An innovative analysis of children's picture books from the interwar period in America.

Foreword by Sherri Geldin. Introduction by Jennifer Lange. Text by Eileen Myles, Helen Molesworth, Aleksandar Hemon, Amy Sillman.

Suspended Animation argues that not only is the stereotype of uncontrolled violence in the Middle Ages historically misleading, the gulf between modern society and the medieval era is not as immense as we might think.

How the conflict between federal and state power has shaped American history American governance is burdened by a paradox. On the one hand, Americans don't want "big government" meddling in their lives; on the other hand, they have repeatedly enlisted governmental help to impose their views regarding marriage, abortion, religion, and schooling on their neighbors. These contradictory stances on the role of public power have paralyzed policymaking and generated rancorous disputes about government’s legitimate scope. How did we reach this political impasse? Historian Gary Gerstle, looking at two hundred years of U.S. history, argues that the roots of the current crisis lie in two contrasting theories of power that the Framers inscribed in the Constitution. One theory shaped the federal government, setting limits on its power in order to protect personal liberty. Another theory molded the states, authorizing them to go to extraordinary lengths, even to the point of violating individual rights, to advance the "good and welfare of the commonwealth." The Framers believed these theories could coexist comfortably, but conflict between the two has largely defined American history. Gerstle shows how national political leaders improvised brilliantly to stretch the power of the federal government beyond where it was meant to go—but at the cost of giving private interests and state governments too much sway over public policy. The states could be innovative, too. More impressive was their staying power. Only in the 1960s did the federal government, impelled by the Cold War and civil rights movement, definitively assert its primacy. But as the power of the central state expanded, its constitutional authority did not keep pace. Conservatives rebelled, making the battle over government’s proper dominion the defining issue of our time. From the Revolution to the Tea Party, and the Bill of Rights to the national security state, Liberty and Coercion is a revelatory account of the making and unmaking of government in America.

“Six beautifully wrought meditations on the art of embalming and related matters…. Dr. Gonzalez–Crussi’s tone is measured, grave, and curiously formal … [with] a mordant sense of humor … and [a] courtliness and peculiar charm of his rococo style … muscular dandyism as well as his sly and faintly risqué humor….” “[He] is learned, compassionate, genuinely witty and, at the most unexpected moments, strangely moving…. His learning, his diligence, his lively curiosity, together make a formidable lens that he brings to bear upon the enigma of what we are and how we cease to be…” “[He] has delivered a missive that, though the envelope may give off a whiff of formalin, is in its essence a love letter to life, in all its strangeness, beauty, and mystery.” —John Banville, The New York Times Book Review “More graceful, erudite, and mind–expanding essays from Gonzalez–Crussi, this time accompanied by haunting, beautiful color photographs of skeletons, skulls, medical specimens, and anatomical models. In writing that smoothly integrates medical science, history, philosophy, literature, and the arts, Gonzalez–Crussi ponders the human condition…. The opening of a Gonzalez–Crussi essay gives few hints as to where it may wander, but the journey is always rewarding.” —Kirkus Reviews “Gonzalez–Crussi … weaves and bobs around monstrosity and death like a python about its victim—and he is nearly as mesmerizing.” —Publishers Weekly