Moorhouse (sociology, U.of Glasgow) interprets the post-war American passion for hot rods and drag racing as an extreme example of the country's attitude toward automobiles. Of interest to social scientists and to teenagers who want to see what they missed. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This history of the McLaren F1 explains how the McLaren Cars' team pursued their quest for perfection to create the fastest road car in the world - setting the record at 240.1mph in 1998. The book has been created with the full support and involvement of McLaren Cars.

Richard Burns' career has been a series of firsts - 1993 youngest winner in British Championship history, 1998 first Englishman ever to win an overseas World Rally Championship race, 2000 first in the Greek, Australian and Great Britain rallies; first driver ever to win the British Rally three times in a row. In 2001 he became the first English driver to win the World Rally Championship, an outstanding achievement for a man who is only 30 years old.

In 1990 Perry Wood shelved his music career to breed, break in and train horses. 'All my work with horses,' he says, 'has been about exploring deeper communication, learning to understand and influence another being for the mutual benefit of both parties. As time went on I realised that more communication was happening below the surface than people normally noticed. I started to apply these observations to the people who came to me to learn, at which point it was suggested that what I was doing with the horses and people would be transformational if it was brought into corporations.' He was right, it is! 'What I bring to this work is not only my learning from years of horse whispering and people-training but also the non-judgemental spiritual essence of unconditional love that is present in everything.'In Secrets of the People Whisperer, Perry Wood shows with unique simplicity how to listen to yourself, how to listen to others and - once you've mastered these skills - how to set goals and turn your life into a stunning success story.

A moving meditation on recent geopolitical crises, viewed through the lens of ancient and modern tragedy "Spare, elegant and poignant . . . If there is a single contemporary book that should be pressed into the hands of those who decide issues of war and peace, this is it."--John Gray, New Statesman Some books emerge from a lifetime of hard-won knowledge. Robert D. Kaplan has learned, from a career spent reporting on wars, revolutions, and international politics in Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia, that the essence of geopolitics is tragedy. In The Tragic Mind, he employs the works of ancient Greek dramatists, Shakespeare, German philosophers, and the modern classics to explore the central subjects of international politics: order, disorder, rebellion, ambition, loyalty to family and state, violence, and the mistakes of power. The great dilemmas of international politics, he argues, are not posed by good versus evil--a clear and easy choice--but by contests of good versus good, where the choices are often searing, incompatible, and fraught with consequences. A deeply learned and deeply felt meditation on the importance of lived experience in conducting international relations, this is a book for everyone who wants a profound understanding of the tragic politics of our time.

On the Divide analyzes the iconic image that Cather helped develop for herself, in contrast to the anonymous face she adopted for promotional activities and the very different private self she shared only with friends and family. Delving into CatherOCOs correspondence and the little-known promotional material she produced anonymously, David Porter provides new insight into the extentOCoand directionOCoof her control. He also considers the contrasting influences of Mary Baker Eddy, whose biography Cather ghostwrote, and Sarah Orne Jewett on the authorOCOs emerging artistic persona. The study goes on to explore the many ways in which these OC dividesOCO in CatherOCOs life found expression in her writing. Extending from CatherOCOs early stories to her final novel, PorterOCOs book documents the degree to which CatherOCOs understanding of her own different and often conflicting sides, and of her penchant for playing diverse roles, enabled her as a novelist to create characters so torn, so complex, and so profoundly human.

'This is a terrific and very entertaining book considering Wayne once told me that he had never read past page seven of any book.' David Hockney Wayne Sleep has danced with ballet legends Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, partied with Freddie Mercury and performed with Princess Diana, becoming her close friend. Behind the glitz and glamour, Wayne has always felt like an outsider. Sleep reveals the difficulties for a working-class, gay man in handling the prejudices of his generation and living through the Aids epidemic. Wayne was also the shortest principal dancer in the Royal Ballet - he had to spin twice as fast and jump twice as high to succeed. In this moving - but also laugh-out-loud and gossip filled - memoir, Wayne Sleep shows how he danced his way to success, fulfilment and love, and how he overcame obstacles and prejudice along the way.

A unique new reference work, this encyclopedia presents a social, cultural, and economic history of American sports from hunting, bowling, and skating in the sixteenth century to televised professional sports and the X Games today. Nearly 400 articles examine historical and cultural aspects of leagues, teams, institutions, major competitions, the media and other related industries, as well as legal and social issues, economic factors, ethnic and racial participation, and the growth of institutions and venues. Also included are biographical entries on notable individuals—not just outstanding athletes, but owners and promoters, journalists and broadcasters, and innovators of other kinds—along with in-depth entries on the history of major and minor sports from air racing and archery to wrestling and yachting. A detailed chronology, master bibliography, and directory of institutions, organizations, and governing bodies—plus more than 100 vintage and contemporary photographs—round out the coverage.

While Americans prize the ability to get behind the wheel and hit the open road, they have not always agreed on what constitutes safe, decorous driving or who is capable of it. Mobility without Mayhem is a lively cultural history of America’s fear of and fascination with driving, from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Jeremy Packer analyzes how driving has been understood by experts, imagined by citizens, regulated by traffic laws, governed through education and propaganda, and represented in films, television, magazines, and newspapers. Whether considering motorcycles as symbols of rebellion and angst, or the role of CB radio in regulating driving and in truckers’ evasions of those regulations, Packer shows that ideas about safe versus risky driving often have had less to do with real dangers than with drivers’ identities. Packer focuses on cultural figures that have been singled out as particularly dangerous. Women drivers, hot-rodders, bikers, hitchhikers, truckers, those who “drive while black,” and road ragers have all been targets of fear. As Packer debunks claims about the dangers posed by each figure, he exposes biases against marginalized populations, anxieties about social change, and commercial and political desires to profit by fomenting fear. Certain populations have been labeled as dangerous or deviant, he argues, to legitimize monitoring and regulation and, ultimately, to curtail access to automotive mobility. Packer reveals how the boundary between personal freedom and social constraint is continually renegotiated in discussions about safe, proper driving.