riley smith

A whirlwind tour of America: how it went wrong and how we will finally re-gain our lead role on the world stage.

The twin concepts of liberty and the free market have been instrumental in shaping American identity. Here, author Tristram Riley-Smith delves into how the perverting of these concepts has led to today’s economic crisis and identity crisis for America.

Including President Obama’s election and initial stimulus package, Riley-Smith takes us on a whirlwind examination of America. For three years, he served in the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. and traveled through-out the country and this outsider’s perspective offers an in-depth look at the state of American culture after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, toxic debts, and the credit crunch. With lively, insightful commentary, careful research, and illuminating personal anecdotes, Riley-Smith uses images like the cracked liberty bell to explain just where things went wrong, and how we can make them right. He touches upon big issues and examines America’s consumer culture, using recognizable icons like Martha Stewart, Giorgio Armani, artist Barbara Kruger, and Wal-Mart.

The Cracked Bell is a timely, accessible exploration of the current finan-cial crisis and a hard look at the America of the twenty-first century. It’s a delightful, thoughtful, and necessary book that takes the reader headlong into the philosophies, icons, and institutions responsible for America’s troubles and what can be done about them.

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The fourth volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which comprised the most dynamic period in the European Middle Ages. The first of two parts, this volume deals with ecclesiastical and secular themes, in addition to major developments such as the expansion of population, agriculture, trade, and towns; the radical reform of the Western Church; the appearance of new kingdoms and states, the Crusades, knighthood and law; and the development of literature, art and architecture, heresies and the scholastic movement.

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This second edition of Cultural Theory provides a concise introduction to cultural theory, placing major figures, traditional concepts, and contemporary themes within a sharp conceptual framework.

• Provides a student-friendly introduction to what can often be a complex field of study
• Updates the first edition in response to reader feedback and to the changing nature of the field
• Includes additional coverage of theorists from the classical period to include Nietzsche and DuBois
• Introduces entirely new chapters on race and gender theory, and the body
• Considers themes that have become more important in theoretical activity in recent years such as computers and virtual reality, cosmopolitanism, and performance theory
• Draws on theories and theorists from continental Europe as well as the English-speaking world

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In this collection of essays, the story of the Crusades is told as never before in an engrossing and comprehensive history that ranges from the preaching of the First Crusade in 1095 to the legacy of crusading ideals and imagery that continues today. Here are the ideas of apologists, propagandists, and poets about the Crusades, as well as the perceptions and motives of the crusaders themselves and the means by which they joined the movement.

The book’s coverage ranges from the elaborate social and civic systems that arose to support the Crusades to in-depth and vivid descriptions of the battles themselves. The contributors provide keen and insightful commentary on the reactions of the Muslims to a Christian holy war. Also included are studies of crusades outside the eastern Mediterranean region as well as post-medieval crusades.

By describing the combat and homefront conditions, by evaluating the clash (and coalescence) of many cultures, by tracing a legacy that continues in our conflict-ridden present, and by documenting the enduring artistic and social changes that the Crusades wrought, A History of the Crusades offers an unsurpassed panorama of one of the great movements in western history. All students of medieval culture, religion, politics, and/or history will find in these pages a highly useful, thorough, and contemporary account of that movement.

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