Leon of Juda is the seventh book in Robert Frank's (born 1924) acclaimed series of visual diaries, which combine iconic photos from throughout his career with the more personal pictures he makes today. Here, still lifes taken in Frank's home in Bleecker Street, New York, and landscapes around his house in Mabou, Nova Scotia, jostle alongside spontaneous portraits of friends, colleagues and his wife, the artist June Leaf, as well as vintage postcards. With these images Frank creates a seemingly casual layout that recalls the look and spirit of a private album or scrapbook. Equally humble and ambitious, Leon of Juda shows how the past tempers Frank's present and how his life is not only documented in, but shaped by, bookmaking.

Leon (Judah Aryeh) Modena was a major intellectual figure of the early modern Italian Jewish community--a complex and intriguing personality who was famous among contemporary European Christians as well as Jews. Modena (1571-1648) produced an autobiography that documents in poignant detail the turbulent life of his family in the Jewish ghetto of Venice. The text of this work is well known to Jewish scholars but has never before been translated from the original Hebrew, except in brief excerpts. This complete translation, based on Modena's autograph manuscript, makes available in English a wealth of historical material about Jewish family life of the period, religion in daily life, the plague of 1630-1631, crime and punishment, the influence of kabbalistic mysticism, and a host of other subjects. The translator, Mark R. Cohen, and four other distinguished scholars add commentary that places the work in historical and literary context. Modena describes his fascination with the astrology and alchemy that were important parts of the Jewish and general culture of the seventeenth century. He also portrays his struggle against poverty and against compulsive gambling, which, cleverly punning on a biblical verse, he called the "sin of Judah." In addition, the book contains accounts of Modena's sorrow over his three sons: the death of the eldest from the poisonous fumes of his own alchemical laboratory, the brutal murder of the youngest, and the exile of the remaining son. The introductory essay by Mark R. Cohen and Theodore K. Rabb highlights the significance of the work for early modern Jewish and general European history. Howard E. Adelman presents an up-to-date biographical sketch of the author and points the way toward a new assessment of his place in Jewish history. Natalie Z. Davis places Modena's work in the context of European autobiography, both Christian and Jewish, and especially explores the implications of the Jewish status as outsider for the privileged exploration of the self. A set of historical notes, compiled by Howard Adelman and Benjamin C. I. Ravid, elucidates the text.

In a prison cell, over 330 years ago, John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, an allegory that became the most widely distributed book in the world, second only to the Bible. It is the story of a pilgrim named "Christian," who depicts the lifelong struggle of every believer in the journey we call "the Christian life." Unfortunately, life then was a whole different story than life in the 21st century-especially life in the streets! Kai'Ro: the Journey of an Urban Pilgrim recasts Bunyan's timeless and powerful tale in modern language on an urban stage. You will find yourself both spectator and fellow traveler with Kai'Ro as he faces the blistering sarcasm of The House of Mockers, the haunting pain of his past in the Alley of the Shadow of Death, and the amazing gift of insight at the Interpreter's House. With unflinching honesty and courage, Kai'Ro faces the unrelenting obstacles that entangle modern urban youth, including racism, sex, fatherlessness, violence, and hopelessness. You'll be introduced to characters like Pain, Broken, ChurchBoy, Quitter and Phanatik, whose lives are too real to be ignored. Young or old, urban or suburban, you will find parts of yourself and those you know in Kai'Ro: The Journey of an Urban Pilgrim. (207 words) Judah Ben, 31, has been involved with urban youth for over 15 years. His vision for urban ministry was birthed at Wheaton College while he and friends met weekly with youth incarcerated in the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago. Upon graduation he returned home to teach at Restoration Academy, an urban Christian School in Birmingham, Alabama that is nurturing faith and restoring hope in an impoverished community. He is currently anadministrator at the school, and he and his wife and three children make their home in the neighborhood.

The Plasma State discusses the fundamental principles that describe plasma occurrence. The book reviews the plasma state, collisions, collisional processes, diffusion, mobility, Rutherford scattering, and the collision cross-section. The motion of isolated charged particles occurs in electrical, magnetic, or gravitational fields. During low plasma density and low background gas pressure, the collision frequency is also low. It is during this time that the single particle approach can be studied using a fundamental equation of motion. The text also discusses the problems encountered in the presence of extremely large numbers of particles, moving and interacting with one another. Other topics related to the statistics of collisions and fluid behavior are the collisionless Boltzmann equation, inclusion of collisional processes in statistical descriptions, and the "integrate out" of velocity dependence of the collisionless Boltzmann equation which gives a fluid model of a plasma. The book also describes the different acceleration processes, such as Coulomb collisions, electron or ion-neutral collisions, collective or wave phenomena, that all produce radiation. The text is suitable for students of physics, engineering, atomic physics.