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Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy by Stephen Alcorn, 1991.


Recommended Books: E (author sort)

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Easterling, P. E. (1997). The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press.
"No dry handbook purveying conventional wisdom with an air of authority, this volume is the product of a group of scholars doing some of the most exciting work on Greek tragedy. They contribute essays on such subjects as the civic context of Athenian theater, Dionysus, the composition of the audience, pictorial representations of tragedy, the sociology of tragedy (gender, class), tragic language, and the construction of the plot, concluding with chapters on modern adaptations and performances and recent critical approaches. One may consult the volume on particular topics or read it cover to cover: the essays are lively and the treatments thorough without suppressing individual styles and views. Highly recommended for all classics collections." D. Konstan, Choice."It is not merely ironic, but a welcome sign of growing theoretical sophistication among classicists, that the book should demonstrate so convincingly the benefits - indeed, the necessity - of studying Greek tragedy from more than merely literary perspectives. The general quality of the essays is remarkably high: they address topics of central interest with both methodological awareness and (where appropriate) command of relevant textual detail. In sum, I believe that serious students of Greek tragedy will find this to be a boon Companion indeed, and will return to their primary texts with excitement and gratitude for a heightened appreciation of tragedy's complex cultural significance." - Southern Humanities Review

Edwards, David and David Cromwell (2018). The Propaganda Blitz: How the Corporate Media Distort Reality. London, Pluto Press.
While the tabloid and right-wing press - the Sun, The Times, the Mail and the Express - are constantly criticised for dangerous bias, outlets like the BBC and the Guardian are trusted by their readers to report in the interests of the public. However, the reality is that all corporate media is systematically filtered by the powerful interests that own, manage and fund it.

Propaganda Blitz shows that the corporate media does not just 'spin' the news - it fundamentally distorts everything it touches, hiding the real issues from public view, and often completely reversing the truth. This book uncovers a storm of top-down campaigns behind war reporting from Iraq, Syria and Palestine, as well as the destruction of the credibility of figures on the left, including Jeremy Corbyn, Russell Brand and Hugo Chavez.

Exposing propagandists at the top levels of the BBC, as well as their reporting on the Scottish independence referendum, the dismantling of the NHS and looming climate chaos, Propaganda Blitz explains the real meaning of 'objective' journalism, exposes the fake news about 'fake news' and outlines a model for anti-business media activism.

Edwards, Paul (1967). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy
. New York, Macmillan.

  • Encyclopedia of Philosophy Volumes 1 and 2: Abbagnano-Entropy (1967)
  • Encyclopedia of Philosophy Volumes 3 and 4: Epictetus-Logic (1967)
  • Encyclopedia of Philosophy Volumes 5 and 6: Logic-Psychologism (1967)
  • Encyclopedia of Philosophy Volumes 7 and 8: Psychology-Zubiri, Index (1967)

Eisenstein, Sergei (1957). Film Form [and] the Film Sense; Two Complete and Unabridged Works
. New York, Meridian Books.
Twelve essays written between 1928 and 1945 that demonstrate key points in the development of Eisenstein's film theory and in particular his analysis of the sound-film medium. Edited, translated, and with an Introduction by Jay Leyda; Index; photographs and diagrams.

Eisinger, Jesse (2017). The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives
. New York, Simon & Schuster.
Why were no bankers put in prison after the financial crisis of 2008? Why do CEOs seem to commit wrongdoing with impunity? The problem goes beyond banks deemed "Too Big to Fail" to almost every large corporation in America -- to pharmaceutical companies and auto manufacturers and beyond. The Chickenshit Club -- an inside reference to prosecutors too scared of failure and too daunted by legal impediments to do their jobs -- explains why. A character-driven narrative, the book tells the story from inside the Department of Justice. The complex and richly reported story spans the last decade and a half of prosecutorial fiascos, corporate lobbying, trial losses, and culture shifts that have stripped the government of the will and ability to prosecute top corporate executives. Exposing one of the most important scandals of our time, [this book] provides a clear, detailed explanation as to how our Justice Department has come to avoid, bungle, and mismanage the fight to bring these alleged criminals to justice.

Eisner, Lotte H. (1973). Murnau
. Berkeley, University of California Press.
Part biography, part critical interpretation containing first-hand accounts of Murnau's working methods.

Eisner, Lotte H. (1986). Fritz Lang
. New York, N.Y., Da Capo Press.
Fritz Lang, almost alone among his fellow continental refugees, was able to make outstanding films in both his native Germany and his adopted Hollywood. The director of Metropolis and M and Dr. Mabuse came to America in 1934 and began a long and distinguished career that included such films as You Only Live Once, The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, Ministry of Fear, Rancho Notorious, and The Big Heat. He is a key figure in the history of film noir, bringing to the screen a fatalist's vision of a menacing world of criminals, misfits, and helpless victims, and providing a distinctive visual look to every film he directed. This film-by-film study of Lang's oeuvre by one of the great film historians combines personal insight - Eisner and Lang had a long standing friendship - with deep historical understanding of Lang's roots in German culture and cinema. Both true modernists, Eisner and Lang are perfectly matched, as this book clearly demonstrates.

Eisner, Will and John Lind (2018)). Will Eisner's "A Contract with God" Curator's Collection
. Milwaukie, Oregon, Kitchen Sink Books, and imprint of Dark Horse Comics.
Will Eisner's A Contract with God--one of the most influential graphic novels of all time--reproduced at 1:1 size from the original art. This deluxe slipcase, two-volume hardcover set contains full-size, full-color reproductions of Eisner's unpublished pencil layouts in one volume and his finished inked pages in the companion volume! With commentary from Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons, Denis Kitchen, and John Lind. Winner of three 2018 Scott Dunbier Awards: Best Design, Best Reproduction and Scanning Quality, and Best Overall Artist's Edition of the year.

Eisner, Will; Jeff Loeb, et al. (2015). Will Eisner's 'The Spirit': A Celebration of 75 Years
. Burbank, Calif., DC Comics.
Over the twelve years of its initial publication, this legendary strip revolutionized the cartooning medium, establishing new methods of storytelling, developing new depths of characterization, and demonstrating to readers everywhere that comics could truly be an art form. In the years that followed, fans and professionals alike regularly revisited The Spirit to rediscover the feature’s timeless appeal.

To honor the 75th anniversary of Eisner’s historic achievement, DC Comics is proud to present this deluxe edition collecting more than four hundred pages of the Spirit’s four-color adventures. Beginning with his very first appearance in print, Will Eisner's 'The Spirit': A Celebration of 75 Years follows the indefatigable criminologist Denny Colt across the decades to his most recent re-imaginings by some of contemporary comics’ greatest talents - including Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Eddie Campbell and Darwyn Cooke.

Eisner, Will (2000). Will Eisner's 'The Spirit Archives, Volume 16'
. Burbank, Calif., DC Comics.
The hardcover series reprinting Eisner's famed and influential 1940s masked-crime-fighter comic strip continues with 25 stories dating from 1948, when the strip, eight years into its run, was arguably at its zenith. Eisner was using a simple premise--masked crime fighter, more everyman than superhero, operating in a noirish urban milieu--to tell a variety of stories: murder mysteries, pop-culture parodies, a creepy haunted-house yarn, and an episode starring the hero's comical sidekick. In an even bigger change of pace, Eisner took the Spirit from his usual stamping ground, Central City (i.e., New York), to Paris, London, Calcutta, and a fictional South American island, Montabaldo, newly risen from the sea to reveal a lost civilization. Whatever the setting, the strips all feature Eisner's hallmark cinematic storytelling, artwork that seamlessly blends serious illustration and broad cartooning, and distinctive full-page opening panels (which served as covers to the newspaper comic-book supplements in which the strips first appeared). The late-1940s Spirit represents Eisner at his best--which means the best mainstream comic books ever offered. - Gordon Flagg

Ekwensi, Cyprian (1963). Jagua Nana
. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann.
Jagua Nana, Ekwensi’s most successful novel, has as its protagonist Jagua, a charming, colourful, and impressive prostitute. Around her, Ekwensi sets in motion a whole panoply of vibrant, amoral characters who have rejected their rural origins and adopted the opportunistic, pleasure-seeking urban lifestyle.

Eliade, Mircea (1959). The Sacred and the Profane; the Nature of Religion
. New York, Harcourt.
In the "Sacred and the Profane", Mircea Eliade describes two fundamentally different modes of experience: the traditional and the modern. Traditional man or "homo religious" is open to experiencing the world as sacred. Modern man however, is closed to these kinds of experiences. For him the world is experienced only as profane. It is the burden of the book to show in what these fundamentally opposed experiences consist. Traditional man often expresses this opposition as real vs. unreal or pseudoreal and he seeks as much as possible to live his life within the sacred, to saturate himself in reality. According to Eliade the sacred becomes known to man because it manifests itself as different from the profane world. This manifestation of the sacred Eliade calls "hierophany ". For Eliade this is a fundamental concept in the study of the sacred and his book returns to it again and again.

Elias, Stephen and Richard Stim (2003). Patent, Copyright & Trademark
. Berkeley, CA, Nolo.
Gives you clear, plain-English definitions of intellectual property terminology. Helps you understand the different kinds of protection offered by patents, copyright, trademarks and trade secrets.

Eliot, George (1999). Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life
. Oxford England; New York, Oxford University Press.
This panoramic work--considered the finest novel in English by many critics--offers a complex look at English provincial life at a crucial historical moment, and, at the same time, dramatizes and explores some of the most potent myths of Victorian literature. The text of this edition comes from the Clarendon Middlemarch, the first critical edition of the novel. Like the other World's Classics, this is a good text in a well-designed format, with adequate but unobtrusive editorial aids and introductions, biographical information, notes--at a fair price.

Eliot, T. S. (1952). The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950
. New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co.
This omnibus collection includes all of the author's early poetry as well as the Four Quartets, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, and the plays Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion, and The Cocktail Party.

Ellis, Douglas, Ed Hulse, et al. (2017). The Art of the Pulps: An Illustrated History
. San Diego, CA, IDW Publishing.
Experts in the ten major Pulp genres, from action Pulps to spicy Pulps and more, chart for the first time the complete history of Pulp magazines--the stories and their writers, the graphics and their artists, and, of course, the publishers, their market, and readers.

Ellison, Harlan (1990). Deathbird Stories
. New York, Collier Books.
This collection of stories is simply astounding. Ellison takes a hammer to all our preconceived notions on spirituality and religion and destroys them. In the rubble lay works of incalculable value and beauty. A pantheon of "modern gods" for a callous, painful modern age.

Ellison, Ralph (1995). Invisible Man
. New York, Vintage International.
Invisible Man is a milestone in American literature, a book that has continued to engage readers since its appearance in 1952. A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of "the Brotherhood", and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be. The book is a passionate and witty tour de force of style, strongly influenced by T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Joyce, and Dostoevsky.

Ellmann, Richard (1976). The New Oxford Book of American Verse
. New York, Oxford University Press.
An engaging collection of some of America's greatest poets, containing names like ee cummings, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, Longfellow, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, etc. In this book you'll find some of the most celebratory poems of indivuality, the darkest and deepest exorcisms of the soul, and some of poetry's greatest and most unique voices.

Ellmann, Richard (1977). The Consciousness of Joyce
. Toronto; New York, Oxford University Press.

Ellmann, Richard (1982). James Joyce
. New York, Oxford University Press.
Although several biographers have thrown themselves into the breach since this magisterial book first appeared in 1959, none have come close to matching the late Richard Ellmann's achievement. To be fair, Ellmann does have some distinct advantages. For starters, there's his deep mastery of the Irish milieu--demonstrated not only in this volume but in his books on Yeats and Wilde. He's also an admirable stylist himself--graceful, witty, and happily unintimidated by his brilliant subjects. But in addition, Ellmann seems to have an uncanny grasp on Joyce's personality: his reverence for the Irishman's literary accomplishment is always balanced by a kind of bemused affection for his faults. Whether Joyce is putting the finishing touches on Ulysses, falling down drunk in the streets of Trieste, or talking dirty to his future wife via the postal service, Ellmann's account always shows us a genius and a human being--a daunting enough task for a fiction writer, let alone the poor, fact-fettered biographer.

Ellroy, James (1988). The Big Nowhere: A Crime Novel
. New York, Mysterious Press.
Returning to Los Angeles a few years after World War II (the setting of his last novel, The Black Dahlia), Ellroy has come up with an ambitious, enthralling melodrama painted on a broad, dark canvas. The novel's first half interweaves two stories of lonely, driven lawmen investigating the crimes of social outcasts. In the county sheriff's office, Deputy Danny Upshaw finds that his probe of a series of homosexual murders is unleashing some frightening personal demons. Meanwhile, DA's investigator Mal Considine is assigned to infiltrate a cadre of Hollywood leftists, knowing that in the red-scare atmosphere, any hint of Communist conspiracy he uncovers will advance his career. Impressed by Upshaw's intensity, Considine decides to use him as a decoy to seduce a powerful woman nicknamed the "Red Queen," and the two cases and their implications of corruption, deceit and past violence converge explosively. At once taut and densely detailed, this is a mystery with the grim, inexorable pull of a film noir, shot through with a strictly modern dose of extreme (though not gratuitous) brutality and a very sure sense of history and characterization.

Ellroy, James (1990). L.A. Confidential
. New York, Mysterious Press.
Ellroy's ninth novel, set in 1950s Los Angeles, kicks off with a shoot-out between a rogue ex-cop and a band of gangsters fronted by a crooked police lieutenant. Close on the heels of this scene comes a jarring Christmas Day precinct house riot, in which drunk and rampaging cops viciously beat up a group of jailed Mexican hoodlums. But, as readers will quickly learn, these sudden sprees of violence, laced with evidence of police corruption, are only teasers for the grisly events and pathos that follow this intricate police procedural. Picking up where The Black Dahlia and The Big Nowhere left off, the book tracks the intertwining paths of the three flawed and ambitious cops who emerge from the "Bloody Christmas" affair. Dope peddling, prostitution, and other risky business are revealed as the tightly wound plot untangles. Ellroy's disdain for Hollywood tinsel is evident at every turn; even the most noble of the characters here are relentlessly sleazy. But their grueling, sometimes maniacal schemes make a compelling read for the stout of heart.

Ellroy, James (1997). My Dark Places: An L.A. Crime Memoir
. New York, Vintage.
Crime novelist Ellroy (American Tabloid) was 10 in 1958 when his mother, a divorced nurse and closet alcoholic, was found strangled to death in a deserted schoolyard in California's San Gabriel Valley. The case was still unsolved in 1994, when Ellroy hired retired L.A. homicide detective Bill Stoner to investigate. In this emotionally raw, hypnotic memoir, Ellroy ventures into the murky, Oedipal depths of his lifelong obsession with sex crimes and police work, setting his mother's murder against a grisly backdrop of similar L.A. homicides, from the 1947 Black Dahlia case (the subject of Ellroy's 1987 novel The Black Dahlia) to the indictment of O.J. Simpson. Ellroy recounts his troubled coming-of-age: in the wake of his mother's death, he immersed himself in the Nazi literature, petty theft, voyeurism, pornography and crime fiction that pollinated his flowering "tabloid sensibility." Eventually bottoming out on booze and drugs, he sobered up in AA and moved to the East Coast to write fiction. Returning to L.A., Ellroy culls LAPD archives to reconstruct the 1958 investigation of his mother's murder. While he fails to figure out who killed her, he unravels her secretive life, exploring the dalliances and weekend binges she hid from her son and ex-husband. If Baudelaire had produced an episode of Dragnet, it might have resembled the feverish, staccato way Ellroy confronts his mother's ghost, re-staging her murder with creepy meticulousness and addressing her repeatedly in the second person. Ellroy's degraded tough-guy shtick at times sounds disingenuously novelistic, and it occasionally gets mired in lists of sex crimes amassed from police archives. That the book lacks the closure or catharsis it sets out to achieve, however, is just one of the hard-won lessons of this deeply disquieting glimpse into Ellroy's heart of darkness and his ongoing battle with the past.

Ellroy, James (1998). The Black Dahlia
. New York, Mysterious Press.
Using the basic facts concerning the 1940s' notorious and yet unsolved Black Dahlia case, Ellroy creates a kaleidoscope of human passion and dark obsession. A young woman's mutilated body is found in a Los Angeles vacant lot. The story is seen through the eyes of Bucky Bleichert, ex-prize fighter and something of a boy wonder on the police force. There is no relief or humor as Bleichert arrives at a grisly discovery. Ellroy's powerful rendering of the long-reaching effects of murder gives the case new meaning.

Ellroy, James (2001). American Tabloid: A Novel
. New York, Knopf.
Although it follows his L.A. Trilogy chronologically, Ellroy's visceral, tightly plotted new novel unfolds on a much wider stage, delivering a compelling and detailed view of the American underworld from the late 1950s to the assassination of JFK. Demythologizing the Camelot years, Ellroy (White Jazz) depicts a nexus of renegade government agencies, mobsters, industrial tycoons and Hollywood players fueling the rise and fall of the Kennedy administration. The story hinges on the entanglements of three 40-something government mercenaries who play major, behind-the-scenes roles in such events as the Bay of Pigs and the assassination of the president. Suave and sybaritic Kemper Boyd pimps for JFK while carrying out simultaneous undercover work for the CIA, FBI, Robert Kennedy and the Mob. Hulking, sadistic ex-L.A. cop Pete Bondurant, a hired killer for Jimmy Hoffa, digs dirt for a drug-addled Howard Hughes while training a cadre of bloodthirsty, anti-Castro Cuban exiles off the Florida Coast. Idealistic FBI wiretapper Ward Littel, following a series of disastrous anti-Mafia operations, becomes a Machiavellian mob lawyer. All three rub shoulders with an enormous cast of real-life characters, including clever, two-dimensional portraits of the Kennedy family, J. Edgar Hoover and Jack Ruby. Exercising his muscular, shorthand prose, Ellroy moves the narrative from break-in to lurid assignation to brutal hit job in a tightening gyre that culminates in the murder of the president. While not especially convincing as revisionist history, this is a cool and riveting evocation of a cultural epoch abounding in government surveillance, endemic corruption and yellow journalism.

Ellroy, James (2002). The Cold Six Thousand: A Novel
. New York, Knopf: Distributed by Random House.
With its hypnotic, staccato rhythms, and words jostling, bumping, marching forward with edgy intensity (like lemmings heading toward a cliff of their own devising), The Cold Six Thousand feels as if it's being narrated by a hopped-up Dr. Seuss who's hungrier for violence than for green eggs and ham. In spinning the threads of post-JFK-assassination cultural chaos, James Ellroy's whirlwind riff on the 1960s takes nothing for granted, except that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Hurtling from Las Vegas to Vietnam to Cuba to Memphis and back again (and all points in between), from Dealey Plaza to opium fields to smoke-filled back rooms where the mob holds sway, the novel traces the strands of complicity, greed, and fear that connect three men to a legion of supporting characters: Ward Littell, a former Feeb whose current allegiance to the mob and to Howard Hughes can't mask his admiration for the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King; Pete Bondurant, a hit man and fervent anti-Communist who splits his time between Vegas casinos and CIA-sponsored heroin labs in Saigon; and Wayne Tedrow Jr., a young Vegas cop who's sent to Dallas in late November 1963 to snuff a black pimp, and who is fighting a losing battle against his predilection for violence: "Junior was a hider. Junior was a watcher. Junior lit flames. Junior torched. Junior lived in his head."

And behind these three, J. Edgar Hoover is the master puppeteer, pulling strings with visionary zeal and resolute pragmatism, the still point around whom the novel roils and tumbles. At once evil and comic, Hoover predicts that LBJwill deplete his prestige on the home front and recoup it in Vietnam. History will judge him as a tall man with big ears who needed wretched people to love him," and feels that Cuba "appeals to hotheads and the morally impaired. It's the cuisine and the sex. Plantains and women who have intercourse with donkeys."

The Seussian comparison isn't that far-fetched: Ellroy's novel, like the children's books (and like the very decade it limns), is flexible, spontaneous, and unabashedly off-kilter. Weighing in at a hefty 700 pages, The Cold Six Thousand is a trifle bloated by the excesses of its narrative form. But what glorious excess it is, as Ellroy continues to illuminate the twin impulses toward idealism and corruption that frame American popular and political culture. He deftly puts unforgettable faces and voices to the murkiest of conspiracy theories, and simultaneously mocks our eager assumption that such knowledge will make a difference. --Kelly Flynn

Ellsberg, Daniel (2017). The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner
. New York, Bloomsbury.
Former high level defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg reveals his shocking first-hand account of America's nuclear program in the 1960s. From the remotest air bases in the Pacific Command, where he discovered that the authority to initiate use of nuclear weapons was widely delegated, to the secret plans for general nuclear war under Eisenhower, which, if executed, would cause the near-extinction of humanity, Ellsberg shows that the legacy of this most dangerous arms buildup in the history of civilization -- and its proposed renewal under the Trump administration -- threatens our very survival. No other insider with high level access has written so candidly of the nuclear strategy of the late Eisenhower and early Kennedy years, and nothing has fundamentally changed since that era.

Ellsberg, Daniel (2002). Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
. New York, Viking.
Ellsberg's transformation from cold warrior and Defense Department analyst to impassioned antiwar crusader who released the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in June 1971 makes a remarkable and riveting story that still shocks 30 years later. Avoiding, for the most part, self-justification and self-aggrandizement, he clearly relates the experiences that led him to reject as arrogant lies the premises six presidents presented to the public and Congress to secure support for the Vietnam War. He describes the disjunction between what he saw during visits to Vietnam in the early and mid-'60s, driving through dangerous Viet Cong-held territory, and what was told to the press and public. And he recalls his first reading of the classified documents later known as the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the motives, in his view unprincipled, behind American involvement in Vietnam. Ellsberg creates page-turning human drama and suspense in both his descriptions of his early experience accompanying U.S. combat missions in Vietnam and his days spent underground evading an FBI manhunt after the Times's publication of the Papers. Another strength of this memoir is Ellsberg's vivid recollections of meetings with prominent policymakers, from Henry Kissinger to Senator William Fulbright, that re-create the deep tensions of the Vietnam era. Ellsberg raises serious ethical questions about how citizens, politicians, the press and officials act when confronted with government actions they consider immoral and perhaps illegal. Ellsberg's own answer is history.

Ellwood, Wayne (2006). The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization
. Toronto, ON, Between the Lines.
Globalization: it's a buzzword you can't escape. For some it's the ticket to a democratic world of instant communications and global prosperity. For others it's a money-mad juggernaut, spinning wildly out of control, threatening both cultural and biological diversity. Today the Western consumer model has seeped into every corner of the globe while gaps in wealth, food security and social provision continue to grow. The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalisation traces the journey towards a borderless world. And in the process it shows that the promise of globalization is seductive, powerful, and ultimately hollow.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Harold Bloom, et al. (1994). Collected Poems and Translations
. New York, Library of America: Distributed to the trade in the U.S. by Penguin Books USA.
Even those not well acquainted with the work of Emerson, New England essayist and procreative spark of the Transcendentalist movement, will find much to savor in this exhaustive, sensitive compilation. The poems chart the growth of a uniquely American sensibility, from the impressionable boy who toyed romantically with verse to the eloquent man who witnessed with "joyful eye" the "genius of the whole." In his autobiographical laments, particularly "Threnody," one sees how painfully the deaths of Emerson's first wife and first-born son affected him. Of great interest also are his gentlemanly versions of Dante. But the crowning moment of the collection comes when Emerson steeps himself in the poetry of Persian mystics. (His translations illustrate more the intense resonance he felt with the rapturous manner of the poet Hafiz, and less his mastery of poetic form.) While the voices of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson and others are periodically visible, the profound influence of the exotic saturates his every word. This welcome collection offers up poetic reiterations of Emerson's more popular essays, lyricizes Transcendentalism's celebration of the sublime in the human, and serves to re-open the case for Emerson as a poet.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo and Joel Porte (1983). Essays & Lectures
. New York, Literary Classics of the U.S.: Distributed to the trade in the U.S. and Canada by Viking Press.
Joel Porte, editor. The major works of Emerson's most productive period in their entirety: Nature: Addresses and Lectures, Essays: First and Second Series, Representative Men, English Traits, and The Conduct of Life.

Engelhardt, Tom (2010). The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's
. Chicago, IL, Haymarket Books.
In The American Way of War, Engelhardt documents Washington's ongoing commitment to military bases to preserve - and extend - its empire; reveals damning information about the American reliance on air power, at great cost to civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan; and shows that the US empire has deep historical roots that precede the Bush administration - and continue today into the presidency of Barack Obama.

Engelhardt, Tom (2014). Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single Superpower World
. Chicago, IL, Haymarket Books.
In 1964, a book entitled The Invisible Government shocked Americans with its revelations of a growing world of intelligence agencies playing fast and loose around the planet, a secret government lodged inside the one they knew that even the president didn't fully control. Almost half a century later, everything about that 'invisible government' has grown vastly larger, more disturbing, and far more visible. In his new book, Tom Engelhardt takes in something new under the sun: what is no longer, as in the 1960s, a national security state, but a global security one, fighting secret wars that have turned the president into an assassin-in-chief. Shadow Government offers a powerful survey of a democracy of the wealthy that your grandparents wouldn't have recognized.

Engels, Friedrich and Leonard Emil Mins (1937). Engels on Capital
. New York, International Publishers.
This is a synopsis of Capital, Volume I, written by Engels in 1868. The reviews and the synopsis made by Engels are inestimable aids to the study of Capital. The contents of are given for the greater part in Marx's own words.

Capital
The centre of gravity, in the synopsis, as well as in the reviews, lies in the theory of surplus-value, the corner-stone of Marx's economic doctrine. Engels summarized Marx's theory of surplus-value with special care, characterizing in detail the historical circumstances in which the relations of capital exploitation spread, the working class made its first steps in the struggle and the first skirmishes took place between labor and capital.

Engels' synopsis that the transition from one category to another is not a freak of reason but the reflection of the real historic process of development. Keeping to the order of Marx's exposition, he shows how, in the course of historic development, capital emerged on the basis of commodity production, how it subordinated to itself the whole of production, how simple co-operation was replaced by manufacture and this, in turn, by machine production.

Engels, Friedrich, Lewis Henry Morgan, et al. (1972). The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
. New York, Pathfinder Press.
Engels makes the following propositions:

  • That in the beginning people lived in unrestricted sexual intercourse, which he dubs, not very felicitously, hetaerism.
  • That such an intercourse excludes any absolutely certain means of determining parentage; that consequently descent could only be traced by the female line in compliance with maternal law - and that this was universally practiced by all the nations of antiquity.
  • That consequently women as mothers, being the only well known parents of younger generations, received a high tribute of respect and deference, amounting to a complete women's rule (gynaicocracy), according to Bachofen's idea.
  • That the transition to monogamy, reserving a certain woman exclusively to one man, implied the violation of the primeval religious law (i.e., practically a violation of the customary right of all other men to the same woman), which violation had to be atoned for its permission purchased by the surrender of the women to the public for a limited time.

Engler, Yves (2016). A Propaganda System: How Canada’s Government, Corporations, Media and Academia Sell War and Exploitation
. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Fernwood Publishing.
Reveals why most Canadians believe their country is a force for good in the world, despite a long history of supporting empire, racism and exploitation. The book details the vast sums Global Affairs Canada, Veterans Affairs and the Department of National Defence spend articulating a one-sided version of Canada’s foreign policy. With the largest PR machine in the country, the Canadian Forces promotes its worldview through a history department, university, journals, war commemorations, think tanks, academic programs and hundreds of public relations officers.

A Propaganda System
traces the long history of government information control during war, including formal censorship, as well as extreme media bias on topics ranging from Haiti to Palestine, investment agreements to the mining industry. The book also details the corporate elite’s funding for university programs and think tanks.

Engler, Yves (2009). The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy
. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Fernwood Publishing.
Most of us believe Canada's primary role has been as peacekeeper or honest broker in difficult-to-solve disputes. But, contrary to the mythology of Canada as a force for good in the world, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy sheds light on many dark corners: From troops that joined the British in Sudan in 1885 to gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean and aspirations of Central American empire, to participation in the U.N. mission that killed Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, to important support for apartheid South Africa, Zionism and the U.S. war in Vietnam, to helping overthrow Salvador Allende and supporting the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, to Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan today.

Engler, Yves (2010). Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid
. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Fernwood Publishing.
Documents the history of Canadian Christian Zionism, Lester Pearson’s important role in the United Nations negotiations to create a Jewish state on Palestinian land, the millions of dollars in tax-deductable donations used to expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service ties to Israel’s Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations (Mossad).

Engler, Yves (2015). Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Expoitation
. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Fernwood Publishing.
The author of The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, and other works that challenge the myth of Canadian benevolence, documents Canadian involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, the “scramble for Africa” and European colonialism. The book reveals Ottawa’s opposition to anticolonial struggles, its support for apartheid South Africa and Idi Amin’s coup, and its role in ousting independence leaders Patrice Lumumba and Kwame Nkrumah. Based on an exhaustive look at the public record as well as on-the-ground research, Canada in Africa shows how the federal government pressed African countries to follow neoliberal economic prescriptions and sheds light on Canada’s part in the violence that has engulfed Somalia, Rwanda and the Congo, as well as how Canada’s indifference to climate change means a death sentence to ever-growing numbers of Africans..

Engler, Yves (2020). House of Mirrors: Justin Trudeau's Foreign Policy
. Montreal, Quebec, Canada, RED Publishing/Black Rose Books.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau presents himself as progressive on foreign affairs. According to Trudeau, he and his Liberals have brought Canada back after the disastrous Conservative government under Stephen Harper. In House of Mirrors, Yves Engler asks unpleasant questions and demonstrates that the opposite is true: Trudeau, he argues, largely continued Harper’s foreign policy.

House of Mirrors outlines how Trudeau’s government has expanded the military while ignoring international efforts to restrict nuclear weapons proliferation. The Liberals, Engler shows, have launched an unprecedented effort to overthrow Venezuela’s government while siding with an assortment of reactionary governments. Flouting their climate commitments, the Trudeau government also failed to follow through on its promise to rein in Canada’s controversial mining sector.

With heavily documented analysis, House of Mirrors gives insight into the Liberals’ rhetorical skills that whitewash their pro-corporate and conservative policies with progressive slogans.

Engler, Yves (2019). Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada
. Montreal, Black Rose.
Another in a wonderful series by Canadian author Yves Engler that examines much of the foreign policy actions and policies of Canadian politics.

Engler, Yves (2012). Lester Pearson's Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt
. Winnipeg, Manitoba, Fernwood Publishing.
Lester Pearson is one of Canada’s most important political figures. A Nobel Peace laureate, he is considered a great peacekeeper and ‘honest broker.’ But in this critical examination of his work, Pearson is exposed as an ardent cold warrior who backed colonialism and apartheid in Africa, Zionism, coups in Guatemala, Iran and Brazil and the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic. A beneficiary of U.S. intervention in Canadian political affairs, he also provided important support to the U.S. in Vietnam and pushed to send troops to the American war in Korea. Written in the form of a submission to an imagined 'Truth and Reconciliation' commission about Canada’s foreign policy past Lester Pearson’s Peacekeeping: The Truth May Hurt challenges one of the most important Canadian foreign policy myths.

Ennis, Garth, Steve Dillon, et al. (2016). Absolute Preacher, Vol. 1-3
. Burbank, CA, DC Comics.
Merging with a bizarre spiritual force called Genesis, Texan Preacher Jesse Custer becomes completely disillusioned with the beliefs that he had dedicated his entire life to. Now possessing the power of "The Word," an ability to make people do whatever he utters, Custer begins a violent and riotous journey across the country. Joined by his gun-toting girlfriend Tulip and the hard drinking Irish vampire Cassidy, the Preacher loses faith in both man and God as he witnesses dark atrocities and improbable calamities during his exploration of America.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus (1974). Politics and Crime
. New York, Seabury Press.
Enzensberger characterizes mentality as a product of society and elaborates on the phenomena of the mind-making industry as a product of the last 100 years.

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus (1976). Mausoleum: Thirty-Seven Ballads from the History of Progress
. New York. Urizen Books.
With Mausoleum, Enzensberger's poetic style pushes towards underlying questions about the representational capacities of poetic language that he felt neither he nor his contemporaries had answered (p. 86). Enzensberger flirted and experimented with various techniques in this middle period: cyclical structure, subtexts, heteroglossia, documentary techniques, and dynamic interactions with readers that fused the imagination with intellectual experimentation. Inspired by the poet William Carlos Williams, Enzensberger began to move away from succinct language, instead engaging the flexible capacities of poetry. Through these flexible capacities Enzensberger designed new roles for readers and writers by continuing to raise paradoxes and contradictions while using didactic interventions and internationalism. This continuation results in a "significant relationship between the innovation on form and content that were part of Enzensberger's poetic program and aspects of the culture industry that he critiqued in his prose writings over the course of several decades."

Enzensberger, Hans Magnus and Michael Roloff (1974). The Consciousness Industry; on Literature, Politics and the Media
. New York, Seabury Press. "The Consciousness Industry" is a term coined by author and theorist Hans Magnus Enzensberger, which identifies the mechanisms through which the human mind is reproduced as a social product. Foremost among these mechanisms are the institutions of mass media and education. According to Enzensberger, the mind industry does not produce anything specific; rather, its main business is to perpetuate the existing order of man's domination over man.

Erasmus, Desiderius (2003). In Praise of Folly
. Mineola, N.Y., Dover Publications.
Witty, influential work by one of the greatest scholars of the Renaissance satirizes the shortcomings of the upper classes and religious institutions. Required reading for humanities classes, this literary gem is ripe with vignettes and caricatures--with Folly, a metaphor for stupidity, the centerpiece.

Erdnase, S.W. (1995). The Expert at the Card Table: The Classic Treatise on Card Manipulation
. New York, Dover Publications.
Considered by many magicians and card sharps to be the one essential guidebook to attaining the highest level of card mastery. Includes author's own systems of false shuffling, false riffling and cutting, dealing from the bottom, palming cards, "skinning the hand", three-card monte, plus 14 dazzling card tricks.

Esack, Farid (1999). On Being a Muslim: Finding a Religious Path in the World Today
. Oxford, Oneworld.
Tackling some of the key issues facing Islam today, this is a controversial, challenging, witty, and passionate account of a Muslim's life in the modern world.

Escher, M. C., Flip Bool, et al. (1982). M.C. Escher, His Life and Complete Graphic Work: With a Fully Illustrated Catalogue
. New York, H.N. Abrams.
Illustrated are 448 (of the 449) original woodcuts, wood engravings, lithographs, linocuts and mezzotints by Maurits Cornelis Escher. An attractive volume, it virtually constitutes a catalogue raisonne. Each print is illustrated in minimum quarter-page format, with size, medium and date provided. Introductory chapters provide biographical and autobiographical information. In addition, the only book that the artist wrote, Regelmatige Vlakverdeling (The Regular Division of the Plane), which was published in 1957 in a very limited edition by a Dutch bibliophile society, is translated and illustrated in full. As owner of and dealer in the main body of Escher's original prints, drawings and watercolors, which were previously on loan to the Hague Museum, I make extensive use of this book and commend it to all. Published by Abradale at less than half the price of the out-of-print Abrams edition, but identical to it except for a different dust jacket, it provides good value, and is certainly less expensive than the signed original prints themselves, which cost more than ten thousand dollars each.

Escoffier, A. (1979). Le Guide Culinaire: The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery
. New York, Mayflower Books.
This mammoth culinary work represents a clear and accurate translation of the last French edition of Le Guide Culinaire, the complete work which was written and updated by Auguste Escoffier. It is the only translation of the work in its entirety.
This masterpiece contains basic principles which are as valid today as when the book was first published in French in 1903. It has successfully withstood the test of time and remains a nonpareil among culinary books.
This volume contains more than 5,000 recipes, reflecting the best in Classical French and International cookery. Measurements are included in Metric and Imperial units, as well as U.S. cup measurements for liquids.
Escoffier does not go into minute details of preparation, but assumes that the reader will have a sound basic knowledge of food and cooking. It is a guide which the chef will use constantly, and should be made available where it will be effective, in the kitchen.

Esquire Magazine, editors (2009). The Handbook of Style: A Man's Guide to Looking Good
. New York, NY, Hearst Books.
Each year, the editors of Esquire produce a special issue of the magazine devoted to men's style called The Big Black Book, which has been wildly successful. Using the same pragmatic, highly illustrated approach, and laced with Esquire's trademark humor, Esquire's The Handbook of Style brings readers vital information on every aspect of a man's wardrobe, from suits and shirts, to shoes and neckties, to watches and other accessories. The style-minded reader will find useful advice on suit fabrics and cuts, the right kind of trousers for his build, the essential outerwear to own, how to dress properly for an occasion, how to tie a tie, how to pack for a trip, grooming strategies, and much, much more. A compact and sophisticated accessory in its own right, Esquire's The Handbook of Style will be the style bible for the well-dressed man for years to come.

Esslin, Martin (1977). Antonin Artaud
. New York, Penguin Books.
"Artaud remains one of the significant and influential theorists of modern theatre." -- Gerald Rabkin, Rutgers University

Esslin, Martin (1984). Brecht, a Choice of Evils: A Critical Study of the Man, His Work, and His Opinions
. London; New York, Methuen.

Estrin, Marc (2002). Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa
. New York, BlueHen Books.
The hapless antihero who morphed into a cockroach in Kafka's Metamorphosis is resurrected and given a rather busy second life in Estrin's brilliantly conceived but erratic debut novel. In Estrin's version, Gregor Samsa is sold to a Viennese sideshow rather than being swept into the trash, and he quickly becomes the major attraction in entrepreneur Amadeus Hoffnung's bizarre little circus. The author keeps his early incarnation of Samsa reasonably close to Kafka's character, and he even adds a cheeky chapter in which Samsa meets Ludwig Wittgenstein. But when the circus subplot runs its course and Samsa goes off to New York, he undergoes a radical transformation into a half-man, half-insect superhero whom the author uses to reexamine the first half of the 20th century, with Samsa working behind the scenes as a liaison in the worlds of science, music, business and politics to push pivotal historical events in the right direction. His encounters with Charles Ives, FDR, Einstein and Oppenheimer, among others, are rendered with a combination of humor, chutzpah and intelligence. Even though Estrin has a tendency to go over the top, he succeeds at many levels in his recreation of one of Kafka's most memorable characters, redrawing Samsa as a compassionate, brilliant bug. The book's many excesses don't detract from the scope of its premise and the kaleidoscopic dazzle of its most successful episodes.

Evans, Kate; Paul Buhle, editor (2015). Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg
. Brooklyn, NY, Verso.
Red Rosa gives Rosa Luxemburg her due as a radical and human being. In this beautifully drawn work of graphic biography, writer and artist Kate Evans has opened up her subject's intellectual world to a new audience, grounding Luxemburg's ideas in the realities of an inspirational and deeply affecting life.

Evans, Richard J. (2004). The Coming of the Third Reich
. New York, The Penguin Press.
Evans’s history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historian’s art and the book by which all others on the subject will be judged.

Evans, Richard J. (2005). The Third Reich in Power
. New York, Penguin Press.
Chronicles the story of Germany's radical reshaping under Nazi rule. As those who were deemed unworthy to be counted among the German people were dealt with in increasingly brutal terms, Hitler's drive to prepare Germany for the war that he saw as its destiny reached its fateful hour in September 1939.

Evans, Richard J. (2009). The Third Reich at War.
. New York, Penguin Press.
Evans reveals the dynamics of a society plunged into war at every level. The great battles and events of the conflict are here, but just as telling is Evans's re- creation of the daily experience of ordinary Germans in wartime. At the center of the book is the Nazi extermination of the Jews. The final book in Richard J. Evan's three-volume history of Hitler's Germany.

Evreinov, N. N. (1973). Life as Theater: Five Modern Plays
. Ann Arbor [Mich.], Ardis.
Educated at the Imperial Law School, Petrograd, Evreinov later studied composition under Rimsky-Korsakov and followed the circus. In 1907, became the stage manager of Moscow's Old (or "Ancient") State Theatre where he focussed on producing plays from the theatre of the Middle Ages and the Golden Age of Spain. He attempted to recreate not just the conventions of the periods in question, but the entire milieu as well. Hence the acting company could be seen arriving, setting up and getting into costume, etc., through the strike and departure. In 1909, he organized the Happy Theatre for Grown Up Children in Petrograd where his brilliant parodies and sketches attacking everything from Italian opera to bad directing became the yardstick against such things were measured. From 1914-1917, he directed the Crooked Looking-Glass, a cabaret theatre.

Ewald, Ellen Buchman (1973). Recipes for a Small Planet; the Art and Science of High Protein Vegetarian Cookery
. New York, Ballantine Books.
Full of nutritional information, how-to-cook-grains and beans, complementary proteins.

Ewans, Martin (2002). Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics
. New York, Perennial.
Ewans begins by glossing over early Afghan history and the triumph by Islam over Buddhism and indigenous religions, and giving a brief overview of the occupations by Genghis Khan and Timur. Most of the book is devoted to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There aren't a lot of bright spots in modern Afghan history. The people share no linguistic, religious, or ethnic traditions and have come together only to fight common enemies. Two wars with the British and the mujahadeen resistance against the Soviets devastated both the people and the economy, but the anarchy following the wars was equally crippling. Often lacking a centralized government, the few rulers Afghanistan has known, from Daoud to Mullah Omar, have been charismatic personalities but hugely ineffective leaders. With a comprehensive understanding of Afghan history, Ewans portrays the rise of the Taliban in the context of a nation that had known no peace in 40 years and little peace in all its history. An epilogue, which contains the most compelling writing of the book, explores the aftermath of September 11 on Afghan history. Though the dry, scholarly political history will turn off casual readers, this is a fascinating story and the best book-length examination of Afghanistan's history we're likely to have for some time.

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