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Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: The Remarkable Legacy of a Buddhist Itinerant Doctor in Vietnam
Set during the French and American wars in South Vietnam, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain is the true story of an orphan, Quang Van Nguyen, adopted by a sixty-four-year-old monk, Thau, who carries great responsibility for his people as a barefoot doctor. Thau manages against all odds to raise his son to follow in his footsteps and in doing so saves him, as well as a part of Vietnam’s esoteric knowledge from the Vietnam holocaust. Thau is wanted by the French regime and occasionally must flee in to the jungle, where he is perfectly at home living among the animals. As wise and resourceful as Thau is, he meets his match in his mischievous son. Quang is more interested in learning Cambodian sorcery and martial arts than in developing his skills and wisdom according to his father’s plan. Fourth Uncle in the Mountain is an odyssey of a single-father folk hero and his foundling son in a land ravaged by the atrocities of war. It is a classic story complete with humor, tragedy, and insight, from a country where ghosts and magic are real. .
Price: $4.79
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Black Itinerants of the Gospel: The Narratives of John Jea and George White
John Jea (b. 1773) and George White (b. 1764-c.1830) were two of the earliest African American autobiographers, each writing nearly a half-century before Frederick Douglass. Jea and White represent an earlier generation of African Americans who were born into slavery but granted their freedom shortly after American independence. Both chose to fight against slavery from the pulpit, as itinerant Methodist ministers in the North; Methodism’s staunch anti-slavery stance, acceptance of African American congregants, and use of itinerant preachers enhanced black religious practices and services in the late 18th century and throughout the 19th century. Graham Hodges’ substantial introduction to the book places these two narratives into historical context, and highlights several key themes, including slavery in the North, the struggle for black freedom after the Revolution, and the rise of African American Christianity. .
Price: $23.95
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Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies: Itinerant Experts in a Knowledge Economy
Over the last several decades, employers have increasingly replaced permanent employees with temporary workers and independent contractors to cut labor costs and enhance flexibility. Although commentators have focused largely on low-wage temporary work, the use of skilled contractors has also grown exponentially, especially in high-technology areas. Yet almost nothing is known about contracting or about the people who do it. This book seeks to break the silence. Gurus, Hired Guns, and Warm Bodies tells the story of how the market for temporary professionals operates from the perspective of the contractors who do the work, the managers who employ them, the permanent employees who work beside them, and the staffing agencies who broker deals. Based on a year of field work in three staffing agencies, life histories with over seventy contractors and studies of workers in some of America's best known firms, the book dismantles the myths of temporary employment and offers instead a grounded description of how contracting works. Engagingly written, it goes beyond rhetoric to examine why contractors leave permanent employment, why managers hire them, and how staffing agencies operate. Barley and Kunda paint a richly layered portrait of contract professionals. Readers learn how contractors find jobs, how agents negotiate, and what it is like to shoulder the risks of managing one's own "employability." The authors illustrate how the reality of flexibility often differs substantially from its promise. Viewing the knowledge economy in terms of organizations and markets is not enough, Barley and Kunda conclude. Rather, occupational communities and networks of skilled experts are what grease the skids of the high-tech, "matrix economy" where firms become way stations in the flow of expertise. .
Price: $19.95
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The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton: Or, A Memoir of Startling and Amusing Episodes from Itinerant Life--A Novel
Robert J. Begiebing's first novel, The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin, was hailed by Annie Proulx in the New York Times Book Review as "a striking and original work by a gifted writer with an extraordinary feeling for the past." Begiebing delivers on the promise of that first book with his new novel, a lively, colorful, and exciting "portrait of the artist as a young woman" set in the early years of the republic. In The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton, Begiebing masterfully conjures the voice and perspective of a young widow in the early 19th century, struggling toward independence and artistic fulfillment in a society unprepared to grant either to a woman. From her "stalking" by a powerful and dissolute young industrialist to her friendship with Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller, another independent-minded woman; from her artistic awakening in Italy, influenced by, among others, a young John Ruskin, to her re-awakened passion as a woman, Allegra Fullerton narrates her story in a voice that is wry, wise, but eternally optimistic. Begiebing once again demonstrates his masterful command of historical fiction, vividly re-creating another century on the page. The daily life of New England and Italy in the 1830s and 1840s -- especially the circumstances of an itinerant portrait painter and struggling artist -- is rendered in rich and authentic detail. And Allegra's own consciousness is very much the product of her era, even as she struggles constantly to transcend the limited role that society offers her. Infused with picaresque humor and adventure, with meditations on art and freedom, and with the captivating, intelligent voice of Allegra herself, The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton is an enjoyable, engrossing novel..
Price: $3.84
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The Irish Tinkers: The Urbanization of an Itinerant People
This edition of The Irish Tinkers focuses on the Tinkers' attempts to cope with the changes that the development and modernization of rural Ireland have forced upon them. Gmelch lucidly describes the Tinkers' cityward migration, their adaptation to their new urban environment, and the drive by government and others to settle them. The Tinkers represent a classic case of a small, powerless society struggling to cope with a new lifestyle that threatens to overwhelm them..
Price: $17.50
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Some Wild Visions: Autobiographies by Female Itinerant Evangelists in Nineteenth-Century America
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