At the age of five, Shirley Temple became the world’s most famous and acclaimed child—the most talented, beautiful child performer ever to capture the public’s imagination. By the time she was ten, she had either met or had received words of admiration from almost everyone of distinction. Nine-tenths of the world could recognize her on sight. She single-handedly cheered an entire nation caught in the firm grip of a depression. Her films saved a major studio from bankruptcy. She earned more than the President of the United States and lived in her own junior-sized San Simeon. As lionized, idolized and protected as royalty, Shirley Temple was the one and only American Princess. Shirley Temple is brought into focus in this definitive, intimate portrait of her as a child and as the woman that child became: a woman forced to live her entire life in the shadow of her own past glory. We follow the tumultuous events and disappointments that marked Shirley Temple’s meteoric rise to unprecedented fame as a child star, her fall as an adolescent who had outgrown her appeal, and her surprising ascent into a word figure as ambassador to the United Nations, Chief of Protocol for the United States, and Ambassador to Ghana; her “princess in the tower” upbringing that isolated her from friends and real child’s play and from studio co-workers as well; her obsessive relationship with her mother, Gertrude, who lived her life through her famous daughter; her power over one of Hollywood’s greatest despots—Darryl Zanuck; her fairy-tale marriage to John Agar that became a nightmare filled with flaunted infidelities and alcoholism; her romance with Charles Black and her transformation from film start to society matron, television tycoon, to American diplomat; her courageous battle with cancer; and her ever-present realization that “little Shirley Temple’s” greatness would always exceed that of the grown woman. Shirley Temple’s most notable diplomatic achievement was her appointment by President H.W. Bush as the first and only female ambassador to Czechoslovakia. She was present during the Velvet Revolution, which brought about the end of Communism in the country, and she played a critical role in hastening the end of the Communist regime by openly sympathizing with anti-Communist dissidents and later establishing formal diplomatic relations with the newly elected government led by Václav Havel. She took the unusual step of personally accompanying Havel on his first official visit to Washington, riding along on the same plane. Anne Edwards has had the cooperation of those who have been closest to Shirley Temple in all stages of her unique life. She has written a book that does not spare the truth, and is as glittering an expose of Hollywood and its power brokers as any bestselling novel of that genre. Shirley Temple: American Princess is a moving and inspirational story that gives great insight into the privileged corridors of fame and glory where only the legendary figures of our times have walked.

House and garden - Domestic appliances - Food, groceries - Sweets - Household products - Cosmetics, toiletries - Magazines - Women's fashion - Men's and children's fashion - Comics - Toys, games, annuals - Cycling and hiking - Resorts and railways - Holidays abroad - Cruising - Flying - Film stars - Radio - Entertainment, TV - Cigarettes - Telegrams to telephone - Fireworks - Christmas crackers - Jubilee and Edward VIII - Coronation George VI.

"[An] elucidating cultural history of Hollywood’s most popular child star…a must-read." —Bill Desowitz, USA Today For four consecutive years she was the world’s box-office champion. With her image appearing in periodicals and advertisements roughly twenty times daily, she rivaled FDR and Edward VIII as the most photographed person in the world. Her portrait brightened the homes of countless admirers, among them J. Edgar Hoover, Andy Warhol, and Anne Frank. Distinguished cultural historian John F. Kasson shows how, amid the deprivation and despair of the Great Depression, Shirley Temple radiated optimism and plucky good cheer that lifted the spirits of millions and shaped their collective character for generations to come.

Why do Jews eat gefilte fish? Why is a glass broken at the end of a Jewish wedding ceremony? Why must the chapter of curses in the Torah be read quickly in a low voice? Why are shrimp and lobster not kosher? Why do Jews fast on Yom Kippur? Why are some Matzot square while others are round? If you've ever asked or been asked any of these questions, The Jewish Book of Why has all the answers. In this complete, concise, fascinating, and thoroughly informative guide to Jewish life and tradition, Rabbi Alfred J. Kolatch clearly explains both the significance and the origin of nearly every symbol, custom, and practice known to Jewish culture-from Afikomon to Yarmulkes, and from Passover to Purim. Kolatch also dispels many of the prevalent misconceptions and misunderstandings that surround Jewish observance and provides a full and unfettered look at the biblical, historical, and sometimes superstitious reasons and rituals that helped develop Jewish law and custom and make Judaism not just a religion, but a way of life. L'chaim!

In the 1930s, Shirley Temple was heralded as “America’s sweetheart,” and she remains the icon of wholesome American girlhood, but Temple’s films strike many modern viewers as perverse. Shirley Temple and the Performance of Girlhood examines her early career in the context of the history of girlhood and considers how Temple’s star image emerged out of the Victorian cult of the child. Beginning her career in “Baby Burlesks,” short films where she played vamps and harlots, her biggest hits were marketed as romances between Temple and her adult male costars. Kristen Hatch helps modern audiences make sense of the erotic undercurrents that seem to run through these movies. Placing Temple’s films in their historical context and reading them alongside earlier representations of girlhood in Victorian theater and silent film, Hatch shows how Shirley Temple emerged at the very moment that long standing beliefs about childhood innocence and sexuality were starting to change. Where we might now see a wholesome child in danger of adult corruption, earlier audiences saw Temple’s films as demonstrations of the purifying power of childhood innocence. Hatch examines the cultural history of the time to view Temple’s performances in terms of sexuality, but in relation to changing views about gender, class, and race. Filled with new archival research, Shirley Temple and the Performance of Girlhood enables us to appreciate the “simpler times” of Temple’s stardom in all its thorny complexity.

First published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A new edition of the classic New York Times bestseller edited by Toni Morrison, offering an encyclopedic look at the black experience in America from 1619 through the 1940s with the original cover restored. “I am so pleased the book is alive again. I still think there is no other work that tells and visualizes a story of such misery with seriousness, humor, grace and triumph.”—Toni Morrison Seventeenth-century sketches of Africans as they appeared to marauding European traders. Nineteenth-century slave auction notices. Twentieth-century sheet music for work songs and freedom chants. Photographs of war heroes, regal in uniform. Antebellum reward posters for capturing runaway slaves. An 1856 article titled “A Visit to the Slave Mother Who Killed Her Child.” In 1974, Middleton A. Harris and Toni Morrison led a team of gifted, passionate collectors in compiling these images and nearly five hundred others into one sensational narrative of the black experience in America—The Black Book. Now in a newly restored hardcover edition, The Black Book remains a breathtaking testament to the legendary wisdom, strength, and perseverance of black men and women intent on freedom. Prominent collectors Morris Levitt, Roger Furman, and Ernest Smith joined Harris and Morrison (then a Random House editor, ultimately a two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning Nobel Laureate) to spend months studying, laughing at, and crying over these materials—transcripts from fugitive slaves’ trials and proclamations by Frederick Douglass and celebrated abolitionists, as well as chilling images of cross burnings and lynchings, patents registered by black inventors throughout the early twentieth century, and vibrant posters from “Black Hollywood” films of the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, it was an article she found while researching this project that provided the inspiration for Morrison’s masterpiece, Beloved. A labor of love and a vital link to the richness and diversity of African American history and culture, The Black Book honors the past, reminding us where our nation has been, and gives flight to our hopes for what is yet to come. Beautifully and faithfully presented and featuring a foreword and original poem by Toni Morrison, The Black Book remains a timeless landmark work.