Frank Surpless

We Call You Our Own...

BLACK OAK LAKE
Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin

Jim Gilbert

Men in the Middle: Searching for Masculinity in the 1950s

In Men in the Middle, James Gilbert uncovers a fascinating and extensive body of literature that confronts the problems and possibilities of expressing masculinity in the 1950s. Drawing on the biographies of men who explored manhood either in their writings or in their public personas, Gilbert examines the stories of several of the most important figures of the day-revivalist Billy Graham, playwright Tennessee Williams, sociologist David Riesman, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, Playboy literary editor Auguste Comte Spectorsky, and TV-sitcom dad Ozzie Nelson-and allows us to see beyond the inherited stereotypes of the time. Each of these stories, in Gilbert's hands, adds crucial dimensions to our understanding of masculinity the 1950s. No longer will this era be seen solely in terms of the conformist man in the gray flannel suit or the Marlboro Man.

Norm Vig

Green Giants?

The United States in recent years has been abandoning its historical role as a leader in environmental regulation. At the same time, the European Union, spurred by political integration, has enacted many new environmental laws and assumed a leadership role in promoting global environmental sustainability. Green Giants?, one of the most detailed comparisons of the environmental policies of America and Europe yet undertaken, looks at current policy trends in the United States and the European Union--the two largest economic actors in the world--and the implications they have for future transatlantic and global cooperation. The contributors--leading European and American scholars and practitioners--examine similarities and differences in specific policy areas in order to assess whether United States and European Union policies are diverging, pursuing similar goals and methods, or undergoing a "hybridization" through joint learning and exchanges. They find that although European and American policies may parallel each other somewhat in domestic regulation, they are clearly diverging in the "third generation" of environmental concerns, which include such global problems as climate change, international trade, and sustainable development. In the final chapter the editors conclude that transatlantic dialogue and cooperation at the highest level are necessary if these two economic and political giants are to lead the international community toward a stable and secure ecological future.

Environmental Policy

Evaluating the impact of past environmental policy while considering and anticipating its lasting implications for the future is a difficult task given a constantly changing political landscape. Editors Vig and Kraft, with their distinguished team of contributors, continue to rise to the challenge, helping students make sense of the underlying trends, institutional shortcomings, and policy dilemmas that shape the contentious world of environmental politics.

The Global Environment

THE AGE OF BELOVEDS

The Age of Beloveds is an innovative, sweeping study that ignores traditional boundaries between East and West and promises as much excitement to readers interested in early modern Europe as it does to Ottomanists. Literary, cultural, and social phenomena familiar to students of English and European culture are reconsidered in the light of lively new translations of fascinating primary texts and documents from the Ottoman Empire. An insightful and candid look at the beloved boys and women of Ottoman elite culture during the Turkish Renaissance of the long sixteenth century [ca. 1453-1622] evolves into an intriguing glimpse at cross-cultural parallels in the sexuality, sociology, and spirituality of love in a Greater Europe extending from Istanbul to London.

By relating the production of literature and culture to global phenomena such as forms of political organization, demographics, and economics, the authors develop an argument that similar conditions produce similar responses even across seemingly impenetrable cultural divides. They contend that, in an age dominated by immensely powerful absolute rulers and troubled by war, cultural change, religious revolution, and apocalyptic speculation, the attachments of dependent courtiers and the longings of anxious commoners aroused an intense and peculiar interest in love and the beloved.

There is no book like this in either Ottoman or European studies. It will undoubtedly be a controversial book but a book not only for specialists but for general readers and readers interested in literature, women's issues, issues of gender and sexuality, entertainment culture, and culture production.

Bob Fliegel

Larry Wilson

SILK AND STEEL- Women at ArmsSilk & Steel Women at Arms is the first comprehensive presentation on the subject of women and firearms. No object has had a greater impact on world history over the past 650 years than the firearm, and a surprising number of women have been keen on the subject: as shooters, hunters, collectors, engravers, and even gunmakers. Few objects can rival the finest firearm in elegance, artistry, and mechanical fascination - each areas that have appeal to women, as well as to the seemingly more traditional clientele - men.

(See Larry's newly revamped web site at www.wilsonbooks.com.)

     You Should Have Been Here Yesterday (Public Affairs, 2000)

                                                  Norm Vig 

The Global Environment, Institutions, Law & Policy (Congressional Quarterly Press, 1999)

Environmental Policy: New Directions for the 21st Century (Congressional Quarterly Press, 2000)

Parliaments and Technology: The Development of Technology Assessment in Europe (SUNY Press, 2000)

                                                          
                                          Parker J. Palmer

The Active Life: A Sprituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999)

"This book is the result of my long journey toward the knowledge that I am not a monk." So begins Parker's deep and graceful exploration of a spiritual path for the active lives that most of us lead. Drawing upon evocative stories from several religious traditions, he celebrates the exuberance and unpredictability of the active life.

Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000)

The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997)

Parker takes teachers on an inner journey toward reconnecting with their vocation and their students--and recovering their passion for one of the most difficult and important of human endeavors.

Jack Barnes

Cuba and the Coming American Revolution (Pathfinder Press, June 2001)

"There will be a victorious revolution in the United States before there will be a victorious counterrevolution in Cuba." That statement, made by Fidel Castro in 1961, remains as accurate today as when it was spoken. This is a book about the class struggle in the United States, where the revolutionary capacities of workers and farmers are today as utterly discounted by the ruling powers as were those of the Cuban toilers. And just as wrongly. It is about the example set by the people of Cuba that revolution is not only necessary--it can be made.

Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq (Pathfinder Press, June 1991)

In "Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq," Socialist Workers Party leader Jack Barnes explains that the U.S. government's murderous assault on Iraq in 1990-91 heralded increasingly sharp conflicts among imperialist powers, the rise of rightist and fascist forces, growing instability of international capitalism, and more wars.