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Provides a critique of the civil religion thesis, and identifies the most basic deficiencies of literature on this topic. By contrasting Bellah's Durkheimian conception with Rousseau's original formulation, the author discloses the dubious conceptual and empirical basis of the former.

Cristina Peri Rossi is one of the most acclaimed and personal voices in Hispanic letters. This volume of short stories, first published in 1970 in Montevideo, Uruguay, presages the atrocities that would come with dictatorship in 1972.

Who has not seen a picture of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, massive in size but deceptively simple in shape, and not wondered how that shape was determined? Starting in the late eighteenth century, eleven main theories were proposed to explain the shape of the Great Pyramid. Even though some of these theories are well known, there has never been a detailed examination of their origins and dissemination. Twenty years of research using original and difficult-to-obtain source material has allowed Roger Herz-Fischler to piece together the intriguing story of these theories. Archaeological evidence and ancient Egyptian mathematical texts are discussed in order to place the theories in their proper historical context. The theories themselves are examined, not as abstract mathematical discourses, but as writings by individual authors, both well known and obscure, who were influenced by the intellectual and social climate of their time. Among results discussed are the close links of some of the pyramid theories with other theories, such as the theory of evolution, as well as the relationship between the pyramid theories and the struggle against the introduction of the metric system. Of special note is the chapter examining how some theories spread whereas others were rejected. This book has been written to be accessible to a wide audience, yet four appendixes, detailed endnotes and an exhaustive bibliography provide specialists with the references expected in a scholarly work.

Using a half-century of films from the archival collection of the National Film Board, this book overcomes a long-standing impasse about what films may be credibly said to document. Here they document not "reality", but social images preserved over time - an evolving, cinematic representation of Canadian families, schools and communities.

Throughout centuries of European colonial domination, the bodies of Middle Eastern dancers, male and female, move sumptuously and seductively across the pages of Western travel journals, evoking desire and derision, admiration and disdain, allure and revulsion. This profound ambivalence forms the axis of an investigation into Middle Eastern dance an investigation that extends to contemporary belly dance. Stavros Stavrou Karayanni, through historical investigation, theoretical analysis, and personal reflection, explores how Middle Eastern dance actively engages race, sex, and national identity. Close readings of colonial travel narratives, an examination of Oscar Wilde s Salome, and analyses of treatises about Greek dance, reveal the intricate ways in which this controversial dance has been shaped by Eurocentric models that define and control identity performance.

Our ancestors saw the material world as alive, and they often personified nature. Today we claim to be realists. But in reality we are not paying attention to the symbols and myths hidden in technology. Beneath much of our talk about computers and the Internet, claims William A. Stahl, is an unacknowledged mysticism, an implicit religion. By not acknowledging this mysticism, we have become critically short of ethical and intellectual resources with which to understand and confront changes brought on by technology.

Shirley Jane Endicott presents a fascinating account of her mother's life, based on Mary Austin Endicott's private writings and flavoured with Shirley's memories. She brings to life the story of an exceptional woman whose life was shaped by profound political and historical circumstances.

Far from being mere antiquarian or sentimental curiosities, the rebuilt or reused fortresses of the Rhine reflect major changes in Germany and Europe during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Taylor begins The Castles of the Rhine with a synopsis of the major political, social and intellectual changes that influenced castle rebuilding in the nineteenth century. He then focuses on selected castles, describing their turbulent histories from the time of their original construction, through their destruction or decay, to their rediscovery in the 1800s and their continued preservation today. Reading this book is equivalent to looking at history though a romantic-nationalist kaleidoscope. Amply illustrated with maps and photographs, The Castles of the Rhine is a wonderful companion for anyone with dreams or experience of journeying along the Rhine.

Barbara Paleczny, herself a daughter of garment workers, tugs at the threads of homeworking in the garment industry to reveal a low-wage strategy that rends the fabric of social integrity and exposes global trends. The resurgence of sweatshops affects the working poor in both first- and third-world countries.

How did a Belgian Oblate missionary who came to Canada to convert the aboriginals come to be buried as a Cree chief? In Dissonant Worlds Earle Waugh traces the remarkable career of Roger Vandersteene: his life as an Oblate missionary, his intensive study of the Cree language and folkways, and his status as a Cree medicine man.

To support adults with developmental disabilities so that they might live in our communities, new social policies have been adopted. As a result, these individuals are confronted with a new reality. This book explores that new reality, focusing on the adults themselves and their experiences.