From the popular legend of Pocahontas to the Civil War soap opera Gone with the Wind to countless sculpted heads of George Washington that adorn homes and museums, whole industries have emerged to feed America’s addiction to imaginary histories that cover up the often violent acts of building a homogeneous nation. In Ersatz America, Rebecca Mark shows how this four-hundred-year-old obsession with false history has wounded democracy by creating language that is severed from material reality. Without the mediating touchstones of body and nature, creative representations of our history have been allowed to spin into dangerous abstraction. Other scholars have addressed the artificial qualities of the collective American memory, but what distinguishes Ersatz America is that it does more than simply deconstruct--it provides a map for regeneration. Mark contends that throughout American history, citizen artists have responded to the deadly memorialization of the past with artistic expressions and visual artifacts that exist outside the realm of official language, creating a counter narrative. These examples of what she calls visceral graphism are embodied in and connected to the human experience of indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, and silenced women, giving form to the unspeakable. We must learn, Mark suggests, to read the markings of these works against the iconic national myths. In doing so, we can shift from being mesmerized by the monumentalism of this national mirage to embracing the regeneration and recovery of our human history.

This is a single-volume source of reliable information on the most important alternative religions, covering for each such essentials as history, theology, impact on the culture, and current status. The chapters of the book were written by experts who study the movements they have written about.

Spiff up your vocabulary with these powerful words from the lexicographers at the Wordnik community! This Pocket Posh Word Power collection promises a gargantuan vocabulary boost, curating 120 words that can enrich your written and spoken communications. Each entry provides pronunciation, part of speech, definition, usage in a sentence, and etymology information. From propinquity to alacrity to farrago and beyond, you’ll find words worth learning that can liven up anyone’s lexicon!

Taken under the wing of an expat teacher for her ambition and talent, Anjali Bose hopes to escape unfavorable prospects and falls in with a crowd of young people in Bangalore, where she endeavors to confront her past and reinvent herself.

As the British watched their empire crumble and the United States became the dominant world power, many British films warned of the dangers posed by American culture. Americans were frequently portrayed as disconcertingly ambitious, reckless and irreverent. Yet the same films that depicted the U.S. as an agent of chaos also suggested Britons might do well to embrace American-style energy and egalitarianism. Movies like Love Actually, The Quatermass Xperiment, 28 Weeks Later, Local Hero and Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent have delved into the storied "special relationship" between the U.S. and U.K. These films and many more examined in this first book-length study of British movies about America, reveal much about British attitudes regarding power, gender, class, sexuality and emotion.