This is an extremely exciting manuscript—path-breaking, bold, and comprehensive—that could be received in the intellectual world as a major theoretical statement, while also representing an insightful treatment of a specific cultural historical moment (Nazi Germany) but also key intellectual lineages that surround it. There's a lot at stake here, in the big picture (the question of sacrifice and the interpretation of Germany) as well as in the many rich building blocks of the argument (the treatments of Kant, Nietzsche, Adorno, Bataille, Girard, etc.).

From a Western perspective, the Persian Gulf War of 1990–1991 largely fulfilled the first President Bush’s objective: “In, out, do it, do it right, get gone. That’s the message.” But in the Arab world, the causes and consequences of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and his subsequent defeat by a U.S.-led coalition were never so clear-cut. The potent blend of Islam and Arab nationalism that Saddam forged to justify the unjustifiable—his invasion of a Muslim state—gained remarkable support among both Muslims and Arabs and continued to resonate in the Middle East long after the fighting ended. Indeed, as this study argues in passing, it became a significant strand in the tangled web of ideologies and actions that led to the attacks of 9/11. This landmark book offers the first in-depth investigation of how Saddam Hussein used Islam and Arab nationalism to legitimate his invasion of Kuwait in the eyes of fellow Muslims and Arabs, while delegitimating the actions of the U.S.-led coalition and its Arab members. Jerry M. Long addresses three fundamental issues: how extensively and in what specific ways Iraq appealed to Islam during the Kuwait crisis; how elites, Islamists, and the elusive Arab “street,” both in and out of the coalition, responded to that appeal and why they responded as they did; and the longer-term effects that resulted from Saddam’s strategy.

How America left its indelible footprint on the culture and politics of Singapore

In the first decade after World War II, Singapore underwent radical political and socioeconomic changes with the progressive retreat of Great Britain from its Southeast Asian colonial empire. The United States, under the Eisenhower administration, sought to fill the vacuum left by the British retreat and launched into a campaign to shape the emerging Singapore nation-state in accordance with its Cold War policies. Based on a wide array of Chinese- and English-language archival sources from Great Britain, the Netherlands, Singapore, and the United States, Safe for Decolonization examines in depth the initiatives—both covert and public—undertaken by the United States in late-colonial Singapore.

Apart from simply analyzing the effect of American activities on the politics of the island, author S. R. Joey Long also examines their impact on the relationship between Great Britain and the United States, and how the Anglo-American nuclear policy toward China and the establishment of a regional security institution (the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) affected the security and decolonization of a strategic British base.

Long sketches a highly detailed and nuanced account of the relations between the United States, Great Britain, and Singapore. He not only describes the often clumsy attempts by covert American operatives to sway top political leaders, infiltrate governments, influence labor unions, and shape elections, but he also shows how Eisenhower’s public initiatives proved to have far-reaching positive results and demonstrates that the Eisenhower administration’s policies toward Singapore, while not always well advised, nonetheless helped to lay the foundation for friendly Singapore–U.S. relations after 1960.

As the first multi-archival work on the U.S. intervention in Singapore, Safe for Decolonization makes an important contribution to the literature on Southeast Asia–U.S. relations. It will be of interest to specialists in decolonization, diplomatic history, modern Southeast Asian history, and the history of the early Cold War.

Against a background of suburban Philadelphia in the 1950s, and the family secret of his father's alcoholism, Henry comes of age as the youngest of four children. He rejects his father's course in managing the family chocolate factory, and goes on to college, becoming a writer and teacher. When Henry marries, and becomes a father himself, he is impacted by the social revolutions of the 1970s, and struggles to avoid his father's flaws. He leads a literary life in Boston, founds the literary magazine Ploughshares, and befriends novelist Richard Yates. During the 1980s, Henry suffers the deaths of his parents, infertility, rejections of his work, and setbacks in his teaching career. In the 1990s, while his daughter and adopted son are swept up into trials of adolescence and young adulthood, and as his wife grieves the deaths of friends and family, Henry confronts a spiritual abyss similar to his father's, and learns to surrender to life, to love, to aging and mortality. By turns lyrical, quirky, confessional, and experimental in form, Henry's essays build into an affirming and generous vision. While addiction, the uses of imagination, a passion for literature, and issues of heart and soul are key motifs, a bungee jump becomes Henry's central metaphor: "isn't this life? isn't this art? We live and trust in our safe suicides."

When Sandy Holston is on dry land, she’s nothing special: a nurse who wears her hair in a ponytail and prefers a fishing lure as an earring. But once she dons waders, picks up a fly rod, and steps into a river, she becomes a remarkable, elegant fisherwoman who’s at peace with the world. After surviving her marriage to Vernon - her violent, incarcerated ex-husband - peace is just what Sandy needs. So she moves to Damascus, a small town on the Ripshin River, where she plans to enjoy the fishing and the solitude. Finally she is on the brink of a life she desires in a place she loves. But as the Ripshin’s trout mysteriously die off, and as Sandy grows closer to a reclusive neighbor who has a propensity for fishing naked, her plans are put in jeopardy. Will Sandy be able to find peace - in the river or out - once Vernon is released from prison and fulfills his promise to hunt her down?

Après quatre décennies de prospérité sans pareille au cours de son histoire, le Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean fait face depuis 25 ans déjà à une difficile mutation vers un nouveau cycle dans l'évolution de sa structure économique. Ces difficultés seront illustrées par les indicateurs classiques à propos de la démographie, de l'emploi, de la pauvreté, de l'entrepreneuriat, du revenu des ménages, de l'investissement, de la démocratie.Précis dans les diagnostics effectués, vigoureux dans les pronostics formulés et réaliste dans les thérapeutiques proposées, cet ouvrage à tous ceux et celles à qui l'avenir du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean tient à cour et à raison. Il ne se veut ni exhaustif ni définitif. Loin s'en faut. Ce livre s'inscrit néanmoins comme un outil fondamental pour soutenir l'accélération du rythme de l'apprentissage collectif vers un nouveau cycle économique structurel pour cette région.