Summer Doorways: A Memoir

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Poised at a Moment of Change

Mind-numbingly boring

Elegant

What a summer

Closed Door

Summer Doorways: A Memoir
W. S. Merwin
Manufacturer: Shoemaker & Hoard
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Authors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 159376118X

Book Description

America today is a mobile society. Many of us travel abroad, and few of us live in the towns or cities where we were born. It wasn't always so. “Travel from America to Europe became a commonplace, an ordinary commodity, some time ago, but when I first went such departure was still surrounded with an atmosphere of adventure and improvisation, and my youth and inexperience and my all but complete lack of money heightened that vertiginous sensation,” writes W. S. Merwin. Twenty-one, married and graduated from Princeton, the poet embarked on his first visit to Europe in 1948 when life and traditions on the continent were still adjusting to the postwar landscape. Summer Doorways captures Merwin at a similarly pivotal time before he won the Yale Younger Poets Award in 1952 for his first book, A Mask for Janus—the moment was, as the author writes, “an entire age just before it was gone, like a summer.”

Customer Reviews:

Poised at a Moment of Change.......2006-11-20

Will be appreciated by most readers possessing a sensitivity to the often-agonizingly-beautiful moments in the passage of time.

This book addresses a time that is lost to us... when post-war Europe was a third world realm. But it coincides with activities of the author (Pulitzer winning poet) who was becoming an adult.

Yeah, it is something of a prose Bolero (the sweet, evenly paced orchestral piece that drives some people crazy), but I loved it. Merwin has an unbelieveably detailed memory, keen appreciation of culture, and delightfully soft touch with syntax.

Really wonderful gift for your favorite nostalgic.

Mind-numbingly boring.......2006-07-11

In my experience, memoir written by writers/poets is among the very best reading out there. Summer Doorways was dull. Far too much description of the places without enough said about the people involved.

Elegant.......2006-03-14

W.S.Merwin has written an elegant memoir of the passing of an age of manners and aristocracy that makes the near past seem far distant. Mr. Merwin states his intention early in the book, and delivers with consumate skill, and unfailing grace. There's nothing shocking here except that such a genteel time existed in the rubble of post-WW II Europe. The milieu and the prose are almost other-worldly, and I think the best way to define it is as a "civilized read."

What a summer.......2006-02-24

Merwin relates, with charming lexis, his background and the circumstances leading up to the summer of his 21st birthday, in 1948, when he was contracted to tutor the nephews of the well heeled and well connected Stuyvesant family. The languid prose floats us across the Atlantic with him and his students. Taking up residence in the a Stuyvesant villa on the Riviera, Merwin meets an amazing group of the literati of Europe and America hobnobbing and living off each other in post War II ravaged Europe.

By summer's end he moves on to his next tutoring stint in a very backward Portugal where he meets kings and queens in exile, peasants, ex-patriots and pretenders to thrones. It is a summer worthy of a Fitzgerald novel, a summer of unexpected adventure and reward, a summer that could not possibly be duplicated. It is a memoir written against the backdrop of the final days of the old European aristocracy. A new order had come to power and the lights were rapidly dimming on the Old Guard.

Merwin imbues his tale, not with nostalgia, but with a sense of tenderness and wonder. His beguiling prose sits on the page as if it were kissed by a butterfly.

Closed Door.......2005-11-03

I did not see the value of this bland memoir. W.S. Merwin is a capable writer but the story he tells here will have little interest to any but close family friends and those particularily keen on this minor author's early career. "Without direction or prospect.." Words taken from the book that seem apt.

(I do rank the book's jacket design by David Bullen as first rate.)

Book Description

Stephen J. Ochs chronicles the intersecting lives of the first black military Civil War hero, Captain André Cailloux of the 1st Louisiana Native Guards, and the lone Catholic clerical voice of abolition in New Orleans, the Reverend Claude Paschal Maistre. Their paths converged in July 1863, when Maistre, in defiance of his archbishop, officiated at a large public military funeral for Cailloux, who had perished while courageously leading a doomed charge against the Confederate bastion of Port Hudson. The story of how Cailloux and Maistre arrived at that day and what happened as a consequence provides a prism through which to view the black military experience and the complex interplay of slavery, race, radicalism, and religion during American democracy's most violent upheaval.

AUTHOR BIO: Stephen J. Ochs is the author of two previous books, including Desegregating the Altar: The Josephites and the Struggle for Black Priests, 1871-1960,. He lives in Silver Spring, Maryland, and is chair of the history department at Georgetown Preparatory School.

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A Black Patriot and a White Priest: Andre Cailloux and Claude Paschal Maistre in Civil War New Orleans. (Book Reviews).(Review): An article from: Journal of Southern History
Michael A. Ross
Manufacturer: Southern Historical Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008IIUS8
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Journal of Southern History, published by Southern Historical Association on November 1, 2001. The length of the article is 680 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: A Black Patriot and a White Priest: Andre Cailloux and Claude Paschal Maistre in Civil War New Orleans. (Book Reviews).(Review)
Author: Michael A. Ross
Publication: Journal of Southern History (Refereed)
Date: November 1, 2001
Publisher: Southern Historical Association
Volume: 67 Issue: 4 Page: 869(2)

Article Type: Book Review

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Book Description

A firm grasp of Islamic fundamentalism has often eluded Western political observers, many of whom view it in relation to social and economic upheaval or explain it away as an irrational reaction to modernity. Here Roxanne Euben makes new sense of this belief system by revealing it as a critique of and rebuttal to rationalist discourse and post-Enlightenment political theories. Euben draws on political, postmodernist, and critical theory, as well as Middle Eastern studies, Islamic thought, comparative politics, and anthropology, to situate Islamic fundamentalist thought within a transcultural theoretical context. In so doing, she illuminates an unexplored dimension of the Islamist movement and holds a mirror up to anxieties within contemporary Western political thought about the nature and limits of modern rationalism--anxieties common to Christian fundamentalists, postmodernists, conservatives, and communitarians.

A comparison between Islamic fundamentalism and various Western critiques of rationalism yields formerly uncharted connections between Western and Islamic political thought, allowing the author to reclaim an understanding of political theory as inherently comparative. Her arguments bear on broad questions about the methods Westerners employ to understand movements and ideas that presuppose nonrational, transcendent truths. Euben finds that first, political theory can play a crucial role in understanding concrete political phenomena often considered beyond its jurisdiction; second, the study of such phenomena tests the scope of Western rationalist categories; and finally, that Western political theory can be enriched by exploring non-Western perspectives on fundamental debates about coexistence.

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Customer Reviews:

Brilliance, Scholarship, and Common Sense.......2004-08-13

For any reader seriously interested in a sophisticated, nuanced, and intensely informative analysis of a political and religious movement and culture that now dominates the world stage, Prof. Roxanne Euben's "Enemy In The Mirror" is a bracing, eye-opening work of depth and power. Euben examines Islamic Fundamentalism on its own terms, and with its own series of definitions and directions, rather than opts for the distinctly "Western" reading that so reflexively and arrogantly permeates so much discussion of this subject. It's the difference between the author who is content to point a finger at her subject and say "they're different!" and an author of Euben's intelligence and caliber, who finds it infinitely more compelling to ask, "WHY are they different?" and then goes about trying to answer the question and , perhaps more importantly, understand the answer. Enriching and essential reading.

A Rich and Original Work.......2004-08-10

It has always been more than a little embarrassing that scholars of political thought who purport to address "universal" and "timeless" questions of political life have displayed such provincial disregard for political texts, thinkers, and traditions that are located beyond the shores of Western Europe and North America. It is no less embarrassing that so many contemporary representatives of this "tradition" of political thought have either ignored powerful religio-political movements in the "West" and "non-West," or have sought to interpret those movements from within the tired and familiar analytic frameworks that have dominated Anglo-American political science for at least the past half-century. In this impressive and remarkably ambitious book, Roxanne Euben makes considerable headway in correcting both of these parochial tendencies, while also casting considerable light on the nature and significance of Islamic fundamentalist challenges to the commitments of Western rationalism.

As its subtitle indicates, this book explores and analyzes Islamic fundamentalist critics of modern rationalism. What distinguishes Euben's analysis from the torrent of recent work on this topic is the extraordinary breadth of knowledge and sophistication of understanding that she brings to her topic (Euben reads Arabic and has fully absorbed the relevant literatures in social and political theory, comparative politics, and Middle Eastern Studies). This virtually unparalleled scope and depth of knowledge enables her to detect important limitations in prevailing social scientific explanations of fundamentalism and to develop a variety of unique perspectives of her own. Euben, for example, persuasively argues that most social scientific studies employ models of instrumental rationality that exclude from analysis the substantive ideas that animate fundamentalist thought and action. As a result, they tend to view fundamentalist movements as an irrational, "convulsive reflex" prompted by one or another condition (or combination of conditions) of modernity itself: urbanization, commercialization, industrialism, etc. Rather than starting with a set of methodological directives that dictate a conception of the Islamic fundamentalist as an "irrational rational actor," Euben develops what she terms a "dialogic model of interpretation." This model, she argues, "places fundamentalist ideas at the center of understanding yet insists that there is a perspective sufficiently distant from that of the participants to, first, recognize material conditions that constrain and enframe their actions, and , second, critique and evaluate their experience of the world" (p. 25).

Using this model to excellent effect, Euben explores the work of key nineteenth and twentieth century Islamist thinkers such as Jamal al-Din al-Afgani, Muhammad `Abduh, and, particularly, Sayyid Qutb. Writing against stereotyped, "orientalist" images of Islamist thought as consisting of fanatical, incoherent responses to conditions of modernity, Euben carefully charts the ways in which writers like Qutb develop views of Enlightenment rationalism that, far from being unintelligible or pathological, reveal strong resonances with leading "Western" critics of modernity such as Hannah Arendt, Charles Taylor, Robert Bellah, Alasdair MacIntyre, Daniel Bell, and Richard John Neuhaus. This, of course, is not to say that Islamic critics of modernity and rationalism articulate views that are identical to those of Western students of politics--if this were truly the case, it would be difficult to imagine what might be gained (apart from shoring up the conviction that non-Western writers have nothing original to say) by engaging them. Rather, Euben argues, writers like Qutb and `Abduh are distinctive participants in a common conversation about "the leaching of meaning from modern life" (p. 155). By simultaneously reconstructing and revealing a conversation about modern rationalism that includes conservatives and participatory democrats, communitarians and critical theorists, postmodernists and (Christian and Islamic) fundamentalists, Euben not only undercuts the thesis that differences between Western and Islamic thought are so dramatic that any real conversation is impossible, but also dissolves the easy opposition (invoked by everyone from Samuel Huntington to prominent neoconservatives in the Bush administration) between Western and non-Western political thought. In short, she does a tremendous service to contemporary debates about Islamist challenges to modern rationalism by showing precisely what is familiar and distinctive about them.

While many readers might be primarily interested in Euben's careful and sophisticated explication of leading Islamist thinkers, her book also constitutes an important contribution to what might broadly be called "methodological" debates about the nature of political theory. Drawing on the growing literature in what is termed "comparative political theory," Euben argues that political theory should again become what it once was, specifically, a truly comparative enterprise. More than any other recent study, this book exhibits the clear advantages of an approach to questions of political thought that engages the full range of political practice and experience. It should therefore be "Exhibit A" in future discussions of the value of comparative political theory.

As noted previously, the events of the past several years have produced an overwhelming number of books that purport to engage either Islamist thought or non-Western perspectives more generally. To be frank, much of this work, written by both distinguished public intellectuals and younger scholars, is embarrassingly bad. Composed quickly and without adequate knowledge of the traditions and experiences (or, importantly, facility in the languages though which those traditions and experiences are transmitted) the authors set out to assess, they are at best unhelpful and at worst dangerously distortive. Euben's book, on the other hand, manifests none of these deficiencies. It is an intellectual tour-de-force, the product of a first-rate mind that has devoted itself to the difficult task of understanding the diverse currents of thought that it engages. If one is interested in a reading a highly sophisticated discussion of Islamic fundamentalist thought, one that stimulates rather than deadens reflection on a host of extraordinarily important issues, there is no better place to start than this book.

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Enemy in the Mirror
E. Cantor
Manufacturer: Zebra
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Romance | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0890838429

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Enlightening Material
Life Changing!
A Refreshing Reality Check!
Excellent book
The Truth About Spiritual Warfare

Enemy in the Mirror
Lonny Bingle
Manufacturer: Insight Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Religious Warfare | Spirituality | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1930027508

Customer Reviews:

Enlightening Material.......2002-06-30

I thoroughly enjoyed this book by Dr. Bingle. I found myself so enthralled that it was difficult to put down. The subject matter was practical and poignant, to say the least. I highly recommend this book to anyone willing to examine themselves and allow a compelling truth to penetrate their minds.

Life Changing!.......2002-06-21

This book will show you how to win the REAL battles in life.

A Refreshing Reality Check!.......2002-06-07

This book by Dr. Lonny Bingle will cause the reader to evaluate the condition of their own soul. It is so easy to blame others around us for situations we place ourselves into for our problems. This book is filled with scriptures that reflect the need for us to take responsibility for our own problems. If we can be honest about this self evaluation of our soul, we can move on to achieve the best and highest calling that God intended for us. You could pay a Psychologist all your savings to sit and listen to you cry over all your woes and never accomplish anything except to drain your bank account. If you want a real solution, then spend the small amount for the book and get a real life!

Excellent book.......2002-05-24

This book clearly shows the simplicity of the Word and how our understanding of the bible and God can affect our lives positively or negatively. Taking time to not only read this book but to apply it to your life will make a huge difference. Lonny Bingle's understanding of the bible is brilliant and come straight from God to you. Read this book. You won't regret it!

The Truth About Spiritual Warfare.......2002-05-10

This book was absolutely refreshing. To see an author write with simplicity and clarity was a joy. Dr. Bingle's ability to relate in understandable terms the pitfalls that many people face on a daily basis provided great insight into my personal shortcomings. Often times I heard Christians blaming the devil for their problems and in reality, they should have been looking into the mirror for their problem.

This book brings a spiritual reality to the arena of personal responsibility. Each person must be responsible for their actions and quit looking for an easy excuse for improper behaviors.

Book Description

Featuring the contributions of a number of prominent scholars who are conducting pioneering research into the connections between movies and history, Toplin shows how themes addressed in Hollywood films often reflect the interests, hopes, fears, and prejudices of the American people. The authors see movies as mirrors of important changes in American society. They trace significant transformations in popular opinion toward "outsiders," particularly immigrants, ethnic groups, African-Americans, and women, and they observe the development of attitudes toward "enemies," particularly fascists and communists abroad and subversives at home. Their essays demonstrate that movies can serve as valuable sources for sensing the changing pulse of American society.

Intelligence and the Mirror: On Creating an Enemy (International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO))

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blaming both sides for the Cold War

Intelligence and the Mirror: On Creating an Enemy (International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO))
Robert B Bathurst
Manufacturer: Sage Publications Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Intelligence & Espionage | Military | History | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

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ASIN: 0803989482

Book Description

Despite the enormous resources in capital and intelligence devoted to the problems of war and peace, most military conflicts of the Twentieth Century were not predicted. Political scientists failed to foresee the collapse of empires, and economists forecasted growth when there was obvious decay. Written by a former intelligence officer, Intelligence and the Mirror explains why such forecasting failures occurred. This important volume not only develops, but tests new theory about the role of culture in controlling perception. It lays the foundation for a valuable method in intelligence prediction. Through a checklist of anthropological, cultural, and behavioral factors that affect military and political predictions, Robert Bathurst offers a step-by-step guide to seeing beyond one's "cultural wall." Intelligence and the Mirror is a must read for political science scholars, military intelligence and government analysts, and for all those concerned with conflict resolution and the threat of war.

Customer Reviews:

blaming both sides for the Cold War.......2004-01-01

This book, written some years ago by an old friend and mentor, now deceased, was a disappointment. Bob Bathurst used to teach that the Russians needed to be understood in a cultural way so that we could understand the Soviets strategically. But here he argues that American and Russian cultural "coding" prevented either side from really understanding the other, and in fact allowed each side to create the enemy in the other. In short, a relativistic view of the Cold War. The author displays an impressive understanding of the glories and idiosyncracies of Russian culture--except for the Orthodox Church, which he seems to misunderstand completely--but his view of American culture is wholly negative. For example, he laments that American culture, being "oriented to the present" and subject to rapid "personnel turnover," lacks the sort of "institutional memory" the Russians have. Well, yes, democratic elections do that.

Inverted Mirror: Mythologizing the Enemy in France and Germany 1898-1914 (Contemporary European History)

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Inverted Mirror: Mythologizing the Enemy in France and Germany 1898-1914 (Contemporary European History)
Michael E. Nolan
Manufacturer: Berghahn Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Inverted Mirror; Mythologizing The Enemy In France And Germany 1898-1914

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Inverted Mirror; Mythologizing The Enemy In France And Germany 1898-1914
Michael E. Nolan
Manufacturer: Publisher Unknown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VLCJ1Q

Extending the breaks: Fires in the Mirror in the context of hip-hop structure, style, and culture.: An article from: Comparative Drama

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Extending the breaks: Fires in the Mirror in the context of hip-hop structure, style, and culture.: An article from: Comparative Drama
Steve Feffer
Manufacturer: Comparative Drama
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Comparative Drama, published by Comparative Drama on September 22, 2003. The length of the article is 8230 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Extending the breaks: Fires in the Mirror in the context of hip-hop structure, style, and culture.
Author: Steve Feffer
Publication: Comparative Drama (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2003
Publisher: Comparative Drama
Volume: 37 Issue: 3-4 Page: 397(19)

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Islamismo: tres miradas al Islam.(TT: Islamism: three views of Islam.)(Reseña): An article from: Letras Libres

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Islamismo: tres miradas al Islam.(TT: Islamism: three views of Islam.)(Reseña): An article from: Letras Libres
Walter Laqueur
Manufacturer: Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Letras Libres, published by Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V. on November 1, 2001. The length of the article is 2185 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Islamismo: tres miradas al Islam.(TT: Islamism: three views of Islam.)(ReseÃ±a)
Author: Walter Laqueur
Publication: Letras Libres (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2001
Publisher: Editorial Vuelta, S.A. de C.V.
Volume: 3 Issue: 35 Page: 78

Article Type: ReseÃ±a

Distributed by Thomson Gale

THE ARMLESS MAIDEN: The Hero's Journey; Bedtime Story; Allerleirauh; Snow White to the Prince; She Sleeps in a Tower; Briar Rose; In the House of My Enemy; Fear of Falling; Princess in Puce; The Stepsister's Story; The Session; The Mirror Speaks

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THE ARMLESS MAIDEN: The Hero's Journey; Bedtime Story; Allerleirauh; Snow White to the Prince; She Sleeps in a Tower; Briar Rose; In the House of My Enemy; Fear of Falling; Princess in Puce; The Stepsister's Story; The Session; The Mirror Speaks
Terri (editor) (Midori Snyder; Lisel Mueller; Jane Yolen; Delia Sherman; Tanith Lee; Anne Sexton; Charles de Lint; Susan Palwick; Annita Harlan; Emma Bull; Steven Gould; Peter Straub; Guy Summertree Veryzer; Mark Richards; Sharon Olds) Windling
Manufacturer: Tor Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTH0EG

Book Description

The calendar with a conscience returns for its 16th season. Venturing to the planet's farthest reaches and capturing its most stunning moments, the "Greenpeace Calendar" features a year of evocative portraits by the world's foremost nature photographers--and pairs the images with a message of conservation. Open the calendar: This is what's at stake. All royalties from the sale of this calendar go to support the work of Greenpeace.

Customer Reviews:

The most meaninful beautiful calendar you can buy.......2006-03-27

This is the only calendar I buy as my "main" calendar each year. Anyone who feels a sense of stewardship toward our earth and ALL its inhabitants should buy this calendar. Not only are the photographs beautiful, but there is a description of the picture, so you know what you are looking at and can learn why it is a valuable part of this earth. Also, there is much information about protecting our environment included with each month. If only we all cared as much as the activists at Greenpeace, perhaps our people wouldn't be in Iraq risking their lives for oil.

Greenpeace caelndar is the best year after year.......2006-03-25

I make a point of getting these calendars every year. The pictures are fabulous and everyone always wants to leaf thru it. Plus the proceeds go to charity.

Excellent Calendar.......2006-03-17

This annual calendar is always worth the money! The pictures that are used for each month are crisp, clear, colorful and always interesting. I highly recommend this quality piece of artwork for everyone's wall!

Greenpeace Calendar.......2006-01-30

Wonderful calendar. Nice mix of photos including animals, plants, and scenery. Great photography!!

Greenpeace Calendar 2006.......2005-10-28

I would never miss the Greenpeace Calendars! Wonderful photos, good size. And: It's always a great gift for X-mas. This calendar is not available in Germany. I love it!!!

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