A critical rethinking of theories of national imagination, The Dawn That Never Comes offers the most detailed reading to date in English of one of modern Japan's most influential poets and novelists. This book surveys the ideologies of national imagination at play in early-twentieth-century Japan, specifically in the work of Shimazaki Toson (1872-1943). Bourdaghs analyzes Toson's major works in detail, using them to demonstrate that the field of national imagination requires a complex interweaving of varied--and sometimes even contradictory--figures for imagining the national community.

The snow had been falling with fierce intensity for the past several hours and the accompanying strong north wind was creating blizzard conditions. While the four men sat around a small stove discussing the fate of their two captives, the two men in question, one young and the other only slightly older, sat huddled in a corner of the other unfinished cabin without the benefit of a stove or light. They fought off the biting cold and penetrating wind blowing through the cracks in the flimsy walls with only a couple of thread-bare blankets and their jackets. The older man spoke softly to the figure huddle next to him, Hang in there, son, well get out of here I promise. Move closer to me and we can share our body heat. We have to keep our strength up when the time comes we can move. The younger man moved closer and responded weakly, I dont know if I can hang on much longer, Im so cold and hungry. Putting his arm around the shivering figure the other man replied, Just hold on to me, my friends will be looking for us and I know they wont give up until were found. Huddled to together the younger man tried to sleep while the mind of the older man churned over the possibilities of finding a way out of their predicament. He realized he needed to do something and do it quickly before both of them became a useless commodity which would place them at the mercy of not only the freezing weather but also their guards.

"Images of the city in literature and film help constitute the experience of modern life. Studies of the Japanese city have focused on Tokyo, but a fuller understanding of urban space and life requires analysis of other cities, beginning with Osaka. Japan’s “merchant capital” in the late sixteenth century, Osaka remained an industrial center—the “Manchester of the East”—into the 1930s, developing a distinct urban culture to rival Tokyo’s. It therefore represents a critical site of East Asian modernity. Osaka Modern maps the city as imagined in Japanese popular culture from the 1920s to the 1950s, a city that betrayed the workings of imperialism and asserted an urban identity alternative to—even subversive of—national identity. Osaka Modern brings an appreciation of this imagined city’s emphatic locality to: popular novels by Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, favorite son Oda Sakunosuke, and best-seller Yamasaki Toyoko; films by Toyoda Shirō and Kawashima Yūzō; and contemporary radio, television, music, and comedy. Its interdisciplinary approach creates intersections between Osaka and various theoretical concerns—everyday life, coloniality, masculinity, translation—to produce not only a fresh appreciation of key works of literature and cinema, but also a new focus for these widely-used critical approaches."

From the opening paragraph, with the plaintiff cry in the Arabian Desert of an orphaned young boy, to instances of espionage, intrigue and terrorism, a story is spun that is full of suspense and the often frail humanity of mankind that is todays news . An alliance was struck with the President of the United States Chief of Staff that sent the men and women of Secure Dreams, a security company, into what should have been a routine security task, but one that ends in a battle of survival. Downing Electronics, a Defense Department contractor, is working on a program vital to the space program of the United States, a devastating security breach has been discovered. As Reggie Nutsbagh and Toby Preston trace the leaks they discover family treachery is not the only problem, for an enemy, long deceased, seems to have been resurrected. One of Zachariah Rodzinskis allies, Nutsbagh and Prestons initial introduction into terrorism, is loose and wants revenge. The fast-paced novel takes us to the deserts of the Middle East, to the Metropolis of Houston, Texas and moving to the rugged plains of Wyoming for a climactic battle. As this band of courageous men and women, once again wage war against terrorism on American soil, they will see the weaknesses and strengths from within their own ranks that will determine the future of peace in themselves and in the land they love so much.

On the Mexican-Arizona border two US border agents are murdered as they try to stop drugs from entering the country; in a convenience store parking lot in Las Vegas, Nevada, the wife of a private investigator is seriously wounded while sitting in her car waiting for her husband to buy milk to their baby; again in Nevada a father seeks help in freeing his daughter from the clutches of a drug lord; in Honolulu, Hawaii a family walks on the beach and discovers a vial of heroin washed ashore on the white sands, forever tainting their home in paradise. Seemingly the incidents are unrelated, yet they are enough alike to draw the Broken Dreams Detective Agency into the middle of a bloody, gang-related drug war. From the kidnapping and drugging of a Broken Dreams undercover agent, to the waylaying of a load of drugs intended for distribution in Las Vegas, to a tender love story, Broken Dreams finds their agency fighting four gangs who are waging war against each other to determine who will be the drug king in the greater Las Vegas valley. Watch out druggies, Broken Dreams is your worst nightmare.

We all go through seasons of waiting, times when God just seems to have closed His ears to us and turned His back. During those seasons, it’s easy for us to give up hope and lose heart. But what if we hold on to the hope that God is working behind the scenes, even if we can’t see Him? What can we learn from those times of waiting? Shannon Brink has experienced those seasons herself—after various injuries forced her to stay in bed for weeks on end, while she was facing possible infertility but longed to be a mother, as door after door closed on her dreams of living in a far-away land, and now as she waits for sleep to come while battling chronic insomnia. As a former nighttime nurse, Shannon knows that the hardest time of the waiting season is at night, when our thoughts take over and worry invades. Drawing from her own experiences and from the examples of God’s people in the Bible who also experienced seasons of waiting, Shannon encourages the reader to hold on to the One Who created us and has only our good in mind. While waiting in the dark, cling to the Light.

Higher education gains new meaning when Draper University, a prestigious school in Utah peaks, is awarded a federal grant to work on a plan to harness the suns gamma rays. Elsewhere, a high-tech electronics company, New Energy, meeting in Los Angeles, California, has won a government contract to develop the software that would propel a manned rocket to the moon for an exploratory mission. An agent of a foreign country works together with an American Company in an effort to deter the Ivy League school and the electronics company from achieving their goals by theft and sabotage. While explosions rock the laboratory of the university outside of Provo, Utah, a security company with offices in Bremerton, Washington, and Las Vegas, Nevada, race against time to uncover the treachery. The company, Secure Dreams, under the partnership of Reggie Nutsbagh and Toby Preston have their work cut out for them, as they search to find who or what lies behind the interruptions. An investigation in Los Angeles and Provo progress the two security specialists and the teams they have assembled find that the deceit has pervaded certain levels of the governmenta discovery that ends up finding the president of the United States who he can trust. New friendships and a first-time football coach striving to make a respectable team of a bunch of misfits, adds levity and humanity to an otherwise intense and dramatic novel.