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Profiting from the Plains looks at two inextricably linked historical movements in the United States: the westward expansion of the Great Northern Railway and the agricultural development of the northern plains. Claire Strom explores the persistent, idiosyncratic attempts by owner James J. Hill to boost agricultural production along the Great Northern's rail routes from St. Paul to Seattle between 1878 and 1917.

Through most of its history, the Boeing Company has been one of the biggest providers of jobs and wealth in western Washington State. But in the 1990s, the company found itself a target of local activists and politicians who saw urban sprawl and "growth politics" ruining the region's quality of life.T. M. Sell grew up in a Boeing family, near Boeing's Renton plant, and later covered the company as a reporter for the Valley Daily News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He is a first-hand observer of the drama he unfolds--one personally interested in the future of his community, well informed about the details of its history, acquainted with many of the principal players, and conversant with the theoretical and historical literature that bears on the multifaceted questions he seeks to answer.After a lively sketch of the Boeing Company's history into the last decade of the 20th century, Sell looks at what happened when Boeing tried to expand its facilities in Renton and Everett. It was then that the "paradox of growth" first manifested itself, the point at which the benefits of economic expansion appeared to be outweighed by its costs.Sell examines political power management in Washington State, paying particular attention to Boeing's successful efforts to be a positive influence in the state, to the strategies it used to influence growth-management legislation in Olympia, and to its negotiations with the communities most affected by its efforts to grow. In each case, Sell gives not just an overview of positions and strategies but also sharply drawn portraits of the lobbyists, analysts, and politicians involved, many of whom explain their views in direct conversation. The balanced and comprehensive approach Sell brings to bear on the story is also his recommendation for dealing with inevitable future growth-related contentions. Fostering the continuing health of our economic and political environment, he concludes, will require just such a broad, evenhanded, and sensible approach to the politics of compromise.

Kenneth Stow is professor of Jewish history at the University of Haifa and was the 1996 Kennedy Professor in the Renaissance at Smith College. His numerous publications include Alienated Minority: The Jews of Medieval Latin Europe and the two-volume The Jews in Rome.

During their thirteen years in power, Slobodan Milosevic and his cohorts plunged Yugoslavia into wars of ethnic cleansing, leading to the murder of thousands of civilians. The Milosevic regime also subverted the nation's culture, twisted the political mainstream into a virulent nationalist mold, sapped the economy through war and the criminalization of a free market, returned to gender relations of a bygone era, and left the state so dysfunctional that its peripheries--Kosovo, Vojvodina, and Montenegro--have been struggling to maximize their distance from Belgrade, through far-reaching autonomy or through outright independence.In this valuable collection of essays, Vjeran Pavlakovic, Reneo Lukic, and Obrad Kesic examine elements of continuity and discontinuity from the Milosevic era to the twenty-first century, the struggle at the center of power, and relations between Serbia and Montenegro. Contributions by Sabrina Ramet, James Gow, and Milena Michalski explore the role of Serbian wartime propaganda and the impact of the war on Serbian society. Essays by Eric Gordy, Maja Miljovic, Marko Hoare, and Kari Osland look at the legacy of Serbia's recent wars-issues of guilt and responsibility, the economy, and the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in The Hague. Sabrina Ramet and Biljana Bijelic address the themes of culture and values. Frances Trix, Emil Kerenji, and Dennis Reinhartz explore the peripheries in the politics of Kosovo/a, Vojvodina, and Serbia's Roma.Serbia Since 1989 reveals a Serbia that is still traumatized from Milosevic's rule and groping toward redefining its place in the world.

An instant bestseller upon its publication in China in 1996, Chinese Students Encounter America (Liuxue Meiguo) appealed to those who had studied abroad, those who dreamed of doing so, and those who wanted a glimpse of the real America. This translation allows American readers to see their country through a Chinese lens.Since China reopened to the West in the late 1970s, several hundred thousand Chinese students and scholars have traveled abroad for advanced education, primarily to the United States. Based on interviews conducted while the author studied journalism and taught Chinese literature at the University of Michigan from 1989 to 1995, Chinese Students Encounter America tells the poignant and often revealing stories of students from a variety of backgrounds.After describing the history of Chinese students in America--from Yung Wing, who graduated from Yale in 1854, to the post-Cultural Revolution generation--Qian presents the experience of Chinese students today through anecdotes ranging from students' obsession with obtaining Green Cards and their struggles to support themselves, to their marital crises. Looming large in these personal stories is the legacy of China's three decades of social and political turbulence following the Communist revolution in 1949 and America's dizzying abundance of material goods and personal freedom.Qian Ning, son of Qian Qichen, China's former Foreign Minister and a Deputy Prime Minister, studied at People's University in Beijing and worked as a reporter for People's Daily before entering graduate school at the University of Michigan. Since returning to China, he has worked as a business consultant. His most recent book is about the Qin dynasty prime minister Li Si.

Patty O'Brien teaches history through the Center for Australian and New Zealand Studies in the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

Dinshaw Mistry is assistant professor and director of Asian studies at the University of Cincinnati. He has written extensively on technology and politics, regional security, and international cooperation in The New York Times, Security Studies, Contemporary Security Policy, Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, and other publications.

In this original and sweeping review of Jewish culture and history, Ivan Marcus examines how and why various rites and customs celebrating stages in the life cycle have evolved through the ages and persisted to this day. For each phase of life--from childhood and adolescence to adulthood and the advanced years--the book traces the origin and development of specific rites associated with the events of birth, circumcision, and schooling; bar and bat mitzvah and confirmation; engagement, betrothal, and marriage; and aging, dying, and remembering. Customs in Jewish tradition, such as the presence of godparents at a circumcision, the use of a four-poled canopy at a wedding, and the placing of small stones on tombstones, are discussed. In each chapter, detailed descriptions walk the reader through such ceremonies as early modern and contemporary circumcision, weddings, and funerals.In a comparative framework, Marcus illustrates how Jewish culture has negotiated with the majority cultures of the ancient Near East, Greco-Roman antiquity, medieval European Christianity, and Mediterranean Islam, as well as with modern secular and religious movements and social trends, to renew itself through ritual innovation.In his extensive research on the Jewish life cycle, Marcus draws from documents on various customs and ritual practices, offering reassessments of original sources and scholarly literature.Marcus's survey is the first comprehensive study of the rites of the Jewish life cycle since Hayyim Schauss's The Lifetime of the Jew was published in 1950, written for Jewish readers. Marcus's book addresses a broader audience and is designed to appeal to scholars and interested readers.

Sidner Larson's Captured in the Middle embodies the very nature of Indian storytelling, which is circular, drawing upon the personal experiences of the narrator at every turn. Larson teaches about contemporary American Indian literature by describing his own experiences as a child on the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana and as a professor at the University of Oregon.Larson argues that contemporary Native American literary criticism is stalled. On one hand are the scholars who portray Indians stereotypically, assuming that the experiences of all tribal groups have largely been the same. On the other hand are those scholars who focus on the "authenticity" of the writer. In contrast, Larson considers the scholarship of Vine Deloria, Jr., who has a genuine understanding of the balance required in dealing with these issues. Two writers who have successfully redescribed many of the contemporary romantic stereotypes are James Welch and Louise Erdrich, both northern Plains Indians whose works are markedly different, their writing highlighting the disparate ways tribal groups have responded to colonization.Larson describes Indians today as postapocalyptic peoples who have already lived through the worst imaginable suffering. By confronting the issues of fear, suppression, and lost identity through literature, Indians may finally move forward to imagine and create for themselves a better future, serving as models for the similarly fractured cultures found throughout the world today.

Male-male rivalry and female passive choice, the two principal tenets of Darwinian sexual selection, raise important ethical questions in The Descent of Man--and in the decades since--about the subjugation of women. If female choice is a key component of evolutionary success, what impact does the constraint of women's choices have on society? The elaborate courtship plots of 19th century Spanish novels, with their fixation on suitors and selectors, rivalry, and seduction, were attempts to grapple with the question of female agency in a patriarchal society. By reading Darwin through the lens of the Spanish realist novel and vice versa, Travis Landry brings new insights to our understanding of both: while Darwin's theories have often been seen as biologically deterministic, Landry asserts that Darwin's theory of sexual selection was characterized by an open ended dynamic whose oxymoronic emphasis on "passive" female choice carries the potential for revolutionary change in the status of women.

Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295804101The state of Tibetan culture within contemporary China is a highly politicized topic on which reliable information is rare. But what is Tibetan culture and how should it be developed or preserved? The Chinese authorities and the Tibetans in exile present conflicting views on almost every aspect of Tibetan cultural life.Ashild Kolas and Monika Thowsen have gathered an astounding array of data to quantify Tibetan cultural activities--involving Tibetan language, literature, visual arts, museums, performing arts, festivals, and religion. Their study is based on fieldwork and interviews conducted in the ethnic Tibetan areas surrounding the Tibetan Autonomous Region--parts of the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan, and Qinghai. Aware of the ambiguous nature of information collected in restricted circumstances, they make every effort to present a complete and unbiased picture of Tibetan communities living on China's western frontiers.Kolas and Thowsen investigate the present conditions of Tibetan cultural life and cultural expression, providing a wealth of detailed information on topics such as the number of restored monasteries and nunneries and the number of monks, nuns, and tulkus (reincarnated lamas) affiliated with them; sources of funding for monastic reconstruction and financial support of clerics; types of religious ceremonies being practiced; the content of monastic and secular education; school attendance; educational curriculum and funding; the role of language in Tibetan schools; and Tibetan news and cultural media.On the Margins of Tibet will be of interest to historians and social scientists studying modern China and Tibetan culture, and to the many others concerned about Tibet's place in the world.

NEW IN PAPERBACK"Crossing the fields of Chinese history, literature, philology, and archaeology, this important collection examines understanding of the most fundamental aspects of the Chinese literary tradition and challenges established ideas about classical Han (206 BCE-220 CE) and pre-Han texts."ChoiceMartin Kern is associate professor of East Asian studies at Princeton University. The other contributors are William G. Boltz, K. E. Brashier, Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Joachim Gentz, Michael Nylan, David Schaberg, and Lothar von Falkenhausen.

Douglas Kelbaugh is professor of architecture and urban planning in Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, and former principal in Kelbaugh, Calthorpe & Associates in Seattle and in Kelbaugh + Lee in Princeton, New Jersey. Among many other writings, he coauthored the national best seller The Pedestrian Pocket Book.

Historians and scholars of Chinese and comparative literature look at the influence of the Ming and Qing dynasties (c. 1550-1911) legal culture on literature and the influence of literary conventions on the presentation of legal cases. Essays explore works of crime-case fiction, judicial handbooks for magistrates and legal secretaries, popular attitudes toward Buddhist monks and merchants as reflected in the plaints, the role of professional litigation masters, and the belief in a parallel, otherworldly judicial system.

For more than fifteen hundred years Yupik and proto-Yupik Eskimo peoples have lived at the site of the Alaskan village of Gambell on St. Lawrence Island. Their history is a record of family and kin, and of the interrelationship between those who live in Gambell and the spiritual world on which they depend; it is a history dominated by an abiding desire for community survival.Relying on oral history blended with ethnography and ethnohistory, Carol Zane Jolles views the contemporary Yupik people in terms of the enduring beliefs and values that have contributed to the community's survival and adaptability. She draws on extensive interviews with villagers, archival records, and scholarly studies, as well as on her own ten years of fieldwork in Gambell to demonstrate the central importance of three aspects of Yupik life: religious beliefs, devotion to a subsistence life way, and family and clan ties. Jolles documents the life and livelihood of this modern community of marine mammal hunters and explores the ways in which religion is woven into the lives of community members, paying particular attention to the roles of women. Her account conveys a powerful sense of the lasting bonds between those who live in Gambell and their spiritual world, both past and present.

Open-access edition: DOI 10.6069/9780295804071Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in the 1980s and 1990s in southern Sichuan, this pathbreaking study examines the nature of ethnic consciousness and ethnic relations among local communities, focusing on the Nuosu (classified as Yi by the Chinese government), Prmi, Naze, and Han. It argues that even within the same regional social system, ethnic identity is formulated, perceived, and promoted differently by different communities at different times.Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China exemplifies a model in which ethnic consciousness and ethnic relations consist of drawing boundaries between one's own group and others, crossing those boundaries, and promoting internal unity within a group. Leaders and members of ethnic groups use commonalties and differences in history, culture, and kinship to promote internal unity and to strengthen or cross external boundaries. Superimposed on the structure of competing and cooperating local groups is a state system of ethnic classification and administration; members and leaders of local groups incorporate this system into their own ethnic consciousness, co-opting or resisting it situationally.The heart of the book consists of detailed case studies of three Nuosu village communities, along with studies of Prmi and Naze communities, smaller groups such as the Yala and Nasu, and Han Chinese who live in minority areas. These are followed by a synthesis that compares different configurations of ethnic identity in different communities and discusses the implications of these examples for our understanding of ethnicity and for the near future of China. This lively description and analysis of the region's complex ethnic identities and relationships constitutes an original and important contribution to the study of ethnic identity.Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China will be of interest to social scientists concerned with issues of ethnicity and state-building.

Going beyond the stereotypes of Kalashnikov-wielding Afghan mujahideen and black-turbaned Taliban fundamentalists, Larry Goodson explains in this concise analysis of the Afghan war what has really been happening in Afghanistan in the last twenty years.Beginning with the reasons behind Afghanistan¿s inability to forge a strong state -- its myriad cleavages along ethnic, religious, social, and geographical fault lines -- Goodson then examines the devastating course of the war itself. He charts its utter destruction of the country, from the deaths of more than 2 million Afghans and the dispersal of some six million others as refugees to the complete collapse of its economy, which today has been replaced by monoagriculture in opium poppies and heroin production. The Taliban, some of whose leaders Goodson interviewed as recently as 1997, have controlled roughly 80 percent of the country but themselves have shown increasing discord along ethnic and political lines.

This volume of collected essays is an important contribution to contemporary understandings of race and ethnicity, offering truly multiethnic, historically comparative, and meta-theoretical readings of the literature and culture of the United States. Covering works by a diverse set of American authors--from Toni Morrison to Bret Harte--these essays provide a vital supplement to the critical literary canon, mapping a newly variegated terrain that refuses the distinction between "ethnic" and "nonethnic" literatures.

Studying the Jewish Future explores the power of Jewish culture and assesses the perceived threats to the coherence and size of Jewish communities in the United States, Europe, and Israel. In an unconventional and provocative argument, Calvin Goldscheider departs from the limiting vision of the demographic projections that have shaped predictions about the health and future of Jewish communities and asserts that "the quality of Jewish life has become the key to the future of Jewish communities."Through the lens of individual biographies, Goldscheider shows how context shapes Jewish senses of the future and how conceptions of the future are shaped and altered by life experiences. Goldscheider's distinctive comparative approach includes a critical review of population issues, a consideration of biographies as a basis for understanding Jewish values, and an analysis of biblical texts for studying contemporary values. He combines demographic and sociological analyses in historical and comparative perspectives to dispel the notion that quantitative issues are at the heart of the challenge of Jewish continuity in the future.Numbers are clearly the building blocks of community. But the interpretations of these demographic issues are often confusing and biased by ideological preconceptions. As a basis for studying the core themes of the Jewish future, "hard facts" are less "hard" and less "factual" than interpreters have made them out to be. Population projections are limited by the vision of those who prepare them.Goldscheider concludes that the futures of Jewish communities--in America, Europe, and Israel--are much more secure than has been presented in most scholarly and popular publications, and discussions about the Jewish future should shift to other patterns of distinctiveness.This book will appeal to the general Jewish reader as well as to social scientists and modern Jewish historians. It is appropriate for Jewish studies courses, particularly, but not exclusively, those focusing on Jews in the United States, the American Jewish community, and modern Jewish society, and in courses on ethnicity, multiculturalism, cultural diversity, and ethnic relations.

John W. Garver teaches at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Among his other books are Face Off: China, the United States, and Taiwan's Democratization and Foregn Relations of the People's Republic of China.