Monday, June 30, 2008

A Staggering Revolution: A Cultural History of Thirties Photography


A comprehensive cultural and artistic history of photography during its most dynamic periodDuring the 1930s, the world of photography was unsettled, exciting, and boisterous. John Raeburn’s A Staggering Revolution recreates the energy of the era by surveying photography’s rich variety of innovation, exploring the aesthetic and cultural achievements of its leading figures, and mapping the paths their pictures blazed public’s imagination. [Description provided by the publisher]
TR653.R34

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Learning to Listen, Listening to Learn: Building Essential Skills in Young Children



Using clear language and real-life examples, Mary Renck Jalongo explains why being an effective listener is a challenge - for adults as well as children - and provides research-based suggestions for improving listening in the classroom and at home. [Description provided by the publisher]

[Image: http://www.rfbdnj.org]

LB1139.5.L5.J32

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Daring to Care: American Nursing and Second-Wave Feminism


The role of feminism in transforming nursing and women’s professional identity.
RT4.M32

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

An Anthology of Spanish American Modernismo


The poetic movement that was Spanish American modernismo ran from the early 1880s to 1916: it expressed the desire both to join universal literature -- aesthetic modernity -- and to break colonial ties with Spanish belles lettres. This volume in the MLA series Texts and Translations is designed to provide the student of Spanish American literature with work not easily accessible in Spanish and English and to introduce modernismo, an often misunderstood movement, to a wider audience.
PQ7087.E5 A48

Monday, June 09, 2008

Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe


A bold new accounting of the great social and political upheavals that enveloped Europe between 1914 and 1945—from the Russian Revolution through the Second World War.

In Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, acclaimed historian Robert Gellately focuses on the dominant powers of the time, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, but also analyzes the catastrophe of those years in an effort to uncover its political and ideological nature. Arguing that the tragedies endured by Europe were inextricably linked through the dictatorships of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, Gellately explains how the pursuit of their “utopian” ideals turned into dystopian nightmares. Dismantling the myth of Lenin as a relatively benevolent precursor to Hitler and Stalin and contrasting the divergent ways that Hitler and Stalin achieved their calamitous goals, Gellately creates in Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler a vital analysis of a critical period in modern history. [Description provided by the publisher]

JC495.G45

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society: Strengths, Weaknesses, and Strategies for Change



The majority of African American children live in homes without their fathers, but the proportion of African American children living in intact, two-parent families has risen significantly since 1995. Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society looks at father absence from two sides, offering an in-depth analysis of how the absence of African American fathers affects their children, their relationships, and society as a whole, while countering the notion that father absence and family fragmentation within the African American community is inevitable. Editors Obie Clayton, Ronald B. Mincy, and David Blankenhorn lead a diverse group of contributors—encompassing a range of disciplines and ideological perspectives—who all agree that father absence among black families is one of the most pressing social problems today. In part I, the contributors offer possible explanations for the decline in marriage among African American families. William Julius Wilson believes that many men who live in the inner city no longer consider marriage an option because their limited economic prospects do not enable them to provide for a family. Part II considers marriage from an economic perspective, emphasizing that it is in part a wealth-producing institution. Maggie Gallagher points out that married people earn, invest, and save more than single people, and that when marriage rates are low in a community, it is the children who suffer most. In part III, the contributors discuss policies to reduce absentee fatherhood. Wornie Reed demonstrates how public health interventions, such as personal development workshops and work-related skill-building services, can be used to address the causes of fatherlessness. Wade Horn illustrates the positive results achieved by fatherhood programs, especially when held early in a man’s life. In the last chapter, Enola Aird notes that from 1995 to 2000, the proportion of African American children living in two-parent, married couple homes rose from 34.8 to 38.9 percent—a significant increase indicating the possible reversal of the long-term shift toward black family fragmentation.
Black Fathers in Contemporary American Society provides an in-depth look at a problem affecting millions of children while offering proof that the trend of father absence is not irrevocable. [Description provided by the publisher]
HQ756.B55

Monday, June 02, 2008

Journals: 1952-2000



For more than a half century, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was at the vital center of American political and cultural life. From his entrance into political leadership circles in the 1950s through his years in the Kennedy White House and up until his very last days, he was that rare thing, a master historian who enjoyed an extraordinary eyewitness vantage on history as it was being made. On intimate terms with many of the most prominent political, cultural and intellectual figures of the last fifty years, he was a man whose proximity to power never obscured his appreciation for the reality of those who have none. For that capacity for empathy and for much else, he was often called American liberalism's greatest voice.

For most of his adult life, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. dutifully recorded his experiences and opinions in journals that, until now, have never been seen. Edited by his oldest sons, they offer remarkably fresh and lucid observations on a half century of public life, and a rare and privileged view into the mind of one of America's most distinguished men of letters. Frank, revelatory, suffused with wit and humanity, these entries offer an intimate history of postwar America, from his days on Adlai Stevenson's campaign team to his years in JFK and RFK's inner circle, through to the election of George W. Bush. They contain his candid reminiscences about many of the signal events of our time - the Bay of Pigs, the devastating assassinations of the 1960s, Vietnam, Watergate, the fall of the Soviet Union, Bush v. Gore. These journals also offer an extraordinary window into the lives of the wide range of politicians, intellectuals, writers and actors who were his friends - from the Kennedys to the Clintons, from Henry Kissinger to Adlai Stevenson, from Norman Mailer to Lauren Bacall. Together they form an astonishingly vivid portrait of American politics and culture in the second half of the 20th century - one that only a man who knew everyone and missed nothing, could provide.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. was one of America's greatest moral and intellectual forces, and the publication of his journals is both itself an epic event in the history of American letters, and a fitting opportunity to celebrate this most remarkable American life. [Description provided by the publisher]

E175.5.S38 A3