Noble Betrayal

Jack Noble is on a plane, heading across the Atlantic to perform one last job. A favor for an old friend, he tells himself. Anything to put off an early retirement for a few weeks longer.Shortly after setting foot in London, Jack discovers that not all is what it seems. His presence did not go unnoticed by Great Britain's intelligence community. Worse, he finds that he's not the only one after his target. And those same people are after him. Jack refuses to quit until he's uncovered the mastermind of a consipiracy that reaches the top of Britain's government.USA Today bestselling author L.T. Ryan's Noble Intentions Season Three is a gripping and suspenseful action thriller sure to keep you turning pages until the last sentence.Fans of Tom Clancy, Lee Child's Jack Reacher, Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp, and Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne will enjoy the Jack Noble series.

Book #1 of the INFIDELITY series

Houston A. Baker Jr. condemns those black intellectuals who, he believes, have turned their backs on the tradition of racial activism in America. These individuals choose personal gain over the interests of the black majority, whether they are espousing neoconservative positions that distort the contours of contemporary social and political dynamics or abandoning race as an important issue in the study of American literature and culture. Most important, they do a disservice to the legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King Jr., and others who have fought for black rights. In the literature, speeches, and academic and public behavior of some black intellectuals in the past quarter century, Baker identifies a "hungry generation" eager for power, respect, and money. Baker critiques his own impoverished childhood in the "Little Africa" section of Louisville, Kentucky, to understand the shaping of this new public figure. He also revisits classical sites of African American literary and historical criticism and critique. Baker devotes chapters to the writing and thought of such black academic superstars as Cornel West, Michael Eric Dyson, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.; Hoover Institution senior fellow Shelby Steele; Yale law professor Stephen Carter; and Manhattan Institute fellow John McWhorter. His provocative investigation into their disingenuous posturing exposes what Baker deems a tragic betrayal of King's legacy. Baker concludes with a discussion of American myth and the role of the U.S. prison-industrial complex in the "disappearing" of blacks. Baker claims King would have criticized these black intellectuals for not persistently raising their voices against a private prison system that incarcerates so many men and women of color. To remedy this situation, Baker urges black intellectuals to forge both sacred and secular connections with local communities and rededicate themselves to social responsibility. As he sees it, the mission of the black intellectual today is not to do great things but to do specific, racially based work that is in the interest of the black majority.

“[A] landmark work . . . which showed how literary evaluation draws authority from the institutions—principally universities—within which it is practiced.” —The New Yorker Winner of the René Wellek Prize of the American Comparative Literature Association John Guillory challenges the most fundamental premises of the canon debate by resituating the problem of canon formation in an entirely new theoretical framework. The result is a book that promises to recast not only the debate about the literary curriculum but also the controversy over “multiculturalism” and the current “crisis of the humanities.” Employing concepts drawn from Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, Guillory argues that canon formation must be understood less as a question of the representation of social groups than as a question of the distribution of “cultural capital” in the schools, which regulate access to literacy, to the practices of reading and writing. “A brilliant analysis of a debate that has come to define our cultural moment. Ceding nothing to sentiment, Guillory has written an intellectually severe and uncompromising study that will leave few of our comfortable commonplaces quite intact. This is, in short, a landmark work; one that will outrage and inform in equal measure.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “This is the very best account I’ve read of how and why literary canons are formed and what can be gained from an understanding of the process of formation. Guillory’s analysis is highly sophisticated, his learning prodigious, and his judgment excellent. Cultural Capital is a major study in every way and will be discussed for years to come.” —Marjorie Perloff