culture

Softcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, reprint, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 436 pages, b&w illustrations. Eighteenth-century women have long been presented as the heroines of traditional biographies, or as the faceless victims of vast historical processes, but rarely have they been deemed worthy of historical inquiry. "The Gentleman's Daughter" provides an account of the lives of genteel women - the daughters of merchants, the wives of lawyers and the sisters of gentlemen. Based on a study of the letters, diaries and account books of over 100 women from commercial, professional and gentry families, mainly in provincial England, "The Gentleman's Daughter" challenges the view that the period witnessed a new division of the everyday worlds of privileged men and women into the separate spheres of home and work. Amanda Vickery invokes the women's own accounts of their lives to argue that in the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries the scope of female experience did not diminish - in fact, quite the reverse. Contrary to orthodoxy, in the 18th century there was neither a loss of female freedoms, nor a novel retreat into the home. In their own writing, genteel women throughout the Georgian era singled out their social and their emotional roles: kinswoman, wife, mother, housekeeper, consumer, hostess and member of polite society. Clean copy.

Softcover. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 248 pages. Name on front fly leaf whited out, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st pbk, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, yellow wrappers, 258 pages. Examines the unique religious brotherhoods of Morocco, tracing their origins to two saints from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Sidi Ali ben Hamdush and Sidi Ahmed Dghughi. Known for their dramatic and sometimes controversial rituals, such as trance dances and acts of self-mutilation, the Hamadsha are healers who address spiritual and psychogenic ailments through symbolic and therapeutic practices. Their activities, deeply rooted in the Moroccan cult of saints, reflect a complex interplay of Islamic mysticism, local traditions, and social dynamics. Through these rituals, the Hamadsha incorporate patients into their brotherhoods, providing them with new roles and a symbolic framework to articulate and resolve personal and societal tensions. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, historical analysis, and psychoanalytic perspectives, this study explores the Hamadsha's history, their organizational structure, and their relationship with Moroccan culture and religion. It examines the saints' tombs as focal points of veneration, the social dynamics of the brotherhoods, and their therapeutic methods, including pilgrimages and trance dances. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, William Morrow, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light gray boards with a blue cloth spine, 268 pages. The author's passionate concern for Africa and for the human spirit is evident in this portrait of the "First People" of southern Africa, the Bushmen. Van der Post describes his desert travels, the splendid landscape and wildlife, and his encounters with the Bushman, an elusive culture. Drawings by Maurice Wilson. SIGNED BY VAN DER POST on the front fly leaf. No dust jacket, Clean copy.

Berkeley, University of California Press, 1st, 1988, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, in a dust jacket with light fade to edges, 322 pages, b&w illustrations. For the Foi people who live on the edge of the central highlands of Papua New Guinea, the flow of pearl shells is the "heart" of their social life. The pearl shell is the exchange item that mediates the creation of their most important sexual and social roles. The Heart of the Pearl Shell analyzes a number of myths of the Foi people, elegantly bringing together significant ethnographic materials in a way that has important implications for the development of social theory in anthropology and in Melanesian studies. Scholars of semiotic-symbolic anthropology and of comparative religion will also share the author's interest in the meaning and role of mythology in Foi culture. Instead of relying on orthodox methods of Freudian or structuralist interpretation, James Weiner assumes there is a dialectical relationship between the images of Foi myth and the images of the Foi's social world. He demonstrates how each set of these images is dependent upon the other for its creation. This innovative study locates Foi social meaning in the re-creation and attempted solution of the moral dilemmas that are crystallized in mythology and other poetic usages.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 373 pages. Color and b&w photographs. Water stain on back cover. Dust jacket has some small tears. A pictorial record, with accompanying text, of German society, culture, and politics, from the Weimar Republic to Hitler's last public appearence, detailing the rise of Nazism and Hitler's public and private lives.

Softcover. Athens, Greek Ministry of Culture, 1st, 1987, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 183 pages. Richly illustrated catalog for an exhibition in Washington on art from the Geometric, Orientalizing and Archaic periods. With a preface by Melina Mercouri. The chapters are: life in early Greece; the alphabet of history; the art of the Greek dark ages; geometric art; chart of vase shapes; vase painting; terracottas; bronzes; sculpture in stone. Clean copy.

Softcover. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 277 pages. Starting in the 1980s, anti-immigrant discourse shifted away from the "color" of immigrants to their religion and culture. It focused in particular on newcomers from Muslim countries--people feared both as terrorists and as products of tribal societies with values opposed to those of secular Western Europe. Leo Lucassen tackles the question of whether the integration process of these recent immigrants will fundamentally differ in the long run (over multiple generations) from the experiences of similar immigrant groups in the past. For comparison, Lucassen focuses on "large and problematic groups" from Western Europe's past (the Irish in the United Kingdom, the Poles in Germany, and the Italians in France) and demonstrates a number of structural similarities in the way migrants and their descendants integrated into these nation states. Lucassen emphasizes that the geographic sources of the "threat" have changed and that contemporaries tend to overemphasize the threat of each successive wave of immigrants, in part because the successfully incorporated immigrants of the past have become invisible in national histories. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, American Italian Historical Association, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 244 pages, 35th Conference of the American Italian Historical Association . "'Italian Americans and World War II, ' explores many facets of the dynamic period of the 1940s and the consequences of war and peace. Scholars within AIHA and outside the academy have been slow to recognize the significance of World War II, now recognized as a seminal event in Italian-American life and culture. . . . "This volume is dedicated to all Italian Americans who lived and died, fought and prayed during World War II." Clean copy.

Hardcover. Damiani, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial boards. 168 pages, color photos. From 1989 to 1993, New York fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi granted the British photographer Nick Waplington rare backstage access to photograph every detail of the designer's fitting sessions in the weeks before his twice-yearly fashion shows. Combining Waplington's gritty verite style with Mizrahi's haute couture sensibilities, the resulting images offer a candid glimpse into the world of fashion when supermodels including Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell reigned supreme. At the same time, Waplington set out to document the wildly creative nightlife of the '90s "club kid" culture in New York, juxtaposing his images of uptown style with downtown looks and taking pictures at some of the city's most infamous clubs, such as the Pyramid Club and Save the Robots. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Damiani, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in pictorial boards. 168 pages, color photos. From 1989 to 1993, New York fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi granted the British photographer Nick Waplington rare backstage access to photograph every detail of the designer's fitting sessions in the weeks before his twice-yearly fashion shows. Combining Waplington's gritty verite style with Mizrahi's haute couture sensibilities, the resulting images offer a candid glimpse into the world of fashion when supermodels including Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell reigned supreme. At the same time, Waplington set out to document the wildly creative nightlife of the '90s "club kid" culture in New York, juxtaposing his images of uptown style with downtown looks and taking pictures at some of the city's most infamous clubs, such as the Pyramid Club and Save the Robots. Clean copy in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Hardcover. Pinceton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 315 pages. The Western ideal of individualism had a pervasive influence on the culture of the Meiji period in Japan (1868-1912). Janet Walker argues that this ideal also had an important influence on the development of the modern Japanese novel. Focusing on the work of four late Meiji writers, she analyzes their contribution to the development of a type of novel whose aim was the depiction of the modern Japanese individual. Professor Walker suggests that Meiji novels of the individual provided their readers with mirrors in which to confront their new-found sense of individuality. Her treatment of these novels as confessions allows her to discuss the development of modern Japanese literature and "the modern literary self" both in themselves and as they compare their prototypes and analogues in European literature. The author begins by examining the evolution of a literary concept of the inner self in Futabatei Shimei's novel Ukigumo (The Floating Clouds), Kitamura Tokoku's essays on the inner life, and Tayama Katai's I-novel Futon (The Quilt). She devotes the second half of her book to Shimazaki Toson, the Meiji novelist who was most influenced by the ideal of individualism. Here she traces Toson's development of a personal ideal of selfhood and analyzes in detail two examples of the lengthy confessional novel form that he created as a vehicle for its expression.

Hardcover. NY, James Pott & Co., 1st, 1905, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with bright gilt design to cover, gilt lettering on spine, 127 pages. Introduction by George Meredith. Bookplate/name on inside front cover. Otherwise a clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Ontario CA, Hanover Square Press, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Uncovers the life and work of Milicent Patrick--one of Disney's first female animators and the only woman in history to create one of Hollywood's classic movie monsters As a teenager, Mallory O'Meara was thrilled to discover that one of her favorite movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon , featured a monster designed by a woman, Milicent Patrick. But for someone who should have been hailed as a pioneer in the genre, there was little information available. For, as O'Meara soon discovered, Patrick's contribution had been claimed by a jealous male colleague, her career had been cut short and she soon after had disappeared from film history. No one even knew if she was still alive. As a young woman working in the horror film industry, O'Meara set out to right the wrong, and in the process discovered the full, fascinating story of an ambitious, artistic woman ahead of her time. Patrick's contribution to special effects proved to be just the latest chapter in a remarkable, unconventional life, from her youth growing up in the shadow of Hearst Castle, to her career as one of Disney's first female animators. And at last, O'Meara discovered what really had happened to Patrick after The Creature's success, and where she went. A true-life detective story and a celebration of a forgotten feminist trailblazer, Mallory O'Meara's The Lady from the Black Lagoon establishes Patrick in her rightful place in film history while calling out a Hollywood culture where little has changed since.

Softcover. London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1st, 1954, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 113 pages, + 4 plates + folding map + folding genealogical chart. Page dimensions: 335 x 209 mm. "At the end of every festival, there is a period lasting usually until after the fourth night following it, when no one not already in the village is allowed to enter it." Covers worn, chipped, crease to top third of pages where it was once folded. Previous owner's name on cover.

Hardcover. NY, Nelson Doubleday, BC Ed., 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 215 pages. A solid collection of seventeen short stories and one novelette tackling serious themes such as PSTD, drug culture, anti-war movements, the clash of ideologies, mechanization, etc. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean and tight.

Hardcover. Boston , Little Brown, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 368 pages. On a volcanic island in the Savu Sea so remote that other Indonesians call it "The Land Left Behind" live the Lamalerans: a tribe of 1,500 hunter-gatherers who are the world's last subsistence whalers. They have survived for half a millennium by hunting whales with bamboo harpoons and handmade wooden boats powered by sails of woven palm fronds. But now, under assault from the rapacious forces of the modern era and a global economy, their way of life teeters on the brink of collapse. Award-winning journalist Doug Bock Clark, one of a handful of Westerners who speak the Lamaleran language, lived with the tribe across three years, and he brings their world and their people to vivid life in this gripping story of a vanishing culture. Jon, an orphaned apprentice whaler, toils to earn his harpoon and provide for his ailing grandparents, while Ika, his indomitable younger sister, is eager to forge a life unconstrained by tradition, and to realize a star-crossed love. Frans, an aging shaman, tries to unite the tribe in order to undo a deadly curse. And Ignatius, a legendary harpooner entering retirement, labors to hand down the Ways of the Ancestors to his son, Ben, who would secretly rather become a DJ in the distant tourist mecca of Bali.

Hardcover. Athens GA, University of Georgia Press, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. Set in the 1950s and 1960s, The Line of the Sun moves from a rural Puerto Rican village to a tough immigrant housing project in New Jersey, telling the story of a Hispanic family's struggle to become part of a new culture without relinquishing the old. At the story's center is Guzman, an almost mythic figure whose adventures and exile, salvation and return leave him a broken man but preserve his place in the heart and imagination of his niece, who is his secret biographer. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page and INSCRIBED on half-title. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1st, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 64 pages. Yarbrough weaves a beautiful story in picture-book format about the role of music in the lives of Africans and shows how it was transformed on American and Caribbean soil. The tale revolves around a "Roots of Rhythm and Blues" concert attended by a sister and brother and their parents, great grandmother, and elderly neighbor. At the park, the father tells his children about slavery and the "culture baggage" the slaves carried with them from Africa. With a compelling delivery that echoes the rhythmic chanting of the griot, the man speaks about concepts such as spirit power and the tree of life that at first are hard for his young son to grasp. The performance begins with a song of praise for the strength and endurance of a transplanted people. By the end, the youngsters understand more about their heritage and the role spirituals played and continue to play in it. Geter's pencil-and-charcoal illustrations are richly imaginative, evoking images of Africa, slavery, roots, and soaring trees. Clean copy.

Softcover. Cambridge University Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 485 pages, b&w illustrations. By analytically de-coupling war and violence, this book explores the causes and dynamics of violence in civil war. Against the prevailing view that such violence is an instance of impenetrable madness, the book demonstrates that there is logic to it and that it has much less to do with collective emotions, ideologies, and cultures than currently believed. Kalyvas specifies a novel theory of selective violence: it is jointly produced by political actors seeking information and individual civilians trying to avoid the worst but also grabbing what opportunities their predicament affords them. Violence, he finds, is never a simple reflection of the optimal strategy of its users; its profoundly interactive character defeats simple maximization logics while producing surprising outcomes, such as relative nonviolence in the 'frontlines' of civil war. Clean copy.

Softcover. Baltimore MD, Johns Hopkins University, 1st pbk., 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 210 pages. Historian and literary scholar Christopher Celenza argues that serious interest in the intellectual life of Renaissance Italy can be reinvigorate, and the nature of the Renaissance itself re-accessed, by recovering a major part of its intellectual and cultural activity that has been largely ignored since the Renaissance was first "discovered": the vast body of works-literary, philosophical, poetic, and religious-written in Latin. Produced between the mid-fourteenth and the early sixteenth centuries by major figures such as Leonardo Bruni, Lorenzo Valla, Marsilio Ficino, and Leon Battista Alberti, as well as minor but interesting thinkers like Lapo da Castiglionchio the Younger, this literature was initially overlooked by scholars of the Renaissance because they were not written in the vernacular Italian which alone was seen as was the supreme expression of a culture. Clean copy.

Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, reprint, 1987, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 242 pages. Scholars have only recently discovered that the human body itself has a history. Not only has it been perceived, interpreted, and represented differently in different epochs, but it has also been lived differently, brought into being within widely dissimilar material cultures, subjected to various technologies and means of control, and incorporated into different rhythms of production and consumption, pleasure and pain. The eight articles in this volume support, supplement, and explore the significance of these insights. They belong to a new historical endeavor that derives partly from the crossing of historical with anthropological investigations, partly from social historians' deepening interest in culture, partly from the thematization of the body in modern philosophy (especially phenomenology), and partly from the emphasis on gender, sexuality, and women's history that large numbers of feminist scholars have brought to all disciplines. Lightly worn copy, clean, solid binding.

Hardcover. NY, W. W. Norton , 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. After the Second World War, a newly affluent United States reached for its own gourmet culture, one at ease with the French international style of Escoffier, but also distinctly American. Enter James Beard, authority on cooking and eating, his larger-than-life presence and collection of whimsical bow ties were synonymous with the nation's food for decades, even after his death in 1985. In the first biography of Beard in twenty-five years, acclaimed writer John Birdsall argues that Beard's struggles as a closeted gay man directly influenced his creation of an American cuisine. Starting in the 1920s, Beard escaped loneliness and banishment by travelling abroad to places where people ate for pleasure, not utility, and found acceptance at home by crafting an American ethos of food likewise built on passion and delight. Informed by never-before-tapped correspondence and lush with details of a golden age of home cooking, The Man Who Ate Too Much is a commanding portrait of a towering figure who still represents the best in food. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Taschen, reprint, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 396 pages. It was an age of mighty heroes, misunderstood monsters, and complex villains. With the publication, in November 1961, of Fantastic Four No. 1, comics giant Marvel inaugurated a transformative era in pop culture. Through the next two decades, the iconic Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, and the X-Men leapt, darted, and towered through its pages. Captain America was resurrected from his 1940s deep-freeze and the Avengers became the World's Greatest Super Heroes. Daredevil, Doctor Strange, and dozens more were added to the pantheon, each with their own rogues' gallery of malevolent counterparts. Over 50 years later, these thrilling characters from the '60s and '70s are more popular than ever, fighting the good fight in comics, toy aisles, and blockbuster movies around the world.In The Marvel Age of Comics 1961-1978, legendary writer and editor Roy Thomas takes you to the heart of this seminal segment in comic history-an age of triumphant character and narrative innovation that reinvented the super hero genre. With hundreds of images and insider insights, the book traces the birth of champions who were at once epic in their powers and adversaries and grounded in a world that readers recognized as close to their own; relatable heroes with the same problems, struggles, and shortcomings as everyone else. By the '70s, we see how the House of Ideas also elevated horror, sword and sorcery, and martial arts in its stable of titanic demigods, introducing iconic characters like Man-Thing, Conan, and Shang-Chi and proving that their brand of storytelling could succeed and flourish outside of the capes and tights. Clean, like new copy.