Defenseless Under The Night

"As the bombs fell on Guernica and the Blitz terrorized Britons--even before Pearl Harbor--Americans watched and worried about attacks on their homeland. In May 1941, FDR established an Office of Civilian Defense to protect Americans from foreign and domestic threats. In this book, Matthew Dallek narrates the history of the Office of Civilian Defense. He uses the development of the precursor of "homeland security" as a way of examining constitutional questions about civil liberties; the role of government in propagandizing to its own citizens; competing visions among liberals and conservatives for establishing a plan to defend America; and federal, state, and local responsibilities for citizen protection. Much of the dramatic tension lies in the preparation of communities against attack and their fears of Japanese invasion along the Pacific Coast and Nazi invasion. So too there was a clash of visions between LaGuardia and Eleanor Roosevelt. The mayor argued that the OCD's focus had to be on preparing the country against German and Japanese attack, including conducting blackout drills, preparing evacuation plans, coordinating emergency medical teams, and protecting industrial plants and transportation centers. The First Lady believed the OCD should also promote social justice for African Americans and women and raise civilian morale. Their clashes frustrated FDR, who pressured them both to resign in 1942, and led to the appointment of James Landis, commissioner of the SEC, who created a semi-military operation that involved grassroots citizen mobilization, including planting Victory Gardens and building the Civil Air Patrol. It was the largest volunteer program in World War II America."--Provided by publisher.

Our Hearts Are Restless Till They Find Their Rest in Thee: Prophetic Wisdom in a Time of Anguish from Coleman B. Brown, edited by Michael Granzen and Lisa A. Masotta. The book includes powerful reflections from Chris Hedges, Peter Ochs, and Joshua Brown.

Riccards and Flagg examine in detail the development of Franklin Delano Roosevelt from a young politician in Albany to assistant secretary of the Navy to governor of the state of New York. The volume shows how Roosevelt developed his rhetorical skills, his art of manipulation and coalition building, and his incredible bond to the American people through the Depression and World War II. As commander in chief, he mastered the leadership skills that made him a great military leader and a political leader who established himself as a paramount figure using control of the Democratic party. In the process, he solidified the party as a long-lasting coalition that set the United States as a world empire.

Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.

Winner of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. Ian Buruma is fascinated, he writes, “by what makes the human species behave atrociously.” In Theater of Cruelty the acclaimed author of The Wages of Guilt and Year Zero: A History of 1945 once again turns to World War II to explore that question—to the Nazi occupation of Paris, the Allied bombing of German cities, the international controversies over Anne Frank’s diaries, Japan’s militarist intellectuals and its kamikaze pilots. One way that people respond to power and cruelty, Buruma argues, is through art, and the art that most interests him reveals the dark impulses beneath the veneer of civilized behavior. This is what draws him to German and Japanese artists such as Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Mishima Yukio, and Yokoo Tadanori, as well as to filmmakers such as Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. All were affected by fascism and its terrible consequences; all “looked into the abyss and made art of what they saw.” Whether he is writing in this wide-ranging collection about war, artists, or film—or about David Bowie’s music, R. Crumb’s drawings, the Palestinians of the West Bank, or Asian theme parks—Ian Buruma brings sympathetic historical insight and shrewd aesthetic judgment to understanding the diverse ways that people deal with violence and cruelty in life and in art. Theater of Cruelty includes eight pages of color and black & white images.

Under the guidance of the spirit Leon Denis, the spirit author Camilo Castelo Branco, using the pen name Camilo Cândido Botelho, describes to the médium Yvonne A. Pereira, his dreadful experience after having discarnated by committing suicide. The book entails invaluable instruction, demonstrating the greatness of the Divine Mercy toward repentant suicides and providing them with the opportunity to understand the universe and life in its fullest dimension. The beginnings of planet Earth, the evolution of the human being, the immortality of the soul, Christian morality, and other relevant themes are presented for the understanding that “… no attempt at moral growth will work if we remain imprisoned in self-ignorance.” A complete reading of this work shows that there is a road of reconstruction for those who repent. There is always hope because rehabilitation is possible.

The image of the hard-boiled private investigator from gritty pulp fiction, a terse and mysterious figure, has become increasingly universal as the detective novel crosses more and more borders. A booming genre in Latin America, Spain and other Hispanic cultures, detective fiction has transcended the limitations of its influences. Hispanic authors relatively new to the genre have published novels and series popular with the public, while a number of well-known writers have adapted the genre to reflect the concurrent globalization of modern society and the crimes within it. This volume presents a compilation of 11 critical essays on genero negro--contemporary detective fiction in the Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian canon. Surveying the last twenty years, the text analyzes emerging trends in this rapidly evolving genre, as well as the mutations and innovations taking place within the style. The first section of the book is dedicated to the detective fiction of Spain and Portugal. The second section surveys works from Latin America and the United States, where topics touch on universal subjects like crime, identity and feminism.

A master dog-sledder, wartime hero, and world-renowned explorer recounts the story of his life in an upbeat, plainspoken style. And what a life it is! From his expeditions to Antarctica to his World War II service to his part in rescuing downed pilots in Greenland, Vaughan, at 89, has lived--and is still living--a life of adventure.