The Last Stage Out

It was such a peaceful town, but she had heard of the land disputes out here, all the way back to Philly. She also knew something that they didnt. She knew the railroad was going to go through the town and that the railroad had men they were sending ahead to buy up the property needed for the railroad. These men, without the railroads consent, would act like settlers or ranchers out looking for property to buy without letting anyone know why. These men were ruthless persuaders. They made their offer only once and youd better take it. She came out here to help the ranchers and farmers. She also knew there was one big rancher out here who had a 20 or 30 thousand acre spread that stood to lose the most, if these men got to him first. She knew he wasnt about to agree; he didnt get all that land by being pushed around. She had to find him first and fast. She also had a feeling the storm didnt have anything to do with the fire last night. It was just a way to cover up what really happened. Only now she had to find a way to prove it.

Screening Auschwitz examines the classic Polish Holocaust film The Last Stage (Ostatni etap), directed by the Auschwitz survivor Wanda Jakubowska (1907–1998). Released in 1948, The Last Stage was a pioneering work and the first narrative film to portray the Nazi concentration and extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Marek Haltof’s fascinating book offers English-speaking readers a wealth of new materials, mostly from original Polish sources obtained through extensive archival research. With its powerful dramatization of the camp experience, The Last Stage established several quasi-documentary themes easily discernible in later film narratives of the Shoah: dark, realistic images of the camp, a passionate moral appeal, and clear divisions between victims and perpetrators. Jakubowska’s film introduced images that are now archetypal—for example, morning and evening roll calls on the Appelplatz, the arrival of transport trains at Birkenau, the separation of families upon arrival, and tracking shots over the belongings left behind by those who were gassed. These and other images are taken up by a number of subsequent American films, including George Stevens’s The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Alan Pakula’s Sophie’s Choice (1982), and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (1993). Haltof discusses the unusual circumstances that surrounded the film's production on location at Auschwitz-Birkenau and summarizes critical debates surrounding the film’s release. The book offers much of interest to film historians and readers interested in the Holocaust.

This book is about theory, practice, and reform in working with youth who are at-risk in our schools. The book addresses several important topics, including: Problems of definition of at-risk and measurement; social, political and health aspects of being at-risk; theories of at-risk status including coping competence, agency intrinsic motivation and cultivation theory; the voices of those who are at-risk; groups that are often ignored when discussing at-risk youth, Native Americans and Appalachians; necessary changes such as prevention, early intervention, and a critical look at assessment practices and grades; a look at the role of higher education.

A master practitioner’s view of his craft, this classic survey of the fiction of the American West is part literary history, part criticism, and entertaining throughout. The first edition of The Wister Trace was published in 1987, when Larry McMurtry had just reinvented himself as a writer of Westerns and Cormac McCarthy’s career had not yet taken off. Loren D. Estleman’s long-overdue update connects these new masters with older writers, assesses the genre’s past, present, and future, and takes account of the renaissance of western movies, as well. Estleman’s title indicates the importance he assigns Owen Wister’s 1902 classic, The Virginian. Wister was not the first writer of Westerns, but he defined the genre, contrasting chivalry with the lawlessness of the border and introducing such lines as “When you call me that, smile!” Estleman tips his hat to Wister’s predecessors, among them Ned Buntline, the inventor of the dime novel, and Buffalo Bill. His assessments of Wister’s successors—Zane Grey, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, and Louis L’Amour, to name but three—soon make clear the impossibility of differentiating great western writing from great American writing. Especially important in this new edition is the attention to women writers. The author devotes a chapter each to Dorothy Johnson—author of “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”—and Annie Proulx, whose Wyoming stories include “Brokeback Mountain.” In his discussion of movies, Estleman includes a list of film adaptations that will guide readers to movies, and moviegoers to books. An appendix draws readers’ attention to authors not covered elsewhere in the volume—some of them old masters like Bret Harte and Jack London, but many of them fascinating outliers ranging from Clifford Irving to Joe R. Lansdale.