Ghost empire

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Madeline Samuels

Explains how the mountain community of Missoula, Montana, is affected by its location. Explores how Missoula's location and the people who live there help it grow and change.

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Mark Adams and Nicholas Thomas

The authors of this book have revisited the sites of contact between Cook's crews in Dusky South and Queen Charlotte Sound. The photographs and text examine the traces of the past in these places, opening up ambiguities, and avoiding easy judgements about these early meetings. They have also travelled to Europe, to see where botanical specimens, indigenous artifacts, and the voyagers' documents ended up. Cook's Sites is a revelation: of places of unique historical signficance, and of the intriguing stories woven around them.

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Karin U. Schestokat

"This book analyzes the travelogues of four German women who journeyed through Cameroon when it was a German colony (1884-1918). Three of the women - Haase, Rein-Wuhrmann, and Ziemann - present their experiences as exciting adventures in a world that will profit from European progress and the teachings of Christianity. The fourth, Thorbecke, is eventually able to accept the Africans and their customs on their own terms. These travelogues were used as recruiting tools to entice other German women to come to Cameroon, and they are a reflection of the German society's mindset at the cusp of the twentieth century. As documentation of the identity formation and learning processes of their authors, they give testimony to these women's openness, tolerance, and adaptability to the social and cultural environments of various African tribes in Cameroon."--BOOK JACKET.

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Stephanie Elizondo Griest

Desperate to escape South Texas, Stephanie Elizondo Griest dreamed of becoming a foreign correspondent. So she headed to Russia looking for some excitement--commencing what would become a four-year, twelve-nation Communist bloc tour that shattered her preconceived notions of the "Evil Empire." In Around the Bloc, Griest relates her experiences as a volunteer at a children's shelter in Moscow, a propaganda polisher at the office of the Chinese Communist Party's English-language mouthpiece in Beijing, and a belly dancer among the rumba queens of Havana. She falls in love with an ex-soldier who narrowly avoided radiation cleanup duties at Chernobyl, hangs out with Cuban hip-hop artists, and comes to difficult realizations about the meaning of democracy. is the absorbing story of a young journalist driven by a desire to witness the effects of Communism. Along the way, she learns the Russian mathematical equation for buying dinner-party vodka (one bottle per guest, plus an extra), stumbles upon Beijing's underground gay scene, marches with 100,000 mothers demanding Elian Gonzalez's return to Cuba, and gains a new appreciation for the Mexican culture she left behind.From the Trade Paperback edition.