Marcus Aurelius' rain miracle and the Marcomannic wars

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Lauren S. Cardon

"Fictional depictions of intermarriage can illuminate perceptions of both 'ethnicity' and 'whiteness' at any given historical moment. Popular examples such as Lucy and Ricky in I Love Lucy (1951-1957), Joanna and John in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), Toula and Ian in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) helped raise questions about national identity: does 'American' mean 'white' or a blending of ethnicities? Building on previous studies by scholars of intermarriage and identity, this study is an ambitious endeavor to discern the ways in which literature and films from the 1960s through 2000s rework nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century intermarriage tropes. Unlike earlier stories, these narratives position the white partner as the 'other' and serve as useful frameworks for assessing ethnic and American identity. Lauren S. Cardon sheds new light on ethno-racial solidarity and the assimilation of different ethnicities into American dominant culture."--Publisher's website.

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Charles W. Durham and Kristin A. Pruitt

The sixteen essays in this collection reflect the individuality and diversity of varied ideas and approaches to Milton scholarship. Readers will no doubt discern points of contiguity among the essays in this volume. For example, several essays investigate sources - literary, pictorial, architectural - and Milton's use of those sources in his poetry. Others view Milton from the perspective of his age and seventeenth-century contemporaries such as Michael Drayton and Aemelia Lanyer. Still others use the twentieth-century methodologies of transformational grammar, deconstruction, and chaos theory to reread Milton's works and assess their prophetic potential. Overall, the essays demonstrate the continued scholarly commitment to a search for truths in and about Milton's works, a process that began in the seventeenth century and promises to continue unabated into the next millennium.

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Ferdie Addis

"Many of us have never read or studied the Bible, yet people have been quoting from its pages for centuries, not knowing the origin or significance of these timeless expressions. Let there be light! Amen to That will delightfully shed clarity on how a collection of ancient stories, written in three languages over the course of a thousand years, has had such an impact on the way we speak today. Through intriguing stories and riveting tales of epic battles and acts of betrayal to miracles and beyond, you'll quickly discover the meanings behind such familiar phrases as: A drop in the bucket All things must pass As old as the hills Bite the dust Eat, drink, and be merry The powers that be Woe is me Amen to That is a wonderful look at the gripping storytelling and cultural wealth to be found in the world's best-selling book, as well as a fascinating insight into our language"-- "this fascinating, fun-to-read collection reveals hundreds of familiar centuries-old expressions that originated from the Bible--and the stories behind them. Many of us have never read or studied the Bible, yet people have been quoting from its pages for centuries, not knowing the origin or significance of these timeless expressions. Let there be light! Amen to That will delightfully shed clarity on how a collection of ancient stories, written in three languages over the course of a thousand years, has had such an impact on the way we speak today"--

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Thomas L. Thompson

"The Mythic Past is the first accessible overview and synthesis of two decades of scholarship on various aspects of early Palestine history - linguistic, economic, agricultural, and archaeological. While its controversial conclusion - that the Old Testament offers absolutely no historical evidence for the early history of Israel - will surely draw fire from conservative Jews, Catholics, and Evangelicals alike, the author's insistence on the Old Testament as a great collection of literature offers refreshing new ways to read it. By separating the Bible from history, we are not getting rid of the Bible; instead, we are reading it as it was meant to be read - as stories and legends, as some of the world's most beautiful poetry, pious, lyrical, and erotic, as epic narratives and wondrous folktales, often stunningly profound and evocative, as romances and adventure stories both moralistic and sentimental."--BOOK JACKET.