In The Monster as War Machine, European monster tradition intersects with American mass-media production and new philosophical approaches to examine topics of community, political power, alternative representations of race and gender, identity, hybridity, political agency, and collective subjectivity. In this book, cultural theory, close readings of literary texts, and interpretations of visual materials come together, covering a wide and diversified cultural territory. Some of the authors included in this study are Agamben, Badiou, Baudrillard, Deleuze, Esposito, Foucault, Freud, Haraway, Hardt, Kristeva, Marx, Negri, and Zizek, whose works illuminate the disruptive and at times emancipatory role of monstrosity as a representation of excess, instinct, evil, truth, and rebelliousness. This book is an important resource for those studying film, contemporary literature, and popular culture. This book is in the Cambria Latin American Literatures and Cultures Series headed by Román de la Campa, the Edwin B. and Lenore R. Williams Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Monster War is the third book in the action-packed, steampunk League of Seven series by acclaimed author Alan Gratz. Having discovered the monstrous secret of his origins, Archie Dent is no longer certain that he is worthy to be a member of the League of Seven. But with new enemies to face, he realizes that he may not have the luxury of questioning his destiny. Wielding the Dragon Lantern, the maniacal Philomena Moffett has turned her back on the Septemberist Society, creating her own Shadow League and unleashing a monster army on the American continent. Archie and his friends must race to find the last two members of their league in time to thwart Moffett's plan and rescue humanity once more. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Chronicles the creation and evolution of the tank, discussing the tank's infancy during the First World War and the Russian Revolution, through its use in the Six Day War and the Gulf War.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, the American film industry produced a distinct cycle of films situated on the boundary between horror and science fiction. Using the familiar imagery of science fiction--from alien invasions to biological mutation and space travel--the vast majority of these films subscribed to the effects and aesthetics of horror film, anticipating the dystopian turn of many science fiction films to come. Departing from projections of American technological awe and optimism, these films often evinced paranoia, unease, fear, shock, and disgust. Not only did these movies address technophobia and its psychological, social, and cultural corollaries; they also returned persistently to the military as a source of character, setting, and conflict. Commensurate with a state of perpetual mobilization, the US military comes across as an inescapable presence in American life. Regardless of their genre, Steffen Hantke argues that these films have long been understood as allegories of the Cold War. They register anxieties about two major issues of the time: atomic technologies, especially the testing and use of nuclear weapons, as well as communist aggression and/or subversion. Setting out to question, expand, and correct this critical argument, Hantke follows shifts and adjustments prompted by recent scholarly work into the technological, political, and social history of America in the 1950s. Based on this revised historical understanding, science fiction films appear in a new light as they reflect on the troubled memories of World War II, the emergence of the military-industrial complex, the postwar rewriting of the American landscape, and the relative insignificance of catastrophic nuclear war compared to America's involvement in postcolonial conflicts around the globe.

The science fiction masterpiece of man versus alien that inspired generations, from Orson Welles’s classic radio play to the film starring Tom Cruise. At the turn of the twentieth century, few would believe that mankind is being watched from above. But millions of miles from Earth, the lords of the Red Planet prepare their armies for invasion, waiting for the moment to strike. When they land in the English countryside, baffled humans approach, waving white flags, and the Martians burn them to a crisp. The war has begun, and mankind doesn’t stand a chance. As Martian armies roll across England, one man fights to keep his family safe, risking his life—and his sanity—on the front lines of the greatest war in galactic history. H. G. Wells’s groundbreaking novel, adapted to radio and film, among other mediums, by visionary artists from Orson Welles to Steven Spielberg, remains one of the most chilling, unforgettable works of science fiction ever written. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

The remarkable rise and shameful fall of one of the twentieth century's greatest conglomerates At its peak in the 1930s, the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben was one of the most powerful corporations in the world. To this day, companies formerly part of the Farben cartel—the aspirin-maker Bayer, the graphics supplier Agfa, the plastics giant BASF—continue to play key roles in the global market. IG Farben itself, however, is remembered mostly for its infamous connections to the Nazi Party and its complicity in the atrocities of the Holocaust. After the war, Farben's leaders were tried for crimes that included mass murder and exploitation of slave labor. In Hell's Cartel, Diarmuid Jeffreys presents the first comprehensive account of IG Farben's rise and fall, tracing the enterprise from its nineteenth-century origins, when the discovery of synthetic dyes gave rise to a vibrant new industry, through the upheavals of the Great War era, and on to the company's fateful role in World War II. Drawing on extensive research and original interviews, Hell's Cartel sheds new light on the codependence of industry and the Third Reich, and offers a timely warning against the dangerous merger of politics and the pursuit of profit.

The newly expanded and revised edition of The Hollywood War Machine includes wide-ranging exploration of numerous popular military-themed films that have appeared in the close to a decade since the first edition was published. Within the Hollywood movie community, there has not been even the slightest decline in well-financed pictures focusing on warfare and closely-related motifs. The second edition includes a new chapter on recent popular films and another that analyzes the relationship between these movies and the bourgeoning gun culture in the United States, marked in recent years by a dramatic increase in episodes of mass killings.