Bøker av Don Yoder

A fascinating window into 1994 Albania as it emerges from decades of communism, seen through the eyes of an American solo traveler during his two-month foray into central Albania. At times hilarious, poignant, terrifying and sobering, Don Yoder's descriptions of his day-to-day adventures navigating Albania will show you a unique perspective on a country just discovering its new identity in a post-communist world. Quotes: "Entering the train at Durrës is like entering a 100-foot-long urinal at a Texaco Station in Hell.""Everywhere I am given. In the taverna at sunset the owner gives me the dark & acrid aperitif they call fërnét; in the morning his wife gives me a cold bottle of water for my walk. In the hills I am given figs, cold water, bread, olives, cheese, smiles.""We pass abandoned fields, abandoned factories, broken windows, piles of rubble, donkeys asleep in the road, tumble-down gas stations with no gas, winding dusty mountain roads with no cars, then down through the stone & glare to the impossibly blue Ionian Sea and Sarandë. So this is Albania...""Officially this road does not really exist. Even the footpath I trekked from Valbonë to Theth merits a cartographic wink-a dotted red line on the map-but this satanic route, this avenue of skulls, the rugged backdoor to Bajram Curri, does not appear on any map. I think the Albanians must be ashamed. It is their Rustic Freeway of Death.""It is raining now on the black ferocious statue, and getting dark, and the glistening streets are beginning to fill with traffic. Even so, despite the vast breadth of the Bulevardi i Madh, the city except for the hiss & whisper of tires on asphalt is exceptionally quiet. In the dark it is becoming a dreamscape of dim urban shapes erasing itself and its centuries of painful history. The rain, it seems, is dissolving it."

Fifteenth-century Germany was the birthplace of movable type and of one of its powerful consequences, the broadside. These mass-produced printed sheets allowed both the Renaissance and the Reformation to spread with previously unimaginable speed, and when German immigrants made their way to North America, the cultural significance of the broadside followed. Don Yoder's Pennsylvania German Broadside examines the history and legacy of these printed sheets within the Pennsylvania German community. The author defines a broadside as any piece of paper printed on one side that is intended to be given away or sold. Where some experts have narrowed--and, in Yoder's opinion, distorted--the definition of the broadside to focus primarily on song and ballad broadsides, Yoder's definition encompasses a much wider range of material. In this more comprehensive approach to the medium, not only "street literature" but also such documents as elegies, spiritual testaments, and certificates of birth, baptism, confirmation, and marriage are all considered legitimate broadsides that tie the individual to the culture of the community. After tracing the migration of the broadside from Germany to America, the author dedicates each of ten chapters to a specific broadside subject, including medical broadsides, political and military broadsides, sale bills, posters, house blessings, and "letters from heaven." Yoder recently donated a vast collection of Pennsylvania German broadsides to the Library Company of Philadelphia. These artifacts, part of the Roughwood Collection, will go on display in September 2005 as the centerpiece of a broadside exhibition at the Library Company. More than a catalogue of theexhibition, this book explores the history and cultural significance of the broadside, illuminating the ways in which it both reflected and influenced Pennsylvania German life. Intended for historians, collectors, and general readers, The Pennsylvania German Broadside features more