Paul Frymer argues provocatively that two-party competition in the United States leads to the marginalization of African Americans and the subversion of democracy. Scholars have long claimed that the need to win elections makes candidates, parties, and government responsive to any and all voters. Frymer shows, however, that party competition is centered around racially conservative white voters, and that this focus on white voters has dire consequences for African Americans. As both parties try to attract white swing voters by distancing themselves from blacks, black voters are often ignored and left with unappealing alternatives. African Americans are thus the leading example of a "captured minority." Frymer argues that our two-party system bears much of the blame for this state of affairs. Often overlooked in current discussions of racial politics, the party system represents a genuine form of institutional racism. Frymer shows that this is no accident, for the party system was set up in part to keep African American concerns off the political agenda. Today, the party system continues to restrict the political opportunities of African American voters, as was shown most recently when Bill Clinton took pains to distance himself from African Americans in order to capture conservative votes and win the presidency. Frymer compares the position of black voters with other social groups--gays and lesbians and the Christian right, for example--who have recently found themselves similarly "captured." Rigorously argued and researched, Uneasy Alliances is a powerful challenge to how we think about the relationship between black voters, political parties, and American democracy.

The struggle to rebuild Sanctuary continues in the eleventh entry in this shared-world fantasy series. The storms of war have passed Sanctuary by, and ordinary folk are confident the worst is behind them. Citizens work to restore their lives as the reconstruction brings new life to the city in more ways than one. However, it’s not sunny skies for everyone. Some residents are opting to settle old debts by the sword, and others are still vanishing off the streets. Meanwhile, Shupansea, ruler of the Beysib, is troubled by bloody nightmares, wondering what they could mean . . . Dive into the action-packed shared world of sword and sorcery, featuring stories by some of fantasy’s best authors, including Lynn Abbey, Robert Lynn Asprin, C. J. Cherryh, Jon DeCles, Chris Morris, C. S. Williams, Robin W. Bailey, and Diana L. Paxson. “It’s a collection to be raced through, to see what will happen. And it’s a collection to drag one’s feet through, lest the end come too soon.” —Fantasy-Faction

Uneasy Alliance illuminates the recent search in literary studies for a new interface between textual and contextual readings. Written in tribute to G.A.M. Janssens, the twenty-one essays in the volume exemplify a renewed awareness of the paradoxical nature of literary texts both as works of literary art and as documents embedded in and functioning within a writer's life and culture. Together they offer fresh and often interdisciplinary perspectives on twentieth-century American writers of more or less established status (Henry James, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Vladimir Nabokov, Flannery O'Connor, Saul Bellow, Michael Ondaatje, Toni Morrison and Sandra Cisneros) as well as on those who, for reasons of fashion, politics, ideology, or gender, have been unduly neglected (Booth Tarkington, Julia Peterkin, Robert Coates, Martha Gellhorn, Isabella Gardner, Karl Shapiro, the young Jewish-American writers, Julia Alvarez, and writers of popular crime and detective fiction). Exploring the fruitful interactions and uneasy alliance between literature and ethics, film, biography, gender studies, popular culture, avant-garde art, urban studies, anthropology and multicultural studies, together these essays testify to the ongoing pertinence of an approach to literature that is undogmatic, sensitive and sophisticated and that seeks to do justice to the complex interweavings of literature, culture and biography in twentieth-century American writing.

Sit in prison or join the military. The choice is yours. Convicted of a minor traffic violation, Rev Pelletier is conscripted into the Perseus Union Marine Corps . . . for up to a thirty-year term of service. Anxious to get back to his civilian life and job, Rev opts for a shorter term as a Marine Raider taking the fight to the enemy. But with extremely high mortality rates, can he and his friends survive until their term of service is over? Download Sentenced to War now to follow Rev through perilous battles as he fights to hold back the alien invasion. If you're a fan of Old Man's War, Starship Troopers, or Armor, you'll love this military scifi thrill ride.

This book deals with the complex and challenging organizational and scientific issues that arose in the operation of the MRC.

Psychobiography is often attacked by critics who feel that it trivializes complex adult personalities, "explaining the large deeds of great individuals," as George Will wrote, "by some slight the individual suffered at a tender age--say, 7, when his mother took away a lollipop." Worse yet, some writers have clearly abused psychobiography--for instance, to grind axes from the right (Nancy Clinch on the Kennedy family) or from the left (Fawn Brodie on Richard Nixon)--and others have offered woefully inept diagnoses (such as Albert Goldman's portrait of Elvis Presley as a "split personality" and a "delusional paranoid"). And yet, as Alan Elms argues in Uncovering Lives, in the hands of a skilled practitioner, psychobiography can rival the very best traditional biography in the insights it offers. Elms makes a strong case for the value of psychobiography, arguing in large part from example. Indeed, most of the book features Elms's own fascinating case studies of over a dozen prominent figures, among them Sigmund Freud (the father of psychobiography), B.F. Skinner, Isaac Asimov, L. Frank Baum, Vladimir Nabokov, Jimmy Carter, George Bush, Saddam Hussein, and Henry Kissinger. These profiles make intriguing reading. For example, Elms discusses the fiction of Isaac Asimov in light of the latter's acrophobia (fear of heights) and mild agoraphobia (fear of open spaces)--and Elms includes excerpts from a series of letters between himself and Asimov. He reveals an unintended subtext of The Wizard of Oz--that males are weak, females are strong (think of Scarecrow, Tin Man, the Lion, and the Wizard, versus the good and bad witches and Dorothy herself)--and traces this in part to Baum's childhood heart disease, which kept him from strenuous activity, and to his relationship with his mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, a distinguished advocate of women's rights. And in a fascinating chapter, he examines the abused childhood of Saddam Hussein, the privileged childhood of George Bush, and the radically different psychological paths that led these two men into the Persian Gulf War. Elms supports each study with extensive research, much of it never presented before--for instance, on how some of the most revealing portions of C.G. Jung's autobiography were deleted in spite of his protests before publication. Along the way, Elms provides much insight into how psychobiography is written. Finally, he proposes clear guidelines for judging high quality work, and offers practical tips for anyone interested in writing in this genre. Written with great clarity and wit, Uncovering Lives illuminates the contributions that psychology can make to biography. Elms's enthusiasm for his subject is contagious and will inspire would-be psychobiographers as well as win over the most hardened skeptics.