A new edition of William Carlos Williams’ loving and groundbreaking book about American history, with a new introduction by Rick Moody. Although admired by D. H. Lawrence, this modern classic went generally unnoticed during the years after its publication in 1925. Yet it is “a fundamental book, essential if one proposes to come to terms with American literature” (Times Literary Supplement). William Carlos Williams was not a historian, but he was fascinated by the texture of American history. Beginning with Columbus’s discovery of the Indies and moving on through Sir Walter Raleigh, Cotton Mather, Daniel Boone, George Washington, Ben Franklin, Aaron Burr, Edgar Allan Poe, and Abraham Lincoln, Williams found in the fabric of familiar episodes new shades of meaning and configurations of character. He brought a poetic imagination to the task of reconstructing a live tradition for Americans, and what results is one of the finest works of prose to have been penned by any writer of the twentieth century.

In Thinking Across the American Grain Giles Gunn makes a major contribution to the current revival of pragmatism in America by showing how it provides the most critically resilient and constructive response to the intellectual challenges of postmodernism. Gunn reclaims and refurbishes elements of the pragmatic tradition that either have been lost or have undergone important changes and shows how newer critical approaches have strong roots in the pragmatic tradition. For Gunn, pragmatism is no longer concerned solely with the nature of knowledge and the meaning of truth. Because of its insistence on critical self-awareness, its opposition to closed systems of thought, and its concern with the ethical, political, and practical contexts of ideas, pragmatism offers a blueprint for performing intellectual work in a world without absolutes. The world Gunn's pragmatism recognizes is one of multiple truths, unstable interpretations, and competing interests. After critically reexamining the nature and scope of the pragmatic legacy, Gunn explores the way pragmatism successfully responds to conceptual and methodological controversies, from the rebirth of ideology, the spread of interdisciplinarity, and the development of the new historicism, to the revolt against theory, the erosion of public discourse, and the problematics of American civil religion. Drawing throughout on the work of William James, Henry James, Sr., John Dewey, Kenneth Burke, W. E. B. Du Bois, Richard Poirier, Stanley Cavell, Clifford Geertz, Frank Lentricchia, Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein, and others, Gunn shows that pragmatism, because it offers a way of thinking across the categories of modern intellectual specializations, is located at the intersection of these critical, and often competitive, discourses. The postmodern challenge for the pragmatist thinker is not only how to render these different discourses conversible with one another, but how to turn the salient insights of each into elements of a new democratic and critical public culture, one able to counter the twin threats of ideology and solipsism. Giles Gunn is one of our most acclaimed contemporary critics, and this broad and ambitious book is certain to become one of the central works in the current revival of critical pragmatism and cultural studies.

A New York Review Books Original An uncompromising contrarian, a passionate polemicist, a man of quick wit and wide learning, an anarchist, a pacifist, and a virtuoso of the slashing phrase, Dwight Macdonald was an indefatigable and indomitable critic of America’s susceptibility to well-meaning cultural fakery: all those estimable, eminent, prizewinning works of art that are said to be good and good for you and are not. He dubbed this phenomenon “Midcult” and he attacked it not only on aesthetic but on political grounds. Midcult rendered people complacent and compliant, secure in their common stupidity but neither happy nor free. This new selection of Macdonald’s finest essays, assembled by John Summers, the editor of The Baffler, reintroduces a remarkable American critic and writer. In the era of smart, sexy, and everything indie, Macdonald remains as pertinent and challenging as ever.

Barley: Chemistry and Technology, Second Edition is an important resource for any cereal chemist, food scientist, or crop scientist who needs to understand the development, structure, composition, and end-use properties of the barley grain for cultivation, trade, and utilization. Editors Peter R. Shewry and Steven E. Ullrich bring together a wide range of international authorities on barley to create this truly unique, encyclopedic reference work that covers the massive increase in barley knowledge over the past 20 years, since the first edition of this book was published. Barley: Chemistry and Technology, Second Edition offers the latest coverage of barley’s applications in milling, breeding, and production for food, feed, malting, brewing, distilling, and biofuels. It delivers a complete update of the latest knowledge of barley’s many components, from the genetic and molecular level to its many constituents, such as proteins, carbohydrates, arabinoxylans, minerals, lipids, terpenoids, phenolics, and vitamins. This important book also includes chapters on barley’s plant and grain development from both the physiological and genetic perspectives, making it an important resource not only for cereal and food scientists but also for crop scientists involved in breeding, agronomy, and related plant sciences New coverage includes: Updated, comprehensive knowledge on barley’s components, including proteins, carbohydrates, arabinoxylans, and bioactive effects New end-use ideas for barley as an ingredient in food products Nonfood industrial applications for barley, including biofuels A new chapter on barley’s health benefits Molecular breeding for malting quality

Presents ecology and current environmental studies from an anthropological point of view The Environment in Anthropology presents ecology and current environmental studies from an anthropological point of view. From the classics to the most current scholarship, this text connects the theory and practice in environment and anthropology, providing readers with a strong intellectual foundation as well as offering practical tools for solving environmental problems. Haenn, Wilk, and Harnish pose the most urgent questions of environmental protection: How are environmental problems mediated by cultural values? What are the environmental effects of urbanization? When do environmentalists’ goals and actions conflict with those of indigenous peoples? How can we assess the impact of “environmentally correct” businesses? They also cover the fundamental topics of population growth, large scale development, biodiversity conservation, sustainable environmental management, indigenous groups, consumption, and globalization. This revised edition addresses new topics such as water, toxic waste, neoliberalism, environmental history, environmental activism, and REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), and it situates anthropology in the multi-disciplinary field of environmental research. It also offers readers a guide for developing their own plan for environmental action. This volume offers an introduction to the breadth of ecological and environmental anthropology as well as to its historical trends and current developments. Balancing landmark essays with cutting-edge scholarship, bridging theory and practice, and offering suggestions for further reading and new directions for research, The Environment in Anthropology continues to provide the ideal introduction to a burgeoning field.

Grain Marketing explores the basic principles and concepts of grain marketing and analyzes the futures and options markets, agricultural policy, grain pricing, and grain marketing structures in the United States, Canada, and the European Community. This text helps students understand the world grain system, trains them to use futures and options, and explains how grain is marketed locally and internationally. The world grain industry affects our daily lives in ways both large and small. It influences what we consume for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and provides at least 40 percent of the world's food supply. The U.S. and world grain industry affects our income, our investments, and global politics. As world population and therefore global demand for grain grows, the volume handled by the U.S. grain industry will continue to expand, demanding not only improvement in crop yields but also continued efforts to compete in increasingly sophisticated international markets. This newly revised, fully updated text provides a practical, comprehensive overview of grain marketing that is useful to both the upper-level undergraduate studying agricultural marketing and the professional working in the industry. Grain Marketing blends several approaches to the study of commodity marketing, combining the institutional, functional, market structure, and analytical and behavioral systems approach to grain marketing. The book includes basic background information for newcomers to the subject of agricultural marketing as well as more rigorous treatment of advanced subjects. The books overall plan allows the student to follow the movement of the major grains, corn, wheat, and soybeans from farm production to final consumption. Along the way, it provides a detailed description of the worldwide system, encompassing local and multinational corporations, state agencies and boards, national trade and agricultural policies, and the cash and futures markets that serve this industry.

Our American government began with a revolutionary idea. Alexis de Tocqueville called the evolutionary process of revolution wherein society evolves and institutes sweeping changes in government. The government of the United States was the most unique creation of human history since it was an actual collaboration between Nature and the Individual, for Nature and the Individual, with the express purpose of facilitating and improving that relationship. It took all of humanitys history, its successes and failures along with Natures tools of inspiration and evolution for the conception to manifest itself, until a government of the Individuals, by the Individuals, for the Individual, had come into being. The individual citizens of the United Colonies were living in a state of grace with nature and the society they made up created a clear mirror image of themselves, including internal equilibriums intended to preserve their self actualization process. A few years later, another revolution took place, one de Tocqueville would call the political kind. This revolution occurred in France, it would be the precursor for many other modern revolutions wherein one Centralized Collective Authority replaces another and where government attempts to impose its will on society. Today, in America this spiritual battle continues. On one side is the Tea Party Patriots carrying on the spiritual tradition of our Founders and Framers, on the other side those who look toward the archaic Eurocentric and Asiatic concepts of an all powerful Centralized Collective Authority.

This essential handbook gives concise explanations of the myriad activities which encompasses shipping. The book covers documentation, types of ships and cargoes, organisations, freight charges and surcharges, contract forms and clauses, with all the relevant terms contained in logical sections, making it possible to see the terms in context. The second edition seeks to explain the history and progress of the European Commission’s approach to competition in the liner and tramp trades. It also looks at security measures introduced since September 2001. By incorporating the book “Freight Charges”, the book looks in particular at liner freight charges and surcharges in more depth.