Sixteen dark and vivid tales by great satirist: "A Horseman in the Sky," "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Chicakamauga," "A Son of the Gods," "What I Saw of Shiloh," more. Note.

Essays on the emerging military-civilian divide in the United States.

Describes a short-lived World War II program to train gifted young men in engineering and languages.

From October 2006 to December 2007, Daniel A. Sjursen-then a U.S. Army lieutenant-led a light scout platoon across Baghdad. The experiences of Ghost Rider platoon provide a soldier's-eye view of the incredible complexities of warfare, peacekeeping, and counterinsurgency in one of the world's most ancient cities. Sjursen reflects broadly and critically on the prevailing narrative of the surge as savior of America's longest war, on the overall military strategy in Iraq, and on U.S. relations with ordinary Iraqis. At a time when just a handful of U.S. senators and representatives have a family member in combat, Sjursen also writes movingly on questions of America's patterns of national service. Who now serves and why? What connection does America's professional army have to the broader society and culture? What is the price we pay for abandoning the model of the citizen soldier? With the bloody emergence of ISIS in 2014, Iraq and its beleaguered, battle-scarred people are again much in the news. Unlike other books on the U.S. war in Iraq, Ghost Riders of Baghdad is part battlefield chronicle, part critique of American military strategy and policy, and part appreciation of Iraq and its people. At once a military memoir, history, and cultural commentary, Ghost Riders of Bahdad delivers a compelling story and a deep appreciation of both those who serve and the civilians they strive to protect. Sjursen provides a riveting addition to our understanding of modern warfare and its human costs.

In Soldier Snapshots Jay Mechling explores how American men socially construct their performance of masculinity in everyday life in all-male friendship groups during their service in the military. The evidence Mechling analyzes is a collection of vernacular photographs, “snapshots,” of and by American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and aviators. Since almost all of the snapshots are photographs taken of men by other men, this book offers a unique view into the social construction, performance, and repair of American masculinity. Mechling guides the reader from the snapshots to ideas about the everyday lives of male soldiers to ideas about the lives of men in groups to ideas about American culture. In his introduction Mechling offers his thoughts about how to undertake the interdisciplinary study of American culture; he draws from history, folklore, anthropology, sociology, rhetoric, psychology, gender and sexuality studies, ethnic studies, popular culture studies, and visual studies to reveal the intricacies of how men use their folk practices in an all-male group to manage the paradoxes of their friendship and comradeship under sometimes stressful conditions. Soldier Snapshots begins with a brief history of war photography and establishes the nature of vernacular photography: the snapshot. This is followed by a jargon-free discussion of the key ideas about masculinity and the vernacular practices of men in groups, exploring male friendship, the important role of play in men’s relationships, and the ways “animal buddies” adopted by male friendship groups actually tell us even more about male friendship and issues of trust. In the final section Mechling’s careful analysis reveals how the men employ different folk practices—including rough-and-tumble playfighting, building human pyramids, bathing naked in public, cross-dressing, hazing, and gallows humor—in order to manage their relationships. Regardless of the man’s sexual orientation and sexual identity, the strong heterosexual norm in the military means that the men must find ways to understand and even enact or perform their feelings of bonding while still defining those feelings and acts as heterosexual.

Red sandstone, lumber, paper, cows, and college students feature prominently in Potsdam. With its selection of two hundred stunning photographs, the book records aspects of life in Potsdam from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s. Located on the Racquette River between the St. Lawrence River and the Adirondack Mountains, the town is one often that were created in 1787 to promote settlement of New York State. Education has played an important role in Potsdam since 1816, when St. Lawrence Academy opened. The success of the academy led to the establishment in 1866 of a normal school, the forerunner of Potsdam College, with its renowned Crane School of Music.