Thursday, December 30, 2010

Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel (Great Comics Artists Series)

Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel (Great Comics Artists Series) Review


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Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel (Great Comics Artists Series) Feature

Eclectic British author Alan Moore (b. 1953) is one of the most acclaimed and controversial comics writers to emerge since the late 1970s. He has produced a large number of well-regarded comic books and graphic novels while also making occasional forays into music, poetry, performance, and prose.

In Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel, Annalisa Di Liddo argues that Moore employs the comics form to dissect the literary canon, the tradition of comics, contemporary society, and our understanding of history. The book considers Moore's narrative strategies and pinpoints the main thematic threads in his works: the subversion of genre and pulp fiction, the interrogation of superhero tropes, the manipulation of space and time, the uses of magic and mythology, the instability of gender and ethnic identity, and the accumulation of imagery to create satire that comments on politics and art history.

Examining Moore's use of comics to scrutinize contemporary culture, Di Liddo analyzes his best-known works--Swamp Thing, V for Vendetta, Watchmen, From Hell, Promethea, and Lost Girls. The study also highlights Moore's lesser-known output, such as Halo Jones, Skizz, and Big Numbers, and his prose novel Voice of the Fire. Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel reveals Moore to be one of the most significant and distinctly postmodern comics creators of the last quarter-century.


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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Arnold: Schwarzenegger and the Movies

Arnold: Schwarzenegger and the Movies Review


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Arnold: Schwarzenegger and the Movies Feature

This book provides is a comprehensive, in-depth examination one of modern cinema’s biggest and most ideologically defined screen presences. Tracing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s entire film career and life from teenage bodybuilder in post-war Austria to Governor of California, Saunders blends observations of his major films, including Pumping Iron, Conan the Barbarian, The Terminator series, Twins and True Lies, with historical context and biographical detail, demonstrating continually the importance of broader social and political factors in defining Arnold’s unique significance.

This work argues that Schwarzenegger represents far more than just a muscular spectacle; he embodies the powerful ideological and spiritual relevance of the age by embarking on a quest to restore collective faith in his adopted nation


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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The Academy Awards: The Complete History of Oscar

The Academy Awards: The Complete History of Oscar Review


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The Academy Awards: The Complete History of Oscar Feature

Film buffs will celebrate the arrival of this definitive book on the Academy Awards: it is the biggest and best look at movie-making's winners from the 1920s to today. great stories; actors, actresses and directors at the pinnacle of their careers; the winners; who should have won; deserving films that did not get nominated; fascinating film facts; an inside look at film history spanning 75 years; The book contains a comprehensive list of all the nominations and winners for each year, and includes more than 500 movie stills. Each award ceremony is captured on a four-page spread filled with fascinating features, quotes from the movies and Oscar moments. More fun because it is completely unauthorised, the book also explores the gaffs and glorious moments from the award ceremonies, plus educated opinions about the winners and losers.


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Monday, December 27, 2010

Military Reform: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues)

Military Reform: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues) Review


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Military Reform: A Reference Handbook (Contemporary Military, Strategic, and Security Issues) Feature

This volume will help the reader understand fundamental strengths and weaknesses in America's military forces, thereby leading to a comprehension of what genuine military reform is, and is not, and what remains to be done. Ideas will be presented to compare genuine reform to cosmetic dabbling, which fundamentally improves nothing and which sometimes arrives as ill-conceived fads that promise only to burden US combat forces to the point of mental and physical immobility. The work will trace the history of various attempts to impose military reform on American armed forces, especially from Congress, starting during the American Revolution and Continental Congress up through the present day. Particular focus will be placed on the effort of a small group in Congress and the Pentagon in the 1980s (who coined the term military reform in the modern context). Emphasis will be on the reforms these actors advocated, variously successful and unsuccessful, to fundamentally alter how the Department of Defense designs and buys hardware and how our armed forces fight. The book will use Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom (and the subsequent insurgency in Iraq) to demonstrate what has been reformed in US armed forces and the Department of Defense, and what has not.


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Saturday, December 25, 2010

Navy Super Tankers

Navy Super Tankers Review


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Navy Super Tankers Feature



The history of 14 different oilers is presented in this book. These ships are displayed in construction plan, photos of compartments in operation, crews doing their duty.

History of each ship covers birth to where they are moored today. The 6 newer Neosho Class Fleet Oilers were streamlined where the stack resembled a cruise ship. Catwalks did not exist, the cargo deck extended from port to starboard as one big open area for replenishment to be carried out on. The 8 older T3 type tankers were Jumboized (cut apart and lengthened) to accommodate the Navy's needs without building new ships.

Oilers usually go out to sea annually for a few months and visit several world ports. This is displayed in maps of the world's oceans, maps of 93 ports, photos taken of those ports by the crew or from the port's local web sites.

Real stories and histories about how things that have happened, either good or bad, one to four pages in length, are included.


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Friday, December 24, 2010

Horsepower War: Our Way of Life

Horsepower War: Our Way of Life Review


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Horsepower War: Our Way of Life Feature

Horsepower War shatters nostalgic myths about musclecars and provides historical perspective on today's SUV craze. It proves efficiency and pollution regulation didn't kill the musclecar and that current regulation, which picks winners by favoring SUVs is the real threat. Harless has mined auto literature from the 1960s to the present to reveal granular detail on specific models, while at the same time providing broad perspective on the tectonic shifts in domestic auto making. He approaches political issues as an auto enthusiast, but instead of being an apologist for industry, he offers principles that embrace market rationality, and enhance the long-term sustainability of cars through rational transportation and energy policy. Harless re-discovers the principles of "conspicuous waste" and "conspicuous consumption"-phrases coined by economist Thorstein Veblen, author of Theory of the Leisure Class-to unmask the unacknowledged assumptions of both U.S. consumers and automakers.


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Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Travel Book

The Travel Book Review


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The Travel Book Feature

The world is a breathtakingly big place, and in this big book we have undertaken the big task of detailing as much of it as we can - every single country, many of the larger dependencies and other, smaller destinations. With the traveler's experience at its heart, this book shows a slice of life in every corner of the globe, and all points in between, engaging the reader's senses in an adventure which conjures up the sights, smells, tastes, sounds and feel of our amazing world.


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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Subversion and Insurgency (Rand Couterinsurgency Study)

Subversion and Insurgency (Rand Couterinsurgency Study) Review


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Subversion and Insurgency (Rand Couterinsurgency Study) Feature

Subversion is a critical insurgent tool, but it has long been ignored by policymakers and analysts. This paper presents a set of case studies to explore the elements of subversion and discusses preliminary ideas for combating subversive activities in the context of the long war against violent Islamic extremism.


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Monday, December 20, 2010

Native Americans Today: A Biographical Dictionary

Native Americans Today: A Biographical Dictionary Review


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Native Americans Today: A Biographical Dictionary Feature

Native Americans Today: A Biographical Dictionary focuses on the lives of contemporary Native Americans. Such treatments are rare, as most Native American biographies are historical (pre-1900) and cover familiar figures. Profiles collected here are written to be enjoyable as well as instructive, presented as examples of personal storytelling that should be savored not only for their factual content, but also for the humanity they evoke.

The book focuses on Native American lives in the United States and Canada, mainly after 1900, though a few older figures are included because their lives evoke strikingly modern themes. The author, an expert on all things Native American, knows (or knew) several of the people in the entries, adding a special vibrancy to the writing. Among those profiled are former U.S. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, activist Eloise Cobell, and controversial political prisoner Leonard Peltier, as well as writers, artists, and musicians. The compilation also includes non-Native Americans whose lives and careers impacted Indian life.


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Sunday, December 19, 2010

The Francis Ford Coppola Encyclopedia

The Francis Ford Coppola Encyclopedia Review


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The Francis Ford Coppola Encyclopedia Feature

Francis Ford Coppola's career has spanned five decades, from low budget films he produced in the early 1960s to more personal films of recent years. Because of the tremendous popular success of The Godfather and the tremendous critical success of its sequel, Coppola is considered to be one of the best directors of all time.

The entries in this encyclopedia focus on all aspects of Coppola's work—from his early days with producer Roger Corman to his films as the director of the 1970s. This extensive reference contains material on all of the films Coppola has played a role in, from screenwriter to producer to director, including such classics as Patton, The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, and Apocalypse Now. Each entry is followed by a bibliography of published sources, both in print and online, making The Francis Ford Coppola Encyclopedia the most comprehensive reference on this director's body of work.


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