Dead City

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Dead City
Joe McKinney
Manufacturer: Pinnacle
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

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ASIN: 0786017813

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Book
Not Mr. Keene's Best Book.
City of the Dead
It was Ok
Not sure how I feel about this book...

City Of The Dead
Brian Keene
Manufacturer: Leisure Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0843954159

The colorful handmade costumes of beads and feathers swirl frenetically, as the Mardi Gras Indians dance through the streets of New Orleans in remembrance of a widely disputed cultural heritage. Iroquois Indians visit London in the early part of the eighteenth century and give birth to the "feathered people" in the British popular imagination.

What do these seemingly disparate strands of culture share over three hundred years and several thousand miles of ocean? Artfully interweaving theatrical, musical, and ritual performance from the eighteenth century to the present in London and New Orleans, Cities of the Dead takes a look at a rich continuum of intercultural exchange that reinvents, recreates, and restores history.

Complemented with fifty-five illustrations, including spectacular photos of the famed Mardi Gras Indians, this fascinating work employs an entirely unique approach to the study of culture. Rather than focusing on one region, Cities of the Dead explores broad cultural connections over place and time, showing through myriad examples how performance can revise the unwritten past.

Critique of black/white as a dualism in early American cultural hegemony is something to which Roach also (unwittingly?) succumbs. Although he claims that "the issue of race in America is hard to reimagine without considering Native Americans" (p. 189), Native American identity is seen not as the amalgam of various multi-ethnic groups but as a "buffer" between white and black, thereby reinforcing the stereotypes of white power structures. I guess I am asking if the complexities of racial identity in the United States may be much more complex than we have already seen-African Americans dressing as "big chiefs" could be as multi-layered and problematic in terms of race and identity as high schools using "Redskins" as football mascots, couldn't it?

Not only race, but class, plays an important part in Roach's analysis. In one of the most convincing arguments based on Connerton in the book, Roach discusses the "cities of the dead"-the invention of separation between the living and the dead (ancestors). The tie-in with suburbanization as a model of this physical separation and performance of whiteness seems right on. The section about Congo Square, and the Bataille theories about the economy of excess in violence were excellent. Here I could begin to see the application of the author's theory, however awkward.

Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan

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Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan
A C Grayling
Manufacturer: Walker & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Aviation | Military | History | Subjects | Books

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20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0802714714
Release Date: 2006-03-07

When Nuremberg was scouted in 1945 as a possible site for the Nazi war crime trials, an American damage survey of Germany described it as being “among the dead cities” of that country, for it was 90% destroyed, its population decimated, its facilities lost. As a place to put Nazis on trial, it symbolized the devastation Nazism brought upon Germany, while providing evidence of the destruction the Allies wrought on the country in the course of the war.

In Among the Dead Cities, the acclaimed philosopher A. C. Grayling asks the provocative question, how would the Allies have fared if judged by the standards of the Nuremberg Trials? Arguing persuasively that the victor nations have never had to consider the morality of their policies during World War II, he offers a powerful, moral re-examination of the Allied bombing campaigns against civilians in Germany and Japan, in the light of principles enshrined in the post-war conventions on human rights and the laws of war.

Intended to weaken those countries’ ability and will to make war, the bombings nonetheless destroyed centuries of culture and killed some 800,000 non-combatants, injuring and traumatizing hundreds of thousands more in Hamburg, Dresden, and scores of other German cities, in Tokyo, and finally in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “Was this bombing offensive justified by the necessities of war,” Grayling writes, “or was it a crime against humanity? These questions mark one of the great remaining controversies of the Second World War.” Their resolution is especially relevant in this time of terrorist threat, as governments debate how far to go in the name of security.

Grayling begins by narrating the Royal Air Force’s and U. S. Army Air Force’s dramatic and dangerous missions over Germany and Japan between 1942 and 1945. Through the eyes of survivors, he describes the terrifying experience on the ground as bombs created inferno and devastation among often-unprepared men, women, and children. He examines the mindset and thought-process of those who planned the campaigns in the heat and pressure of war, and faced with a ruthless enemy. Grayling chronicles the voices that, though in the minority, loudly opposed attacks on civilians, exploring in detail whether the bombings ever achieved their goal of denting the will to wage war. Based on the facts and evidence, he makes a meticulous case for, and one against, civilian bombing, and only then offers his own judgment. Acknowledging that they in no way equated to the death and destruction for which Nazi and Japanese aggression was responsible, he nonetheless concludes that the bombing campaigns were morally indefensible, and more, that accepting responsibility, even six decades later, is both a historical necessity and a moral imperative.

Rarely is the victor’s history re-examined, and A. C. Grayling does so with deep respect and with a sense of urgency “to get a proper understanding for how peoples and states can and should behave in times of conflict.” Addressing one of today’s key moral issues, Among the Dead Cities is both a dramatic retelling of the World War II saga, and vitally important reading for our time.

The buying of the objects in the tianguis (market). The preparation of the special dishes to be placed in the ofrenda, the ritual of the building of the altar, together with the vivid testimony of how strong is the influence of this pre-Hispanic tradition in the beliefs and lives of the people.

In alternating chapters, Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos and the consistently excellent Paco Ignacio Taibo II create an uproarious murder mystery with two intersecting story lines.

The chapters written by the famously masked Marcos originate in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. There, the fictional "Subcomandante Marcos" assigns Elias Contreras-an odd but charming mountain man-to travel to Mexico City in search of an elusive and hideous murderer named Morales.

The second story line, penned by Taibo, stars his famous series detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne. Hector guzzles Coca-Cola and smokes cigarettes furiously amidst his philosophical and always charming approach to investigating crimes-in this case, the search for his own "Morales."

The two stories collide absurdly and dramatically in the urban sprawl of Mexico City. The ugly history of the city's political violence rears its head, and both detectives find themselves in an unpredictable dance of death with forces at once criminal, historical, and political.

Cemeteries of New Orleans: A Journey through the Cities of the Dead is a photographic tour of the city’s captivating graveyards. Glorious photographs accompanied by interesting captions showcase more than fifteen of New Orleans’s historic and fascinating cemeteries (or ""cities of the dead""), such as St. Louis #1, Greenwood, St. Roch, Lafayette, and bayou and plantation country cemeteries. This intriguing volume includes helpful travel information, such as a list of ""who’s buried where."" Sidebars and captions discuss origins of All Saints’ Day, architectural styles, burial processes, cemetery preservation, history, jazz funerals, and voodoo, making "Cemeteries of New Orleans: A Journey through the Cities of the Dead" a stunning keepsake. About the Author and Photographer: Jan Arrigo of New Orleans is the author of "Explore Jean Lafitte National Park and Preserve Louisiana" and Voyageur Press’s "New Orleans." She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and Editorial Freelancers Association. Laura A. McElroy of Atlanta, Georgia, is a freelance travel photographer whose work can be found in magazines, including "Y’all" and "Destinations," on postcards and in regional travel books. She teamed up with Jan Arrigo for Voyageur Press’s "New Orleans."