Author: Anne E. Dawson File Type: pdf Rare Light is a collection of essays exploring little known facets of the life and career of a major American Impressionist painter. J. Alden Weir (18521919) painted some of his finest canvases while living in Windham in eastern Connecticuts picturesque Quiet Corner, and this rural location played a crucial role in Weirs artistic development. The four essays that comprise this book offer in-depth contextual information about the architecture, culture, environment, and history of the region, allowing us to see Connecticut as it appeared in Weirs lifetime. Interweaving photos, paintings, and letterssome never before publishedRare Light documents the artists sense of Windham as a place for social gatherings, physical and psychic rest, and art making. Taken together, the essays celebrate the interconnectedness of art, architecture, family, history, and place. Includes essays by Charles Burlingham Jr., Rachel Carley, Anne E. Dawson, and Jamie Eves.

Author: Noam Chomsky File Type: pdf A major new collection from arguably the most important intellectual alive (The New York Times). Noam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomskys recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power. In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during Vietnam to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between Americas imperialistic foreign policy and the decline of domestic social services, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change. With an eye to political activism and the medias role in popular struggle, as well as U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Understanding Power offers a sweeping critique of the world around us and is definitive Chomsky. Characterized by Chomskys accessible and informative style, this is the ideal book for those new to his work as well as for those who have been listening for years.Amazon.com ReviewUnderstanding Power is a wide-ranging collection of transcribed and previously unpublished discussions and seminars (from 1989 to 1999) with sociopolitical analyst Noam Chomsky. The chapters, each covering discrete sessions with Chomsky, arrive in a question-and-answer format that at times becomes delightfully contentious. Chomsky holds forth on such disparate topics as American third-party politics, the stifling of true dissent, the illusion of a muscular media, heavy-handed American imperialism (from Southeast Asia to Mexico), a dysfunctional and self-destructing United States political left, the gilding of the Kennedy and Carter administrations, and the impotent state of labor unions. The relatively accessibility of Understanding Power is a welcome balance to Chomskys often formidable scholarly writings. This is a book best taken in doses a sort of bedside reader. --H. OBillovitchFrom Publishers WeeklyFor the past several decades, Noam Chomsky has become more famous for his trenchant critiques of U.S. foreign policy than for his groundbreaking linguistic theories. In this collection of material from his lectures and teach-ins, public defenders Mitchell and Schoeffel put his challenging, controversial opinions on display. The discussions a format that allows Chomsky to present his views in a conversational, accessible style confirm his wide-ranging engagement with world affairs. Whether the topic is Cambodia (he all but holds the United States responsible for the mass deaths under the Khmer Rouge) or the Middle East (where he sees the peace process as analogous to South Africas creation of apartheid), he consistently blasts the United States for what he sees as its guiding principle of maintaining its own power while claiming to fight for freedom and democracy. Chomsky, who has published more than 30 books but is best known for his contribution to Manufacturing Consent, a critique of the way public opinion is formed, often excoriates the press for what he sees as a willingness to reflect the views of the elites rather than challenge them. But while he maintains a gloomy view of U.S. policies, he preserves a surprising optimism about Americans, arguing that the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements have made citizens more critical of the mass media. Some readers will appreciate the views articulated here and others will be infuriated but for anyone with an opinion of Chomsky would be wise not to ignore this collection, which provides a useful and wide-ranging introduction to his analysis of power and media in the West. 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. The best of Chomskys recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power. In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during Vietnam to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration.