This is a biography of a borderland between Russia and Poland, a region where, in 1925, people identified as Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, and... Russians lived side by side. Over the next three decades, this mosaic of cultures was modernized and homogenized out of existence by the ruling might of the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, and finally, Polish and Ukrainian nationalism. By the 1950s, this "no place" emerged as a Ukrainian heartland, and the fertile mix of peoples that defined the region was destroyed. Brown's study is grounded in the life of the village and shtetl, in the personalities and small histories of everyday life in this area. In impressive detail, she documents how these regimes, bureaucratically and then violently, separated, named, and regimented this intricate community into distinct ethnic groups. Drawing on recently opened archives, ethnography, and oral interviews that were unavailable a decade ago, A Biography of No Place reveals Stalinist and Nazi history from the perspective of the remote borderlands, thus bringing the periphery to the center of history. We are given, in short, an intimate portrait of the ethnic purification that has marked all of Europe, as well as a glimpse at the margins of twentieth-century "progress."

The second edition of A Biography of the English Language continues to examine the structure of language. The textbook discusses three important issues:... languages and language change are systematic; the inner history of a language is profoundly affected by its outer history of political and culural events; and the English of the past has everywhere left its traces on present-day English. By uncovering the language's past, one can better communicate with it.

The third edition of A BIOGRAPHY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE continues to examine the structure of English, from its Indo-European pre-history, through the... invasions that shaped Old and Middle English, through its speakers' conscious efforts to police it in the Early Modern period, through its present-day transformations manifest in urban slang and text-messaging. The textbook explores three important issues: how languages and language change are systematic; how the inner history of a language is profoundly affected by its outer history of political and culural events; and how the English of the past has everywhere left its traces on present-day English. By uncovering the language's past, one can better use it to communicate as well as speculate about its future use in ever-changing globalized media.

The First African Baptists Church (FABC) remains were accidentally discovered and eventually excavated during the 1980s in Philadelphia. The history and... artifacts of the church and cemetery, active from 1823 to 1850, provide a glimpse into the life of the poorest segment of Philadelphia society. Who these people were and the conditions of their lives is the focus of this book. Using census data, skeletal remains, and church documents, Dr. Rankin-Hill recreates the life of this community and compares their conditions to that of other Afro-Americans living in the United States.

Thirty years ago, biologists could get by with a rudimentary grasp of mathematics and modeling. Not so today. In seeking to answer fundamental questions... about how biological systems function and change over time, the modern biologist is as likely to rely on sophisticated mathematical and computer-based models as traditional fieldwork. In this book, Sarah Otto and Troy Day provide biology students with the tools necessary to both interpret models and to build their own.The book starts at an elementary level of mathematical modeling, assuming that the reader has had high school mathematics and first-year calculus. Otto and Day then gradually build in depth and complexity, from classic models in ecology and evolution to more intricate class-structured and probabilistic models. The authors provide primers with instructive exercises to introduce readers to the more advanced subjects of linear algebra and probability theory. Through examples, they describe how models have been used to understand such topics as the spread of HIV, chaos, the age structure of a country, speciation, and extinction.Ecologists and evolutionary biologists today need enough mathematical training to be able to assess the power and limits of biological models and to develop theories and models themselves. This innovative book will be an indispensable guide to the world of mathematical models for the next generation of biologists.A how-to guide for developing new mathematical models in biology Provides step-by-step recipes for constructing and analyzing models Interesting biological applications Explores classical models in ecology and evolution Questions at the end of every chapter Primers cover important mathematical topics Exercises with answers Appendixes summarize useful rules Labs and advanced material available

One of Canada’s most accomplished authors combines the best qualities of both the short story and the novel to create a lyrical evocation of the... beauty, pain, and wonder of growing up.In eight interconnected, finely wrought stories, Margaret Laurence recreates the world of Vanessa MacLeod – a world of scrub-oak, willow, and chokecherry bushes; of family love and conflict; and of a girl’s growing awareness of and passage into womanhood. The stories blend into one masterly and moving whole: poignant, compassionate, and profound in emotional impact.In this fourth book of the five-volume Manawaka series, Vanessa MacLeod takes her rightful place alongside the other unforgettable heroines of Manawaka: Hagar Shipley in The Stone Angel, Rachel Cameron in A Jest of God, Stacey MacAindra in The Fire-Dwellers, and Morag Gunn in The Diviners.From the Paperback edition.

Bringing forth fresh perspectives on Manet's art by established scholars, this volume places this compelling and elusive artist's painted oeuvre within... a broader cultural context, and links his artistic preoccupations with literary and musical currents. Rather than seeking consensus on his art through one methodology, or focusing on one crucial work or period, this collection investigates the range of Manet's art in the context of his time and considers how his vision has shaped subsequent interpretations. Specific essays explore the relationship between Manet and Whistler; Emile Zola's attitude toward the artist; Manet's engagement with moral and ethical questions in his paintings; and the heritage of Charles Baudelaire and Clement Greenberg in critical responses to Manet. Through these and other analyses, this volume illuminates the scope of Manet's career, and indicates the crucial position the artist held in generating a modernist avant-garde aesthetic.

This delightful book recreates the busy, colourful world of a Catholic bishop and his flock from 1590-1620. Based upon the recently discovered daybook... of Mathias Hovius, the book focuses not only on his life but also on key events and characters of the period, giving us a rare insight into the experiences of monks, nuns, pilgrims, peasants, saints, and others.

In this powerful new look at modern China, Rana Mitter goes back to a pivotal moment in Chinese history to uncover the origins of the painful transition... from pre-modern to modern. Mitter identifies May 4, 1919, as the defining moment of China's twentieth-century history. On that day, outrage over the Paris peace conference triggered a vast student protest that led in turn to "the May Fourth Movement." Just seven years before, the 2,000-year-old imperial system had collapsed. Now a new group of urban, modernizing thinkers began to reject Confucianism and traditional culture in general as hindrances in the fight against imperialism, warlordism, and the oppression of women and the poor. Forward-looking, individualistic, and embracing youth, this "New Culture movement" made a lasting impact on the critical decades that followed. Throughout each of the dramatically different eras that followed, the May 4 themes persisted, from the insanity of the Cultural Revolution to China's recent romance with space-age technology.

When Jane Gross found herself suddenly thrust into a caretaker role for her eighty-five year-old mother, she was forced to face challenges that she had... never imagined. As she and her younger brother struggled to move her mother into an assisted living facility, deal with seemingly never-ending costs, and adapt to the demands on her time and psyche, she learned valuable and important lessons. Here, the longtime New York Times expert on the subject of elderly care and the founder of the New Old Age blog shares her frustrating, heartbreaking, enlightening, and ultimately redemptive journey, providing us along the way with valuable information that she wishes she had known earlier. We learn why finding a general practitioner with a specialty in geriatrics should be your first move when relocating a parent; how to deal with Medicaid and Medicare; how to understand and provide for your own needs as a caretaker; and much more. Wise, smart, and ever-helpful, A Bittersweet Season is an essential guide to caring for aging parents.Includes chapters on the following subjects:Finding Our Better SelvesThe Myth of Assisted LivingThe Vestiges of Family MedicineThe Best Doctors Money Can BuyThe Biology, Sociology, and Psychology of AgingTherapeutic Fibs

Drawing from rich data, International Struggles for Critical Democratic Education profiles teachers, students, and schools struggling to interrupt the... reproduction of social inequalities from one generation to the next. International in its nature, the work collected here illustrates how forces of globalization create greater inequalities, and carefully describes and evaluates efforts to democratize educational opportunities. This text will be useful in undergraduate and graduate courses on diversity and multicultural education, international comparisons, educational studies, as well as graduate courses in sociology of education, critical educational studies, international comparisons, foundations of education, multicultural education, and qualitative research methods.

Drawing from rich data, International Struggles for Critical Democratic Education profiles teachers, students, and schools struggling to interrupt the... reproduction of social inequalities from one generation to the next. International in its nature, the work collected here illustrates how forces of globalization create greater inequalities, and carefully describes and evaluates efforts to democratize educational opportunities. This text will be useful in undergraduate and graduate courses on diversity and multicultural education, international comparisons, educational studies, as well as graduate courses in sociology of education, critical educational studies, international comparisons, foundations of education, multicultural education, and qualitative research methods.

In the late 1990s, two lawsuits by white applicants who had been rejected by the University of Michigan began working their way through the federal... court system, aimed at the abolition of racial preferences in college admissions. The stakes were high, the constitutional questions profound, the politics and emotions explosive. It was soon evident that the matter was headed for the highest court in the land, but there all clarity ended.To the plaintiffs and the feisty public-interest law firm that backed them, the suits were a long overdue assault on reverse discrimination. The Constitution, strictly construed, was color-blind. Discrimination under any guise was not only illegal, it was the wrong way to set history right in a nation that had been troubled and divided by the uses and misuses of race for more than two hundred years.To the University of Michigan, and to other top institutions striving to expand opportunity and create diverse, representative student bodies, it looked as if most of what had been put in place since the 1978 Bakke v. University of California decision was about to be undone. Black and Hispanic students were in danger of being once again largely shut out of the most important avenue of advancement in America, an elite education. To some, it appeared likely that racial integration was about to suffer their worst setback since the start of the civil rights movement.In A Black and White Case, veteran Supreme Court reporter Greg Stohr portrays the individual dramas and exposes the human passions that colored and propelled this momentous legal struggle. His fascinating account takes us deep inside America’s court system, where logic collides with emotion, and common sense must contend with the majesty and sometimes the seeming perversity of the law. He follows the trail from Michigan to Washington, DC, revealing how lawyers argued and strategized, how lower-court judges fought behind the scenes for control of the cases, and why the White House filed a brief in support of the white students, in opposition to a chorus of retired generals and admirals worried that the military academies would no longer reflect the face of America.Finally, Stohr details the fallout from the Supreme Court's controversial 2003 ruling that both upheld affirmative action and upended some of the methods that had been used to effect it. And he shows how colleges and universities are reshaping their affirmative action policies--an evolution closely watched by lower courts, employers, civil rights lawyers, legislators, regulators, and the public.A Black and White Case brings alive and brilliantly explains one of the most important Supreme Court decisions on the fundamental and divisive subject of race relations in America.

India, 1920: exotic, glamorous, and violent, as the country begins to resist England's colonial grip. In the midst of this turmoil, Isabel, a young... British military wife, begins a passionate liaison with Sam, an Indian doctor and Oxford graduate who insists, against all odds, on the right to be both black and British. Their secret devotion to each other takes them across India in a terrifying, deadly race against time and tradition. This powerful and erotic love story combines the themes of colonial exploitation, political and ethnic tensions, race and sexuality, and the many forms of partition, both secular and religious, that endanger our world.

In 1896, an illiterate, fifteen-year-old Afro-Cuban field hand joined the rebel army fighting for Cuba's independence. Though poor and uneducated,... Ricardo Batrell believed in the promise of Cuba Libre, the vision of a democratic and egalitarian nation that inspired the Cuban War of Independence. After the war ended in 1898, Batrell taught himself to read and write and published a memoir of his wartime experiences, Para la Historia. Originally published in 1912-the same year in which the Cuban government massacred more than 5,000 Afro-Cubans-this work of both protest and patriotism is the only autobiographical account of the war written by an Afro-Cuban soldier. After the war, Batrell became dismayed by the Cuban Republic's rapid retreat from the revolution's democratic ideals. Government corruption, racial discrimination, and the systematic exclusion of black veterans from public service had helped to reassert the racial hierarchy of colonial Cuba. With his memoir, Batrell hoped to remind Cubans about the participation of Afro-Cubans in the war (as much as 80 percent of the Cuban Liberation Army may have been Afro-Cuban) and to protest their subjugation in its aftermath. Now available for the first time in English, Batrell's powerful memoir provides profound insights into the role of race in the nation's history. Deftly rendering Batrell's forceful and energetic prose into English, Mark A. Sanders also puts forth a critical introduction that contextualizes Batrell's perspective within Cuba's colonial history and its racial politics.