|9780822985631|The Catholic Church and the Action Française, 1899-1939| Ambivalent Alliance convincingly defends several provocative insights into a key period in the history of French Catholicism. It investigates the strange marriage of convenience, from 1899 to 1939, between the French church and the ultra-rightist, chauvinist, monarchist, and anti-Semitic organization called the Acton Française, and raises many disturbing questions. Why did an increasingly international church find a narrowly patriotic group so appealing? How could it endorse a movement founded by an agnostic whose philosophy sanctioned violence and the persecution of Jews and othe “undesirables”? The twentieth-century French church was still feeling the…

|9780822958017|An Early American Counterculture|Tells of the founding and subsequent history of Ephrata, a mystical religious community that flourished in eastern Pennsylvania in the mid-eighteenth century. Its leader, Conrad Beissel, a German Pietist who came to America in 1720 seeking spiritual peace and solitude. Settled in Lancaster County, his talents and charisma attracted other German settlers who shared his vision of a community built in the image of apostolic Christianity.| E.G. Alderfer| Regional| History / General History / United States / State & Local / Middle Atlantic DC, DE, MD, NJ, NY, PA)

|9780822985648|This book discerns Soviet leaders' views of the United States and sees them in relation to foreign policy statements and actions. Hermann first examines the subtle problem of analyzing perceptions and interpreting motives from the words and deeds of national leaders. He then turns to cases, measuring the dominant U.S. hypotheses about the USSR against Soviet behavior in Central Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, as well as Soviet participation in the arms race. Finally, he weighs his conclusions against a thematic study of speeches and publications by members of the Politburo.| Richard K. Herrmann| Russian and East European…

|9780822985006|Culture and the State| Looking back through the prism of the severe economic crisis for filmmaking in the 1980s, The Film Industry in Brazil explores the unusual relationship between the state-supported industry, which often produced politically radical films, and the authoritarian regime that had held sway for twenty years. To ground his analysis, Johnson covers the early years of the film industry, 1898-1930; attempts at industrialization during the 1930s and 1940s; film industry congresses and government film boards, 1950-1966; the National Film Institute, 1966-1975; and the expansion of the state's role from 1969 through 1980. Well-conceived, carefully researched and documented,…

|9780822953982|The Decline and Fall of the American Steel Industry| Choice 1988 Outstanding Academic TitleA Best Business Book of 1988 by USA TodayA veteran reporter of American labor analyzes the spectacular and tragic collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s. John Hoerr’s account of these events stretches from the industry-wide bargaining failures of 1982 to the crippling work stoppage at USX (U.S. Steel) in 1986-87. He interviewed scores of steelworkers, company managers at all levels, and union officials, and was present at many of the crucial events he describes. Using historical flashbacks to the origins of the steel industry, particularly…