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This book develops, for the first time, a comprehensive discussion regarding the legality of torture and the efficacy of interrogation. Scientific research has concluded that torture is not effective. So, what interrogational methods are effective and how does one deploy those methods in such a way that is consistent with law and morality?
Arthur Schwartz (1900-1984), a premier composer of American Popular Song during the mid-20th century, has been overlooked by historians. This first full-length biography covers his work on Broadway and in Hollywood, where he was known as the "master of the intimate revue" for his songs in the 1930s with Howard Dietz. Schwartz wrote music for films in the 1940s--with Academy Award nominations for They're Either Too Young or Too Old and A Gal in Calico--produced two popular movie musicals--Cover Girl and Night and Day--and was among the first songwriters to work in the new medium of television. The author describes his creative process and includes behind-the-scenes stories of each of his major musicals.
At long last, the first serious biography of entertainment legend Lena Horne -- the celebrated star of film, stage, and music who became one of the first African-American icons. At the 2001 Academy Awards, Halle Berry thanked Lena Horne for paving the way for her to become the first black recipient of a Best Actress Oscar. Though limited, mostly to guest singing appearances in splashy Hollywood musicals, "the beautiful Lena Horne," as she was often called, became a pioneering star for African Americans in the 1940s and fifties. Now James Gavin, author of Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker, draws on a wealth of unmined material and hundreds of interviews -- one of them with Horne h...
"Imagine getting on the bus to go from one major city to another. It had been a long week and all you wanted to do is get home and take a nap while doing that. Imagine falling asleep and enjoying the rest on the bus. Now imagine as the bus is driving up a mountain you wake to hearing someone scream out something incoherent and you can feel the bus swerve to the right and through a road barrier and over the side of the mountain. Some of the people you are with on the bus fly out the window as it crashes down the mountain into a ravine while others fly around the bus slamming into each other, into metal and into shattering glass. As the bus slams down you can feel parts of your body break and you see other people die in front of you. You then lose consciousness. When you wake, you are lying outside the bus with glass and screaming people around you just above a bus that is now with its roof on the ground. Besides your own pain you can see the dead, the dying and the broken people all around you and dozens of people streaming down the valley to come help you and the people around you"--
"The authors and outlooks collected in this volume represent the clearest, most realistic, most penetrating thought about America's response to terrorist threats. The wider the audience is for views like these, the closer the country will come to an effective, sustainable policy for protecting its people and defending its values.---JAMES FALLOWS National Correspondent, Atlantic Monthly" --
Before 9/11, films addressing torture outside of the horror/slasher genre depicted the practice in a variety of forms. In most cases, torture was cast as the act of a desperate and depraved individual, and the viewer was more likely to identify with the victim rather than the torturer. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, scenes of brutality and torture in mainstream comedies, dramatic narratives, and action films appear for little other reason than to titillate and delight. In these films, torture is devoid of any redeeming qualities, represented as an exercise in brutal senselessness carried out by authoritarian regimes and institutions. This volume follows the shift in the r...