Did the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States signal real progress in bridging America's long-standing racial divide? In this... profound study of systemic racism, Molefi Kete Asante, a leading scholar of African American history and culture, discusses the greatest source of frustration and anger among African Americans in recent decades: what he calls "the wall of ignorance" that attempts to hide the long history of racial injustice from public consciousness. This is most evident in each race's differing perspectives on racial matters. Though most whites view racism as a thing of the past, a social problem largely solved by the civil rights movement, blacks continue to experience racism in many areas of social life: encounters with the police; the practice of redlining in housing; difficulties in getting bank loans, mortgages, and insurance policies; and glaring disparities in health care, educational opportunities, unemployment levels, and incarceration rates. Though such problems are not expressions of the overt racism of legal segregation and lynch mobs - what most whites probably think of when they hear the word 'racism' - their negative effect on black Americans is almost as pernicious. Such daily experiences create a lingering feeling of resentment that percolates in a slow boil till some event triggers an outburst of rage. Asante argues that America cannot long continue as a cohesive society under these conditions. As we embark upon new leadership under America's first African American president, he urges more public focus on redressing the wrongs of the past and their continuing legacy. Above all, he thinks that Americans must seriously consider some system of reparations to deal with both past and present injustices, an apology, and our own truth-and-reconciliation committee that addresses both the history of slavery and present-day racism. Only in this way, he feels, can we ever hope to heal the racial divide that never seems to be erased. This is a powerful, deeply perceptive analysis of a crucial social problem by one of America's leading thinkers on race.

In this very readable biography, a noted scholar traces Erasmus's youth, his years as an itinerant scholar, sojourns in England, France, Switzerland,... and Italy, friendship with Sir Thomas More, and disputes with Martin Luther. The author also probes Erasmus's mind and character and discusses his writings.

The University of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization (nine volumes) makes available to students and teachers a unique selection of primary... documents, many in new translations. These readings, prepared for the highly praised Western civilization sequence at the University of Chicago, were chosen by an outstanding group of scholars whose experience teaching that course spans almost four decades. Each volume includes rarely anthologized selections as well as standard, more familiar texts; a bibliography of recommended parallel readings; and introductions providing background for the selections. Beginning with Periclean Athens and concluding with twentieth-century Europe, these source materials enable teachers and students to explore a variety of critical approaches to important events and themes in Western history.Individual volumes provide essential background reading for courses covering specific eras and periods. The complete nine-volume series is ideal for general courses in history and Western civilization sequences.

This is a new student edition of Erasmus' crucial treatise on political theory and also contains a new, excerpted translation from his Panegyric. The... Education of a Christian Prince is one of the most important "advice-to-princes" texts published in the Renaissance and was dedicated to Charles V. It is a strongly pacifist work in which Erasmus sought to ensure that the prince governed justly and benevolently. This edition also includes an original introduction, a chronology of the life and work of Erasmus, and a comprehensive guide to further reading.

Hailed by the New York Times as "both a treatise and a romp," a bold and brilliant novel of a man coming to terms with himself.Now in paperback, this... provocative tale within a tale details the life of avant-garde novelist and college professor Thelonious "Monk" Ellison. Monk, frustrated with his dismal book sales, composes a fierce parody of exploitative ghetto literature entitled My Pafology, which is greeted by critics as the work of a great new voice and garners him the success that he covets. Monk's impending struggle with his moral principles emerges as a revolutionary and riotous indictment of race and publishing in America.

Percival Everett’s blistering satire about race and writing, available again in paperbackThelonious "Monk" Ellison’s writing career has bottomed... out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Meanwhile, Monk struggles with real family tragedies—his aged mother is fast succumbing to Alzheimer’s, and he still grapples with the reverberations of his father’s suicide seven years before. In his rage and despair, Monk dashes off a novel meant to be an indictment of Juanita Mae Jenkins’s bestseller. He doesn’t intend for My Pafology to be published, let alone taken seriously, but it is—under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh—and soon it becomes the Next Big Thing. How Monk deals with the personal and professional fallout galvanizes this audacious, hysterical, and quietly devastating novel.

Hartmann von Aue's »Erec« is the first Arthurian romance in German and a central work of classical Middle High German literature. The present edition... provides a thoroughly revised critical version of the text. The annex supplies a print version of the Middle High German »Erec« fragments discovered in 1978 and 2003, which independently of the familiar complete version relate back directly to Chrètien de Troyes' »Erec et Enide«.

Erec and Enide marks the birth of the Arthurian romance as a literary genre. Written circa 1170, this version of the Griselda legend tells the story of... the marriage of Erec, a handsome and courageous Welsh prince and knight of the Round Table, and Enide, an impoverished noblewoman. When the lovers become estranged because Erec neglects his knightly obligations, they subsequently ride off together on a series of adventures that culminate in their reconciliation and the liberation of a captive knight in an enchanted orchard.An innovative poet working during a time of great literary creativity, Chrétien de Troyes wrote poems that had a lively pace, skillful structure, and vivid descriptive detail. Ruth Harwood Cline re-creates for modern audiences his irony, humor, and charm, while retaining the style and substance of the original octosyllabic couplets. Her thorough introduction includes discussions of courtly love and the Arthurian legend in history and literature, as well as a new and provocative theory about the identity of Chrétien de Troyes. This clearly presented translation, faithful in preserving the subtle expressive qualities of the original work, is accessible reading for any Arthurian legend aficionado and an ideal text for students of medieval literature.

Erec and Enide, the first of five surviving Arthurian romantic poems by twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes, narrates a vivid chapter from... the legend of King Arthur. Chrétien's romances became the source for Arthurian tradition and influenced countless other poets in England and on the Continent. Yet his swift-moving style is difficult to capture in translation, and today's English-speaking audiences remain largely unfamiliar with the pleasures of reading his poems. Now an experienced translator of medieval verse who is himself a poet has translated Eric and Enide in an original three-stress metric verse form that fully captures the movement, the sense, and the spirit of the Old French original. Burton Raffel's rendition preserves the subtlety and charm of a poem that is in turn serious, dramatic, bawdy, merry, and satiric. Erec and Enide tells the story of Erec, a knight at King Arthur's court, whose retirement to domestic bliss with his beautiful new wife Enide takes him away from his chivalric duties. To regain his knightly honor, Erec sets out with Enide on a series of amazing adventures. Eric dispatches thieves and giants with prodigious strength and valor but treats his wife rather harshly for doubting his abilities. When Enide is kidnapped by a robber baron, Erec revives from near-death to perform a courageous rescue, and at length the two are reconciled.

In 2004, Michael Burawoy, speaking as president of the American Sociological Association, generated far-reaching controversy when he issued an ambitious... and impassioned call for a "public sociology." Burawoy argued that sociology should speak beyond the university, engaging with social movements and deepening an understanding of the historical and social context in which they exist. In this volume, renowned sociologists come together to debate the perils and the potentials of Burawoy's challenge.Contributors: Andrew Abbott, Michael Burawoy, Patricia Hill Collins, Barbara Ehrenreich, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Sharon Hays, Douglas Massey, Joya Misra, Orlando Patterson, Frances Fox Piven, Lynn Smith-Lovin, Judith Stacey, Arthur Stinchcombe, Alain Touraine, Immanuel Wallerstein, William Julius Wilson, Robert Zussman

Are You My Mother? is a classic for beginning readers.  A baby bird has hatched while its mother was away. Fallen from his nest, he sets out to find... her and asks everyone he meets--a dog, a cow, a plane and more--"Are you my mother?" Children adore the little bird and are thrilled with the happy ending.--------Un pequeño pajarito ha salido del huevo mientras su madre no está. Se cae del nido y sale a buscarla, preguntando a todo al que se encuentra--a un perro, una vaca, un aeroplano y a algunos más. --"¿Eres mi madre?" Los niños adoran al pajarito y disfrutan enormemente el final feliz. ¿Eres mi madre? Es un clásico para los que comienzan a leer.