ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Shepherd, Mike, PUBLISHER: Ace Books, Having used unorthodox methods to save a world--and every sentient being on it--Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife is wanted across the galaxy for crimes against humanity. For her own safety, she's been assigned to a backwater planet where her Fast Patrol Squadron 127 enforces immigration control and smuggler interdiction. But Kris is a Longknife, and nothing can stop her from getting back to the center of things--not when all hell is breaking loose. Now she's on the run, hunted by both military and civilian authorities--and since the civilian authorities happen to be her immediate family, Kris soon finds herself homeless, broke, and on trial for her life on an alien world...
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Vic Satzewich, Nikolaos Liodakis, PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press, 'Race' and Ethnicity in Canada: A Critical Introduction provides students with a comprehensive look at the major approaches and explanations to the key concepts in this field of study. Through their exploration of the central issues that affect Canadians today - immigration, multiculturalism, assimilation, racism, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal relations - the authors argue that race is not a biologically real category, but rather, a socially constructed label used to describe and explain certain kinds of human difference. The text questions whether there are patterns of race and ethnic relations that are truly unique to Canada, and puts Canada into a wider global context. Fully updated and revised, 'Race' and Ethnicity in Canada, second edition, offers students an in-depth and well-rounded introduction to the fascinating study of race and ethnic relations in Canada.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Bigsby, Christopher, PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press, The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture offers a comprehensive, authoritative and accessible overview of the cultural themes and intellectual issues that drive the dominant culture of the twentieth century. This companion explores the social, political and economic forces that have made America what it is today. It shows how these contexts impact upon twentieth-century American literature, cinema and art. An international team of contributors examines the special contribution of African Americans and of immigrant communities to the variety and vibrancy of modern America. The essays range from art to politics, popular culture to sport, immigration and race to religion and war. Varied, extensive and challenging, this Companion is essential reading for students and teachers of American studies around the world. It is the most accessible and useful introduction available to an exciting range of topics in modern American culture.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Sansregret, Marthe / Marthe, Sansregret, PUBLISHER: Dundurn Group, Born in Montreal, Oliver Jones performed his first piano concert at five years old. He has become one of the most celebrated representatives of the Montreal Jazz Festival and a worldwide musical ambassador for Canada on many international tours. This exclusive authorized biography begins with his roots x; the enslavement of his African ancestors and immigration of his parents to Canada from Barbados x; and takes us to the present. Oliver Jones has received many awards to recognize his achievements, both as a musician and as a human being: the Martin Luther King Award, a Juno Award, the Cool Jazz Award of the Izzy Asper Foundation, the Order of Canada, the Order of Quebec, the Oscar Peterson Award, the Governor General x;s Performing Arts Award, and in , two National Jazz Awards: Best Jazz Keyboard of the Year and Best CD with Ranee Lee for their album "Just You, Just Me"
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Campbell, Lyle, PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press, USA, Native American languages are spoken from Siberia to Greenland, and from the Arctic to Tierra del Fuego; they include the southernmost language of the world (Yaghan) and some of the northernmost (Eskimoan). Campbell's project is to take stock of what is currently known about the history of Native American languages and in the process examine the state of American Indian historical linguistics, and the success and failure of its various methodologies. There is remarkably little consensus in the field, largely due to the publication of Language in the Americas by Joseph Greenberg. He claimed to trace a historical relation between all American Indian languages of North and South America, implying that most of the Western Hemisphere was settled by a single wave of immigration from Asia. This has caused intense controversy and Campbell, as a leading scholar in the field, intends this volume to be, in part, a response to Greenberg. Finally, Campbell demonstrates that the historical study of Native American languages has always relied on up-to-date methodology and theoretical assumptions and did not, as is often believed, lag behind the European historical linguistic tradition.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Hendricks, Tyche, PUBLISHER: University of California Press, Journalist Tyche Hendricks explored the U.S.-Mexico borderlands by car and by foot, on horseback, and in the back of a pick-up truck. She shared meals with border residents, listened to their stories, and visited their homes, churches, hospitals, farms, and jails. In this dazzling portrait of one of the least understood and most debated regions in the country, Hendricks introduces us to the ordinary Americans and Mexicans who live there--cowboys and Indians, factory workers and physicians, naturalists and nuns. Their stories, set in illuminating political and social context, enliven issues that are too often seen in the abstract: immigration, the environment, drug violence, manufacturing, and more. A new picture of the borderlands emerges--not as the dividing line Americans so often imagine it to be, but as common ground. The border Hendricks reveals is a dynamic region, alive with the energy of cultural exchange and international commerce, burdened with too-rapid growth and bi-national conflict, and underlain with a deep sense of history. Through the book we can better understand this unique place, whose residents themselves know best how to tackle our shared border challenges. Acquista Ora
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Taylor / Taylor, Ronald D. / Wang, Margaret C., PUBLISHER: Psychology Press, A number of societal risks pose serious challenges to families' well-being, many of which cut across divisions of class and race. These challenges include: changes in the labor market and economy; the increasing participation of mothers in the labor force; the changing nature of family structure and the composition of households; and the increase in the number of immigrant families. Key institutions in the lives of families, including places of employment and schools, can play a significant role in fostering families' capacity to adapt to the potential challenges they face. "Resilience Across Contexts: Family, Work, Culture, and Community" presents papers--written by leading scholars in varied disciplines including economics, developmental and educational psychology, education, and sociology--discussing factors that influence resilience development. The authors' research focuses on emerging issues that have significant implications for policy and practice in such areas as employment and new technologies; maternal employment and family development; family structure and family life; immigration, migration, acculturation, and education of children and youth; and social and human services delivery. The book's overall goal is to take stock of what is known from research and practice on some of the challenges facing children and families for policy development and improvement of practices.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Rodriguez, Juana Maria / El-Din, Morsi Saad / Mokhtar, Gamal, PUBLISHER: New York University Press, According to the census, Latinos/as have become the largest ethnic minority group in the United States. Images of Latinos and Latinas in mainstream news and in popular culture suggest a Latin Explosion at center stage, yet the topic of queer identity in relation to Latino/a America remains under examined. Juana MarA-a RodrA-guez attempts to rectify this dearth of scholarship in Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces, by documenting the ways in which identities are transformed by encounters with language, the law, culture, and public policy. She identifies three key areas as the project's case studies: activism, primarily HIV prevention; immigration law; and cyberspace. In each, RodrA-guez theorizes the ways queer Latino/a identities are enabled or constrained, melding several theoretical and methodological approaches to argue that these sites are complex and dynamic social fields. As she moves the reader from one disciplinary location to the other, RodrA-guez reveals the seams of her own academic engagement with queer latinidad. This deftly crafted work represents a dynamic and innovative approach to the study of identity formation and representation, making a vital contribution to a new reformulation of gender and sexuality studies.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Zou, Yali / Trueba, Enrique T., PUBLISHER: State University of New York Press, The relationship between ethnic identity and power has important consequences in a modern world that is changing rapidly through global immigration trends. Studies of ethnic/ racial conflict of ethnic identity and power become necessarily studies of political power, social status, school achievement, and allocation of resources. The recognition of power by an ethnic group, however, creates a competition for control and a rivalry for power over public arenas, such as schools. In this context this book provides interesting and important insights into the dilemmas faced by immigrants and members of ethnic groups, by school personnel, and by policy makers. The first part of the book consists of comparative studies of ethnic identity. The second part focuses directly on some of the lessons learned from social science research on ethnic identification and the critical study of equity, with its implications for pedagogy. An interdisciplinary group of scholars offers profoundly honest and stimulating accounts of their struggles to decipher self-identification processes in various political contexts, as well as their personal reflections on the study of ethnicity. A powerful message emerges that invites reflection about self-identification processes, and that allows a deeper understanding of the empowering consequences of a clear and strong personal, cultural, ethnic, and social identity. These pages offer a keen grasp of the undeniable political contexts of education.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Johnston, David / Hutton, Glenn / Connor, Paul, PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press, USA, Blackstone's Police Manuals are the leading police reference texts in the UK. In addition to being the only official study guides for the police promotion examinations in England and Wales, and a recognized text for student police officers, the Manuals have quickly established themselves as the definitive reference sources for all who are involved with police law and procedure. The Manuals have been written in consultation with police forces across England and Wales, and are endorsed by the National Policing Improvement Agency, for OSPRE Part 1 Promotion Examinations. Blackstone's Police Manual Volume 2: Evidence and Procedure: covers all aspects of evidence law and procedure from a police officer's perspective. It has been fully revised and updated for with new case law and legislation, including the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act , the Serious Crime Act , the Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act , and updated PACE Codes of Practice . The Manuals continue to be the most accessible, relevant, and focussed revision materials for Promotion Examinations. The Manuals are widely used in the professional development of police officers in a variety of roles, making them essential reading for anyone with an interest in police and criminal law. Whether you are a serving police officer or police trainer, a practitioner, advisor, or researcher, Blackstone's Police Manuals are an essential purchase. The other three titles in the series are: Volume 1: Crime , Volume 3: Road Policing and Volume 4: General Police Duties .
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Layton, J. Kent, PUBLISHER: Shire Publications, Prior to air travel there was only one way to cross the Atlantic: by ship. By the late nineteenth century, steam ships dominated the transatlantic passenger trade, growing exponentially in size as maritime technology improved and as more immigrants poured from Europe into the New World. As the liners got bigger, the scope for luxury increased, so that a substantial part of ships such as Titanic would be given over to sumptuous dining saloons, lounges, smoking rooms and even gymnasia for the most affluent passengers. Meanwhile, the bulk of passengers, the poor migrants with one-way tickets to America, were efficiently arranged in small cabins with bunks in the bows and stern of the ship. This book is an introduction to the age of the superliner, from to the modern day, exploring changes in the liner's design and role over a century that saw competition between shipping lines and between nations. The author describes the history and design of such great ships as Lusitania, Olympic, Imperator, Normandie, both queen Elizabeths, both queen Marys and, of course, the legendary Titanic. He tells the story of the heyday of the great liners before immigration to America was curtailed, the many races for the Blue Riband speed record, the experiences of rich and poor passengers, the role of the liners as troopships and hospital ships during the world wars, and the decline in the Atlantic trade after the s, since when most passengers have travelled by air.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Chinni, Dante / Gimpel, James, PUBLISHER: Gotham Books, A revolutionary new way to understand America's complex cultural and political landscape, with proof that local communities have a major impact on the nation's behavior-in the voting booth and beyond. In a climate of culture wars and tremendous economic uncertainty, the media have often reduced America to a simplistic schism between red states and blue states. In response to that oversimplification, journalist Dante Chinni teamed up with political geographer James Gimpel to launch the Patchwork Nation project, using on-the-ground reporting and statistical analysis to get past generalizations and probe American communities in depth. The result is "Our Patchwork Nation," a refreshing, sometimes startling, look at how America's diversities often defy conventional wisdom. Looking at the data, they recognized that the country breaks into twelve distinct types of communities, and old categories like "soccer mom" and "working class" don't matter as much as we think. Instead, by examining Boom Towns, Evangelical Epicenters, Military Bastions, Service Worker Centers, Campus and Careers, Immigration Nation, Minority Central, Tractor Community, Mormon Outposts, Emptying Nests, Industrial Metropolises, and Monied Burbs, the authors demonstrate the subtle distinctions in how Americans vote, invest, shop, and otherwise behave, reflect what they experience on their local streets and in their daily lives. "Our Patchwork Nation" is a brilliant new way to debate and examine the issues that matter most to our communities, and to our nation.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Holden, Robert H. / Zolov, Eric, PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press, USA, Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History brings together the most important documents on the history of the relationship between the United States and Latin America from the nineteenth century to the present. In addition to the standard diplomatic sources, the book includes documents touching on the transnational concerns that are increasingly taught in the classroom, including economic relations, environmental matters, immigration, human rights, and culture. Among the less frequently cited works reproduced here are Domingo Sarmiento's nineteenth-century reflection on life in the United States, the Andrews Sisters' hit song, "Ru and Coca Cola," Jack Kerouac's beatnik observations on Mexico, the U.S. Senate's investigation of CIA assassination plots, and the World Court decision condemning the Reagan administration's Nicaragua policy. The collection illuminates key issues while representing a variety of interests and views as they have both persisted and shifte over time, including often-overlooked Latin American perspectives and U.S. public opinion. A special feature of this book is the extensive introductions highlighting the historical context and significance of each of the 124 documents. A detailed index provides the thematic and national cross-referencing that both students and instructors will appreciate. Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History is an ideal text for undergraduate and graduate courses in Latin American history as well as in U.S.-Latin America relations. In addition, it serves as a unique reference tool for foreign policy professionals, international law specialists, journalists, and scholars in a variety of disciplines.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Taylor, Wilma Rugh, PUBLISHER: Texas A&M University Press, In a different kind of railroad car rolled into Texas, bringing the "good news" of the evangelical Gospel to transient railroad workers and far-flung communities alike. A ministry to railroad men and their families lay at the heart of chapel car work, which over a period of fifty years saw thirteen rail chapel cars minister to thousands of towns, mainly west of the Mississippi. Author Wilma Rugh Taylor's portrayal of this ministry for the one car, Good Will, which served Texas, provides a view of life in towns such as Denison, Texline, Marshall, San Antonio, Laredo, Abilene, and Dalhart. The railroads that carried the Texas chapel car included the Texas & Pacific; the Missouri, Kansas & Topeka; the Southern Pacific; the International & Great Northern; and the Mexican International. Taylor writes about the travels of Good Will with fondness and an eye for detail. She describes the car itself (its living area was just nine by eighteen feet with a decorative rococo stencil on the ceiling), the missionary couples who traveled in it, and the services they held. She considers the philanthropists who supported the mobile chapel and the guilt and other motives that moved them. She looks at the issues the chapel car faced as it rolled into town: temperance, turbulent religious rivalries, racism and immigration, the role of Masons and other lodges in rural society, and even the devastating Great Storm of in Galveston. A novel window into Texas and railroad history, this book tells a warmly human story set on a larger stage of charitable works, evangelical fervor, and social change.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Thorner, Thomas, PUBLISHER: Utp Higher Education, For a generation or more there have been few books that brought together in accessible form the raw materials of Canadian history. In many minds the impression has taken root that those materials are uninteresting. This collection demonstrates the contrary and that these raw materials provide extraordinarily engaging and informative insights into the richness of Canadian history. This new edition of the first volume of Broadview's two-volume anthology of documents in Canadian history, A Few Acres of Snow, presents many new documentary sources on pre-Confederation Canadian history, combined with the most compelling passages from the first edition. Each chapter offers a group of source materials on particular themes or events, beginning with reports of First Nation contacts published in the Jesuit Relations and ending with the drive to Confederation. Documents bring vividly before the reader the experience of the Acadian Expulsion, the Siege of Quebec, Irish immigration during the famine years, life in the Ontario backwoods in the early nineteenth century, and the British Columbia gold rush. Included are document groupings that focus on the history of Canada's various regions; on social, cultural, political and intellectual history; on the experiences of women, of Native peoples, of immigrants and labour. Thomas Thorner is a member of the Department of History at Kwantlen University College: this is his fourth book. Thor Frohn-Nielsen, who assisted on this project, also works in the History Department at Kwantlen. Special Combination Price: Please note that a special discount price is available when this book is ordered shrinkwrapped together with A Country Nourished onSelf-Doubt: Documents in Post-Confederation Canadian History.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Dine, Philip M., PUBLISHER: McGraw-Hill, From steel workers, Teamsters, and coal miners to teachers, actors, and civil servants, union members once accounted for more than one third of the American workforce. At a mere 12 percent, union membership today is a shadow of what it once was. What happened to organized labor in America and what can be done to restore it to its role of the defender of middle-class values and economic well-being? Award-winning investigative reporter Philip M. Dine takes us on a riveting journey through America's cities and back roads, its factories and union halls, to answer those questions. From the health care crisis to massive job flight overseas, from rampant home foreclosures to illegal immigration, he clearly shows how virtually every major economic, political, and social trend impacting our way of life is tied to the state of America's unions. Combining a compelling narrative with expert analysis, Dine offers firsthand accounts of the union members striving to make their voices heard in a political landscape increasingly shaped by corporate interests, including how: The women of Delta Pride-a major player in the multi-billion dollar catfish industry-went up against generations of racial and economic prejudice Iowa's firefighters union flexed its collective muscle to score a major political victory in the caucus The American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO played a key role in bringing down the Iron Curtain The Teamsters enlisted community support to temporarily stop a move by Mr. Coffee to relocate to Mexico and saved nearly 400 manufacturing jobs in the Cleveland area A reporter who has covered labor for two decades, Dine not only details where labor has gone wrong, but he also offers sage advice on how it can adapt to a global economy to recover the ground it lost over the last quarter century.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Rhenisch, Harold, PUBLISHER: Brindle & Glass, At once a memoir, a work of philosophy, a story of European immigration to Canada's dark places of the earth, and an exploration of the roots and effects of colonialism, "The Wolves At Evelyn: Journeys Through a Dark Century" is a stylistic and rhetorical tour de force from one of Canada's master prose stylists.Dissident communists fleeing s Germany, Harold Rhenisch's grandparents imagined that British Columbia's Interior was the end of the earth-a new world where they could fulfil their dreams of the land, freed from tyrrany and from history itself. A generation later, in the wake of World War II, his father arrived, carrying many of the same ideas with him. What they found instead was a colonial culture as highly developed as Doris Lessing's Rhodesia.Rhenisch grew up at the nexus of these cultures: a Germany where Nazism simultaneously did and did not happen, a Canada in the process of shedding British colonialism for American, and a land-the Interior-that had no point of contact with any of them.With remarkable range and vision, Rhenisch turns in a bravura performance, sifting through the ashes of personal experience, family anecdotes, literature, art, history, and the land itself for clues to a great untold story, Rhenisch assembles a collage of images and ideas that becomes a whole much greater than the sum of its parts. The hidden history of a forgotten outpost of the Empire is laid open, shattering dearly held myths and exposing buried skeletons.How was the sunny, carefree Okanagan Valley fruit culture built on the back of King Leopold's Congolese slave trade? How does Margaret Atwood's garrison theory of literature reflect on Rhenisch family's hidden Nazi past? How did the Hudson's Bay Company Blanket act as both a cherished kitsch object for generations of Canadians and a tool of genocide? Alternating between light and darkness, great humour and sharp indignation, this is a disturbing, thought-provoking and important work from a masterful writer and cultural analyst.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Windley-Daoust, Jerry, PUBLISHER: Saint Mary's Press, "The Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has found this catechetical text, copyright , to be in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church." The second edition of this text has the same sound theology with updated stories, images, and statistics The Living Justice and Peace course empowers students to examine society critically based on values from the Scriptures and on the seven themes of Catholic Social Teaching. The text addresses specific topics including abortion, capital punishment, racism, poverty, the environment, and peace. What's New in the Second Edition Chapter 2: Removed story about malformed frogs. Updated list of "Major Documents of Catholic Social Teaching." Added story about endangered sea turtles. Chapter 4: Updated statistics about pregnancy, abortion, and capital punishment. Chapter 5: Removed opening story about religious discrimination in Montana, replaced with opening story about "Mix It Up at Lunch Day" in an Albuquerque high school. Mention of immigration and prejudice against Muslims. Chapter 6: Included more recent material about Craig Kiehlburger's Free the Children organization. Updated statistics about child labor internationally. Chapter 7: Many updated statistics about poverty and related issues in the U.S. and internationally. Chapter 8: Removed sidebar of "Lifestyles: Comparing Poverty, Simplicity, and Excess." Updated statistics. New sidebar about the UN Millennium Development Goals. Chapter 9: Removed opening story about the young president of the Sierra club, old information about environmental threats, and inspiring story of Chico Mendes. Added new opening story about two teen girls who alert others about the health of salmon in their community. Updated content about environmental threats with information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (). Added inspiring story of Sr. Dorothy Stang. Provide new examples of businesses, governments, and teens making positive change. Chapter 10: Some nuclear arms race content removed as well as sidebar called "A general rethinks nuclear weapons." Updated research about the causes of youth violence. Terrorism content added as well as sidebar called "Responding to Terrorism." New stories about innovative ways to curb violence.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Zimring, Franklin E., PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press, The 40% drop in crime that occurred across the U.S. from to largely remains an unsolved mystery. Even more puzzling then is the crime rate drop in New York City, which lasted twice long and was twice as large. This 80% drop in crime over nineteen years represents the largest crime decline on record. In The City that Became Safe, Franklin Zimring sets off in search of the New York difference through a detailed and comprehensive statistical investigation into the city's falling crime rates and possible explanations. If you listen to City Hall, aggressive police created a zero tolerance law enforcement regime that drove crime rates down. Is this self-serving political sound bite true? Are the official statistics generated by the police accurate? Zimring shows the numbers are correct and argues that some combination of more cops, new tactics, and new management can take some credit for the decline, but zero tolerance policing and quality of life were never a consistent part of the NYPD's strategy. That the police can make a difference in preventing crime overturns decades of conventional wisdom for criminologists, but Zimring points out the New York experience challenges the major assumptions dominating American crime and drug control policies that most everyone else has missed. First, imprisonment in actually New York decreased significantly from to and was well below the national average, proving that it is possible to have substantially less crime without increases in incarceration. Second, the NYPD sharply reduced drug violence (over 90%) without any reduction in hard drug use. In other words, they won the war on drug violence without winning the war on drugs. Finally, the stability of New York's population, economy, education, demographics, or immigration patterns calls into question the long-accepted cultural and structural causes of violence in America's cities. That high rates of crime are not hard wired into modern city life is welcome news for policy makers, criminal justice officials, and urban dwellers everywhere.
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Wilkerson, Isabel, PUBLISHER: Vintage Books, One of "The New York Times Book Review"'s 10 Best Books of the Year In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From to , this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties. Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an "unrecognized immigration" within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic. "From the Hardcover edition."
ISBN: , SKU: , AUTHOR: Dudden, Arthur Power, PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press, USA, In , the United States was scarcely more than a strip of seaports, inland towns, and farms along the Atlantic coast--and already the China trade had begun, as the Empress of China sailed into Canton. From this small beginning, an American empire in the Pacific grew until it engulfed Alaska, Hawaii, the Philippines, and hundreds of small islands. With World War II, U.S. power advanced further, into China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia--where it was finally halted. Today American influence continues to ebb, as Japanese economic supremacy mounts and Manila forces the U.S. to dismantle its bases. In The American Pacific, Arthur Dudden provides a sweeping account of how the U.S. built (and lost) a vast empire in the ocean off our west coast. Opening with a fascinating account of the early China trade, Dudden provides a region-by-region history of the Pacific basin. What emerges is the story of how American commercial interests evolved into territorial ambitions, with the aquisitions of Alaska, Hawaii, and the Philippines, and finally into far-reaching efforts to project American power onto the shores of mainland Asia. Dudden's vivid narrative teems with the dynamic individuals who shaped events: William Seward, the Senator and Lincoln's Secretary of State who was driven by a vision of American dominion in the Pacific; Kamehameha I, the Hawaiian conqueror who tried to bring his kingdom into the modern world; William Howard Taft, who as the first governor-general of the Philippines built the institutions of American rule; Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the architect of Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and Midway Island; and of course General Douglas MacArthur, whose immensely influential career spanned supreme command of the pre-war Philippine army, the Allied occupation forces in Japan, and the U.N. forces in Korea. Dudden brings the story up to date, reviewing the war in Vietnam, the aftermath of Tiananmen Square, the triumph of the Pacific rim economies, and the tremendous impact of Asian immigration on American society. Since the days when Commodore Perry sailed his black ships to open feudal Japan, the histories of the American republic and the peoples of the Pacific have been closely intertwined. Dudden seamlessly blends developments in domestic politics, military campaigns, commercial trends, and international relations, providing the first comprehensive overview of this critically important region.