Writers have created fictions of social per­fection at least since Plato’s Republic. Sir Thomas More gave this thread of intel­lectual history a name when he called his contribution to it Utopia, Greek for no place. With each subsequent author cog­nizant of his predecessors and subject to altered real-world conditions which sug­gest ever-new causes for hope and alarm, “no place” changed. The fourteen essays presented in this book critically assess man’s fascination with and seeking for “no place.” “In discussing these central fictions, the contributors see ‘no place’ from di­verse perspectives: the sociological, the psychological, the political, the aesthetic. In revealing the roots of these works, the contributors cast back along the whole length of utopian thought. Each essay stands alone; together, the essays make clear what ‘no place’ means today. While it may be true that ‘no place’ has always seemed elsewhere or elsewhen, in fact all utopian fiction whirls contemporary ac­tors through a costume dance no place else but here.”—from the Preface The contributors are Eric S. Rabkin, B. G. Knepper, Thomas J. Remington, Gorman Beauchamp, William Matter, Ken Davis, Kenneth M. Roemer, Wil­liam Steinhoff, Howard Segal, Jack Zipes, Kathleen Woodward, Merritt Abrash, and James W. Bittner.

In the summer of 1864, sixteen-year-old Rhoda Strong lives in the Lumbee Indian settlement of Robeson County, North Carolina, which has become a pawn in the bloody struggle between the Union and Confederate armies. The community is besieged by the marauding Union Army as well as the desperate Home Guard who are hell-bent on conscripting the young men into deadly forced labor. Daughter of a Scotsman and his formidable Lumbee wife, Rhoda is fiercely loyal to her family and desperately fears for their safety, but her love for the outlaw hero Henry Berry Lowrie forces her to cast her lot with danger. Her struggle becomes part of the community's in a powerful story of love and survival. Nowhere Else on Earth is a moving saga that magnificently captures a little-known piece of American history.

You don't have to live in the Great Bear Rainforest to benefit from its existence, but after you read Nowhere Else on Earth you might want to visit this magnificent part of the planet. Environmental activist Caitlyn Vernon guides young readers through a forest of information, sharing her personal stories, her knowledge and her concern for this beautiful place. Full of breathtaking photographs and suggestions for ways to preserve this unique ecosystem, Nowhere Else on Earth is a timely and inspiring reminder that we need to stand up for our wild places before they are gone.

After living her whole life by an apple orchard, Mrs. Tillby takes to the road in search of a suitable new place to live. Although the big city thrills her, the sea-coast attracts her, and the mountains impress her, Mrs. Tillby keeps moving on until she finally discovers the perfect home for her adventuresome spirit. Full color.

In her first book, which won the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award, Jane Brox writes of going back to the farm where she grew up, to help her aging father and the troubled brother who works the land with him. She memorably captures the cadences of farm life and the people who sustain it, at a time when both are waning.

The stories behind Australia's many, many strange, inappropriate and downright hilarious place names. From Dismal Swamp to Useless Loop, Intercourse Island to Dead Mans Gully, Mount Buggery to Nowhere Else, Australia has some of the strangest, funniest, weirdest and most out-of-place names going - now described and explained in one humorous and fascinating book. Australia's vast spaces and irreverent, larrikin history have given us some of the best place names in the world. Ranging from the less than positive (Linger and Die Hill, NSW), to the indelicate (Scented Knob, WA), the idiotic (Eggs and Bacon Bay, TAS) to the inappropriate and the just plain fascinating, MOUNT BUGGERY TO NOWHERE ELSE is a toponymical journey through this nation of weird and wonderful places. 'A hilarious and unusual tour of Australia and its history.' DAILY TELEGRAPH

This early play about coal miners struggling to improve their lives helped establish a young Tennessee Williams as a powerful new voice in American theater. The first full-length play by novice playwright Thomas Lanier Williams, Candles to the Sun opened on Thursday, March 18, 1937 and received rave reviews in the local press. The Mummers, a semi-professional and socially aware theater troupe in St. Louis, produced the play, and the combination of director Willard Holland's theater of social protest and the young Williams' talent for the dramatic depiction of poverty and its consequences proved irresistible to an audience eager for relevant social content. Set in the Red Hills coal mining section of Alabama, Candles to the Sun deals with both the attempts of the miners to unionize and the bleak lives of their families. Colvin McPherson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote that "Williams, a 25-year-old Washington University senior, is revealed not only as a writer of unusual promise but one of considerable technical skill right now . . . . His writing is rarely unsteady and his play has an emotional unity and robustness. It stands on its own feet. Its characters are genuine, its dialogue of a type that must have been uttered in the author's presence, its appeal in the theater widespread." As it turns out, Tom Williams had never met a miner in his young life. As he did for another early Williams play, Spring Storm, Dan Isaac uses his directorial skills to prepare a text of Candles to the Sun that is faithful to the 1937 production while providing readers (and actors) with a social and theatrical context. William Jay Smith, former Poet Laureate of the United States and St. Louis friend of the playwright, has contributed an illuminating foreword that touches not only on his memories of the young Tom Williams and the original production of Candles, but also on the poetic nature of Williams' writing as reflected in this play.