Bringing together a dozen specialists in anthropology, linguistics, and cultural history, this volume identifies patterns in how the Caucasus has figured on the world stage through both politics and scholarship.

"For generations, the people of Gotham City have looked to Wayne Manor as the embodiment of wealth and high society. But when construction crews discover a corpse buried on the grounds, the venerable family estate is embroiled in scandal. Is someone trying to frame billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne for a shocking and heinous crime? Hardly. Forensic scientists determine the body has been decomposing for at least thirty years, and the likely murderer was Bruce Wayne's father, Dr. Thomas Wayne. Torn between the need to protect his family's honor and his obligation to deliver justice, Batman sets out to solve the coldest of cases, using nine mysterious clues (all included throughout [the] book as removable facsimiles)"--Page 4 of cover.

At the end of the twentieth century, the United States—the most powerful nation on earth—is driven by quasi-religious patriotism and by conspicuous materialism. At once restless and violent, creative and democratic, it is also, at another level, deeply unsure of itself. Bruce Grant's engrossing text reveals the core of America's greatness—and its vulnerability. Americans believe that their country is blessed and exceptional—blessed by God and nature, exceptional because of their management of the twin icons, democracy and capitalism. But have Americans separated themselves too much from the rest of the world? Can they meet the challenge of the 21st century, which is to provide true global leadership? A Furious Hunger is a penetrating exploration of America's way of life, its people, its history, its rhetoric, its government and politics, and its arts and popular culture. The author's 'modest intention' is to try to understand the United States better, not as the leader of the Western world, but as itself. Bruce Grant writes critically and sympathetically of the country and the people he has visited and observed for over thirty years. This original and challenging book will interest readers who welcome America's influence on our lives as well as those who resist it. All we know is that having everything we yet hold nothing, that feeling the wild song of this great earth upwelling in us we have no word to give it utterance. All we know is that here the passionate enigma of our lives is so bitterly expressed, the furious hunger that so haunts and hurts Americans so desperately felt—that being rich, we are all yet poor, and having an incalculable wealth we have found no way of spending it, that feeling illimitable power we have yet found no way of using it.—Thomas Wolfe

In this work the anthropologist Bruce Grant explores the long relationship between Russia and the Caucasus and the means by which sovereignty has been exercised in this contested area.

The Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding is the definitive work on the subject and results from the late Bruce Grants many years of interest and experience as a braider and writer on the subject. It combines most of the material published in Leather Braiding and How to Make Cowboy Horse Gear with a mass of completely new material. The books more than 350 illustrations are arranged so that the step-by-step instructions face the picture being described, making it very easy to follow. While the book is primarily for those interested in leathercraft, in nearly all cases the methods of braiding are applicable to many other materials, such as silk, cotton, plastic, catgut, or horsehair. Braidwork takes many forms, and its applications are practical as well as decorative. The combination of beauty and utility lends itself to an array of itemspersonal gear or clothing, working or show gear for a horse, decoration of plain, carved, or tooled leather work. Truly a book to be used as well as read, Encyclopedia of Rawhide and Leather Braiding provides all the information needed for this satisfying pastime.

'honest, and provides a framework against which to judge foreign policy actions and achievements' Cameron Forbes, Age 'It will stand for the thoughtful Asian as the major document of Australia's credentials for regional partnership . . . a dossier of almost everything you need to know about contemporary Australian foreign policy.' Professor Stephen Fitzgerald, Director, Asia-Australia Institute Australia's Foreign Relations is the most rigorous, lively and comprehensive 'insider' account ever written about the shape and direction of Australian foreign policy. This thoroughly revised edition keeps it fully abreast of a changing world. This book is indispensable for anyone who follows current affairs. Its contents range from a concise analysis of the practice and politics of making foreign policy-what it is that diplomats and foreign ministers do-to the exploration of Australia's relationships, as a middle power, with all regions of the world. Among the many subjects covered is the new internationalist agenda, from human rights and global environmental issues to arms control. Australia's Foreign Relations will be equally valuable for students of politics, history, international relations and economics-for, as the authors stress, foreign policy and Australia's economic fortunes are now inextricably linked.

At the outset of the twentieth century, the Nivkhi of Sakhalin Island were a small population of fishermen under Russian dominion and an Asian cultural sway. The turbulence of the decades that followed would transform them dramatically. While Russian missionaries hounded them for their pagan ways, Lenin praised them; while Stalin routed them in purges, Khrushchev gave them respite; and while Brezhnev organized complex resettlement campaigns, Gorbachev pronounced that they were free to resume a traditional life. But what is tradition after seven decades of building a Soviet world? Based on years of research in the former Soviet Union, Bruce Grant's book draws upon Nivkh interviews, newly opened archives, and rarely translated Soviet ethnographic texts to examine the effects of this remarkable state venture in the construction of identity. With a keen sensitivity, Grant explores the often paradoxical participation by Nivkhi in these shifting waves of Sovietization and poses questions about how cultural identity is constituted and reconstituted, restructured and dismantled. Part chronicle of modernization, part saga of memory and forgetting, In the Soviet House of Culture is an interpretive ethnography of one people's attempts to recapture the past as they look toward the future. This is a book that will appeal to anthropologists and historians alike, as well as to anyone who is interested in the people and politics of the former Soviet Union.

Leather Braiding has stood for more than forty years as the definitive book in its field. Grant's clearly written guide to the art of leather braiding contains detailed illustrations, step-by-step instructions, and a wealth of incidental, fascinating information. It makes accessible, to even the novice, serviceable and recreational uses of leather, from the simple but clever braided button to the elaborate results of thong appliqu . The book includes a historical perspective of leather and its function in society, a chapter on leather braiding tools, and a glossary of terms.

U.S.S. Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy named by President George Washington after the United States Constitution. She is the world’s oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat. She was launched in 1797, one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and the third constructed. Constitution is most noted for her actions during the War of 1812 against the United Kingdom, when she captured numerous merchant ships and defeated five British warships: H.M.S. Guerriere, Java, Pictou, Cyane, and Levant. The battle with Guerriere earned her the nickname “Old Ironsides” and public adoration that has repeatedly saved her from scrapping. She continued to serve as flagship in the Mediterranean and African squadrons, and she circled the world in the 1840s. During the American Civil War, she served as a training ship for the United States Naval Academy. She carried American artwork and industrial displays to the Paris Exposition of 1878. “The author, an authority on the history of the Constitution (better known as Old Ironsides), has unearthed a good deal of documentary source material relating to her story, and has used some of this material in this, his first book for boys and girls. The story is told through the experiences of a boy who helped build her in the Boston shipyards, and later sailed on her as a recruit of the new U.S. Navy, first to prove her might against the Barbary pirates, later against the British in the War of 1812. The bloody pirate battles, the rush of wind in the sails, the loud report of heavy shells, all are there to please any boy or girl who revels in stories of the days of sailing ships and battles. The historical and biographical background of this make it good supplementary reading, of particular use in school libraries.”—Kirkus Review Richly illustrated throughout by Gordon Grant.

A firsthand account of how a modest moth demonstrated Darwin's theory of natural selection. The extraordinary tale of the humble peppered moth is at the very foundation of our acceptance of Darwinian evolution. When scientists in the early twentieth century discovered that a British population of the small, speckled Biston betularia had become black over the course of mere decades in response to the Industrial Revolution's encroaching soot, the revelation cemented Darwin's theory of natural selection. This finding was the staple example of "evolution in action" until the turn of the millennium, when proponents of Creationism fomented doubts about the legitimacy of early experiments. In the midst of this upheaval, evolutionary biologist Bruce S. Grant and his contemporaries were determinedly building a dataset that would ultimately vindicate the theory of industrial melanism in the peppered moth and, by extension, the theory of natural selection itself. Observing Evolution tells the remarkable story of this work. Shining a light on the efforts of scientists who tested Darwin's trailblazing theory, Grant chronicles the historical foundations of peppered moth research, then explains how he and his collaborators were able to push this famous study forward. He describes how his experiments were designed and conducted while painting a vivid picture of the personalities, events, and adventures around the world that shaped his successes—and struggles. His story culminates with his discovery of the mirrored "rise and fall" of melanism in peppered moth populations separated by the vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, which settled the intense controversy around evolution by documenting nature's recurring experiment. Observing Evolution is a crash course in natural selection and the history of evolutionary biology for anyone interested in Darwin's legacy. It's also a fascinating read for lepidopterists and scientists about the bridge between classic experiments and today's sophisticated DNA sequencing, which reveals in ever greater detail how the lives of these tiny organisms have such enormous implications. —Douglas J. Futuyma, Quarterly Review of Biology