Early American almanacs are fascinating resources for insight into the life, attitudes, and culture of the new nation. Along with calendars and maps, political events, agricultural advice, medicinal cures, and other information, many almanacs printed tales, stories, and jokes designed to entertain. Never before systematically organized, most of this narrative material has remained obscure for two hundred years. Here a literary scholar and a folklorist combine skills to catalog and index this material from over a thousand almanacs according to the standard methodology established by the...

This book covers in depth the widespread and prolonged political struggle surrounding the Three Mile Island nuclear accident of 1979. Walsh documents the dynamics of the conflict between local communities and national nuclear elites in the wake of the worst nuclear power disaster to occur in the United States to date. How citizens living in the shadows of the Three Mile Island cooling towers have made their voices heard--particularly in their efforts to prevent the restart of Unit 1--is thoroughly analyzed. Extensive fieldwork over a period of six years, systematic survey data from...

Spindle's reference chronicles the professional career of one of the world's most loved performers, Julie Andrews. An all-in-one resource, the volume presents a comprehensive and accurate profile of the people, projects, artistic highs and lows, and general influences that propelled the actress into the public eye beginning in the late 1950s. Spindle examines each of her 16 films and provides a detailed commentary on factors influencing her short reign as a box office superstar in the mid-1960s and the fact that she has retained her fame and celebrity status long after ceasing to be a...

Although residential care and assisted living for older adults has expanded rapidly in recent decades, it has done so in a policy environment beset by confusion and conflicting purposes. Sharon A. Baggett traces many of the current problems to insufficient knowledge of the population these policies are designed to serve. In her examination of the frequently neglected interface between policy and people, she provides a comprehensive review of current federal and state policies, a detailed case study of a state residential care program, and an analysis of the needs and characteristics of...

The Latin American narcotics trade is an important national security issue for the United States because it is destabilizing important Latin American allies and creating serious social problems within the United States. Frustration with the inability to block the flow of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin from Latin America prompted passage of major national anti-drug laws in 1986 and 1988. Throughout the decade, United States narcotics policy has created serious friction between the United States and Latin America yet, according to Mabry, it essentially has failed in its goals.

Nine...

John Appleton was a prominent American lawyer who practiced in and around Bangor, Maine, beginning in the early 1820s and earned a national reputation as Chief Justice of Maine's supreme court. Through a study of Appleton's life and thought, Gold shows how the commitment to individual liberty and personal responsibility helped shape nineteenth-century American law. By tracing Appleton's life and law practice, the book addresses an aspect of early American culture that has received little attention--the nature of American individualism as embodied in the law. The book contributes to...

Robert Browning interests musicians because he was a major poet as well as a competent musician. Music was a central theme in his poetry and formed the basis for many of his images and ideas. This unusual element compels musicological criticism as well as literary. The subject of Nachum Schoffman's book is the nature of Browning's musicality and the role and influence of music in his poetry.

Schoffman carries the musicological analysis of Browning's poetry to its logical conclusions, revealing more than other literary critics have of the poet's musicality. On the basis of his analysis,...

The subject of divided critical opinion because of the experimental nature of his writings and his use of radical subject matter, Jerzy Kosinski, author of such novels as The Painted Bird and Being There, nevertheless ranks among the most celebrated of contemporary American authors. By the time of his death in May 1991, 70 million copies of his novels were in circulation. He received various academic posts, awards, and fellowships during his lifetime--these and the immense popularity of his writings confirm Kosinski as a major figure in modern American literature.

The range of critical...

This volume is a compilation of essays that reviews the current status of agricultural progress in Latin America and evaluates its prospects into the 1990s. Various experts on Latin American affairs offer analyses that examine how economic and political changes over the past two decades, both regional and worldwide, have resulted in an imbalance between stagnation of output growth and modernization. Convinced that stability is vital to agricultural prosperity within the region, this study defines the major obstacles to this goal and develops new strategies to successfully meet the...