Set in the white-hot center of racially troubled Los Angeles, the story is centered upon Esther Jackson, an African-American woman who is forced to... choose between her commitment to a white friend and the strong loyalties bound by race.

A bestseller in China, Brothers is an epic and wildly unhinged black comedy of modern Chinese society running amok. Here is China as we've never seen... it before, in a sweeping, Rabelaisian panorama of forty years of rough-and-rumble Chinese history, from the madness of the Cultural Revolution to the equally rabid madness of extreme materialism. Yu Hua, award-winning author of To Live, gives us a surreal tale of two comically mismatched stepbrothers, Baldy Li, a sex-obsessed ne'er-do-well, and the bookish, sensitive Song Gang, who vow that they will always be brothers—a bond they will struggle to maintain over the years as they weather the ups and downs of rivalry in love and making and losing millions in the new China. Both tragic and absurd by turns, Brothers is a fascinating vision of an extraordinary place and time.

A Whydunit How could he do that? Murder a brother, his sister-in-law, and his young niece and nephew as they slept in their beds? Jerry Mark was a Peace... Corps volunteer, lawyer, 4-H leader, vice-president of his Cedar Falls High School senior class, and certainly a most likely-to-succeed young man when he graduated in 1960. Sixteen years later he was convicted of four cold-blooded execution-style murders of his own family. How could he? That's what Brother's Blood explores. Author Scott Cawelti knew Jerry Mark in high school, interviewed him in prison, observed his arrest, trial, and conviction with shock and horror. Brother's Blood reveals a mind consumed with anger, revenge, jealousy, and greed. This book is not a whodunit but a whydunit. This account engages readers with the actual facts: the killer's cross-country motorcycle ride, the landmark investigation in which the murderer was fingered in ten days, the trial where circumstantial evidence was used to make a powerful case against him, and his appeals which continued for three decades.

Brothers Gonna Work It Out considers the political expression of rap artists within the historical tradition of black nationalism. Interweaving songs... and personal interviews with hip-hop artists and activists including Chuck D of Public Enemy, KRS-One, Rosa Clemente, manager of dead prez, and Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers, Cheney links late twentieth-century hip-hop nationalists with their nineteenth-century spiritual forebears.Cheney examines Black nationalism as an ideology historically inspired by a crisis of masculinity. Challenging simplistic notions of hip-hop culture as simply sexist or misogynistic, she pays particular attention to Black nationalists’ historicizing of slavery and their visualization of male empowerment through violent resistance. She charts the recent rejection of Christianity in the lyrics of rap nationalist music due to the perception that it is too conciliatory, and the increasing popularity of Black Muslim rap artists.Cheney situates rap nationalism in the 1980s and 90s within a long tradition of Black nationalist political thought which extends beyond its more obvious influences in the mid-to-late twentieth century like the Nation of Islam or the Black Power Movement, and demonstrates its power as a voice for disenfranchised and disillusioned youth all over the world.

Brothers Gonna Work It Out considers the political expression of rap artists within the historical tradition of black nationalism. Interweaving songs... and personal interviews with hip-hop artists and activists including Chuck D of Public Enemy, KRS-One, Rosa Clemente, manager of dead prez, and Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers, Cheney links late twentieth-century hip-hop nationalists with their nineteenth-century spiritual forebears.Cheney examines Black nationalism as an ideology historically inspired by a crisis of masculinity. Challenging simplistic notions of hip-hop culture as simply sexist or misogynistic, she pays particular attention to Black nationalists’ historicizing of slavery and their visualization of male empowerment through violent resistance. She charts the recent rejection of Christianity in the lyrics of rap nationalist music due to the perception that it is too conciliatory, and the increasing popularity of Black Muslim rap artists.Cheney situates rap nationalism in the 1980s and 90s within a long tradition of Black nationalist political thought which extends beyond its more obvious influences in the mid-to-late twentieth century like the Nation of Islam or the Black Power Movement, and demonstrates its power as a voice for disenfranchised and disillusioned youth all over the world.

Brothers in Clay tells the story of Georgia's rich folk pottery tradition--the historical forces that shaped it and the families and individual artisans... who continue to keep it alive. This pioneering book marked the first intensive study of a southern state's pottery heritage and the first major examination of a native Georgia art form. Drawing on interviews with practicing potters, John A. Burrison ranges widely in his coverage, providing discussions of the folk potters' contributions to Georgia life and their place in southern society; detailed explanations of turning, glazing, and firing processes; and histories of the state's eight major pottery-producing centers, including genealogies of the potting families and the distinctive characteristics of their wares.

In 1880 Dostoevsky completed The Brothers Karamazov, the literary effort for which he had been preparing all his life. Compelling, profound, complex, it... is the story of a patricide and of the four sons who each had a motive for murder: Dmitry, the sensualist, Ivan, the intellectual; Alyosha, the mystic; and twisted, cunning Smerdyakov, the bastard child. Frequently lurid, nightmarish, always brilliant, the novel plunges the reader into a sordid love triangle, a pathological obsession, and a gripping courtroom drama. But throughout the whole, Dostoevsky searhes for the truth--about man, about life, about the existence of God. A terrifying answer to man's eternal questions, this monumental work remains the crowning achievement of perhaps the finest novelist of all time.

Muslim Arab Sudanese in Cairo have played a fundamental role in Egyptian history and society during many centuries of close relations between Egypt and... Sudan. Although the government and official press describes them as "brothers" in a united Nile Valley, recent political developments in Egypt have underscored the precarious legal status of Sudanese in Cairo. Neither citizens nor foreigners, they are in an uncertain position, created in part through an unusual ethnic discourse which does not draw principally on obvious characteristics of difference. This rich ethnographic study shows instead that Sudanese ethnic identity is created from deeply held social values, especially those concerning gender and propriety, shared by Sudanese and Egyptian communities. The resulting ethnic identity is ambiguous and flexible, allowing Sudanese to voice their frustrations and make claims for their own uniqueness while acknowledging the identity that they share with the dominant Egyptian community.

Will CampbellÆs award-winning book shares two interrelated stories. One is of his youth in rural Mississippi and his devotion to his brother whose life... ended in seeming tragedy. The other tells of his ordination at age 17 and gradual realization that civil rightsùfor blacks, for women, for gays ùwas an essential part of a ministry that has not yet ended.

Based on personal accounts by birthing women and their medical attendants, Brought to Bed reveals how childbirth has changed from colonial times to the... present. Judith Walzer Leavitt's study focuses on the traditional woman-centered home-birthing practices, their replacement by male doctors, and the movement from the home to the hospital. She explains that childbearing women and their physicians gradually changed birth places because they believed the increased medicalization would make giving birth safer and more comfortable. Ironically, because of infection, infant and maternal mortality did not immediately decline. She concludes that birthing women held considerable power in determining labor and delivery events as long as childbirth remained in the home. The move to the hospital in the twentieth century gave the medical profession the upper hand. Leavitt also discusses recent events in American obstetrics that illustrate how women have attempted to retrieve some of the traditional women--and family--centered aspects of childbirth.

Though Latinos and African Americans have lived together in large cities as neighbors, there is much that is still misunderstood between them. Those who... live in non-diverse locales have only news and entertainment representations on which to base their information about the two cultures. This new collection of essays brings together the latest interdisciplinary works by scholars examining conflicts and convergences among Latinos and African Americans in mass-mediated and cross-cultural contexts. Contributions in the form of both empirical and critical ethnographic research present compelling works in cross-cultural relations, news, entertainment, news media, education, and community relations.^IBrown and Black Communication^R challenges those who do not think that significant projects and key research have been conducted on the two largest ethnic communities in the United States. Of certain appeal to both scholars and those with more applied needs in media, education, and public policy, this challenging collection offers a range of perspectives on two widely diverse bodies of American people.