We Re Here Because We Re Here

A step-and-ex chronicle about growing up in Los Angeles, California, during the tumultuous transition from the placid fifties to the raucous sixties, with the omnipresence of Disneyland and Hollywood making personal memories feel like remembering a ride or a movie. Popular songs from the radio, show tunes and ballads create an inadvertent soundtrack to a sometimes troubling and often quirky coming-of-age story.

What are the origins of the hostile environment for immigrants in Britain? Drawing on new archival material from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ian Sanjay Patel retells Britain’s recent history in an often shocking account of state racism that still resonates today. In a series of post-war immigration laws, Britain’s colonial and Commonwealth citizens from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa were renamed immigrants. In the late 1960s, British officials drew upon an imperial vision of the world to contain what it saw as a vast immigration ‘crisis’ involving British citizens, passing legislation to block their entry. As a result, British citizenship itself was redefined along racial lines, fatally compromising the Commonwealth and exposing the limits of Britain’s influence in world politics. Combining voices of so-called immigrants trying to make a home in Britain and the politicians, diplomats and commentators who were rethinking the nation, Ian Sanjay Patel excavates the reasons why Britain failed to create a post-imperial national identity. The reactions of the British state to post-war immigration reflected the shift in world politics from empires to decolonization. Despite a new international recognition of racial equality, Britain’s colonial and Commonwealth citizens were subject to a new regime of immigration control based on race. From the Windrush generation who came to Britain from the Caribbean to the South Asians who were forced to migrate from East Africa, Britain was caught between attempting both to restrict the rights of its non-white colonial and Commonwealth citizens and redefine its imperial role in the world. Despite Britain’s desire to join Europe, which eventually occurred in 1973, its post-imperial moment never arrived, subject to endless deferral and reinvention.

One year ago, 'We're here because we're here' left a lasting impression on millions of people in the UK. A new book about the event is being released that records that remarkable day and details how it was produced by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller, the National Theatre's Director, Rufus Norris and 14-18 NOW - the UK's arts programme for the First World War centenary. It was an event that reached 30 million people and humanised the great loss of life at the Battle of the Somme. 'We're here because we're here' saw some 1500 voluntary participants dressed in First World War uniform appear unexpectedly in locations across the UK. The project broke new ground in terms of its scale, breadth, reach and the number of partners and participants involved. The book includes over 100 colour photographs which show the soldiers in a number of everyday scenarios, and some more extraordinary - including waiting in train stations, engaging with drivers at a Salisbury roundabout and walking up Mount Snowdon. Many of the images show the public's interaction with the soldiers and their subsequent reactions to the event which left many people overwhelmed. The book includes sketches and notes from Jeremy Deller's notebook and a map of locations. The book also features an interview between Jeremy Deller and Jon Snow of Channel 4 News and more details about how the event was created and implemented on such a huge scale. 'We're here because we're here' was one of the largest arts participation projects ever staged in the UK, with hundreds of additional volunteers working behind the scenes. Jeremy Deller's new book acts as a superb record of this remarkable event.

From the contents:00I. Participatory art now01. The normalisation of participatory art 0II. What is participatory art?02. Concepts03. Defnitions04. The intentions of participatory art 05. The art of participatory art 06. The ethics of participatory art 0III. Where does participatory art come from?07. Making history 08. Deep roots 09. Community art and the cultural revolution (1968 to 1988) 010. Participatory art and appropriation (1988 to 2008).

After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, a professor shares the lessons he's learned—about living in the present, building a legacy, and taking full advantage of the time you have—in this life-changing classic. "We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand." —Randy Pausch A lot of professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture." Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can't help but mull over the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn't have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams"—wasn't about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because "time is all you have . . . and you may find one day that you have less than you think"). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living. In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

In the third chapter of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the author, Edward Gibbon, stated, "History is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." Moreover, lines in the poem, Know Then Thyself, written some fifty years before Gibbon's essays, expressed Alexander Pope's perplexity about Mankind: Created half to rise, and half to fall: Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world! Why? Why is Gibbon's denunciation and Pope's perplexity justifiably directed at a species capable of producing the wonders of Stonehenge; the Pyramids; the great cities of the Tigris-Euphrates; the Great Wall of China; the glories of Ancient Greece and Rome; of the Alhambra and the Taj Mahal; the artistry of the Sistine Chapel; invent the miracle of flight and the marvel of radio and television; and land a craft with its crew on the moon and bring them back again. The list could go on and on - along with the dismal record and its perplexity. This book grapples with the "Why" of it all. It delves into the ancient wisdoms along with the various social, neurological and psychological sciences to search for an answer. Its writing is impelled by the urgent need to, at least, attempt an answer, and, with it, an understanding that can explain why Gibbon's observation and Pope's perplexity is as applicable now as it ever was. Virtually all we can now see happening around us is, in effect, this period's contribution to the dismal record and of being "in endless error hurl'd." To use again the wisdom of Alexander Pope: Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of mankind is Man The book is directed by this belief and how its implications properly applied can contribute to recognizing what justified Pope's observation and Edward Gibbon's condemnation. Perhaps this "proper study" is an obligation in which we should all be involved? What greater reason can there be for writing this book and offering it for reading.

When a young lady from a land boom syndicate tries to enlist Andy Green's help in scheme to lure settlers to Montana, he isn't interested-until he learns that the land selected was part of the Flying U Ranch. Andy quickly sets was off to tell Chip Bennett and the rest of the Happy Family at the Flying U about the insidious plot that could sound the death knell for the Flying U.