Against a pre-Civil War backdrop of violence and antagonism, three courageous women, in different parts of the country, undertook to teach black children. Prudence Crandall, Margaret Douglass, and Myrtilla Miner lived, respectively, in Connecticut, Virginia, and Washington, D.C.: they each found that racial prejudice is not limited by geography and that people will go to great lengths to prevent the teaching of blacks. Of the three schools they established, only one--in the nation's capitol--proved more or less permanent, but all three had a significant impact on American life. Because...

The life of a great musician is always interesting, but the story of Hazel Harrison is exceptional. Her achievement was particularly impressive because she had been schooled entirely at home and was the first black pianist, male or female, to perform with a major European orchestra. Harrison's extraordinarily long and impressive performing career spanned more than half a century, from the days when Brahms was still alive and Stravinsky had not yet composed The Rite of Spring to the time of the civil rights struggle in the deep South.

The films of Ousmane Sembene are powerful representations of the newly emerging black African cinema. In this interpretive study of his most significant films, Francoise Pfaff examines Sembene's pioneering efforts over the last two decades. While focusing primarily on the realistic and symbolic levels of his works, the stylistic and technical aspects are also examined. Pfaff discusses the aesthetic, sociopolitical, and metaphysical values of Sembene's oeuvre within its African context. His depiction of the tension between traditional and modern African life is explored. Pfaff includes film...

Filling a void with his critical study of an important American humorist, Steven H. Gale has provided a comprehensive description of S.J. Perelman's prose, plays, and screenplays, along with a biographical portrait which emphasizes his connections to other writers of his time. The work is supplemented by a chronology of events, a bibliographic essay, and a general subject index.

The most comprehensive work of its kind, "Great Themes of Science Fiction" looks at the most important elements of the genre and shows how each has evolved over time. Among the topics examined are aliens and alien worlds, supermen and adapted men, immortality and paranormal powers, robots and computers, space civilizations and colonies, wars on earth and in space, worldwide disasters, time travel, and parallel worlds. Selected examples of each theme are discussed together with changes that have become apparent with shifts in popular attitudes and the increasing sophistication of readers....

This book is a selection of edited papers, most of which were initially presented at an international conference held under the auspices of the Ad Hoc Committee on Housing and the Built Environment of the International Sociological Association. It represents a relevant sample of the literature on recent developments in and current research on housing and neighborhoods. It focuses attention on the nature of housing and urban research at present and gives a sense of the directions in which the field is evolving.

Of the several books that deal with the relationship between Israel and South Africa, this is the most scholarly and sophisticated. Joseph argues that the relationship took a long time to evolve and that it rests on a community of interests and complementary resources. Most important, as the world's two remaining political systems committed to separatist philosophies that exclude indigenous Third World majorities, they have developed an underlying sense of solidarity and kinship. . . . T]his is a valuable and solid contribution to an understanding of what is widely held to be a highly...