The 20,000 German Jews who fled Hitler's Germany and settled in Washington Heights were unusual in many ways. They preserved their Jewish identity while fostering a culture that was still heavily German—a difficult combination in light of their origins. In his study of this immigrant group, Steven Lowenstein strives for more that a chronicle of their institutions and leaders. He analyzes both the social structure of the community and the folk culture of the immigrants. He deals with such issues as the formal nature of German Jewish cultural style, the relationships between the generations, and intergroup relations. Using organizational bulletins, surveys, interviews, and personal observations and anecdotes, Lowenstein paints a picture of a unique lifestyle now in the process of merging into American Jewry and disappearing.

The 55 chapters of Friends, Families & Forays are bursting with details about the people and the pursuits that colored the life of Henry Ford. Here the reader will meet prominent and diverse figures such as Thomas Edison, John Borroughs, George Washington Carver, Helen Keller, and Mahatma Gandhi—all of whose lives intersected that of Henry Ford at some interesting point in his life. Also brought to life in these pages are the branches of Ford's family tree, from his Irish ancestors to the descendants who carry his legacy today. Although it was the automobile that made him an industrial icon, Henry Ford could boast of exploits in many other arenas as well: railroads, speedboats, robots, flour mills, rubber plantations, and humanitarian efforts around the world and in his own backyard. Ford's hard work and passionate interests brought him great wealth , and this book provides a peek at the luxuries he and his wife, Clara, enjoyed, from a yacht and a private rail car, to gracious residences in Michigan, Florida, and Georgia.

Examines how generations of African Americans perceive, proclaim, and name the combined performance of race and class across genres.

A social, cultural, historical, and institutional analysis of the classic original series The Fugitive.

Michigan’s Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was established in 1966 to preserve one of the most exquisite freshwater coastal landscapes in North America. Located between Munising and Grand Marais on Lake Superior, the rugged coastline is anchored by the Pictured Rocks cliffs—soaring sandstone fortresses awash with natural pink, green, and brown pigments. While the Pictured Rocks’ geologic history is generally well understood by scientists, much of this information is scattered among different sources and not easily accessible to general readers. In Geology and Landscape of Michigan’s Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Vicinity, William L. Blewett synthesizes published and unpublished information on the park’s geologic history and combines it with vivid color photographs, detailed maps, and diagrams of the area. Blewett examines the history and geology of the very ancient Precambrian, Cambrian, and Ordovician components of the Pictured Rocks dating back hundreds of millions of years, as well as the much younger unconsolidated Pleistocene (ice age) and Holocene (warm period since the ice age, including the modern landscape) sediments mantling the bedrock, most of which are no older than 12,000 years. He also details the history of the Lake Superior basin, tracing the events that shaped the modern shoreline from ancient times. For visitors to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Blewett has provided a detailed mileage-referenced road log to guide readers to the best and most accessible field sites, and, for the more adventurous, includes a day hike keyed to the geology. A comprehensive bibliography and index are also included at the end of the book for further research. While it assumes an understanding of basic geologic principles, the volume is very readable and suitable for students, interested park visitors, and geologists, physical geographers, and those working in closely related fields such as archaeology, biology, ecology, and environmental science.

Tales of the ghostly and supernatural by some of Michigan’s finest fiction writers.

The Tale of Tales, made up of forty-nine fairy tales within a fiftieth frame story, contains the earliest versions of celebrated stories like Rapunzel, All-Fur, Hansel and Gretel, The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. The tales are bawdy and irreverent but also tender and whimsical, acute in psychological characterization and encyclopedic in description. They are also evocative of marvelous worlds of fairy-tale unreality as well as of the everyday rituals of life in seventeenth-century Naples. Yet because the original is written in the nonstandard Neopolitan dialect of Italian—and was last translated fully into English in 1932—this important piece of Baroque literature has long been inaccessible to both the general public and most fairy-tale scholars. Giambattista Basile’s “The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones” is a modern translation that preserves the distinctive character of Basile’s original. Working directly from the original Neopolitan version, translator Nancy L. Canepa takes pains to maintain the idiosyncratic tone of The Tale of Tales as well as the work’s unpredictable structure. This edition keeps the repetition, experimental syntax, and inventive metaphors of the original version intact, bringing Basile’s words directly to twenty-first-century readers for the first time. This volume is also fully annotated, so as to elucidate any unfamiliar cultural references alongside the text. Giambattista Basile’s “The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones” is also lushly illustrated and includes a foreword, an introduction, an illustrator’s note, and a complete bibliography. The publication of The Tale of Tales marked not only a culmination of the interest in the popular culture and folk traditions of the Renaissance period but also the beginning of the era of the artful and sophisticated “authored” fairy tale that inspired and influenced later writers like Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. Giambattista Basile’s “The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones” offers an excellent point of departure for reflection about what constitutes Italian culture, as well as for discussion of the relevance that forms of early modern culture like fairy tales still hold for us today. This volume is vital reading for fairy-tale scholars and anyone interested in cultural history.

Gilligan’s Island, created by Sherwood Schwartz, aired for three seasons between 1964 and 1967 on the CBS network. While the series was typically dismissed for its episodic inanity, author Walter Metz argues that this characteristic is precisely the source of the show’s innovation as it produces a vibrant critique of dominant American values. In this analysis of Gilligan’s Island, Metz reveals the inner workings of American television and society through an intensive look at the popular sitcom. In twenty-one short sections, Metz investigates many aspects of Gilligan’s Island: the narrative, the characters, the plot, and the performativity. Through multiple episode analyses and character examinations, Metz shows how the castaways’ actions on the island held deeper meaning and illustrated American social customs. The book also looks at several different themes presented in the show and connects them to many literary traditions, including Shakespeare (The Tempest and Hamlet), existential theatre (Waiting for Godot), and classic American literature (Moby-Dick). Through this discussion, Metz examines the literacy of Gilligan’s Island and the way it knowingly returns to certain tropes from high literature, masking their expression in a distinctly populist American idiom. Metz also addresses the legacy of Gilligan’s Island and its profound effect on American television, as evidenced by popular contemporary shows like Survivor and Lost. At one point in time, Gilligan’s Island was the most syndicated show around the world, but few scholarly articles exist about it. Fans of the show and those interested in television history and popular culture will enjoy this playful and informative study that fills a gap in television history.

In the three decades between 1920 and 1950, the Detroit Tigers won four American League pennants, the first world championship in team history in 1935, and a second world crown ten years later. Star players of this era—including Ty Cobb, Harry Heilmann, Charlie Gehringer, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Cochrane, George Kell, and Hal Newhouser—represent the majority of Tigers players inducted into the Hall of Fame. Sports writers followed the team feverishly, and fans packed Navin Field (later Briggs Stadium) to cheer on the high-flying Tigers, with the first record season attendance of one million recorded in 1924 and surpassed eight more times before 1950. In The Glory Years of the Detroit Tigers: 1920–1950, author William M. Anderson combines historical narrative and photographs of these years to argue that these years were the greatest in the history of the franchise. Anderson presents over 350 unique and lively images, mostly culled from the remarkable Detroit News archive, that showcase players’ personalities as well as their exploits on the field. For their meticulous coverage and colorful style, Anderson consults Tigers reporting from the three daily Detroit newspapers of the era (the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, and Detroit Times) and the Sporting News, which was known then as the “Baseball Bible.” Some especially compelling columns are reproduced intact to give readers a feel for the exciting and careful reporting of these years. Anderson combines historical text with photos in six topical chapters: “Spring Training: When Dreams are Entertained,” “Franchise Stars,” “The Supporting Cast,” “Moments of Glory and Notable Games,” “The War Years,” and “The Old Ballpark: Where Legends and Memories Were Made.” Anderson presents sketches of many fine players who have been overlooked in other histories and visits characters who often acted in strange ways: Dizzy Trout, Gee Walker, Elwood “Boots” “The Baron” Poffenbeger, and Louis “Bobo” “Buck” Newsom. Tigers fans and anyone interested in local sports culture will enjoy this comprehensive and compelling look into the glory years of Tigers history.

New from accomplished poet Anthony Butts, a collection of modern free verse with an attention to formal syntax and a keen religious sensibility.