Bøger udgivet af University of Texas Press

The author of Murder City and Down by the River reflects on the destructive nature of American culture.Cultivated from the fierce ideas seeded in Blood Orchid, Blues for Cannibals is an elegiac reflection on death, pain, and a wavering confidence in humanity's own abilities for self-preservation. After years of reporting on border violence, sex crimes, and the devastation of the land, Bowden struggles to make sense of the many ways in which we destroy ourselves and whether there is any way to survive. Here he confronts a murderer facing execution, sex offenders of the most heinous crimes, a suicidal artist, a prisoner obsessed with painting portraits of presidents, and other people and places that constitute our worst impulses and our worst truths. Painful, heartbreaking, and forewarning, Bowden at once tears us apart and yearns for us to find ourselves back together again.';A thrillingly good writer whose grandness of vision is only heightened by the bleak originality of his voice.' Ron Hansen, The New York Times Book Review';A major literary work of profound social consciousness... [Bowden] writes with the intensity of Joan Didion, the voracious hunger of Henry Miller, the feral intelligence and irony of Hunter Thompson, and the wit and outrage of Edward Abbey... This is gutsy, soulful, pyrotechnic, significant. And transformative writing.' Donna Seaman, Chicago Tribune';A vivid, lyrical journey through the American Southwest... [but] this book is no travelogue. Rather, it is a visceral exploration of a much darker landscape, that of the human psyche.' Debra Ginsberg, The San Diego Union-Tribune';A book of absolutely furious beauty... At the height of [Bowden's] rapturous indignation, with majestic lamentations stretching out almost to the snapping point, he sounds like Walt Whitman in a very bad mood... Sweet bloody Jerusalem, when he's cooking, who can touch him?' David Kipen, San Francisco Chronicle

A comprehensive field guide to Texas's insects, featuring 1,300 species and over 2,700 photographs. Thanks to its size and geographic position, Texas is home to nearly 30,000 species of insects, likely making its insect population the most diverse in the nation. Ranging from eastern and western to temperate and tropical species, this vast array of insects can be difficult to identify. InCommon Insects of Texas and Surrounding States, John and Kendra Abbott have created the state's most comprehensive field guide to help readers recognize and understand these fascinating creatures. Containing 1,300 species and more than 2,700 photographs, this guide offers a wealth of information about the characteristics and behaviors of Texas's insects. Each chapter introduces an order with a discussion of general natural history and a description of other qualities helpful in distinguishing its various species, while every species' entry provides a state map showing where it is most likely to be found, a key displaying its seasonal distribution, information about its habitat, and corresponding photos. Featuring colored tabs for quick reference, a glossary, and information about other arthropods, this guide is the perfect companion for anyone wanting to identify and learn more about the many insects of Texas.';Expertly written and beautifully illustrated, this exceptional book will be of interest to both professional and beginning naturalists.' Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University

This historical study shows how San Francisco and Baltimore were central to American expansion through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The history of the United States is often told as a movement westward, beginning at the Atlantic coast and following farmers across the continent. But early settlements and towns sprung up along the Pacific as well as the Atlantic, as Spaniards and Englishmen took Indian land and converted it into private property. In this ambitious study of historical geography and urban development, Mary P. Ryan reframes the story of American expansion. Baltimore and San Francisco share common roots as early coastal trading centers immersed in the international circulation of goods and ideas. Ryan traces their beginnings back to the first human habitation of each area, showing how the juggernaut toward capitalism and nation-building could not commence until Europeans had taken the land for city building. She then recounts how Mexican ayuntamientos and Anglo-American city councils pioneered a prescient form of municipal sovereignty that served as both a crucible for democracy and a handmaid of capitalism. Moving into the nineteenth century, Ryan shows how the citizens of Baltimore and San Francisco molded the shape of the modern city: the gridded downtown, rudimentary streetcar suburbs, and outlying great parks. This history culminates in the era of the Civil War when the economic engines of cities helped forge the East and the West into one nation.

This culinary travelogue is "e;a deeply researched guide to north-of-the-border taco culture and history"e; (Los Angeles Times).Tacos may have been created south of the border, but Americans have made this Mexican food their own, with each style reflective of a time and a place. American Tacos explores them all, taking us on a detailed and delicious journey through the evolution of this dish.In search of every taco variety from California to Texas and beyond, Jose Ralat traveled from coast to coast and border to border, visiting thirty-eight cities across the country. He examines the pervasive crunchy taco and the new Alta California tacos from chefs Wes Avila, Christine Rivera, and Carlos Salgado. He tastes famous Tex-Mex tacos like the puffy taco and breakfast taco, then tracks down the fry bread taco and the kosher taco. And he searches for the regional hybrid tacos of the American South and the modern, chef-driven tacos of restaurants everywhere. Throughout, he tells the story of how each style of taco came to be, creating a rich look at the diverse taco landscape north of the border. Featuring interviews with taqueros and details on taco paraphernalia and the trappings of taco culture, American Tacos is a book no taco fan will want to take a bite without."e;[American Tacos] offers plenty of recommendations on where to get great tacos...But it offers much more than that."e; ?Chicago Tribune"e;A fast-paced cultural survey and travel guide . . . An exceptional book."e; ?TASTE"e;Fabulous."e; ?San Francisco Chronicle

One of America's foremost birders recounts his birding adventures as well as his friendships with numerous luminaries.Victor Emanuel is widely considered one of America's leading birders. He has observed more than six thousand species during travels that have taken him to every continent. He founded the largest company in the world specializing in birding tours and one of the most respected ones in ecotourism. Emanuel has received some of birding's highest honors, including the Roger Tory Peterson Award from the American Birding Association and the Arthur A. Allen Award from the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. He also started the first birding camps for young people, which he considers one of his greatest achievements.In One More Warbler, Emanuel recalls a lifetime of birding adventures-from his childhood sighting of a male Cardinal that ignited his passion for birds to a once-in-a-lifetime journey to Asia to observe all eight species of cranes of that continent. He tells fascinating stories of meeting his mentors who taught him about birds, nature, and conservation, and later, his close circle of friends-Ted Parker, Peter Matthiessen, George Plimpton, Roger Tory Peterson, and others-who he frequently birded and traveled with around the world. Emanuel writes about the sighting of an Eskimo Curlew, thought to be extinct, on Galveston Island; setting an all-time national record during the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count; attempting to see the Imperial Woodpecker in northwestern Mexico; and birding on the far-flung island of Attu on the Aleutian chain. Over the years, Emanuel became a dedicated mentor himself, teaching hundreds of young people the joys and enrichment of birding. "e;Birds changed my life,"e; says Emanuel, and his stories make clear how a deep connection to the natural world can change everyone's life."e;Whether he is recounting his experiences with raptors in Turkey, rose-ringed parakeets in India, or black-and-white owls in Panama, Emanuel's love of the natural world is always on display. A charming narrative for avid birders and armchair nature lovers, sure to inspire at least a few flights of fancy."e; -Kirkus Reviews"e;Victor Emanuel is a remarkable man who found his mentors in birding and went on to become a leader in that community for the past fifty years. In One More Warbler, Victor shares his wide-ranging adventures across the globe, including the story of his enormously influential ecotourism company, and the reasons why he become a mentor himself to whole generations of young ornithologists. It's a fascinating read."e; -Kenn Kaufman, author of Kingbird Highway"e;This book is classic Victor: a tapestry of anecdotes, adventures, philosophical musings, and tributes to people, all woven together by glowing words of admiration for the rich diversity of birds that grace our lives, and define his."e; -John Fitzpatrick, Director, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

';Sobsey truly does deliver the goods with this biography... This work is as gloriously comprehensive as it gets on the subject of Chrissie Hynde.' PopMatters A musical force across four decades, a voice for the ages, and a great songwriter, Chrissie Hynde is one of America's foremost rockers. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005, she and her band The Pretenders have released ten albums since 1980. The Pretenders' debut LP has been acclaimed as one of the best albums of all time by VH1 and Rolling Stone. In a business filled with ';pretenders' and posers, Hynde remains unassailably authentic. Although she blazed the trail for countless female musicians, Hynde has never embraced the role of rock-feminist and once remarked, ';It's never been my intention to change the world or set an example for others to follow.' Instead, she pursued her own vision of rocka band of ';motorcycles with guitars.' Chrissie Hynde: A Musical Biography traces this legend's journey from teenage encounters with rock royalty to the publication of her controversial memoir Reckless in 2015. Adam Sobsey digs deep into Hynde's catalog, extolling her underrated songwriting gifts and the greatness of The Pretenders' early classics and revealing how her more recent but lesser-known records are not only underappreciated but actually key to understanding her earlier work, as well as her evolving persona. Sobsey hears Hynde's music as a way into her life outside the studio, including her feminism, signature style, vegetarianism, and Hinduism. She is ';a self-possessed, self-exiled idol with no real forbears and no true musical descendants: a complete original.'

';An engaging, alarming, and enlightening book, one that is certain to be among the most important books on surveillance in the twenty-first century.' Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of Antisocial Media Never before has so much been known about so many. CCTV cameras, TSA scanners, NSA databases, big data marketers, predator drones, ';stop and frisk' tactics, Facebook algorithms, hidden spyware, and even old-fashioned nosy neighborssurveillance has become so ubiquitous that we take its presence for granted. While many types of surveillance are pitched as ways to make us safer, almost no one has examined the unintended consequences of living under constant scrutiny and how it changes the way we think and feel about the world. In Under Surveillance, Randolph Lewis offers a highly original look at the emotional, ethical, and aesthetic challenges of living with surveillance in America since 9/11. Taking a broad and humanistic approach, Lewis explores the growth of surveillance in surprising places, such as childhood and nature. He traces the rise of businesses designed to provide surveillance and security, including those that cater to the Bible Belt's houses of worship. And he peers into the dark side of playful surveillance, such as eBay's online guide to ';Fun with Surveillance Gadgets.' A worried but ultimately genial guide to this landscape, Lewis helps us see the hidden costs of living in a ';control society' in which surveillance is deemed essential to governance and business alike. Written accessibly for a general audience, Under Surveillance prompts us to think deeply about what Lewis calls ';the soft tissue damage' inflicted by the culture of surveillance. ';A sprightly tour down some of the surveillance society's most claustrophobic corridors.' Cory Doctorow, New York Timesbestselling author

This landmark feminist critique presents a ';brilliant and scathing' survey of the forces that work against women who dare to write (Nicole Rudick, New York Review of Books). Are women able to achieve anything they set their minds to? InHow to Suppress Women's Writing, award-winning novelist and scholar Joanna Russ lays bare the subtleand not so subtlestrategies that society uses to ignore, condemn, or belittle women who produce literature. As relevant today as when it was first published in 1983, this book has motivated generations of readers with its powerful feminist critique. ';What is it going to take to break apart these rigidities? Russ's book is a formidable attempt. It is angry without being self-righteous, it is thorough without being exhausting, and it is serious without being devoid of a sense of humor. But it was published over thirty years ago, in 1983, and there's not an enormous difference between the world she describes and the world we inhabit' (Jessa Crispin, from the foreword).';A book of the most profound and original clarity.' Marge Piercy';Joanna Russ is a brilliant writer, a writer of real moral passion and high wit.' Adrienne Rich

The rise and fall of a Texas Democrat: ';A definitive, richly detailed biography [and] an engrossing history that sheds light on our own fractious times.' Kirkus Reviews (starred review) A former Golden Gloves boxer and WWII bombardier, Jim Wright entered Congress to fight a different kind of battle, making his mark on virtually every major policy issue of the later twentieth century: energy, education, taxes, transportation, environmental protection, civil rights, criminal justice, and foreign relations among them. He played a significant role in peace initiatives in Central America and in the Camp David Accords, and was the first American politician to speak live on Soviet television. A Democrat representing Texas's twelfth district (Fort Worth), he served in the US House of Representatives from the Eisenhower administration to the presidency of George H.W. Bush, including twelve years as majority leader and speakerand his long congressional ascension and sudden fall in a highly partisan ethics scandal spearheaded by Newt Gingrich mirrored the evolution of Congress as an institution. Speaker Jim Wright traces the congressman's long life and career in a highly readable narrative grounded in extensive interviews with Wright and access to his personal diaries. A skilled connector who bridged the conservative and liberal wings of the Democratic Party while forging alliances with Republicans to pass legislation, Wright ultimately fell victim to a new era of political infighting, as well as to his own hubris and mistakes. J. Brooks Flippen shows how Wright's career shaped the political culture of Congress, from its internal rules and power structure to its growing partisanship, even as those new dynamics eventually contributed to his political demise. To understand Jim Wright in all his complexity is to understand the story of modern American politics.

';Unequivocally fresh and engrossing. Even the biggest fans will find something new to enjoy here.' Razorcake The central experience of the Ramones and their music is of being an outsider, an outcast, a person who's somehow defective, and the revolt against shame and self-loathing. The fans, argues Donna Gaines, got it right away, from their own experience of alienation at home, at school, on the streets, and from themselves. This sense of estrangement and marginality permeates everything the Ramones still offer us as artists, and as people. Why the Ramones Matter compellingly makes the case that the Ramones gave us everything; they saved rock and roll, modeled DIY ethics, and addressed our deepest collective traumas, from the personal to the historical.

';An excellent introduction to the band that might have evolved, [the author] suggests, into the Beatles.' New York Journal of Books Of all the white American pop music groups that hit the charts before the Beatles, only the Beach Boys continued to thrive throughout the British Invasion to survive into the 1970s and beyond. The Beach Boys helped define both sides of the era we broadly call the sixties, split between their early surf, car, and summer pop and their later hippie, counterculture, and ambitious rock. No other group can claim the Ronettes and the Four Seasons as early 1960s rivals; the Mamas and the Papas and Crosby, Stills and Nash as later 1960s rivals; and the Beatles and the Temptations as decade-spanning counterparts. This is the first book to take an honest look at the themes running through the Beach Boys' art and career as a whole and to examine where they sit inside our culture and politicsand why they still grab our attention.

From the New York Times-bestselling author, "e;as good a state history as has ever been written and a must-read for Texas aficionados."e; -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)The story of Texas is the story of struggle and triumph in a land of extremes. It is a story of drought and flood, invasion and war, boom and bust, and the myriad peoples who, over centuries of conflict, gave rise to a place that has helped shape the identity of the United States and the destiny of the world. Big Wonderful Thing invites us to walk in the footsteps of these people along the path of Texas's evolution. Blending action, atmosphere, and impeccable research, it brings to life the generations of driven men and women who shaped Texas, including Spanish explorers, American filibusters, Comanche warriors, wildcatters, Tejano activists, and spellbinding artists-all of them taking their part in the creation of a place that became not just a nation, not just a state, but an indelible idea-in an "e;exhilarating"e; book that dares to tell the whole glorious, gruesome, epically sprawling story of Texas (Kirkus Reviews)."e;What really sets Big Wonderful Thing apart is that it reads more like Lonesome Dove than it does something you might have been assigned in your seventh grade Texas history class."e; ?Texas Monthly"e;Lavishly illustrated, fully annotated, brimming with sass, intelligence, trenchant analysis, literary acumen and juicy details, it is a page-turner . . . Popular history at its best."e; ?The Wall Street Journal "e;Of particular interest is the attention Harrigan pays to marginalized groups; his writing on native peoples and African Americans in Texas is compelling."e; ?Publishers Weekly, "e;The 10 Best Books About Texas"e;"e;Endlessly readable."e; -NPR

The author of Blood Orchid explores the history of the Sioux alongside that of his own family in this posthumous work.When award-winning author Charles Bowden died in 2014, he left behind a trove of unpublished manuscripts. Dakotah marks the landmark publication of the first of these texts, and the fourth installment in his acclaimed ';Unnatural History of America.' Bowden uses America's Great Plains as a lenssometimes sullied, sometimes shattered, but always sharpfor observing pivotal moments in the lives of anguished figures, including himself.In scenes that are by turns wrenching and poetic, Bowden describes the Sioux's forced migrations and rebellions alongside his own ancestors' migrations from Europe to Midwestern acres beset by unforgiving winters. He meditates on the lives of his resourceful mother and his philosophical father, who rambled between farm communities and city life. Interspersed with these images are clear-eyed, textbook-defying anecdotes about Lewis and Clark, Daniel Boone, and, with equal verve, twentieth-century entertainers ';Pee Wee' Russell, Peggy Lee, and other musicians. The result is a kaleidoscopic journey that penetrates the senses and redefines the notion of heartland. Dakotah is a powerful ode to loss from one of our most fiercely independent writers.';[Dakotah] is about hope, disappointment, impermanence and erasure... This is a meditation Bowden fans will not want to miss.' Arizona Daily Star';This posthumous work continues Bowden's uniquely ecocritical writingstarting from human common ground and ending with the ground itselfand allows us to hear his voice long past his own time in earth. It is a worthy offering.' Western American Literature

';[A] fascinating, colorful new biography... [Smith] writes of a boxer who ultimately triumphed in the most unvirtuous of sports.' Texas Observer Olympic gold medalist. Two-time world heavyweight champion. Hall of Famer. Infomercial and reality TV star. George Foreman's fighting ability is matched only by his acumen for selling. Yet the complete story of Foreman's rise from urban poverty to global celebrity has never been told until now. Raised in Houston's ';Bloody Fifth' Ward, battling against scarcity in housing and food, young Foreman fought sometimes for survival and other times just for fun. But when a government program rescued him from poverty and introduced him to the sport of boxing, his life changed forever. In No Way but to Fight, Andrew R. M. Smith traces Foreman's life and career from the Great Migration to the Great Society, through the Cold War and culture wars, out of urban Houston and onto the world stage where he discovered that fame brought new challenges. Drawing on new interviews with George Foreman and declassified government documents, as well as more than fifty domestic and international newspapers and magazines, Smith brings to life the exhilarating story of a true American icon. No Way but to Fight is an epic worthy of a champion. ';An insightful life study... Smith's captivating narrative suggests that Mr. Foreman is much more than the outsize roles he has played.' The Wall Street Journal ';While Foreman's life has been dissected before, Smith's account, which includes fresh interviews with the man himself as well as extracts from recently declassified government documents, rates as perhaps the best.' Bristol Post

';A fascinating tour of Texas state politics during the Great Depression' from the historian and author of Hood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jug (Keith J. Volanto, author of Texas Voices). When the venerable historian Norman D. Brown published Hood, Bonnet, and Little Brown Jug in 1984, he earned national acclaim for revealing the audacious tactics at play in Texas politics during the Roaring Twenties, detailing the effects of the Ku Klux Klan, newly enfranchised women, and Prohibition. Shortly before his death in 2015, Brown completed Biscuits, the Dole, and Nodding Donkeys, which picks up just as the Democratic Party was poised for a bruising fight in the 1930 primary. Charting the governorships of Dan Moody, Ross Sterling, Miriam ';Ma' Ferguson in her second term, and James V. Allred, this engrossing sequel takes its title from the notion that Texas politicians should give voters what they want (';When you cease to deliver the biscuits they will not be for you any longer,' said Jim ';Pa' Ferguson) while remaining wary of federal assistance (the dole) in a state where the economy is fueled by oil pumpjacks (nodding donkeys). Taking readers to an era when a self-serving group of Texas politicians operated in a system that was closed to anyone outside the state's white, wealthy echelons, Brown unearths a riveting, little-known history whose impact continues to ripple at the capitol. ';Rich in personal detail, and general audiences and aficionados of Texana will enjoy the colorful portraits of James and Miriam Ferguson, Ross Sterling, Tom Love, John Nance Garner, and others.' History: Reviews of New Books

As the ground war in Vietnam escalated in the late 1960s, the US government leveraged the so-called doctor draft to secure adequate numbers of medical personnel in the armed forces. Among newly minted physicians' few alternatives to military service was the Clinical Associate Training Program at the National Institutes of Health. Though only a small percentage of applicants were accepted, the elite program launched an unprecedented number of remarkable scientific careers that would revolutionize medicine at the end of the twentieth century. Medal Winners recounts this overlooked chapter and unforeseen byproduct of the Vietnam War through the lives of four former NIH clinical associates who would go on to become Nobel laureates. Raymond S. Greenberg traces their stories from their pre-NIH years and apprenticeships through their subsequent Nobel Prize-winning work, which transformed treatment of heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. Greenberg shows how the Vietnam draft unintentionally ushered in a golden era of research by bringing talented young physicians under the tutelage of leading scientists and offers a lesson in what it may take to replicate such a towering center of scientific innovation as the NIH in the 1960s and 1970s.

This illustrated A to Z guide covers detours, destinations, and culinary delights for your next road trip through the American South. Essential in any traveler's glovebox, Road Sides explores the fundamentals of a well-fed road trip across the Southern United States. Entries feature detailed histories and more than one hundred original illustrations that document the many colorful sights and delicious flavors you can experience along the way. Learn the backstory of food-shaped buildings, including the folks behind Hills of Snow, a giant snow cone stand in Smithfield, North Carolina, that resembles the icy treats it sells. Discover the roots of kitschy roadside attractions, and have lunch with the state-employed mermaids of Weeki Wachee Springs in Florida. Road Sides is for everyone: the driver in search of supper or superlatives (the biggest, best, and even worst), the person who cannot resist a local plaque or snack, and the kid who just wants to gawk at a peach-shaped water tower.

';A valuable compendium no matter where you live, Texas Seafood encourages you to explore uncommon varieties from your local fishmonger.' The Wall Street Journal The abundance of seafood available from the northwest Gulf of Mexico includes hundreds of delicious species that are often overlooked by consumers. Celebrating this regional bounty, Texas Seafood showcases the expertise of longtime fishmongers and chefs PJ and ';Apple Srimart' Stoops. Readers will find familiar fish like Red Snapper along with dozens of little-known finfish and invertebrates, including tunas, mackerels, rays, and skates, as well as bivalves, shrimps, crabs, and other varieties, many of which are considered ';bycatch' (seafood that a fisher didn't intend to catch), but are no more difficult to prepare and just as delicious as those commonly found at your local supermarket. The Stoopses provide a complete primer on sourcing these wild-caught delicacies, with fascinating details about habitats and life cycles as well as practical advice on how to discern quality. Texas Seafood concludes with simple, delectable recipes, many infused with the flavors of Apple's Thai heritage. Dishes such as Steamed Curried Crab, Crispy White Shrimp, Escolar on a Grill with Green Mango Salad, Cast-Iron-Roasted Shortfin Mako Shark with Rio Grande Grapefruit, and Chicken-Fried Ribbonfish are just a few ways to savor the best of the Gulf. ';By documenting in such detail what's below the surface in our Texas waters, [Texas Seafood] reveals a treasure. Not just for a local market but beyond: the national and even global market.' Edible Houston ';An important addition to every local foodie's culinary library.' Edible San Antonio

In this travelogue/cookbook, the James Beard Award-winning author of Yucatn takes you on a tour of Mexico's most colorful destinationsits markets. David Sterling's passion for Mexican food has attracted followers from around the globe. Just as Yucatn earned him praise for his ';meticulously researched knowledge' (Saveur) and for producing ';a labor of love that well documents place, people and, yes, food' (Booklist), Mercados now invites readers to learn about local ingredients, meet vendors and cooks, and taste dishes that reflect Mexico's distinctive regional cuisine. Serving up more than one hundred recipes, Mercados presents unique versions of Oaxaca's legendary moles and Michoacan's carnitas, as well as little-known specialties such as the charcuterie of Chiapas, the wild anise of Ptzcuaro, and the seafood soups of Veracruz. Sumptuous color photographs transport us to the enormous forty-acre, 10,000-merchant Central de Abastos in Oaxaca as well as tiny tianguises in Tabasco. Blending immersive research and passionate appreciation, David Sterling's final opus is at once a must-have cookbook and a literary feast for the gastronome. ';The 560 thick, glossy pages of [Mercados] are such a riot of color and photography, the first time I picked up the book, I didn't pause to read a word of it. It took a second pass through David Sterling's gorgeous travelogue to absorb that it is equally rich in informationnot so much a cookbook as a treatise on the food and culture of Mexico as told through its vibrant markets.' Dallas Morning News ';Reflects a lifetime of traveling to markets throughout Mexico to document the diverse foodways of the country.' Austin360

International favorite dishes and personal stories from a celebrated food writer and foremost authority on traditional Mexican cooking.Diana Kennedy is the world's preeminent authority on authentic Mexican cooking and one of its best-known food writers. Renowned for her uncompromising insistence on using the correct local ingredients and preparation techniques, she has taught generations of cooks how to prepare traditional dishes from the villages of Mexico, and in doing so, has documented and helped preserve the country's amazingly diverse and rich foodways. Kennedy's own meals for guests are often Mexican, but she also indulges herself and close friends with the nostalgic foods in Nothing Fancy.This acclaimed cookbooknow expanded with new and revised recipes, additional commentary, photos, and reminiscencesreveals Kennedy's passion for simpler, soul-satisfying food, from the favorite dishes of her British childhood (including a technique for making clotted cream that actually works) to rare recipes from Ukraine, Norway, France, and other outposts. In her inimitable style, Kennedy discusses her addictionseverything from good butter, cream, and lard to cold-smoked salmon, Seville orange marmalade, black truffle shavings, escamoles (ant eggs), and proper croissantsas well as her btes noireskosher salt, nonfat dairy products, cassia ';cinnamon,' botoxed turkeys, and nonstick pans and baking sprays, among them. And look out for the ire she unleashes on ';cookbookese,' genetically modified foods, plastic, and unecological kitchen practices! The culminating work of an illustrious career, Nothing Fancy is an irreplaceable opportunity to spend time in the kitchen with Diana Kennedy, listening to the stories she has collected and making the food she has loved over a long lifetime of cooking.';Diana's recipe for her most personal cookbook includes equal parts passion, creativity, and humor, with a soupon of provocation. I love the way she's so blunt in her comments about food and the food world, her btes noires, in this bookit's exactly the way we cooks talk to each other in private, and it rarely gets into our books.' Paula Wolfert, author of The Food of Morocco';Nothing Fancy gives us access to the razor-sharp wit and wisdom of one of the great intuitive cooks of our time.' Zak Pelaccio, chef and owner of Fish & Game, Hudson, New York, and author of Eat With Your Hands';Diana Kennedy is the most serious food writer in Mexico, but what many people won't knowuntil they read this bookis that she's an extraordinary cook of all sorts of cuisines. Cooking casually with her at home is to know her keen palate and deep understanding of how food works. It's also great fun.' Gabriela Cmara, chef and owner of Contramar, Mexico City, and Cala, San Francisco

From two-stepping to tamaladas, ';a must-read manual for anyone looking to learn more about the wild and wonderful state' (Texas Monthly) There are certain things every Texan should know how to do and say, whether your Lone Star roots reach all the way back to the 1836 Republic or you were just transplanted yesterday. Some of these may be second nature to you, but otherswell, maybe it wouldn't hurt to have a few handy hints if, say, branding the herd or hosting a tamalada aren't your usual pastimes. That's where How to Be a Texan can help. In a lighthearted style, Andrea Valdez offers illustrated, easy-to-follow steps for dozens of authentic Texas activities and sayings. In no time, you'll be talking like a Texan and dressing the part; hunting, fishing, and ranching; cooking your favorite Texas dishes; and dancing cumbia and two-step. You'll learn how to take a proper bluebonnet photo and build a Da de los Muertos altar, and you'll have a bucket list of all the places Texans should visit in their lifetime. Not only will you know how to do all these things, you'll finish the book with a whole new appreciation for what it means to be a Texan.

"e;Not only one of the best books of the year, it's one of the most beautiful rock memoirs ever written . . . Her portrayal of Chesnutt is perfectly done."e; -NPR"e;Friend, asshole, angel, mutant,"e; singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt "e;came along and made us gross and broken people seem . . . I dunno, cooler, I guess."e; A quadriplegic who could play only simple chords on his guitar, Chesnutt recorded seventeen critically acclaimed albums before his death in 2009, including About to Choke, North Star Deserter, and At the Cut. In 2006, NPR placed him in the top five of the ten best living songwriters, along with Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen. Chesnutt's songs have also been covered by many prominent artists, including Madonna, the Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M., Sparklehorse, Fugazi, and Neutral Milk Hotel.Kristin Hersh toured with Chesnutt for nearly a decade and they became close friends, bonding over a love of songwriting and mutual struggles with mental health. In Don't Suck, Don't Die, she describes many seemingly small moments they shared, their free-ranging conversations, and his tragic death. More memoir than biography, Hersh's book plumbs the sources of Chesnutt's pain and creativity more deeply than any conventional account of his life and recordings ever could. Chesnutt was difficult to understand and frequently difficult to be with, but, as Hersh reveals him, he was also wickedly funny and painfully perceptive. This intimate memoir is essential reading for anyone interested in the music or the artist."e;The music made by the late Vic Chesnutt was evocative, haunting and often heartbreaking. Kristin Hersh's book about the singer-songwriter shares all of these qualities."e; -Rolling Stone

This illustrated history of the colorized linen postcards of the 1930s and '40s is ';an incredible tour... A veritable treasure trove of American culture' (Crave Online). From the Great Depression through the early postwar years, any postcard sent in America was more than likely a ';linen' card. Colorized in vivid, often exaggerated hues and printed on card stock embossed with a linen-like texture, linen postcards celebrated the American scene with views of majestic landscapes, modern cityscapes, roadside attractions, and other notable features. These colorful images portrayed the United States as shimmering with promise, quite unlike the black-and-white worlds of documentary photography or Life magazine. Linen postcards were enormously popular, with close to a billion printed and sold. Postcard America offers the first comprehensive study of these cards and their cultural significance. Drawing on the production files of Curt Teich & Co. of Chicago, the originator of linen postcards, Jeffrey L. Meikle reveals how photographic views were transformed into colorized postcard imagesoften by means of manipulationadding and deleting details or collaging bits and pieces from several photos. He presents two extensive portfolios of postcardslandscapes and cityscapesthat comprise a representative iconography of linen postcard views. For each image, Meikle explains the postcard's subject, describes aspects of its production, and places it in social and cultural contexts. In the concluding chapter, he shifts from historical interpretation to a contemporary viewpoint, considering nostalgia as a motive for collectors and others who are fascinated today by these striking images.

';Full of humor and humility... Since Benson started Asleep at the Wheel as a working-class country band, it's one helluva ride worth telling.' The Austin Chronicle A six-foot-seven-inch Jewish hippie from Philadelphia starts a Western swing band in 1970. It sounds like a joke butmore than forty years, twenty-five albums, and nine Grammy Awards laterAsleep at the Wheel is still drawing crowds around the world. The roster of musicians who've shared a stage with the Wheel is a who's who of American popular musicVan Morrison, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, George Strait, Vince Gill, Lyle Lovett, and so many more. And the bandleader who's brought them all together is the hippie that claimed Bob Wills's boots: Ray Benson. In this hugely entertaining memoir, Benson looks back over his life and wild ride with Asleep at the Wheel from the band's beginning in Paw Paw, West Virginia, through its many years as a Texas institution. He vividly recalls all the inevitable ups and downs and changes in personnel and describes the making of classic albums such as Willie and the Wheel and Tribute to the Music of Bob Willsand the Texas Playboys. The ultimate music industry insider, Benson explains better than anyone else how the Wheel got rock hipsters and die-hard country fans to love groovy new-old Western swing. Decades later, they still do. ';Ray Benson is somethingcreative, fun, entertainingyou'll love this book!' Dolly Parton ';I've known Ray Benson for over forty years and never could figure out how he does all he does while asleep at the wheel! This book, however, tells how it all went down!' Willie Nelson

From police on the street, to the mayor of New Orleans and FEMA administrators, government officials monumentally failed to protect the most vulnerable residents of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast during the Katrina disaster. This violation of the social contract undermined the foundational narratives and myths of the American nation and spawned a profound, often contentious public debate over the meaning of Katrina's devastation. A wide range of voices and images attempted to clarify what happened, name those responsible, identify the victims, and decide what should be done. This debate took place in forums ranging from mass media and the political arena to the arts and popular culture, as various narratives emerged and competed to tell the story of Katrina. Is This America? explores how Katrina has been constructed as a cultural trauma in print media, the arts and popular culture, and television coverage. Using stories told by the New York Times, New Orleans Times-Picayune, Time, Newsweek, NBC, and CNN, as well as the works of artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and graphic designers, Ron Eyerman analyzes how these narratives publicly articulated collective pain and loss. He demonstrates that, by exposing a foundational racial cleavage in American society, these expressions of cultural trauma turned individual experiences of suffering during Katrina into a national debate about the failure of the white majority in the United States to care about the black minority.

';The vivid story of one family's ordeal in Hurricane Katrina . . . offers completely new and highly relevant insights into disaster response.' Susanna Hoffman, disaster anthropologist and director, Hoffman Consulting Standing in the Need presents an intimate account of an African American family's experience after Hurricane Katrina. Before the storm struck, this family of one hundred fifty members lived in the bayou communities of St. Bernard Parish just outside New Orleans. Rooted there like the wild red iris of the coastal wetlands, the family had gathered for generations to cook and share homemade seafood meals, savor conversation, and refresh their interconnected lives. In this lively narrative, Katherine Browne weaves together voices and experiences from eight years of post-Katrina research. Her story documents the heartbreaking struggles to remake life after everyone in the family faced ruin. Cast against a recovery landscape managed by outsiders, the efforts of family members to help themselves could get no traction; outsiders undermined any sense of their control over the process. In the end, the insights of the story offer hope. Written for a broad audience and supported by an array of photographs and graphics, Standing in the Need offers readers an inside view of life at its most vulnerable. ';Standing in the Need delivers an epic story about disaster and the haunting problems imposed by our ';recovery culture.' The lesson in these pages is of urgent concern as the world moves into weather we have never seen before.' Mindy Fullilove, MD, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University';Browne suggests that recovery agencies could reduce suffering and speed healing by learning about the history, culture, and distinctive customs and needs of disaster-impacted communities.' Contemporary Sociology

A storyteller's take on the Talmud and the timeless wisdom contained within its tales provides ';a fresh look at an ancient source' (Kirkus Reviews). A thief-turned-saint, killed by an insult. A rabbi burning down his world in order to save it. A man who lost his sanity while trying to fathom the origin of the universe. A beautiful woman battling her brother's and her husband's egos to preserve their family. Stories such as these enliven the pages of the Talmud, the great repository of ancient wisdom that is one of the sacred texts of the Jewish people. Comprised of the Mishnah, the oral law of the Torah, and the Gemara, a multigenerational metacommentary on the Mishnah dating from between 3950 and 4235 (190 and 475 CE), the Talmud presents a formidable challenge to understand without scholarly training and study. But what if one approaches it as a collection of tales with surprising relevance for contemporary readers? In Six Memos from the Last Millennium, Joseph Skibell, critically acclaimed author of A Blessing on the Moon and other novels, reads some of the Talmud's tales with a storyteller's insight, concentrating on the lives of the legendary rabbis depicted in its pages to uncover the wisdom they can still impart to our modern age. He unifies strands of stories that are scattered throughout the Talmud into coherent narratives or ';memos,' which he then analyzes and interprets from his perspective as a novelist. In Skibell's imaginative and personal readings, this sacred literature frequently defies our conventional notions of piety. Sometimes wild, rude, and even bawdy, these memos from the last millennium pursue a livable transcendence, a way of fusing the mundane hours of earthly life with a cosmic sense of holiness and wonder.

An examination of early European theories about the origin of American indigenous peoples.The American Indian-origin, culture, and language-engaged the best minds of Europe from 1492 to 1729. Were the Indians the result of a co-creation? Were they descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel? Could they have emigrated from Carthage, Phoenicia, or Troy? All these and many other theories were proposed.How could scholars account for the multiplicity of languages among the Indians, the differences in levels of culture? And how did the Indian arrive in America-by using as a bridge a now-lost continent or, as was later suggested by some persons in the light of an expanding knowledge of geography, by using the Bering Strait as a migratory route?Most of the theories regarding the American Indian were first advanced in the sixteenth century. The two most influential men in an early-developing controversy over Indian origins were Joseph de Acosta and Gregorio Garcia. Approaching the subject with restraint and with a critical eye, Acosta, in 1590, suggested that the presence of diverse animals in America indicated a land connection with the Old World. On the other hand, Garcia accepted several theories as equally possible and presented each in the strongest possible light in his Origen de los indios of 1607.In this distinctive book Lee E. Huddleston looks carefully into those theories and proposals. From many research sources he weaves an historical account that engages the reader from the very first.

A biography of the artist examining his complex relationship with the American West and how he expressed his imagination.Frederic Remington and the Westsheds new light on the remarkably complicated and much misunderstood career of Frederic Remington. This study of the complex relationship between Remington and the American West focuses on the artist's imagination and how it expressed itself. Ben Merchant Vorpahl considers all the dimensions of Remington's extensive work, from journalism to fiction, sculpture, and painting. He traces the events of Remington's life and makes extensive use of literary and art criticism and nineteenth-century American social, cultural, and military history in interpreting his work.Vorpahl reveals Remington as a talented, sensitive, and sometimes neurotic American whose work reflects with peculiar force the excitement and distress of the period between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. Remington was not a ';western' artist in the conventional sense; neither was he a historian: he lacked the historian's breadth of vision and discipline, expressing himself not through analysis but through synthesis. Vorpahl shows that, even while Remington catered to the sometimes maudlin, sometimes jingoistic tastes of his public and his editorshis resourceful imagination was at work devising a far more demanding and worthwhile designa composite work, executed in prose, pictures, and bronze. This body of work, as the author demonstrates, demands to be regarded as an interrelated whole. Here guilt, shame, and personal failure are honestly articulated, and death itself is confronted as the artist's chief subject. Because Remington was so prolific a painter, sculptor, illustrator, and writer, and because his subjects, techniques, and media were so apparently diverse, the deeper continuity of his work had not previously been recognized. This study is a major contribution to our understanding of an important American artist. In addition, Vorpahl illuminates the interplay between history, artistic consciousness, and the development of America's sense of itself during Remington's lifetime.

This in-depth study of two black neighborhoods in the wake of Hurricane Katrina vividly captures the struggle and uncertainty in the process of rebuilding. Hurricane Katrina was the worst urban flood in American history, a disaster that destroyed nearly the entire physical landscape of a city, as well as the mental and emotional maps that people use to navigate their everyday lives. Left to Chance takes us into two African American neighborhoodsworking-class Hollygrove and middle-class Pontchartrain Parkto learn how their residents have experienced ';Miss Katrina' and the long road back to normal life. The authors spent several years gathering firsthand accounts of the flooding, the rushed evacuations that turned into weeks- and months-long exile, and the often confusing and exhausting process of rebuilding damaged homes in a city whose local government had all but failed. As the residents' stories make vividly clear, government and social science concepts such as ';disaster management,' ';restoring normality,' and ';recovery' have little meaning for people whose worlds were washed away in the flood. For the neighbors in Hollygrove and Pontchartrain Park, life in the aftermath of Katrina has been a passage from all that was familiar and routine to an ominous world filled with existential uncertainty. Recovery and rebuilding become processes imbued with mysteries, accidental encounters, and hasty adaptations, while victories and defeats are left to chance.