Author: Greg Fisher File Type: pdf In Between Empires Greg Fisher tackles the problem of pre-Islamic Arab identity by examining the relationship between the Roman Empire and the Empire of Sasanian Iran, and a selection of their Arab allies and neighbours, the Jafnids, Nasrids, and Hujrids. Fisher focuses on the last century before the emergence of Islam and stresses the importance of a Near East dominated by Rome and Iran for the formation of early concepts of Arab identity. In particular, he examines cultural and religious integration, political activities, and the role played by Arabic as factors in this process. He concludes that interface with the Roman Empire, in particular, played a key role in helping to lay the foundation for later concepts of Arab identity, and that the world of Late Antiquity is, as a result, of enduring interest in our understanding of what we now call the Middle East.ReviewThis is an interesting work that helps fit the Arab elite groups of the Near East into the wider context of Roman barbarian relations. Fishers arguments are sound and sophisticated. --Bryn Mawr Classical ReviewI would heartily recommend this book for anyone interested in the affairs and status of the Arabs in the sixth century. For anybody interested in the history of Arabs immediately prior to the Rise of Islam, it is vital reading. --Ian Hughes, UNRV.comAbout the AuthorGreg Fisher is Assistant Professor or Greek and Roman Studies at Carleton University.

Author: Mario Vargas Llosa File Type: epub On December 7, 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel Lecture is a resounding tribute to fictions power to inspire readers to greater ambition, to dissent, and to political action. We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist, Vargas Llosa writes. Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolutethe foundation of the human conditionand should be better. Vargas Llosas lecture is a powerful argument for the necessity of literature in our lives today. For, as he eloquently writes, literature not only submerges us in the dream of beauty and happiness but alerts us to every kind of oppression.**ReviewPraise for Mario Vargas LlosaThe bold, dynamic and endlessly productive imagination of the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the writing giants of our time, is something truly to be admired . . . As with any great writer, [he] makes us see clearly what we have been looking at all the while but never noticed. Alan Cheuse, San Francisco ChronicleAbout the Author Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010. Perus foremost writer, he has been awarded the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking worlds most distinguished literary honor, and the Jerusalem Prize. His many works include The Feast of the Goat, The Bad Girl, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The War of the End of the World, and The Storyteller. He lives in London.

Author: Carol J. Adams File Type: pdf The Sexual Politics of Meat is Carol Adams inspiring and controversial exploration of the interplay between contemporary societys ingrained cultural misogyny and its obsession with meat and masculinity. First published in 1990, the book has continued to change the lives of tens of thousands of readers into the second decade of the 21st century. Published in the year of the books 25th anniversary, the Bloomsbury Revelations edition includes a substantial new afterword, including more than 20 new images and discussions of recent events that prove beyond doubt the continuing relevance of Adams revolutionary book.**From Publishers WeeklyMany cultures equate meat-eating with virility, and in some societies women offer men the best (i.e., bloodiest) food at the expense of their own nutritional needs. Building upon these observations, feminist activist Adams detects intimate links between the slaughter of animals and violence directed against women. She ties the prevalence of a carnivorous diet to patriarchal attitudes, such as the idea that the end justifies the means, and the objectification of others. In Frankenstein , Mary Shelley made her Creature a vegetarian, a point Adams relates to the Romantics radical politics and to visionary novels by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Dorothy Bryant and others. Adams, who teaches at Perkins School of Theology, Dallas, sketches the alliance of vegetarianism and feminism in antivivisection activism, the suffrage movement and 20th-century pacifism. Her original, provocative book makes a major contribution to the debate on animal rights. 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Writeractivistuniversity lecturer Adamss important and provocative work compares myths about meat-eating with myths about manliness and explores the literary, scientific, and social connections between meat-eating, male dominance, and war. Drawing on such diverse sources as butchering texts, cookbooks, Victorian hygiene manuals, and Alice Walker, the author provides a compelling case for inextricably linking feminist and vegetarian theory. This book is likely to both inspire and enrage readers across the political spectrum we learn, for example, that veal was served at Gloria Steinems 50th birthday, as well as of the atrocities of the slaughterhouse. One wishes Adams had been more careful about documenting some of her claims--her contention, for instance, that early humans were entirely vegetarian, requires scholarly support. Nevertheless this is recommended for both public and academic collections. - Beverly Miller, Boise State Univ. Lib., Id. 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Author: Katrina Scior File Type: pdf This book examines how intellectual disability is affected by stigma and how this stigma has developed. Around two per cent of the worlds population have an intellectual disability but their low visibility in many places bears witness to their continuing exclusion from society. This prejudice has an impact on the family of those with an intellectual disability as well as the individual themselves and affects the well-being and life chances of all those involved. This book provides a framework for tackling intellectual disability stigma in institutional processes, media representations and other, less overt, settings. It also highlights the anti-stigma interventions which are already in place and the central role that self-advocacy must play.