Why the Cocks Fight

Why the Cocks Fight

Author: Michele Wucker

Publisher: Hill and Wang

Published: 2014-04-08

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1466867884

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Like two roosters in a fighting arena, Haiti and the Dominican Republic are encircled by barriers of geography and poverty. They co-inhabit the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, but their histories are as deeply divided as their cultures: one French-speaking and black, one Spanish-speaking and mulatto. Yet, despite their antagonism, the two countries share a national symbol in the rooster--and a fundamental activity and favorite sport in the cockfight. In this book, Michele Wucker asks: "If the symbols that dominate a culture accurately express a nation's character, what kind of a country draws so heavily on images of cockfighting and roosters, birds bred to be aggressive? What does it mean when not one but two countries that are neighbors choose these symbols? Why do the cocks fight, and why do humans watch and glorify them?" Wucker studies the cockfight ritual in considerable detail, focusing as much on the customs and histories of these two nations as on their contemporary lifestyles and politics. Her well-cited and comprehensive volume also explores the relations of each nation toward the United States, which twice invaded both Haiti (in 1915 and 1994) and the Dominican Republic (in 1916 and 1965) during the twentieth century. Just as the owners of gamecocks contrive battles between their birds as a way of playing out human conflicts, Wucker argues, Haitian and Dominican leaders often stir up nationalist disputes and exaggerate their cultural and racial differences as a way of deflecting other kinds of turmoil. Thus Why the Cocks Fight highlights the factors in Caribbean history that still affect Hispaniola today, including the often contradictory policies of the U.S.


Cockfight

Cockfight

Author: Maria Fernanda Ampuero

Publisher: Feminist Press at CUNY

Published: 2020-06-23

Total Pages: 78

ISBN-13: 1936932830

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This Ecuadorian short story collection explores domestic horrors and everyday violence, a "grotesque, unflinching" portrait of twenty-first-century Latin America (Publishers Weekly). “Ampuero’s literary voice is tough and beautiful at once: her stories are exquisite and dangerous objects.” —Yuri Herrera, author of Signs Preceding the End of the World Named one of the ten best fiction books of 2018 by the New York Times en Español, Cockfight is the debut work by Ecuadorian writer and journalist María Fernanda Ampuero. In lucid and compelling prose, Ampuero sheds light on the hidden aspects of the home: the grotesque realities of family, coming of age, religion, and class struggle. A family’s maids witness a horrible cycle of abuse, a girl is auctioned off by a gang of criminals, and two sisters find themselves at the mercy of their spiteful brother. With violence masquerading as love, characters spend their lives trapped reenacting their past traumas. Heralding a brutal and singular new voice, Cockfight explores the power of the home to both create and destroy those within it.


The Cockfight

The Cockfight

Author: Alan Dundes

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published: 1994-06-15

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0299140547

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Originating more than 2500 years ago, cockfighting is one of the oldest documented sports in the world. It has continued to flourish despite bans against it in many countries. In The Cockfight: A Casebook, folklorist Alan Dundes brings together a diverse array of writing on this male-dominated ritual. Vivid descriptions of cockfights from Puerto Rico, Tahiti, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, and the Philippines complement critical commentaries, from the fourth-century reflections of St. Augustine to contemporary anthropological and psychoanalytic interpretations. The various essays discuss the intricate rules of the cockfight, the ethical question of pitting two equally matched roosters in a fight to the death, the emotional involvement of cockfighters and fans, and the sexual implications of the sport. The result is an enlightening collection for anthropologists, folklorists, sociologists, and psychologists, as well as followers of this ancient blood sport.


Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?

Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?

Author: Andrew Lawler

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-12-02

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 1476729913

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Veteran journalist Andrew Lawler delivers a “fascinating and delightful…globetrotting tour” (Wall Street Journal) with the animal that has been most crucial to the spread of civilization—the chicken. In a masterful combination of historical sleuthing and journalistic adventure, veteran reporter Andrew Lawler “opens a window on civilization, evolution, capitalism, and ethics” (New York) with a fascinating account of the most successful of all cross-species relationships—the partnership between human and chicken. This “splendid book full of obsessive travel and research in history” (Kirkus Reviews) explores how people through the ages embraced the chicken as a messenger of the gods, an all-purpose medicine, an emblem of resurrection, a powerful sex symbol, a gambling aid, a handy research tool, an inspiration for bravery, the epitome of evil, and, of course, the star of the world’s most famous joke. Queen Victoria was obsessed with the chicken. Socrates’s last words embraced it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur used it for scientific breakthroughs. Religious leaders of all stripes have praised it. Now neuroscientists are uncovering signs of a deep intelligence that offers insights into human behavior. Trekking from the jungles of southeast Asia through the Middle East and beyond, Lawler discovers the secrets behind the fowl’s transformation from a shy, wild bird into an animal of astonishing versatility, capable of serving our species’ changing needs more than the horse, cow, or dog. The natural history of the chicken, and its role in entertainment, food history, and food politics, as well as the debate raging over animal welfare, comes to light in this “witty, conversational” (Booklist) volume.


The Fighting Cocks

The Fighting Cocks

Author: Jimmy Beedle

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2011-06-29

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 1848843852

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In April 1916, a group of early aviators gathered in the fields beneath the crags and ramparts of Stirling Castle to form what was to become one of the Royal Air Force’s most distinguished fighter squadrons. Few squadrons can match the history of 43 Squadron which has included being the first to undertake ground attack operations during the First World War, shooting down the first enemy aircraft over England in the Second World War, and achieving the remarkable double of shooting down 6 enemy aircraft in one day in both World Wars. Its distinctive emblem of the Fighting Cock embodies the spirit and resilience of a fighter squadron that has been in the vanguard of RAF operations for almost a century. Perhaps the Fighting Cocks’ finest period occurred during the Battle of Britain when its Hurricanes destroyed 60 enemy aircraft with a further thirteen ”probables” and twenty-five more damaged. With the advent of the jet age, 43 Squadron became the first unit to fly the Hunter, seeing operational duties in Aden, before re-equipping with the Phantom until the end of the Cold War. This new edition of the Fighting Cocks’ history brings the story up to date and covers its 20 years of service with the Tornado F3, including the Gulf War, NATO operations over Bosnia, and the Iraq War. * This new edition of the Fighting Cocks’ history brings the story up to date * Few squadrons can match the history of 43 Squadron * Fighting Cock embodies the spirit and resilience of a fighter squadron that has been in the vanguard of RAF operations for almost a century


Cockfighter

Cockfighter

Author: Charles Willeford

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2013-08-11

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 1468306901

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In the criminal underbelly of the 1960s rural South, a silent, iron-willed man is ready to sacrifice anything to rise to the top. A former professional boxer, actor, horse trainer and radio announcer, Charles Willeford (1919-1988) is best known for his Miami-based crime novels featuring hard-boiled detective Hoke Moseley, including Miami Blues and Sideswipe. His career as a writer began in the late 1940s, but it was his 1972 novel Cockfighter that announced his name to a wider audience. Frank Mansfield is the titular cockfighter: a silent and fiercely contrary man whose obsession with winning will cost him almost everything. Mansfield haunts the cockpits, bars and roads of the rural South in the early 1960s, adrift but always capable of nearly anything... First published in complete form in 1972, and adapted by Willeford for a Monte Hellman film in 1974 (which became infamous for its use of real animals in the fight scenes), the novel Cockfighter has been out of print for nearly 20 years. Praise for Charles Willeford and Cockfighter “One of our most skilled, interesting, accomplished and productive writers.” —Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post “Charles Willeford renders the sport [of cockfighting] with such knowledge and attention to detail that . . . I had the almost inexpressible impression of being on my knees again beside the great fighting pits of the southern circuit.” —Harry Crews “No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford.” —Elmore Leonard “Entertaining every step of the way... Willeford opens up for most of us a whole undiscovered world, and conveys it wonderfully.” —Publishers Weekly


The Royal Pastime of Cock-Fighting

The Royal Pastime of Cock-Fighting

Author: Robert Howlett

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2018-05-15

Total Pages: 58

ISBN-13: 3732671534

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Reproduction of the original: The Royal Pastime of Cock-Fighting by Robert Howlett


Moonshine, Monster Catfish and Other Southern Comforts

Moonshine, Monster Catfish and Other Southern Comforts

Author: Burkhard Bilger

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2016-03-07

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9781784755386

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Burkhard Bilger's beautifully written, wonderfully funny and movingly nostalgic book explores the surviving (and often dying) folk traditions of the American South, from the eating of squirrel brains in Kentucky, cock-fighting in Oklahoma, frog-ranching in Georgia and coon-hunting all over, to the noodling for flatheads (fishing for catfish, using your fingers as bait and your arm as a hook) of the title. Caught between the possibility of survival through commercialisation or gradual decline (or in the case of squirrel-brain-eating, threatened by fears of Mad Squirrel Disease), many of these activities will be lucky to survive far into the new century. Burkhard Bilger's book is a wonderful elegy, hilarious, fascinating and touching, to a threatened tradition of American eccentricity and independence, but it is also a celebration of the survival of local folk culture in the era of the global triumph of Nike, Barbie and Coca-Cola, a survival that persists in America's own back yard. Narrative non-fiction at its best.


The Fighting Cock

The Fighting Cock

Author: A. J. F. Doulton

Publisher:

Published: 2002-12

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9781843424628

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This division first saw light in Jhansi on 1st January 1942, under the command of Major-General R.A.Savory who had come from the 4th Indian Division in which he had been a brigade commander at Sidi Barrani and Keren (Eritrea). At first there were virtually no troops but gradually the brigades began to assemble - 1st, 37th and 49th, all of which would remain to the end of the war. Apart from the presence of the 82nd ATk Regt for a brief period in the very early days, the only British units to serve in the division were 158th Field Regiment RA and 1st Seaforths. In May the division took up station on the frontiers of Assam and Burma, the only force between the Japanese and India. The GOC s operation order included the intention: 23 Ind Div will (a) stop the Japanese invading INDIA, and (b) defeat them if they do. For the next two years and three months the division fought in the jungles of Burma and for all but five months of that time they were front line troops. They went through the length of Burma finishing up near Rangoon and in August 1944 they were withdrawn and sent back to India. Casualties totalled 2,910 of whom 605 were killed in action. A year later, just after VJ-Day, they were sent to Malaya and from there to Java to restore order in the Dutch colony and hand it back to the Netherlands. They were engaged in fighting the Indonesian rebels for more than a year, suffering a further 1,377 casualties, 407 of them killed and 162 missing. Summary of Honours and Awards and index. This is a good history which describes vividly the atmosphere of jungle fighting and the savage resistance of the Japanese soldier. On page xvi the author explains the Indian Army ranks and shows the Subedar-Major under the NCO group. This is wrong. The Subedar-Major was the senior Viceroys s Commissioned Officer in the battalion.