Bøger udgivet af Oxford University Press Inc

First published in 1996 to great critical and popular acclaim, the Grove Book of Operas, is a collection of synopses and descriptions of over 250 operas. Each succinct yet insightful entry is written by a leading authority on the opera and includes a full synopsis of the plot, a cast list, a note on the singers in the original production, and information on the origins of the work and its literary and social background. Contributions conclude with a briefcomment on the particular work's place in operatic history. A glossary offers brief and accessible definitions of terms that may be unfamiliar to the reader. And indices of role names and of arias and ensembles allow the reader to find operas containing their favorite aria or a well-known character.The second edition brings the book up to date with several recently composed operas and a fascinating introductory essay by David Levin on opera performance in the 21st century. Recent additions to the operatic repertory included for the first time in this edition include Nicholas Maw, Sophie's Choice; Poul Ruders, A Handmaid's Tale; John Adams, Death of Klinghoffer; and Mark Adamo, Little Women.

Bornstein's How to Change the World studies a remarkable group of individuals around the world-what he calls social entrepreneurs. These people are bringing innovative, and successful, grass-roots approaches to a wide variety of social and economic problems, from rural poverty in India to discrimination against gypsies in Central Europe.

Only one of the world's mythologies has remained essentially unrecognized-the mythology of Judaism. As Howard Schwartz reveals in Tree of Souls, the first anthology of Jewish mythology in English, this mythical tradition is as rich and as fascinating as any in the world. Drawing from the Bible, the Pseudepigrapha, the Talmud and Midrash, the kabbalistic literature, medieval folklore, Hasidic texts, and oral lore collected in the modern era, Schwartz has gathered together nearly 700 of the key Jewish myths. The myths themselves are marvelous. We read of Adam's diamond and the Land of Eretz (where it is always dark), the fall of Lucifer and the quarrel of the sun and the moon, the Treasury of Souls and the Divine Chariot. We discover new tales about the greatfigures of the Hebrew Bible, from Adam to Moses; stories about God's Bride, the Shekhinah, and the evil temptress, Lilith; plus many tales about angels and demons, spirits and vampires, giant beasts and the Golem. Equally important, Schwartz provides a wealth of additional information. For eachmyth, he includes extensive commentary, revealing the source of the myth and explaining how it relates to other Jewish myths as well as to world literature (for instance, comparing Eve's release of evil into the world with Pandora's). For ease of use, Schwartz divides the volume into ten books: Myths of God, Myths of Creation, Myths of Heaven, Myths of Hell, Myths of the Holy Word, Myths of the Holy Time, Myths of the Holy People, Myths of the Holy Land, Myths of Exile, and Myths of theMessiah. Schwartz, a renowned collector and teller of traditional Jewish tales, now illuminates the previously unexplored territory of Jewish mythology. This pioneering anthology is essential for anyone interested in the Hebrew Bible, Jewish faith and culture, and world mythology.

Originally published: Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, c2003.

Django Reinhardt was arguably the greatest guitarist who ever lived, an important influence on Les Paul, Charlie Christian, B B King, Jerry Garcia, Chet Atkins, and many others. Capturing the extraordinary life and times of one of the great musicians of the twentieth century, this work offers a portrait of this great guitarist.

Harvey Cushing was the leading figure in the creation of modern neurosurgery. This biography traces his medical school education; his hospital-based surgical career; and his career as a battlefield surgeon during World War I. He has an enduring place in the field of medicine and his name has become part of medical lexicography.

A report from a group of researchers in the Values in Action Classification Project, this is a handbook of human strengths and virtues. Addressing issues of assessment and measurement, and directions for future research, it is aimed at a pscyhologist who is interested in positive psychology and its relevance to clinical, and social psychology.

Originally called `Asceticism and eroticism in the mythology of Siva'.

A study of the Western astronomical tradition from ancient Babylonia to the European Renaissance, with emphasis on the Greek period. The book explores the evidence for the astronomy of the ancient past and how astronomy was practised. Emphasis is placed on the material culture of ancient astronomy.

Arguing that the European and white American destruction of the native American people was the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world, Stannard attempts to set the records straight on what befell American Indians over the last five centuries.

"The American Dream" is one of the most familiar and resonant phrases in our national lexicon, so familiar that we seldom pause to ask its origin, its history, or what it actually means. In this fascinating short history, Jim Cullen explores the meaning of the American Dream, or rather the several American Dreams that have both reflected and shaped American identity from the Pilgrims to the present. Cullen begins by noting that the United States, unlike most other nations, defines itself not on the facts of blood, religion, language, geography, or shared history, but on a set of ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and consolidated in the Constitution.At the core of these ideals lies the ambiguous but galvanizing concept of the American Dream, a concept that for better and worse has proven to be amazingly elastic and durable for hundreds of years and across racial, class, and other demographic lines. Cullen then traces a series of overlappingAmerican dreams: the quest for of religious freedom that brought the Pilgrims to the "New World"; the political freedom promised in the Declaration; the dream of upward mobility, embodied most fully in the figure of Abraham Lincoln; the dream of home ownership, from homestead to suburb; the intensely idealistic-and largely unrealized-dream of equality articulated most vividly by Martin Luther King, Jr. The version of the American Dream that dominates our own time-what Cullen calls "the Dreamof the Coast"-is one of personal fulfillment, of fame and fortune all the more alluring if achieved without obvious effort, which finds its most insidious expression in the culture of Hollywood. For anyone seeking to understand a shifting but central idea in American history, The American Dream is an interpretive tour de force.

A fascinating and well-researched look into what we really know about cannibalism.

An extraordinary prodigy of Mozartean abilities, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was a distinguished composer and conductor, a legendary pianist and organist, and an accomplished painter and classicist. This book offers a masterful blend of biography and musical analysis.

Introducing the uninitiated to the world of philosophical inquiry, by examining nine philosophical problems fundamental to everyday living in a clear and easy to understand manner and without becoming embroiled in the history of thought. A suitable short introduction to the methods of philosophy for all those with a taste for abstract ideas and theoretical arguments.

A reprint of the translation previously published in the "Greek Tragedy in New Translations" series, Sophocles' timeless work is the most famous of all Greek tragedies.

Karl Barth's Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans first appeared in Germany in 1918, and caused an immediate sensation. A second edition, corrected, enlarged, and reconsidered, followed in 1921, and four others by 1933.

The theory of architecture implicit in our world today, Christopher Alexander believes, is bankrupt. More and more people are aware that something is deeply wrong. Yet the power of present-day ideas is so great that many feel uncomfortable, even afraid, to say openly that they dislike what is happening, because they are afraid to seem foolish, afraid perhaps that they will be laughed at. Now, at last, there is a coherent theory which describes in modern terms an architecture as ancient as human society itself. The Timeless Way of Building is the introductory volume in the Center for Environmental Structure series, Christopher Alexander presents in it a new theory of architecture, building, and planning which has at its core that age-old process by which the people of a society have always pulled the order of their world from their own being. Alexander writes, "There is one timeless way of building. It is thousands of years old, and the same today as it has always been. The great traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. And as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their form as the trees and hills, and as our faces are."

Examining 400 years of contact between North American Indians and Western civilization, this study explains how the Indians have managed to remain an ethnic and cultural enclave within American and Canadian society from colonial times to the present day.