"A Modest Quest" describes the beginning of my quest to find out about my family. It was, at the outset, intended to be a modest quest - simply to find out about my parents' parents and brothers and sisters. Growing up, I and my sister and brother thought that all our grandparents were already dead; nor did we know much about our uncles and aunts. But the quest was not easy; it took about two years and some deep digging just to settle the questions about some of these relatives. By then, of course, the quest had embedded itself in my life, because you don't understand a person until you know something about their parents, and so it goes on.

One of NPR's Best Books of 2016 and a Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell, and Locus Award finalist for Best Novella Professor Vellitt Boe teaches at the prestigious Ulthar Women’s College. When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her. "Kij Johnson's haunting novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is both a commentary on a classic H.P. Lovecraft tale and a profound reflection on a woman's life. Vellitt's quest to find a former student who may be the only person who can save her community takes her through a world governed by a seemingly arbitrary dream logic in which she occasionally glimpses an underlying but mysterious order, a world ruled by capricious gods and populated by the creatures of dreams and nightmares. Those familiar with Lovecraft's work will travel through a fantasy landscape infused with Lovecraftian images viewed from another perspective, but even readers unfamiliar with his work will be enthralled by Vellitt's quest. A remarkable accomplishment that repays rereading." —Pamela Sargent, winner of the Nebula Award At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Starting up is not just about business. In the life of a young nation like India, it is also a marker of changing mores, aspirations and perhaps even the evolving cultural fabric of a society that is finally coming into its own. This book will seek to illustrate how this wave of change, which differs from earlier ones in the history of Indian business, has come to pass. It will examine what these changes mean in an era that looks set to be dominated as much by the uncertainties of climate change and a transition away from a fossil-fuel economy as also by the rise and disquieting threat of artificial intelligence. This is a story of innovation, of ambition and yes, the grand vision of a select few that is transforming the way India learns, works and plays.

A prestigious series of lectures that are international and intercultural, and transcend ethnic, national, religious, and ideological distinctions.

Winner of the 2022 Civil War Books and Authors Book of the Year Award In Soldiers from Experience, Eric Michael Burke examines the tactical behavior and operational performance of Major General William T. Sherman’s Fifteenth US Army Corps during its first year fighting in the Western Theater of the American Civil War. Burke analyzes how specific experiences and patterns of meaning-making within the ranks led to the emergence of what he characterizes as a distinctive corps-level tactical culture. The concept—introduced here for the first time—consists of a collection of shared, historically derived ideas, beliefs, norms, and assumptions that play a decisive role in shaping a military command’s particular collective approach on and off the battlefield. Burke shows that while military historians of the Civil War frequently assert that generals somehow imparted their character upon the troops they led, Sherman’s corps reveals the opposite to be true. Contrary to long-held historiographical assumptions, he suggests the physical terrain itself played a much more influential role than rifled weapons in necessitating tactical changes. At the same time, Burke argues, soldiers’ battlefield traumas and regular interactions with southern civilians, the enslaved, and freedpeople during raids inspired them to embrace emancipation and the widespread destruction of Rebel property and resources. An awareness and understanding of this culture increasingly informed Sherman’s command during all three of his most notable late-war campaigns. Burke’s study serves as the first book-length examination of an army corps operating in the Western Theater during the conflict. It sheds new light on Civil War history more broadly by uncovering a direct link between the exigencies of nineteenth-century land warfare and the transformation of US wartime strategy from “conciliation,” which aimed to protect the property of Southern civilians, to “hard war.” Most significantly, Soldiers from Experience introduces a new theoretical construct of small unit–level tactical principles wholly absent from the rapidly growing interdisciplinary scholarship on the intricacies and influence of culture on military operations.