Michael Meyer

A fascinating, intimate portrait of Beijing through the lens of its oldest neighborhood, facing destruction as the city, and China, relentlessly modernizes. Soon we will be able to say about old Beijing that what emperors, warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communist planners couldn’t eradicate, the market economy has. Nobody has been more aware of this than Michael Meyer. A long-time resident, Meyer has, for the past two years, lived as no other Westerner—in a shared courtyard home in Beijing’s oldest neighborhood, Dazhalan, on one of its famed hutong (lanes). There he volunteers to teach English at the local grade school and immerses himself in the community, recording with affection the life stories of the Widow, who shares his courtyard; coteacher Miss Zhu and student Little Liu; and the migrants Recycler Wang and Soldier Liu; among the many others who, despite great differences in age and profession, make up the fabric of this unique neighborhood. Their bond is rapidly being torn, however, by forced evictions as century-old houses and ways of life are increasingly destroyed to make way for shopping malls, the capital’s first Wal-Mart, high-rise buildings, and widened streets for cars replacing bicycles. Beijing has gone through this cycle many times, as Meyer reveals, but never with the kind of dislocation and overturning of its storied culture now occurring as the city prepares to host the 2008 Summer Olympics. Weaving historical vignettes of Beijing and China over a thousand years through his narrative, Meyer captures the city’s deep past as he illuminates its present. With the kind of insight only someone on the inside can provide, The Last Days of Old Beijing brings this moment and the ebb and flow of daily lives on the other side of the planet into shining focus.

Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed

The Last Days of Old Beijing

Explores the change most of rural China is undergoing via the story of a privately held rice company that has built new roads, introduced organic farming, and constructed apartments for farmers in exchange for their land rights.

A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China

In Manchuria

"Benjamin Franklin was not a gambling man. But at the end of his illustrious life, the Founder allowed himself a final wager on the survival of the United States: a gift of two thousand pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump-start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin's inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall. In Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet, Michael Meyer traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Over time, Franklin's wager was misused, neglected, and contested--but never wholly extinguished"--

The Favorite Founder's Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity

Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet

Reading, Thinking, Writing

The Bedford Introduction to Literature

Horatio Alger

Bryan Waterman

Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks

English and American Literatures

The Bedford Introduction to Literature responds to the teaching and learning needs of all kinds of literature classrooms -- and composition courses where literature is a focus. Author Michael Meyer understands that a particular challenge for instructors is that students do not necessarily see literature as relevant to their lives. They may be new to the study of literature, may have difficulty reading it, and may lack confidence in their critical abilities and writing skills. With these factors in mind, Meyer has put together a lively collection of stories, poems, and plays from many periods, cultures, and themes, with voices ranging from the traditional to the latest and hottest contemporary authors. As an experienced anthologist and instructor of literature, Meyer has a knack for choosing enticing selections -- including humorous works and readings from popular culture -- that students both enjoy and respond to. Complementing this unparalleled collection are proven editorial features that offer students real help with reading, appreciating, and writing about literature. The Bedford Introduction to Literature is a book designed to bring literature to life -- and to make students life-long readers.

Henry David Thoreau

Civil Disobedience and Reading

Exit Strategy is the first book in a continuing series introducing the main characters. It is a crime thriller, which bounces between two events being investigated by the FBI over two weeks in late August/early September. The crimes initially believed to be unrelated introduce ex-military personnel on both sides of the law in a cat and mouse game unfolding across the globe, with an explosive climax. Told in the third person, author Meyer reveals his prowess as a storyteller. A quick read at just 250 pages, Exit Strategy, is excellent for your next vacation or long flight. Exit Strategy is pure fiction. Any similarities between persons, places, and activities are strictly coincidental. As an added bonus, please enjoy the first chapter in the sequel Next Wave, due out in late fall 2021.

Exit Strategy

Brian Railsback

One of the greatest novelists of the 20th century, John Steinbeck continues to be read and studied at all levels. This encyclopedia extensively overviews his life and writings. Included are roughly 1200 alphabetically arranged entries by more than 40 expert contributors. Entries cover his works, major characters, family members and contemporaries, influences, and various special topics related to his literary career. Many of the entries cite works for further reading, and the encyclopedia closes with a selected, general bibliography. Known for his searing social criticism, John Steinbeck is one of the most popular and influential American writers of the 20th century. His works are read and studied at all levels and have been made into films. And though critics and scholars initially found fault with his enormously popular works, he is now widely recognizes as a master of his craft. This encyclopedia provides an extensive overview of his life and career and is accessible to high school students, undergraduates, and general readers. Presented are roughly 1200 alphabetically arranged entries by more than 40 expert contributors. These entries cover his works, major characters, family members and contemporaries, influences, and a range of special topics.

A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia

Patricia Martin

Dawn Meyer

This important book explores the subject of mother-of-pearl production and art, and illustrates the topic with over 5,000 photographs of mother-of-pearl artifacts.--

Mother-Of-Pearl Antiques and Collectibles

This book is the first known review of the mother of pearl carvings that are featured on the front of missals from the 19th and 20th century.

Mother of Pearl Carved Missal Covers

In recent years, there has been a continuing and persistent world-wide interest in the interaction between the two disciplines of law and literature. Although there have been many collections of primary texts that combined these two areas, this volume presents literary analyses and criticism in an attempt to assess the varied relationships between law and justice, between lawyers and clients, and between readers' perceptions and authors' intent, hopefully suggesting why they have continually been yoked together. One similarity between the two is that lawyers, like writers, must catch their audience's attention by novelty of scene, distinctiveness of voice, and ingenuity of design. Furthermore, legal advocates must recreate a concrete sense of reality, developing vivid and valid pictures of a specific time and place. In short, both lawyers and writers attempt to provide a basis for juries / readers to judge defendants / characters by their motivations and their actions and to decide whether a favorable ruling / assessment is justified. Collectively, the essays in this book are designed to deal with themes of guilt and innocence, right and wrong, morality and legality. The essays also suggest that the world as it is delineated by lawyers is indeed a text that like its literary counterparts sometimes blurs the distinction between fact and fiction as it attempts to define "truth" and to establish criteria for "impartial" justice. By exploring interdisciplinary contexts, readers will surely be made more aware, more sensitive to the roles that stories play in the legal profession and to the dilemmas faced by legal systems that often succeed in maintaining the rights and privileges of a dominant societal group at the expense of a less powerful one.

Literature and Law

Ruth Wodak

This book provides a concise, comprehensible, and thoroughly up-to-date introduction to CDA, appropriate for both novice and experienced researchers. This new edition has been updated throughout, with a new introduction contextualizing the development of the CDA approach, and two entirely new chapters on the ‘social actor approach’ to CDA and the use of quantitative corpus linguistic methods. The editors have brought together contributions from leading experts in the field, who each introduce their own approaches to CDA. Examples are included throughout, demonstrating the value of the method in analyzing a variety of genres of written material on a whole range of topics, including global warming, leadership in management, and globalization.

Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis

This is a sophisticated and nuanced introduction to critical discourse analysis (CDA) that covers a range of topics in an accessible, engaging style. With international examples and an interdisciplinary approach, readers gain a rich understanding of the many angles into critical discourse analysis, the fundamentals of how analysis works and examples from written texts, online data and images. This new edition: expands coverage of multimodality adds two new chapters on social media and analysis of online data supports learning with a guided introduction to each chapter includes a new and extended glossary Clearly written, practical and rigorous in its approach, this book is the ideal companion when embarking on research that focuses on discourse and meaning-making.

Methods of Critical Discourse Studies

Professor Ruth Wodak

This book is designed as an introduction to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and gives an overview of the various theories and methods associated with this sociolinguistic approach. It also introduces the reader to the leading figures in CDA and the methods to which they are most closely related. The text aims to provide a comprehensive description of the individual methods, an understanding of the theories to which methods refer and a comparative treatment of each of these methods so that students may be able to determine which is the most appropriate to select for their particular research question. Given the balance between theory and application, plus the intended audience - no previous knowledge of CDA is assumed - Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis should be useful reading for both students and researchers in the fields of linguistics, sociology, social psychology and the social sciences in general.

Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis

Gerald Nelson

Karen Moawad

Management & Administration of Your Orthodontic Practice

The Business of Orthodontics

William H. Beezley

William Beezley

The tenth anniversary edition of The Oxford History of Mexico tells the fascinating story of Mexico as it has evolved from the reign of the Aztecs through the twenty-first century. Available for the first time in paperback, this magnificent volume covers the nation's history in a series of essays written by an international team of scholars. Essays have been revised to reflect events of the past decade, recent discoveries, and the newest advances in scholarship, while a new introduction discusses such issues as immigration from Mexico to the United States and the democratization implied by the defeat of the official party in the 2000 and 2006 presidential elections. Newly released to commemorate the bicentennial of the Mexican War of Independence and the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, this updated and redesigned volume offers an affordable, accessible, and compelling account of Mexico through the ages.

The Oxford History of Mexico

An Introduction

Poetry

The authors introduce the various theories, methods and applications associated with the sociolinguistic approach known as critical discourse analysis. The authors assume no previous knowledge of the subject.

Michael Meyer

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