"Set in the waning years of the Cold War, a stunning debut novel about a trio of young Armenians that moves from the Soviet Union, across Europe, to Southern California, and at its center, one of the most tragic cataclysms in twentieth-century history -- the Armenian Genocide -- whose traumatic reverberations will have unexpected consequences on all three lives. This exuberant, wholly original novel begins in Kirovakan, Armenia, in 1971. Ruben Petrosian...

"Puts us on the ground in the Mediterranean world of 1050-1200, [experiencing] the sights and sounds of the region just as enlightened Islamic empires and primitive Christendom began to contest it. We learn about the siege tactics, theological disputes, and poetry of this enthralling time. And we see that people of different faiths coexisted far more frequently than we are commonly told"--

"What paths did true believers take to Nazism? Why did they join what was initially a small, extremist, and often violent movement on the fringes of German politics? When the party began its election campaigning after 1925, why did people vote for it only grudgingly, though in the Great Depression years, make it the largest in the country? Even then, many millions withheld their support, as they would, if covertly, in the Third Reich. Were the recruits...

Garry Wills, the prizewinning historian, argues that changes have been the evidence of life in the Catholic Church. It has often changed, sometimes with bad consequences, more often with good, good enough to make it perdure. In this brilliant and incisive study, he gives seven examples of deep and serious changes that have taken place (or are taking place) within the last century. None of them was effected by the pope all by himself. As Wills contends,...

Thirty years after her death in March 1982, Ayn Rand's ideas have never been more important. Unfettered capitalism, unregulated business, bare-bones government providing no social services, glorification of selfishness, disdain for Judeo-Christian morality-these are the tenets of Rand's harsh philosophy. In Ayn Rand Nation, Gary Weiss explores the people and institutions that remain under the spell of the Russian-born novelist. He provides new insights...

Ancient cultures developed mythological stories to explain the world around them and to express key values. Mythological heroes and themes have been handed down through the ages. The legacy of these myths lives on in the ways they influenced cultures all over the world. The Mythology and Culture series highlights important ways that stories from our past are reshaped and retold today. Clear text, vivid photos, and engaging sidebars help readers understand...

"A chronicle of the American experience during World War I and the unexpected changes that rocked the country in its immediate aftermath"--Front jacket flap.

How did the Vietnam War change the way we think of ourselves as a people and a nation? Christian G. Appy now examines the relationship between the war's realities and myths and its impact on our national identity, conscience, pride, shame, popular culture, and postwar foreign policy. Drawing on a vast variety of sources-from movies, songs, and novels to official documents, media coverage, and contemporary commentary-Appy offers an original interpretation...

This book is intended to capture the interest of anyone who has been attracted to Russian culture through the greats of Russian literature, either through the texts themselves, or encountering them in the cinema, or opera. Rather than a conventional chronology of Russian literature, the book will explore the place and importance of literature of all sorts in Russian culture. How and when did a Russian national literature come into being? What shaped...