways that speech had been used to affirm intersubjectivity, print culture conditioned readers to accept uni-directional exchange of values and interests that would create a community of readers who would be responsive to the expansion of a new technical society and would eventually perform the routines of mechanized labor. This book employs Victorian novelists such as Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot to address representations of speech in fictional discourse. Critics like Nancy Armstrong and Garrett Stewart have considered these representations without addressing the ways in which print culture engendered and valued new forms of speech, forms which might re-engage critique of the human condition. More recent publications like The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics, by John Plotz, do not respond to the ways in which individuals use the collective voice of crowd formations to redefine and resituate their subjective identities. This book serves to fill this gap in Victorian studies. Victorian novels are not, of course, pure representations of Victorian reality. However, many working-class Victorians engaged texts as authentic representations of society. How working-class readers then reconstructed their personal narratives in actuality suggests the affects of social assimilation upon subjective identity and advances the claim that Victorian novels did not provide solutions to the social and economic maladies they reported. Rather, they contextualized social and cultural problems without recognizing the dangers of how the decontextualized imagination of the reader locates placement within the same ontological and epistemological assumptions. Technologies of Power in the Victorian Period is an informative study that will appeal to members of academic groups such as the British Women's Writer's Association and the North American Victorian Association. Although the book bears relevance to scholars and students of Victorian studies, it will also serve as a point of reference for curious readers engaged in studies of the effects of industrial technologies on language acquisition and dissemination during the nineteenth century.

The Internet has provided hate groups with a relatively easy and cost-effective way to make their rhetoric of hatred available to an audience of millions. Realizing the Internet's communication potential, hate groups have posted an increasing number of online "hate sites," websites containing content that disparages a particular class of people. As the number of Internet hate sites has increased, the U.S. government has been called upon to ban these controversial websites. This comprehensive study explores whether there is a First Amendment basis for regulating U.S.-based hate sites. It identifies the various First Amendment tests developed by the federal courts for assessing the constitutionality of both non-mass-mediated hateful speech and Internet content, then examines a sample of U.S.-based hate sites to ascertain whether they contain constitutionally proscribable content under those standards. The study is unique in that it examines websites maintained by several different kinds of U.S.-based hate groups: Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi, racist Skinhead, Christian Identity, Black separatist, neo-Confederate, White conservative, and pro-Jewish. Untangling the Web of Hate: Are Online "Hate Sites" Deserving of First Amendment Protection? is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to learn more about the content and constitutionality of Internet hate sites.

Covering a variety of genres and periods from medieval epic to contemporary speculative fiction, Styling Texts explores the fascinating ways in which dress performs in literature. Numerous authors have made powerful-even radical-use of clothing and its implications, and the essays collected here demonstrate how scholarly attention to literary fashioning can contribute to a deeper understanding of texts, their contexts, and their innovations. These generative and engaging discussions focus on issues such as fashion and anti-fashion; clothing reform; transvestism; sartorial economics; style and the gaze; transgressive modes; and class, gender, or race "passing." This is the first academic volume to address such an extensive range of texts, inviting consideration of how fashionable desires and concerns not only articulate the aesthetics, subjectivities, and controversies of a given culture, but also communicate across temporal and spatial divisions. Styling Texts is an essential resource for anyone interested in the artistic representations and significations of dress.

Not much has been written about the Italian immigrant experience prior to 1880. This book, through careful analysis of primary and archival sources, brings to life the Civil War-time trials and tribulations of several notable Italian Americans--Bancroft Gherardi, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, Francis B. Spinola, Decimus et Ultimus Barziza, and Edward Ferrero, among others. Though their numbers were few, Italian Americans played central roles in the bloodiest war in our country's history. Included in this book are samples of John Garibaldi's wartime correspondence to his wife, lists of Italian Americans who served as officers and noncommissioned sailors in the Union Navy, and first-hand correspondence of William Howell Reed (Virginia hospitals overseer under President Grant) and the brother of a young Italian who died in the hospital during the war. Sons of Garibaldi in Blue and Gray fills a critical gap in studies of Italian American life in the United States in the late 1800s.

"A must read and a breakthrough work ... The book makes clear the importance of comparing, learning from, and adapting legal systems to the ever-changing world, while maintaining the integrity of the Constitution. The subtlety of the book shows deep understanding of these legal regimes, something most legal analysts and policy makers from both systems sorely lack ... a most timely and valuable analysis."- Prof. Christopher L. Blakesley, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and author of Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism: A Normative and Practical Assessment "A careful and authoritative account of the controversial practice of investigative detention as a tool for responding to terrorism in a post-September 11th world. Informed by an impressive knowledge of American, British, and French law, Stigall's book reflects a distinctive comparative perspective. It deserves to be read not only by scholars and students in the field but also by policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic." - Prof. Stuart P. Green, Rutgers School of Law-Newark "Dan Stigall's analysis highlights the danger of dismissing a comparative approach, for he has most effectively used the British and French experience in discussing detention. While no regime has the answer (an illusion, at best), democratic nations can well learn from each other's successes and failures. Precisely for that reason, policy makers, jurists, and the concerned public owe Dan a collective thanks; in addressing the extraordinarily complicated issue of detention from a comparative perspective, he has truly bitten off a very large bite of a problematic apple. That he has done so is to our benefit; that he has done so successfully is to his credit. While we shall continue to struggle with the limits of detention and what legal paradigm is the "correct" one, we are the richer for Dan's book. It can serve as an effective "guide" as we continue to traverse the never-ending field of terrorism and counterterrorism." - Amos N. Guiora, Professor of Law, S. J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah

Practical Kindergarten is a tremendous resource that provides teachers with abundant ideas for including hands-on learning activities in their curricula while meeting academic standards. The "activity plans" describe recommended activities & variations of those activities in detail. Learning plans include how to customize activities to accommodate learning diversity, including English Language Learner, gifted, ADHD, autism disorder, visual impairments, orthopedic impairments, and developmental delays, as well as California academic content standards met.Materials and preparation, as well as step-by-step instructions are already helpfully on each form for easier and faster completion of the learning plan form.This guide will be invaluable for all kindergarten teachers in helping them present curriculum that is engaging, fun, and academically useful for children. Practical Kindergarten will help teachers bring process back into the academic environment, and make going to school fun for children (and teachers).

Love of the Land: Essential Farm and Conservation Readings from an American Golden Age, 1880-1920 features an unprecedented collection of historical, interdisciplinary essays that reconstruct for the contemporary reader the dynamic dialogue between agriculturist and ecologist. Reflecting the contemporary convergence of agricultural and environmental histories into a larger, land-centered narrative, the highly readable essays in this nearly five-hundred-page anthology present the pioneering words of the academics and agriculturalists, capitalists and conservationists, ecologists and environmentalists, and policymakers and politicos who labored to bring the disparate fields of conservation and agriculture into organic whole. Love of the Land offers a comprehensive, groundbreaking treatment of ecological themes ideal for students and researchers of agricultural and environmental thought. "Zachary Jack's Love of the Land fills a need. It provides a wide-angle view of early U.S. agricultural and conservation thought, which were major influences on both the economy and ethic of this developing country. Especially impressive are the encompassing array of writers - farm, conservation, political, and literary figures; the selected excerpts - each with a message that resounds; and finally the book's preface - worth reading again after finishing the book's last page." Duane Acker, former Assistant Secretary for science and education, U.S. Department of Agriculture and President Emeritus, Kansas State University "This anthology ambitiously takes you on a mind-stretching adventure into our national past, and our future. It offers, actually, an interdisciplinary short course - a compact curriculum - about the dynamics and varied dimensions of rural development and conservation in America... You may appreciate knowing from the start that you have not been dumped on your own into a loose collection of readings. You realize you are led by a compiler who cares and knows much about this subject, ranged widely and thoughtfully in choosing the readings, adds much to them and is leading you helpfully through them." James F. Evans, Professor Emeritus, Agricultural Communications and Journalism, University of Illinois

This pioneering collection of articles presents a fresh look at the life, work and seminal contributions of Margaret H'Doubler, the pioneering dance educator who established the first dance major in higher education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1926. This anthology is unique, given that it is the first thorough critique of Margaret H'Doubler's life, career, and philosophies. The book is also timely in its inclusion of so many authentic voices, speaking from their first hand experience with the master from as early as the late 1920s to the present, now twenty-three years after H'Doubler's death. The book completes a task that is due any original thinker and practitioner in the course of her or his lifetime, but remarkably, was not in the case of Margaret H'Doubler. Margaret H'Doubler is a significant new contribution to the historic record, and an extraordinary resource for dance scholars, educators and students.

24/7 access to all kinds of material is one of the great benefits of the Internet .or is it? With the floodgates of the Web wide open, pornography is now readily available, literally at one's fingertips. While there have been studies conducted on internet pornography users, there have none until now on those that are exposed to the "second-hand" impact.This unprecedented book is daring study that provides a psychodynamic understanding of women's experiences of husbands who use Internet pornography. It examines the relationship between wives' issues of self-esteem and their lack of efficacy; it also explores the female psychosexual development and its impact on wives' experiences with their husbands. This book is the first to explore the impact on women married to Internet pornography users.As one of the first studies daring enough to address and explore this darker side of society, this book should be on the shelves of all scholars in cultural anthropology, psychology, sociology, and women's studies.

This book addresses the problem of a country telling a grand narrative to itself that does not hold up under closer examination, a narrative that leads to possibly avoidable war. In particular, the book explains and questions the narrative the United States was telling itself about East Asia and the Pacific in the late 1930s, with (in retrospect) the Pacific War only a few years away. Through empirical methods, it details how the standard narrative failed to understand what was really happening based on documents that later became available. The documents researched are from the Diet Library in Japan, the Foreign Office in London, the National Archives in Washington, the University of Hawai'i library in Honolulu and several other primary sources. This research reveals opportunities unexplored that involve lessons of seeing things from the "other side's" point of view and of valuing the contribution of "in-between" people who tried to be peacemakers. The crux of the standard narrative was that the United States, unlike European imperialist powers, involved itself in East Asia in order to bring openness (the Open Door) and democracy; and that it was increasingly confronted by an opposing force, Japan, that had imperial, closed, and undemocratic designs. This standard American narrative was later opposed by a revisionist narrative that found the United States culpable of a "neo-imperialism," just as the European powers and Japan were guilty of "imperialism." However, what West Across the Pacific shows is that, while there is indubitably some truth in both the "standard" and the "revisionist" versions, more careful documentary research reveals that the most important thing "lost" in the 1898-1941 period may have been the real opportunity for mutual recognition and understanding, for cooler heads and more neutral "realistic" policies to emerge; and for more attention to the standpoint of the common men and women caught up in the migrations of the period. West Across the Pacific is both a contribution to peace research in history and to a foreign policy guided modestly by empiricism and realism as the most reliable method. It is a must read for diplomats and people concerned about diplomacy, as it probes the microcosms of diplomatic negotiations. This brings special relevance and approachability as yet another generation of Americans returns from war and occupation in Iraq. The book also speaks to Vietnam veterans, by drawing lessons from the Japanese war in China for the American war in Vietnam. This is particularly true of the conclusion, co-authored by distinguished Vietnam specialist Sophie Quinn-Judge.

What is the difference between a law degree in the US and the UK? In this unprecedented book, Dr. Kenneth Mwenda, a well-seasoned international lawyer and academic, guides us through the specific details and outlines the core differences of the two largest legal education systems. Dr. Mwenda further helpfully delineates the implications of these differences for commonwealth African law schools. This book will be a critical addition for international law libraries as well as collections in education."Drawing on his rich scholarly experience as a former academic in the UK and in Commonwealth Africa, and informed by his wide professional experience as an international attorney in the US, Dr. Kenneth K. Mwenda, provides a first-class treatment of important and salient policy issues underpinning the development of legal education systems in the US, the UK and Commonwealth Africa." - Zacharie Tamainot-Telto, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, University of Warwick, UK

In the wake of Columbine and 9/11, schools are now highly challenged to provide the harmonious environment of learning that is their obligation. Many school administrators are hard pressed to keep updated safety plans in the wake of every possible crisis. What exactly is the plan of action when there is a shootout? Does the intervention plan differ if the shooter is a student or a parent? What is the plan of action in the event of bio-terrorism? This book provides the answers to these critical questions. This step-by-step guide helps put in place a plan for each of these scenarios that we hope never to face again, but unfortunately are likely to. "This book, written by a school district administrator, is essential in imparting knowledge and in helping any school or district plan for arresting safety issues before they become dire problems and effectively responding when an incident occurs." - Diana Ohman, Director, Department of Defense Education Activity

The term Yao refers to a non-sinitic speaking, southern "Chinese" people who originated in central China, south of the Yangzi River. Despite categorization by Chinese and Western scholars of Yao as an ethnic minority with a primitive culture, it is now recognized that not only are certain strains of religious Daoism prominent in Yao ritual traditions, but the Yao culture also shares many elements with pre-modern official and mainstream Chinese culture. This book is the first to furnish a history-part cultural, part political, and part religious-of contacts between the Chinese state and autochthonous peoples (identified since the 11th century as Yao people) in what is now South China. It vividly details the influence of Daoism on the rich history and culture of the Yao people. The book also includes an examination of the specific terminology, narratives, and symbols (Daoist/ imperial) that represent and mediate these contacts. "This is an important piece of work on a little studied, but very interesting subject, namely, Taoism among the non-Sinitic peoples of South China and adjoining areas." - Professor Victor Mair, University of Pennsylvania "This brilliant study by Eli Alberts has now cleared away much of the cloud that has been caused by previous, mostly impressionistic scholarship on the "Dao of the Yao". - Professor Barend J.ter Haar, Leiden University

This valuable practical guide shows educators how to incorporate the use of technology into their classroom curriculum. It explains the need for technology to be part of the class lesson, instead of a lesson by itself. The book also goes a step further by providing step-by-step, concrete examples of how this can be done for the various grade levels. This will be an extremely useful resource for educators who need to infuse technology into classroom today to prepare their students for tomorrow.

This book is an outstanding resource for the language teacher. It provides a complete curriculum of over 70 activities that can be used to facilitate the effective learning of languages. It covers all learning styles and senses and caters to both right and left-brained users. In addition, it provides suggested adaptations to room size, age, and available resources. The activities are extremely versatile and can be used as either a stand alone textbook or as a supplemental resource in the classroom. Although designed for an ESL environment, the program and its activities can be used in any L2 class. The rave reviews this book has received are a tribute to its remarkable creativity and effectiveness. This book deserves a place in the library of any second language instructor or curriculum developer.

In this highly praised and innovative approach, literature concepts are taught through the medium of film. Students are taught to "read" movies using the same skills needed for reading literature. Each unit uses a movie to teach a literary concept. Course information such as definitions, history, cast lists, etc., is included for each unit. Teachers are given various activities for introducing literary concepts. Pages are ready to be reproduced to hand out to students or to make overhead transparencies. A viewing guide is included for each movie to be filled out as students watch the movie or as a comprehension check at the end of the movie. Students complete pre-viewing exercises, view the film, and then respond to the film through quizzes, oral assignments, group activities and performances, or writing assignments. Students write individually and in groups. They write character sketches, short stories, film reviews, skits, essays, term papers, and poetry (songs). The method is acclaimed by curriculum developers, teachers, and students who have experienced the curriculum first hand.

This book examines how the Indonesian Chinese who were born after 1966 negotiate meanings about their culture and identity through their collective memory of growing up in a restrictive media environment that specifically curtailed Chinese language and culture. The restrictive media environment was the result of a series of policies administered during the Suharto era (1965-1998). According to the regulations, the Indonesian government closed all Chinese-language schools and prohibited the use of Chinese characters in public places, the import of Chinese-language publications, and all public forms and expressions of Chinese culture. In the past century, and particularly in the past decade, much attention has been given to China and its rising status as a world economic power. Scholarship on overseas Chinese has also shed light on their relationship with their 'mythic homeland', China. In their work, scholars discovered that the Chinese of Southeast Asia have created a prominent economic, political, and cultural presence in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. In the 1960s, scholars such as George Kahin, Ruth McVey, and Benedict Anderson were drawn to the political upheavals in Indonesia and the various roles that the Chinese of Indonesia have played in the economic, political, and cultural arenas of their country. In later years, Charles Coppel and Leo Suryadinata have published extensively on various aspects of the Chinese in Indonesia, such as their religious affiliations and education. Despite the considerable attention given to the Chinese of Indonesia, scholars have not specifically studied, through the lens of the media, how a certain group of Chinese Indonesians grew up in a restrictive media and cultural environment during the 33 years when Indonesia was ruled by Suharto. This book takes the first step in examining this generation's collective memory of growing up in a state-controlled environment that has had a significant impact on their identity formation, maintenance, and the (re)negotiation of 'Chineseness' in their everyday lives. This book will appeal especially to media, cultural studies, and Southeast Asian studies scholars, researchers, and students.

Seductions in Narrative is a highly original, academic study which provides a critical discourse in which desire, narrative, and subjectivity are explored. Through the critical reading of two novels by contemporary English authors, Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson, the book cleverly assesses the ways in which desire allows the subject to imagine an alternative, utopian location where a narrative of the self, in all its multiplicity and ambiguity, can be effected. This book is unique as general studies on these issues tend to focus on the literature produced over the nineteenth century, but not on contemporary literature. The pieces which examine desire and narrative in contemporary novels tend to do so in the work of post-colonial authors. Specific works on the production of Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson also tend to focus on a somewhat close reading of their novels, but do not make use of their fiction in order to debate specific, poststructuralist issues, as this book successfully undertakes.

This study employs impression management as a template for understanding how "major Christian religions online" responded to public perceptions of "The Da Vinci Code." What were the characteristics of these messages? How did they compare to Church reaction toward negative popular fiction of the past, such as 1988s "The Last Temptation of Christ"> 172 pp. (Christian)

This book presents a reading of T. S. Eliot's poetry, prose, criticism, and drama, with particular reference to the nature of his response to the influence of Percy Shelley in his own work. Not just a book on literary criticism, this book is also an insightful study of Eliot's spiritual life. It focuses on Eliot's Christian faith and the role it played in molding his responses to the writers who shaped his early works. Previous studies have ascribed Eliot's subsequent repudiation of Romantic style and subject matter to a Bloomian 'anxiety of influence', and asserted that the highly classical style of his later work was a conscious renunciation of earlier models. This book, however, introduces Eliot's Christian faith as a means of approaching the issue. In doing so, Peter Lowe opens up a field of Eliot studies not previously explored to the depth it deserves. Christian Romanticism is a valuable contribution to the field of Eliot studies-it sheds light on a case of poetic influence that has been largely overlooked in previous criticism of arguably the foremost poet of the Twentieth Century.

The Conservative, Lord Randolph Churchill, and the Liberal, Joseph Chamberlain, were prominent in Irish political affairs from the mid 1870s. Although on opposite sides of the House, they united in 1886 and again in 1893 to defeat the first and second Home Rule Bills. While ostensibly dissimilar in background, politics, and temperament, they were ultimately united in their common desire-to prevent an Irish Parliament in Dublin. The two sons, Winston Churchill and Austen Chamberlain, both entered Parliament with inherited Unionist views. However, changing political circumstances in Britain and Ireland led them to change their stance and adopt policies that would have been anathema to their fathers.In this thoroughly researched book, Ian Chambers weaves the rich history of this important political period, and vividly details how the actions of these four men influenced the course of British and Irish politics. "This book makes a distinctive contribution to our knowledge of British policy towards Ireland . There is originality in exploring the extent to which the opinions of the fathers were visited upon the sons, and there is abundant evidence of scholarship. The author has usefully consulted an impressively wide range of primary sources." - Professor Keith Jeffery (Ph.D., Cambridge University), University of Ulster at Jordanstown

In this study of identity in Doris Lessing's space fiction, David Waterman devotes a chapter to each of the five novels in the Canopus in Argos: Archives series, as well as Briefing for a Descent into Hell, Memoirs of a Survivor and finally The Reason for It. This is an important addition to understanding the works of this prolific author.His major argument is that Lessing's space fiction identifies the universal problem - society's division into competitive and predatory groups - and places it outside the bounds of time and space, encouraging a social critique which takes into account our inherited blindness, our "degenerative disease" which must be addressed before genuine progress can be made. "Lessing's examination of the relationship between individual identity and group identity produces a productive tension that accounts for so much of interest in her work over many years. Nowhere is that tension more obvious or more interesting than in the "space fiction" that David Waterman so ably explores. Waterman writes convincingly of Lessing's desire "to cut through the performance, the received ideas, the habits and customs of our daily lives." Drawing on a wide range of sources, he provides an interdisciplinary reading of the "space fiction" and maps Lessing's brave exploration of the hierarchical landscapes that so often imprison us. Waterman offers a timely reading of Lessing for contemporary readers living in the landscape of globalization. - Professor Margaret Moan Rowe, Purdue University

Many scholars have documented and decried the "crisis" in American masculinity. There is a preponderance of evidence showing that males suffer from many physical, emotional, and social ills due to the gender scripts with which they were raised and which continue to govern men's lives. Throughout the millennia and across cultures, initiation rites of passage have been utilized as an effective means of transitioning young males into manhood. Modern culture suffers from a dearth of rites of passage leaving many boys stuck in puerile attitudes and behaviors and unable to make a wholesome transition into mature masculinity. Crossing into Manhood is a much needed guide on assisting late-adolescent boys' transition into manhood; it proposes a school-based curriculum and rite of passage paradigm to help young men make the difficult passage into manhood. Utilizing resources from diverse academic disciplines, this book surveys the psychoanalytic, the social constructionist, and the essentialist perspectives on masculine gender. As a result, a men's studies curriculum has been formulated-one that offers a balanced bio-psycho-social conceptualization of masculine identity."Dr. Chris Mason's deftly reasoned and inspiring book arrives at a propitious time for all those who care about boys and their education ... The intellectual harvest of a seasoned and experienced educator with a deep wisdom about boys and schools, Chris Mason's book is an important contribution to that growing body of thinking about practice. It deserves close reading." - Bradley Adams, Executive Director, International Boys' Schools Coalition