Early in the twentieth century, Itkeh leaves her home in Russia for America, her innocent heart slowly developing passion as she navigates the traveler's troubles en route to the new world. Lazebnik's story is turbulent, tender, dramatic, and timeless.
Medina County was founded in 1848 by settlers from Europe and the eastern United States. At the time, Native Americans still lived on that land, which they called Comancheria. Full of hope for a better life, settlers tamed an unfamiliar landscape that was filled with prickly pear cactus, rattlesnakes, coyotes, mountain lions, bison, armadillos, pecans, persimmons, and mustang grapes. The first settlements in Medina County were Castroville, Quihi, Vandenburg, and DHanis. New Fountain, New DHanis, LaCoste, Rio Medina, Hondo, and others were established later. The settlers worked hard growing cotton and grain and raising cattle, and they retained their old-world customs and religious faith in the face of many challenges. With the building of the Medina Dam, farming changed for the better, and new immigrants arrived to help establish schools and communities. Today the proximity to San Antonio allows people to work in the city while maintaining their homes, farms, and ranches in Medina County.
The Rough Guide to Europe on a Budget is the ultimate guide to exploring this fascinating continent on a shoestring, with coverage of all the top sights, the clearest mapping of any guide and handy hints on how to save money. Discover the highlights of Europe, from the vibrant capitals of London, Paris and Rome to the great outdoors, whether skiing in the Alps, hiking in the Tatras or surfing on the Portuguese coast. Read about Europe's great attractions from the Sistine Chapel in Rome to the Aya Sofia in Istanbul. And with coverage of four new countries - Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina - The Rough Guide to Europe on a Budget is more comprehensive than ever before. Find practical advice on travelling around Europe, whether by InterRail, Eurail or bus, and what to see and do in each country. With up-to-date descriptions of the best hostels and budget hotels, bars, cafés and cheap restaurants, plus European shopping and festivals, this guide is the budget-conscious traveller's must-have item for European trips. Make the most of your trip to Europe with The Rough Guide to Europe on a Budget.
The Rough Guide to Europe on a Budget is the ultimate guide to exploring this fascinating continent on a shoestring, with coverage of all the top sights, the clearest mapping of any guide and handy hints on how to save money. Discover the highlights of Europe, from the vibrant capitals of London, Paris and Rome to the great outdoors, whether skiing in the Alps, hiking in the Tatras or surfing on the Portuguese coast. Read about Europe's great attractions from the Sistine Chapel in Rome to the Aya Sofia in Istanbul. And with coverage of four new countries - Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina - The Rough Guide to Europe on a Budget is more comprehensive than ever before. Find practical advice on travelling around Europe, whether by InterRail, Eurail or bus, and what to see and do in each country. With up-to-date descriptions of the best hostels and budget hotels, bars, cafés and cheap restaurants, plus European shopping and festivals, this guide is the budget-conscious traveller's must-have item for European trips. Make the most of your trip to Europe with The Rough Guide to Europe on a Budget. Now available in ePub format.
Paul Auerbach's Socialist Optimism offers an alternative political economy for the twenty-first century. Present-day capitalism has generated growing inequality of income and wealth, persistent high levels of unemployment and ever-diminishing prospects for young people. But in the absence of a positive vision of how society and the economy might develop in the future, the present trajectory of capitalism will never be derailed, no matter how acute the critique of present-day developments. The detailed blueprint presented here focuses upon the education and upbringing of children in the context of social equality and household security. It yields a well-defined path to human development and liberation, as well as democratic control of working life and public affairs. Socialism as human development gives a unity and direction to progressive policies that are otherwise seen to be a form of pragmatic tinkering in the context of a pervasive capitalist reality.
Surviving the Holocaust is a compelling sociological account of two brothers who survived the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Poland. One brother, the author’s father, endured several concentration camps, including the infamous camp at Auschwitz, as well as a horrific winter death march; while the other brother, the author’s uncle, survived outside the camps by passing as a Catholic among anti-Semitic Poles, including a group of anti-Nazi Polish Partisans, eventually becoming an officer in the Soviet army. As an exemplary "theorized life history," Surviving the Holocaust applies concepts from life course theory to interpret the trajectories of the brothers’ lives, enhancing this approach with insights from agency-structure and collective memory theory. Challenging the conventional wisdom that survival was simply a matter of luck, it highlights the prewar experiences, agentive decision-making and risk-taking, and collective networks that helped the brothers elude the death grip of the Nazi regime. Surviving the Holocaust also shows how one family’s memory of the Holocaust is commingled with the memories of larger collectivities, including nations-states and their institutions, and how the memories of individual survivors are infused with collective symbolic meaning.
A history of Judaism written in letters from historian Martin Gilbert to his acquaintance in India, who wants to learn more about her ancestry. At her ninetieth birthday celebration in New Delhi, “Auntie Fori” revealed to her longtime acquaintance, Sir Martin Gilbert, that she was not of Indian birth but actually Hungarian—and Jewish. She did not know what this Jewish identity involved, historically or spiritually, and asked him to enlighten her. In response, Gilbert embarked on the series of letters that have been gathered to form this book, shaping each one as a concise, individually formed story. He presents Jewish history as the narrative expression—the timeline—of the Jewish faith, and the faith as it is informed by the history. In Sir Martin’s hands, these stories are rich in incident and achievement, starting with Adam and Eve through the Biblical and post-Biblical periods, to the long history of the Jews in the Diaspora, and ending with an unexpected visit to an outpost of Jewry in Anchorage, Alaska. Ranging through almost every country in the world—including China and India—he maintains a chronological structure, weaving in the history of other peoples and faiths, to give Auntie Fori, and us, a sense of the larger stage on which Jewish history has played out. “Compact, breezy, and thoroughly enjoyable . . . For those, like Auntie Fori, hoping to understand the Jewish past and present, this book is a treasure.” —Booklist
Letters to America was written to energize Americans at a time of economic stress and self-doubt. By reading of the sacrifices the previous American generations – that often endured everyday hardships beyond the comprehension of those of us with running water – challenges confronting individual modern Americans pale in comparison. Starvation and hardship was a given for the early settlers, and yet somehow they persevered and through the fruits of their labors and the tenacity of subsequent immigrants and their descendants, the United States of America grew and flourished. Do we have the work ethic and perseverance today of our forefathers? Do modern Americans even know what true suffering is? Tom Blair believes that Americans can come together to solve this country’s problems, but they will need to be able to sacrifice and work like those who have come before us. A blending of Forrest Gump, Roots and a Profiles in Courage populated by characters from the country’s past. Letters to America is a compilation of twelve letters, each a chapter told in first person, by fictional Americans about their everyday lives. The voices are entirely distinct—men, women, and children; white, black, Native American, Jewish—spanning four centuries, from early American settlers in Jamestown in the 1620s to modern day corporate lunches in mid-town Manhattan. Yet the stories are loosely linked by subtle resonances; and the letters have a cumulative effect that is both humbling and deeply affecting, filled with hope for a future that can be as inspirational as our past.