Its Never Too Late to Be Happy: The Psychology of Self-Reparenting

Book Description

Most criticism of The Lord of the Rings trilogy emphasizes the most likely heroes in the tales: Aragorn, Frodo, Gandalf, and even Sam. From popular to scholarly literature, the women and "smaller" characters often go overlooked. But our notions of what makes a hero have altered since September 11, and sometimes the most unlikely people can come to embody all that we look up to and admire in a person. Here, Lynnette Porter examines what we mean when we talk about heroes, and for the first time illustrates the heroic qualities that can be found in the women and other beloved, though less-celebrated, characters in the Lord of the Rings books and movies. She takes a critical look at the importance of literary and cinematic heroes in general, emphasizing the roles of Merry, Pippin, Galadriel, Eowyn, Arwen, Legolas, and Gimli, who can all be considered heroes despite their relatively smaller roles. She shows, ultimately, that our attraction to and celebration of heroes does not have to be limited to the "leading man," but rather that women and youth often display essential characteristics of true heroes. Bringing together a discussion of both the books and the movies, Porter reveals for readers the heroic nature of several characters in The Lord of the Rings who have been ignored in terms of their status as heroes. Nevertheless, these female and youthful characters have received incredible popular acclaim and illustrate the shift in the way the Western movie-going public identifies and glorifies heroes. While other stars may have outshone the likes of Merry and Pippin, Arwen and Galadriel, Porter redirects the spotlight on these favorites of the books and movies to show us how the roles they play, the actions they take, and the behaviors they display are worthy of our praise and admiration. This unique and refreshing perspective adds dimension to our understanding of The Lord of the Rings phenomenon.

Customer Reviews:

The hero in popular culture.......2005-04-19

Porter is a scholar from the realm of those few who can satisfy both the academic and general audience. She is careful and thorough in her attention to all the meanings of hero yet creative in their application to the Jackson movie trliogy. It is my intention to give this book as a gift to all the Tolkein fans I know so I can gain their sincere gratitude.

Helps to Understand the Book and the Movie.......2005-04-14

In first looking at this book I was reminded of John Milton's "They also serve who only stand and wait."

This is a book on heros, but not the star. This is a book on the lessor heros, the little people, the women, even children that are also heros, even if of a lessor scale. Written in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack where we learned that the ordinary firemen, policeman, yes, even office worker occassionally does heroic things.

This book, though is based on the characters in The Lord of the Rings. It concentrates on finding heroic behavior in the lessor characters to illustrate both the genius of Tolkien's work, how well it was adapted to the movies and to illustrate how these minor heros have simularities with's today's real-life heros.

This book helps to understand how the adapted the book to the new medium of film, but also to show the depth of the original work and how faithfully this was carried out in the transposition to film.

A riveting book.......2005-04-11

Without doubt, the best book I've read on THE LORD OF THE RINGS in years. Porter presents original and thought-provoking ideas on a subject that has received minor attention over the years. A great buy--not only for scholars but the general public

Unsung Heroes of the Lord of the Rings: From the Page to the Screen

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Unsung Heroes of the Lord of the Rings: From the Page to the Screen
Lynnette R. (Author) Porter
Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORDYZM

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Excellent

Linear Warfare

The MILITARY EXPERIENCE IN THE AGE OF REASON
Christopher Duffy
Manufacturer: Scribner
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Military Science | History | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0689119933

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2001-01-04

I've just recently discovered Duffy's works and I like them. Though he writes about a variety of military history topics his primary focus is the 16th - 18th centuries and the type of warfare they fought. It's always been an area that has interested me, but I never found much quality and in-depth material.Christopher Duffy has corrected that problem. This book takes every aspect of the military experience from 1715 - 1789 and looks at it in great depth. The officer, the common soldier, the general, campaigns, battles etc. It's very readable and beautifully researched. Each before mentioned topic has it's own chapter as do many others in the book and they all recieve equal attention. It works as both a survey book for the general reader and a in-depth study for the more knowledgable scholar. I reccommend it strongly. If one is wondering about any quibbles I may have, and there always are quibbles, it would be that the book could have used some illustrations, but that's a minor quibble indeed. If your interested in this subject or just military history in general you could do far worse than buying this book.

Linear Warfare.......2000-09-15

Christopher Duffy is a definite authority for this period of history and this volume is a must for all students of the period. Additionally, students of the Napoleonic period should read this book as it gives the background, both practical and thoeretical, that led to the Revolution in tactics and strategy that was Napoleonic warfare.

Crisply written, thoroughly researched, this book is a great read, packed full of excellent material, and is an asset to every library. My only complaint is that I would have liked more material on the American Revolution.

The age of 'limited warfare' as it is sometimes called is generally misunderstood. Its battles, however, were savage, bloody affairs and the author brings this point out, as well as painting an excellent picture of the age of which he writes. It is a benefit to all students of military history that Duffy's books are being reprinted and that he is still writing and producing excellent history.

If you haven't read this book, you are missing out both on excelent history and an intellectual treat.

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MILITARY EXPERIENCE IN AGE OR REASON 1715-1789
Christopher Duffy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0760704414

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THE MILITARY EXPERIENCE IN THE AGE OF REASON: 1715-1789
Christopher Duffy
Manufacturer: Barnes & Noble Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NXDT48

Book Description

Out of print for nearly a century, The World I Live In is Helen Keller's most personal and intellectually adventurous work—one that transforms our appreciation of her extraordinary achievements. Here this preternaturally gifted deaf and blind young woman closely describes her sensations and the workings of her imagination, while making the pro-vocative argument that the whole spectrum of the senses lies open to her through the medium of language. Standing in the line of the works of Emerson and Thoreau, The World I Live In is a profoundly suggestive exercise in self-invention, and a true, rediscovered classic of American literature.

This new edition of The World I Live In also includes Helen Keller's early essay "Optimism," as well as her first published work, "My Story," written when she was twelve.

Customer Reviews:

Her world without sight and sound........2007-03-27

She tries to help you understand the reality of her life. It is much more than you can imagine.

Wonderfully touching.......2004-11-06

What beautiful writing! It's pointed out in the intro that, more than most of us, her world was shaped with WORDS. I've only read about four essays so far, and am profoundly touched. I've always admired Helen Keller, but am newly re-impressed with her wisdom and vision, and touched that she can write so clearly as to make me feel how little she felt limited by her handicap. If Helen Keller had simply learned to behave and ask politely for her food, etc, it would have been an impressive accomplishment. The fact that she grew to fully embrace her intelligence, her world and her potential . . . wow. I know so many people who are content to just do the bare minimum, to not stretch their limits at all, to not show any intellectual curiosity . . . she had the perfect excuse to exert the least effort, yet she didn't. Once she was given the key, the entree to humanity, she didn't let her handicaps stop her. I love that even all these years later, she is still able to share that.

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The World I Live In
Helen Keller
Manufacturer: Century Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NPSXKQ

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The World I Live In
Helen / Shattuck, Roger, editor and introduction Keller
Manufacturer: NYRB Classics, 2003
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VJ9DTY

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The World I Live In
Helen [edited and introduction by Roger Shattuck] Keller
Manufacturer: New York Review of Books, 2003
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VJBIKG

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The World I Live In
Helen KELLER
Manufacturer: Methuen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000ILPGNC

Book Description

"Kenneth Rose's One Nation Underground explores U.S. nuclear history from the bottom up—literally. . . . Rose deserves credit for not trivializing this period of our history, as so many retrospectives of the Cold War era have tended to do."
—Journal of Cold War Studies

"Important . . . One Nation Underground is an elegant account of the issues involved in the nuclear age."
—Pacific Northwest Quarterly

"This is a fine compilation of a massive amount of research, well founded in the existing literature, and presented in a readable narrative."
—Journal of Illinois History

"A readable short history of the fallout shelters and the broader political debate over civil defense. . . . Mr. Rose is a good storyteller, and One Nation Underground is engagingly writen, with an array of evocative photgraphs."
—The Wall Street Journal

"Rose writes well, with a good eye for the telling phrase and revealing example."—Journal of Social History

For the half-century duration of the Cold War, the fallout shelter was a curiously American preoccupation. Triggered in 1961 by a hawkish speech by John F. Kennedy, the fallout shelter controversy—"to dig or not to dig," as Business Week put it at the time—forced many Americans to grapple with deeply disturbing dilemmas that went to the very heart of their self-image about what it meant to be an American, an upstanding citizen, and a moral human being.

Given the much-touted nuclear threat throughout the 1960s and the fact that 4 out of 5 Americans expressed a preference for nuclear war over living under communism, what's perhaps most striking is how few American actually built backyard shelters. Tracing the ways in which the fallout shelter became an icon of popular culture, Kenneth D. Rose also investigates the troubling issues the shelters raised: Would a post-war world even be worth living in? Would shelter construction send the Soviets a message of national resolve, or rather encourage political and military leaders to think in terms of a "winnable" war?

Investigating the role of schools, television, government bureaucracies, civil defense, and literature, and rich in fascinating detail—including a detailed tour of the vast fallout shelter in Greenbriar, Virginia, built to harbor the entire United States Congress in the event of nuclear armageddon— One Nation, Underground goes to the very heart of America's Cold War experience.

Customer Reviews:

Digging This Book.......2006-04-18

If you're a student of Cold War culture, many of the source materials used throughout One Nation Underground will be familiar to you. That's not to imply that One Nation is boring, regurgitated, or any such adjective. Rather, Rose has crafted and extremely interesting look at how fallout shelters, for a brief period of time, was on the tip of everyones tongue, and yet despite the warnings and fears, America as a whole pretty much refused to dig in. Rose not only looks at the politics behind fallout shelters, but the historical, scientific, and cultural aspects, providing many sides both for and against civil defense, and explaining why those against won the argument and America's psyche. Rose's prose is never boring and always enlightening. A must read for any CW culture afficionado.

Fascinating Analysis.......2002-05-08

I came to this book out of a recent, amusing interest in the many remaining Fallout Shelter signs still posted on public buildings in my community. Where I live, Fallout Shelter signs still appear on a derelict retail board-up in the central city, a tidy ten-unit men's rooming house, an unused police station, and numerous school buildings including my old grammar school where I learned how to "duck and cover" in the basement lunchroom.

Rose's book not only documents the American preoccupation and political developments, prompted by President Kennedy's 1961 speech, but the moral dilemmas as well. There was, after all,, a sense of doom at the prospects of thermonuclear obliteration.

The book is a serious, engrossing history that pulls from numerous sources and includes copious illustrations. It captures the fear, soul-searching, and debate during the first time in human history we faced the possibility of total destruction. This excellent book is a must read for anyone interested in American history, as well as the intellectually curious.

Fascinating Analysis.......2002-05-08

One Nation Underground is a fascinating analysis of the Cold War fallout shelter, the global and political milieu in which it emerged, and the pervasiveness in which the concept of protection from nuclear destruction permeated the American psyche.

I came to this book out of a recent, amusing interest in the many remaining Fallout Shelter signs still posted on public buildings in my community. Where I live, Fallout Shelter signs still appear on a derelict retail board-up in the central city, a tidy ten-unit men's rooming house, an unused police station, and numerous school buildings including my old grammar school where I learned how to "duck and cover" in the basement lunchroom.

Rose's book not only documents the American preoccupation and political developments, prompted by President Kennedy's 1961 speech, but the moral dilemmas as well. There was, after all, a sense of doom at the prospects of thermonuclear obliteration.

The book is a serious, engrossing history that pulls from numerous sources and includes copious illustrations. It captures the fear, soul-searching, and debate during the first time in human history we faced the possibility of total destruction. This excellent book is a must read for anyone interested in American history, as well as the intellectually curious.

Bunker down.(Book Review) (book review): An article from: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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Bunker down.(Book Review) (book review): An article from: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Stephen I. Schwartz
Manufacturer: Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Science & Technology | Subjects | e-Docs | Formats | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc. on May 1, 2003. The length of the article is 2907 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Bunker down.(Book Review) (book review)
Author: Stephen I. Schwartz
Publication: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Refereed)
Date: May 1, 2003
Publisher: Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, Inc.
Volume: 59 Issue: 3 Page: 67(4)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

"The choice we have is not between reasonable proposals and an unreasonable utopianism. Utopian thinking does not undermine or discount real reforms. Indeed, it is almost the opposite: practical reforms depend on utopian dreaming."--Russell Jacoby, Picture Imperfect

Utopianism suffers from an image problem: A recent exhibition on utopias in Paris and New York included photographs of Hitler's Mein Kampf and a Nazi concentration camp. Many observers judge utopians and their sympathizers as foolhardy dreamers at best and murderous totalitarians at worst. However, as noted social critic and historian Russell Jacoby argues in this salient, polemical, and innovative work, not only has utopianism been unfairly characterized, a return to an iconoclastic utopian spirit is vital for today's society. Shaped by the works of Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Gustav Landauer, and other predominantly Jewish thinkers, iconoclastic utopianism revives society's dormant political imagination and offers hope for a better future.
Writing against the grain of history, Jacoby reexamines the anti-utopian mindset and identifies how utopian thought came to be regarded with such suspicion. He challenges standard readings of such anti-utopian classics as 1984 and Brave New World and offers stinging critiques of the influential liberal and anti-utopian theorists Hannah Arendt, Isaiah Berlin, and Karl Popper. He argues that these thinkers mistakenly equate utopianism with totalitarianism.

The reputation of utopian thought has also suffered from the failures of, what Jacoby terms, the blueprint utopian tradition and its oppressive emphasis on detailing all aspects of society and providing fantastic images of the future. In contrast, the iconoclastic utopians, like those who follow God's prohibition against graven images, resist both the blueprinters' obsession with detail and the modern seduction of images. Jacoby suggests that by learning from the hopeful spirit of iconoclastic utopians and their willingness to accept new possibilities for society, we open ourselves to new and more imaginative ideas of the future.

Russell Jacoby. Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought in an Anti-Utopian Age.(Book review): An article from: Utopian Studies

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Russell Jacoby. Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought in an Anti-Utopian Age.(Book review): An article from: Utopian Studies
Dermot O'Brien
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Utopian Studies, published by Thomson Gale on March 22, 2006. The length of the article is 725 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Russell Jacoby. Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought in an Anti-Utopian Age.(Book review)
Author: Dermot O'Brien
Publication: Utopian Studies (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 17 Issue: 2 Page: 387(2)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Some parks, preserves, and other natural areas serve people well; others are disappointing. Successful design and management requires knowledge of both people and environments.

With People in Mind explores how to design and manage areas of "everyday nature"-parks and open spaces, corporate grounds, vacant lots and backyard gardens, fields and forests-in ways that are beneficial to and appreciated by humans. Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, leading researchers in the field of environmental psychology, along with Robert Ryan, a landscape architect and urban planner, provide a conceptual framework for considering the human dimensions of natural areas and offer a fresh perspective on the subject. The authors examine.

physical aspects of natural settings that enhance preference and reduce fear

ways to facilitate way-finding

how to create restorative settings that allow people to recover from the stress of daily demands

landscape elements that are particularly important to human needs

techniques for obtaining useful public input

With People in Mind: Design and Management of Everyday Nature. (book reviews): An article from: Planning

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With People in Mind: Design and Management of Everyday Nature. (book reviews): An article from: Planning

Manufacturer: American Planning Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00098A6P2
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Planning, published by American Planning Association on August 1, 1998. The length of the article is 442 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: With People in Mind: Design and Management of Everyday Nature. (book reviews)
Publication: Planning (Magazine/Journal)
Date: August 1, 1998
Publisher: American Planning Association
Volume: v64 Issue: n8 Page: p28(1)

Article Type: Book Review

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