LITMIR.BIZ

The Norsk Høstfest: A Celebration of Ethnic Food and Ethnic Identity Paul Thomas Emch SIL International* and the International Museum of Cultures Publications in Ethnography 41 What does it mean to be Norwegian-American? This study, of interest to laymen and scholars alike, answers this question by examining the prominent traditions and functions of food at the annual Norsk Hostfest celebration held in Minot, North Dakota. In this book, the author uses anthropological methodology to demonstrate the ways in which the Norsk Hostfest serves as a celebration of what it means to be Norwegian-American. There are many powerful symbols of ethnic identity in evidence at the festival, but food is the most pervasive, and so it is the chief symbol examined in this study. The Norsk Hostfest not only allows for the maintenance and celebration of Norwegian-American culture, but it synthesizes the forces of globalization, localization, and ethnicity in order to keep Norwegian-American ethnic identity alive and vital in a changing world. Norwegian-Americans of all ages who want to better understand their own culture will find this book both intriguing and informative. Students of food, culture, and ethnic identity, will find the application of symbolic anthropology useful. Paul Emch completed his M.A. in cultural anthropology at North Dakota State University in 2006. He currently serves as an intercultural community worker and anthropology consultant in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Подробнее

Besides absolutists of the right (the tsar and his adherents) and left (Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks), the Russian political landscape in 1917 featured moderates seeking liberal reform and a rapid evolution towards a constitutional monarchy. Vasily Maklakov, a lawyer, legislator and public intellectual, was among the most prominent of these, and the most articulate and sophisticated advocate of the rule of law, the linchpin of liberalism. This book tells the story of his efforts and his analysis of the reasons for their ultimate failure. It is thus, in part, an example for movements seeking to liberalize authoritarian countries today—both as a warning and a guide. Although never a cabinet member or the head of his political party—the Constitutional Democrats or “Kadets”—Maklakov was deeply involved in most of the political events of the period. He was defense counsel for individuals resisting the regime (or charged simply for being of the wrong ethnicity, such as Menahem Beilis, sometimes considered the Russian Dreyfus). He was continuously a member of the Kadets’ central committee and their most compelling orator. As a somewhat maverick (and moderate) Kadet, he stood not only between the country’s absolute extremes (the reactionary monarchists and the revolutionaries), but also between the two more or less liberal centrist parties, the Kadets on the center left, and the Octobrists on the center right. As a member of the Second, Third and Fourth Dumas (1907-1917), he advocated a wide range of reforms, especially in the realms of religious freedom, national minorities, judicial independence, citizens’ judicial remedies, and peasant rights.

Подробнее

What’s it like to be the son or daughter of a dictator? A monster on the Stalin level? What’s it like to bear a name synonymous with oppression, terror, and evil?Jay Nordlinger set out to answer that question, and does so in this book. He surveys 20 dictators in all. They are the worst of the worst: Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and so on. The book is not about them, really, though of course they figure in it. It’s about their children.Some of them are absolute loyalists. They admire, revere, or worship their father. Some of them actually succeed their father as dictator—as in North Korea, Syria, and Haiti. Some of them have doubts. A couple of them become full-blown dissenters, even defectors. A few of the daughters have the experience of having their husband killed by their father. Most of these children are rocked by war, prison, exile, or other upheaval.Obviously, the children have things in common. But they are also individuals, making of life what they can. The main thing they have in common is this: They have been dealt a very, very unusual hand.What would you do, if you were the offspring of an infamous dictator, who lords it over your country?An early reader of this book said, “There’s an opera on every page”: a drama, a tragedy (or even a comedy). Another reader said he had read the chapter on Bokassa “with my eyes on stalks.”Meet these characters for yourself. Marvel, shudder, and ponder.

Подробнее

“How could this happen in a country we helped liberate?” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pondered in the aftermath of the September 11, 2012 attacks in Benghazi that left American ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. The Jihadist Plot: The Untold Story of Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion shows how it could have happened and why it did happen. It happened because in supporting the Libyan rebellion against Muammar al-Qaddafi, America and its allies, in effect, changed sides in the war on terror, securing the victory of some of the very Islamic extremist forces that they had been fighting for the previous decade.The result is a Libya that is today under the sway of heavily-armed jihadist brigades that make no secret of their allegiance to al-Qaeda, proudly flying the al-Qaeda flag in broad daylight in Benghazi and other Libyan cities. Moreover, as the September 11 Benghazi attacks make clear, if America reversed course in Libya in order to join forces with jihadists, the jihadists remain exactly as they ever were, with the same ideology and the same hatred of America.Exploding the myth of NATO’s “humanitarian intervention,” The Jihadist Plot tells the real story of the Libyan rebellion. It traces the itineraries of some of the notorious veterans of international jihad who served as the rebellion’s leading commanders and strategists and shows how NATO helped to create a new jihadist hero at the siege of Sirte. And it reveals that long before the onset of the so-called Arab Spring, Libya’s own al-Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, had devised a plan to bring down the Qaddafi regime using some of the classic methods of jihadist terror: a plan that would be put into practice in the rebellion of February 2011.

Подробнее

The importance of honor is present in the earliest records of civilization. Today, while it may still be an essential concept in Islamic cultures, in the West, honor has been disparaged and dismissed as obsolete. In this lively and authoritative book, James Bowman traces the curious and fascinating history of this ideal, from the Middle Ages through the Enlightenment and to the killing fields of World War I and the despair of Vietnam. Bowman reminds us that the fate of honor and the fate of morality and even manners are deeply interrelated. His book is an indispensable document in a time of growing concern about the erosion of values.

Подробнее

This explosive new book challenges many of the long-prevailing assumptions about blacks, about Jews, about Germans, about slavery, and about education. Plainly written, powerfully reasoned, and backed with a startling array of documented facts, Black Rednecks and White Liberals takes on not only the trendy intellectuals of our times but also such historic interpreters of American life as Alexis de Tocqueville and Frederick Law Olmsted. In a series of long essays, this book presents an in-depth look at key beliefs behind many mistaken and dangerous actions, policies, and trends. It presents eye-opening insights into the historical development of the ghetto culture that is today wrongly seen as a unique black identity–a culture cheered on toward self-destruction by white liberals who consider themselves «friends» of blacks. An essay titled «The Real History of Slavery» presents a jolting re-examination of that tragic institution and the narrow and distorted way it is too often seen today. The reasons for the venomous hatred of Jews, and of other groups like them in countries around the world, are explored in an essay that asks, «Are Jews Generic?» Misconceptions of German history in general, and of the Nazi era in particular, are also re-examined. So too are the inspiring achievements and painful tragedies of black education in the United States. «Black Rednecks and White Liberals» is the capstone of decades of outstanding research and writing on racial and cultural issues by Thomas Sowell.

Подробнее

<P><B>Winner of the John Hope Franklin Prize (1991)</B><BR><B>Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Award from the Immigration History Society (1993)</B></P><P>Do recent changes in American law and politics mean that our national motto – e pluribus unum – is at last becoming a reality? Lawrence H. Fuchs searches for answers to this question by examining the historical patterns of American ethnicity and the ways in which a national political culture has evolved to accommodate ethnic diversity. Fuchs looks first at white European immigrants, showing how most of them and especially their children became part of a unifying political culture. He also describes the ways in which systems of coercive pluralism kept persons of color from fully participating in the civic culture. He documents the dismantling of those systems and the emergence of a more inclusive and stronger civic culture in which voluntary pluralism flourishes.</P><P>In comparing past patterns of ethnicity in America with those of today, Fuchs finds reasons for optimism. Diversity itself has become a unifying principle, and Americans now celebrate ethnicity. One encouraging result is the acculturation of recent immigrants from Third World countries. But Fuchs also examines the tough issues of racial and ethnic conflict and the problems of the ethno-underclass, the new outsiders. The American Kaleidoscope ends with a searching analysis of public policies that protect individual rights and enable ethnic diversity to prosper.</P><P>Because of his lifelong involvement with issues of race relations and ethnicity, Lawrence H. Fuchs is singularly qualified to write on a grand scale about the interdependence in the United States of the unum and the pluribus. His book helps to clarify some difficult issues that policymakers will surely face in the future, such as those dealing with immigration, language, and affirmative action.</P>

Подробнее

Книга Алексиса де Токвиля (1805—1859) «Старый порядок и Революция» (1856) открыла новый период изучения Французской революции. Пытаясь выяснить ее истоки, Токвиль обнаружил, что предшествовавший Революции старый порядок совершенно позабыт и сделался непонятным. И теперь нужно было идти в архивы и восстанавливать образ той Франции. Только так можно объяснить, почему произошла Революция и почему ее ход и результаты оказались такими, а не иными. Тем самым он задал новую научную программу исследований генезиса и характера переворота. Сам же Токвиль выяснил, что французы не так уж резко порвали со своим прошлым, как это им казалось, что из этого прошлого они перенесли в новое свое состояние много прежних идей, привычек, стремлений, что многое, начало чего усматривалось в Революции, зародилось еще в Старом порядке. Автор «Старого порядка и революции» положил начало научному исследованию реальных общественных взаимоотношений, совокупность которых и составляла то, что было обобщено под термином «Старый порядок». «Каждому, кто хочет научно отнестись к истории Революции, надлежит быть знакомым с этим небольшим, но в высшей степени замечательным трудом», – писал известный русский историк Н. И. Кареев.

Подробнее

The Ayahuasca Reader: Encounters with the Amazon’s Sacred Vine , is a panorama of texts translated from nearly a dozen languages on the ayahuasca experience. These include indigenous mythic narratives, testimonies, and religious hymns, as well as stories related by Western travelers, scientists, and writers who have had contact with ayahuasca in different contexts. In addition to contributions from Wade Davis, Dennis McKenna, Gerardo Reichel-Dolmotoff and Richard Spruce, the new edition includes essays from Graham Hancock, Alex Grey, Jeremy Narby, Susana Bustos, and a section on Ayahuasca art. The Ayahuasca Reader remains the most comprehensive collection of authoritative writings on the subject ever published. An essential reference for anthropology, ethnobotany and Latin American literature studies, it will be of intense interest to students of Amazonian indigenous culture, Native American spirituality, and metaphysical studies.

Подробнее

Эта увлекательная история является продолжением книг "Африканская история в историях" и "Возвращение", где герой-бывший дипломат, советник российского посольства в Африке, выстраивает свою увлекательную жизнь и бизнес за рубежом в качестве продавца эксклюзивных вещей и проектов. Книга о взаимосвязи прошлого и настоящего, о древних находках и красивых странах. О памяти предков россиян и благородных итальянцах. О поведении людей и компаний во времена кризиса и экономических трудностей. Книга об удачах и падениях, и новых взлётах, описанных с юмором и теплотой, о временах прошедшего первого десятилетия текущего столетия.

Подробнее