Edited by Barbara Nemitz. Essays by Hideto Fuse, Karl Schawelka and Thomas von Taschitzki.

One of the most independent thinkers in German intellectual history, the Enlightenment author Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) contributed in decisive and lasting fashion to literature, philosophy, theology, criticism, and drama theory. Lessing invented the bürgerliches Trauerspiel (bourgeois tragedy) and wrote one of the first successful German tragedies as well as one of the finest German comedies. In his final dramatic masterpiece, Nathan der Weise, he writes of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, of religious tolerance and intolerance and the clash of civilizations. Lessing's dramas are the oldest German theater pieces still regularly performed (both in Germany and internationally), and both his plays and his drama theory have influenced such writers as Goethe, Schiller, Hebbel, Hauptmann, Ibsen, Strindberg, Schnitzler, and Brecht. Addressing an audience ranging from graduate students to seasoned scholars, this volume introduces Lessing's life and times and places him within the broader context of the European Enlightenment. It discusses his pathbreaking dramas, his equally revolutionary theoretical, critical, and aesthetic writings, his original fables, his innovative work in philosophy and theology, and his significant contributions to Jewish emancipation. The volume concludes by examining 20th-century reception of Lessing and his oeuvre. Contributors: Barbara Fischer, Thomas C. Fox, Steven D. Martinson, Klaus L. Berghahn, John Pizer, Beate Allert, H. B. Nisbet, Arno Schilson, Willi Goetschel, Peter Höyng, Karin A. Wurst, Ann Schmiesing, Reinhart Meyer, Hans-Joachim Kertscher, Hinrich C. Seeba, Dieter Fratzke, Helmut Berthold, Herbert Rowland. Barbara Fischer is associate professor of German and Thomas C. Fox is professor of German, both at the University of Alabama.

American researchers in sociology and criminal justice explore the existential dilemma of gender and incarceration in order to illustrate the relationship between gendered power relations and identity on both sides of the wall, and to contribute to changing both the debilitating prison system and the broader patriarchal structures that support it. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

In the spirit of the avid desert botanist Willis Linn Jepson, The Jepson Desert Manual provides botanical enthusiasts of all backgrounds with the first comprehensive field guide focused exclusively on native and naturalized vascular plants of California's southeastern deserts. Based on The Jepson Manual: Higher Plants of California, the Desert Manual incorporates new illustrations for more than two hundred desert taxa, revised keys to identification, updated distributional information, and 128 color photographs. This guide will allow easier identification of California's fascinating desert plants than would be possible in a manual with broader geographic coverage.
As in The Jepson Manual, detailed descriptions and illustrations of plant characteristics are provided, along with information on native versus alien status, habitats, elevation, endangerment, toxicity, weed status, horticultural requirements, and flowering times. Introductory sections on the desert setting and vegetation offer the reader a broad context and new perspectives for appreciating the more than twenty five hundred plant species included in the Manual. For amateur and professional botanists alike, the Desert Manual will prove to be an invaluable companion in California's spectacular Mojave Desert, Sonoran Desert, and southern Great Basin environments, including the White Mountains.

In this provocative study, Barbara Duden asserts that the most basic biological and medical terms that we use to describe our own bodies--male and female, healthy or sick--are indeed cultural constructions. To illustrate this, Duden delves into the records of an eighteenth-century German physician who meticulously documented the medical histories of eighteen hundred women of all ages and backgrounds, often in their own words.

With North Providence, the very first history of any sort ever published on the town, resident historians Thomas E. and Barbara A. Greene present a comprehensive and well-informed look at the development and growth of their hometown from 1765 to 1995. Numerous vintage photographs--many rare and previously unpublished-- have been carefully selected to create a fascinating portrait of the town and its villages through the years. North Providence, which from 1765 to 1874 contained the old village of Pawtucket, today consists of 5.8 square miles of land in northern Rhode Island. The villages of North Providence are home to a variety of cultural and ethnic groups; each one maintains its own character and distinct identity. The authors' presentation includes a concise textual history of each village, and incorporates significant original research on the history of North Providence schools in each district.

Feminist Political Ecology explores the gendered relations of ecologies, economies and politics in communities as diverse as the rubbertappers in the rainforests of Brazil to activist groups fighting racism in New York City.
Women are often at the centre of these struggles, struggles which concern local knowledge, everyday practice, rights to resources, sustainable development, environmental quality, and social justice.
The book bridges the gap between the academic and rural orientation of political ecology and the largely activist and urban focus of environmental justice movements.

Embraced worldwide as key spiritual teachers of our times, the Pleiadians are back, with another bold and controversial look at our highest purpose on Earth. Earth: Pleiadian Keys to the Living Library is their handbook to inspired living, calling on us to restore and return value to the human being, and to recognize the Goddess energies and the power of blood as connections to our DNA and our heritage.

Using wit, wisdom, and deep compassion, they entice us to explore the corridors of time through the concept of the Game Masters; to awaken the crucial codes for multidimensional perspective; and to redream the Living Library of Earth. Their teachings aare significantly arranged in twelve chapters to trigger a deeper understanding of our ancestral lineage. Earth probes the memories hidden deep within us to reveal our crucial roles in the transformational process unfolding in our times.

She's in trouble again!

Fun-loving Amelia Bedelia is in charge of a surprise wedding shower. And when she arrives with a garden hose, the entire party is turned into an uproarious mess!

Fun-loving Amelia Bedelia is in charge of a surprise wedding shower. And when she arrives with a garden hose, the entire party is turned into an uproarious mess!

She's in trouble again!

Fun-loving Amelia Bedelia is in charge of a surprise wedding shower. And when she arrives with a garden hose, the entire party is turned into an uproarious mess!

Fun-loving Amelia Bedelia is in charge of a surprise wedding shower. And when she arrives with a garden hose, the entire party is turned into an uproarious mess!

Barbara Ann Brennan's bestselling first book, Hands of Light, established her as one of the world's most gifted healers and teachers. Now, she continues her ground-breaking exploration of the human energy field, or aura -- the source of our experience of health or illness. Drawing on many new developments in her teaching and practice, she shows how we can be empowered as both patients and healers to understand and work with our most fundamental healing power: the light that emerges from the very center of our humanity.

In a unique approach that encourages a cooperative effort among healer, patient, and other health-care providers, Light Emerging explains what the healer perceives visually, audibly, and kinesthetically and how each of us can participate in every stage of the healing process.

Presenting a fascinating range of research, from a paradigm of healing based on the science of holography to insights into the "hara level" and the "core star," Light Emerging is at the leading edge of healing practice in our time.