She is probably best remembered for her wistful-husky voice which, as Pauline Kael wrote, "was one of the best sounds in the romantic comedies of the 30s and 40s". But Jean Arthur's screen career began in silent films and spanned more than a quarter of a century. She worked with great directors of Hollywood's Golden Age: John Ford, Frank Capra, Cecil B. DeMille, Howard Hawks, George Stevens and Billy Wilder; and she shared star billing with the likes of Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Alan Ladd, Charles Boyer and John Wayne. Her most enduring films include Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The More the Merrier, The Whole Town's Talking, A Foreign Affair and, in her last screen appearance, Shane. She was, in fact, one of the most popular and beloved movie stars of her time. Jean Arthur's popularity sprang from her talent, her charm and her quiet beauty, not from her offscreen exploits. Independent, indifferent to most of Hollywood's rules if not defiant of them, treasuring her privacy above all else, she chose to become an enigma - and so she has remained until now. In this, the first biography of Jean Arthur, John Oller, after years of research among the actress's closest friends, relatives and co-workers, has uncovered the life she tried so hard to shroud: a bruising, rootless childhood that left her with a crushing sense of insecurity, but also a steely determination to stand up for herself and what she believed in; a romance with David O. Selznick that ended unhappily, a childless marriage to film executive Frank Ross that descended into bitterness and recrimination, and rumors of lesbianism that continue to this day; legal battles fought over the roles she was offered as well as in defense of animals and the environment; repeated, aborted attempts to conquer Broadway that yielded but one theatrical triumph - as Peter Pan, a character she loved because, like herself, he refused to deal with the world on its terms. This is an engrossing, humane biography that strikes a fitting balance between the acting career and the personal life of an unforgettable star, and does full justice to both.

In A Seventh Man, John Berger and Jean Mohr come to grips with what it is to be a migrant worker -- the material circumstances and the inner experience -- and, in doing so, reveal how the migrant is not so much on the margins of modern life, but absolutely central to it. First published in 1975, this finely-wrought exploration remains as urgent as ever, presenting a mode of living that pervades the countries of the West and yet is excluded from much of its culture.

In this quietly revolutionary work of social observation and medical philosophy, Booker Prize-winning writer John Berger and the photographer Jean Mohr train their gaze on an English country doctor and find a universal man--one who has taken it upon himself to recognize his patient's humanity when illness and the fear of death have made them unrecognizable to themselves. In the impoverished rural community in which he works, John Sassall tend the maimed, the dying, and the lonely. He is not only the dispenser of cures but the repository of memories. And as Berger and Mohr follow Sassall about his rounds, they produce a book whose careful detail broadens into a meditation on the value we assign a human life. First published thirty years ago, A Fortunate Man remains moving and deeply relevant--no other book has offered such a close and passionate investigation of the roles doctors play in their society. "In contemporary letters John Berger seems to me peerless; not since Lawrence has there been a writer who offers such attentiveness to the sensual world with responsiveness to the imperatives of conscience." --Susan Sontag

"There are no photographs which can be denied. All photographs have the status of fact. What is to be examined is in what way photography can and cannot give meaning to facts." With these words, two of our most thoughtful and eloquent interrogators of the visual offer a singular meditation on the ambiguities of what is seemingly our straightforward art form. As constructed by John Berger and the renowned Swiss photographer Jean Mohr, that theory includes images as well as words; not only analysis, but anecdote and memoir. Another Way of Telling explores the tension between the photographer and the photographed, between the picture and its viewers, between the filmed moment and the memories that it so resembles. Combining the moral vision of the critic and the pratical engagement of the photgrapher, Berger and Mohr have produced a work that expands the frontiers of criticism first charged by Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, and Susan Sontag.

The Birth of American Law: An Italian Philosopher and the American Revolution tells the forgotten, untold story of the origins of U.S. law. Before the Revolutionary War, a 26-year-old Italian thinker, Cesare Beccaria, published On Crimes and Punishments, a runaway bestseller that shaped the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and early American laws. America's Founding Fathers, including early U.S. Presidents, avidly read Beccaria's book--a product of the Italian Enlightenment that argued against tyranny and the death penalty. Beccaria's book shaped American views on everything from free speech to republicanism, to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," to gun ownership and the founders' understanding of "cruel and unusual punishments," the famous phrase in the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment. In opposing torture and infamy, Beccaria inspired America's founders to jettison England's Bloody Code, heavily reliant on executions and corporal punishments, and to adopt the penitentiary system. The cast of characters in The Birth of American Law includes the usual suspects--George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and James Madison. But it also includes the now little-remembered Count Luigi Castiglioni, a botanist from Milan who--decades before Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America--toured all thirteen original American states before the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Also figuring in this dramatic story of the American Revolution: Madison's Princeton classmate William Bradford, an early U.S. Attorney General and Beccaria devotee; John Dickinson, the "Penman of the Revolution" who wrote of Beccaria's "genius" and "masterly hand"; James Wilson and Dr. Benjamin Rush, signers of the Declaration of Independence and fellow Beccaria admirers; and Philip Mazzei, Jefferson's Italian-American neighbor at Monticello and yet another Beccaria enthusiast. In documenting Beccaria's game-changing influence, The Birth of American Law sheds important new light on the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the creation of American law. This book is part of the Legal History Series, edited by H. Jefferson Powell, Duke University School of Law. The Birth of American Law was awarded the 2015 Scribes Book Award and the First Prize in the 2015 AAIS Book Award competition (in the 18th/19th century category). It was also named INDIEFAB's 2014 Gold Winner for History!

Jean Vanier celebrates the gospel of John in his highly anticipated latest work, Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John. Thoroughly personal and inspiring, it challenges all Christians to encounter the fullness of life lived in close communion with God. Vanier writes: "These insights that I share in this book come from the life of Jesus in me ... They also flow from my life with people who are weak and who have taught me to welcome Jesus from the place of the poverty in me." Jean Vanier was a friend and influential mentor to the late Henri Nouwen. Toward the end of his life, Nouwen left Harvard to live and work at one of Jean Vanier's L'Arche communities. This was perhaps the most profound experience of Christianity Nouwen experienced. The thought and spiritual direction/discipleship of Jean Vanier is available to all in Drawn into the Mystery of Jesus through the Gospel of John.