Traces the former British prime minister's career and the effects of her policies and personality on the various social strata of England, from opposition politicians to coal miners to the patricians in her own party.

When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, many proclaimed the start of a new Elizabethan Age. Few had any inkling, however, of the stupendous changes that would occur over the next fifty years, both in Britain and around the world. In Our Times, A. N. Wilson takes the reader on an exhilarating journey through postwar Britain. With his acute eye not just for the broad social and cultural sweep but also for the telling detail, he brilliantly distills half a century of unprecedented social and political change. Here are the defining events and characters of the modern age, from the Suez crisis to Vietnam, from the Beatles to Princess Diana. Here are the Angry Young Men, the rise of pop culture and celebrity, industrial unrest and the Winter of Discontent, the Thatcher era and the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union. This book propels the reader from postwar austerity, to the end of the British Empire and the emergence of America as a superpower, to the multicultural Britain of today. With Our Times, Wilson triumphantly concludes the acclaimed trilogy that opened with The Victorians and was followed by After the Victorians. Our Times makes compelling reading for anyone interested in the forces that have shaped our world.

This book examines a period of dramatic economic change in Britain during the Thatcher era.

Hawai?i is in many ways the most unique of the American states. Distinguished by its unusual beauty, ethnic diversity, and lingering image as a paradise, Hawai?i is special for other important, but less apparent, reasons. It is the only American state to have evolved from a kingdom, the only state with no jurisdictions below the level oføcounty, the only state in which Caucasians have never been in the majority, and the only state whose historic identity and contemporary relationships are as much with Asia and the Pacific as with the rest of the United States. The nature and trajectory of Hawaiian politics spring from the interaction of these unique elements with more traditional American cultural practices, institutions, and political processes. Also shaping past and present politics are multiple collisions among Native Hawaiians, western missionaries and businessmen, and Asian immigrants. Hawai?i Politics and Government brings together information on historical development, ethnic relations, public institutions, political culture, and current issues to discover both the similarities and the differences between Hawai?i and the rest of the country.

The wide-ranging portrayal of modern Jewishness in artistic terms invites scrutiny into the relationship between creativity and the formation of Jewish identity and into the complex issue of what makes a work of art uniquely Jewish. Whether it is the provenance of the artist, as in the case of popular Israeli singer Zehava Ben, the intention of the iconography, as in Ben Shahn's antifascist paintings, or the utopian ideals of the Jewish Palestine Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, clearly no single formula for defining Jewish art in the diaspora will suffice. The Art of Being Jewish in Modern Times is the first work to analyze modern Jewry's engagement with the arts as a whole, including music, theater, dance, film, museums, architecture, painting, sculpture, and more. Working with a broad conception of what counts as art, the book asks the following questions: What roles have commerce and politics played in shaping Jewish artistic agendas? Who determines the Jewishness of art and for what purposes? What role has aesthetics played in reshaping religious traditions and rituals? This richly illustrated volume illuminates how the arts have helped Jews confront the various challenges of modernity, including cultural adaptation and self-preservation, economic diversification, and ritual transformation. There truly is an art to being Jewish in the modern world—or, alternatively, an art to being modern in the Jewish world—and this collection fully captures its range, diversity, and historical significance.

My poems are ofttimes born from some great sadness. They usually speak of things that have been lost. They try to catch the soul and trap the memory— To tell the story...true...and—what—the cost. I rhyme because it helps me to remember. I rhyme so I must measure every word. I rhyme to help those lost things live forever, In rhyming, lilting, steeped-in-meaning verse. Words can prevail past fl esh or thoughts or empires, And words can make souls live beyond the grave. So Man will ever know the wonder of them— The courage that they showed...the joy they gave. Hopes And Dreams Hopes and dreams can inspire us, And give us reasons to go on. So even if they never do come true, They serve a purpose....