A Survey of Catholic History in Modern Japan discusses Japanese Catholic history from the Meiji period (1868-1912) to the present. The aim of this highly original book is to consider the relevance of Japanese Catholics to political and cultural circumstances in modern and contemporary Japan.

Analyzing Film: A Student Casebook is a film textbook containing fifteen essays about sixteen historically and artistically significant films made between 1920 and 1990. This casebook is geographically diverse, with sixteen countries represented: Germany, Russia, Spain, France, the United States, Denmark, Japan, India, England, Italy, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Hungary, Australia, and China. The essays in Analyzing Film are clear and readable—sophisticated and weighty, yet not overly technical or jargon-heavy.

From “I Like Ike” to razor-wire and National Guard troops ringing the U.S. Capitol, from Carl Perkins’s “Blue Suede Shoes” to Brotha Lynch Hung’s “Meat Cleaver,” the United States has changed. Seven decades of material abundance and unprecedented technological advances have entwined with pronounced social and cultural fragmentation. What — and who — can explain this peculiar transformation of the land of the free and home of the brave?

The face circulates through most things of this world: anything that has presence, that presents itself, that has a front, a surface, an appearance, an aspect, a reputation, or honor – anything that confronts, opposes, or defies – has a face. And the face is a front: from the back it is just a head, a radically different entity. In this exciting new book, distinguished philosopher Marty Roth pursues considerations of the human face in art, literature, philosophy, and other manifestations of human culture.

Kadya Molodowsky, the most prolific woman writer of Yiddish, wrote an autobiographical memoir that left many questions unanswered. Why does she say of her wedding day only that she wore new shoes and fell in the snow? Did she join those who saw communism as the answer to the Jewish problem? Why did she leave Israel after having spent only three years there? It took Zelda Kahan Newman’s research at three archives, the YIVO archive in New York, the Municipal Jewish Library in Montreal, and the Machon Lavon archive in Ne’ot Afeka, Israel, to discover the answers to these questions.

In this intriguing new book, Onianwa Oluchukwu Ignatus examines the role of British intelligence in the Nigerian Civil War. British intelligence operations were highly successful due to a decentralized approach. Britain maintained regular supplies of arms to Nigeria despite considerable opposition at home. Thus, up-to-date information was necessary to determine the military behavior of both sides and the practicalities of arms supply for Nigeria.

Cuba: The Doctrine of the Lie is a thoroughly researched and profoundly revealing work on two themes of vital importance to the world today: the true nature of totalitarianism and how religion, philosophy, culture, tradition, and individual freedom are the most effective antibodies for countering this deadly ontological virus.

When did Russia become “modern?” Historians of Russia – including even many Russian historians – have long tried to identify Russia’s “modern” moment. While most scholars have looked to economic or ideological transitions, noted historian and critic Paul du Quenoy approaches the problem through culture, and specifically the performing arts, as told through the prism of one of its leading nineteenth-century practitioners, the composer and critic Alexander Serov.

Translator:
Arch Tait, Ph.D.

Piracy as a crime dates to at least 1400 B.C., making it the oldest known international offense. The brilliant Roman orator Cicero described pirates as the enemies of all humankind, a designation that has been repeated for over 2000 years. Known not only for looting and robbing, their main source of income has been the capture of humans to be enslaved or held for ransom. Julius Caesar was once captured and ransomed, but returned to crucify his pirate captors. Action against the Barbary pirates was the first military engagement by the U.S. Marines.