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Ulysses

Ulysses is a modernist novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It was first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920 and then published in its entirety in Paris by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, Joyce’s 40th birthday. It is considered one of the most important works of modernist literature and has been called “a demonstration and summation of the entire movement.”According to Declan Kiberd, “Before Joyce, no writer of fiction had so foregrounded the process of thinking”. Ulysses chronicles the appointments and encounters of the itinerant Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero of Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey, and the novel establishes a series of parallels between the poem and the novel, with structural correspondences between the characters and experiences of Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom, and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus, in addition to events and themes of the early 20th-century context of modernism, Dublin, and Ireland’s relationship to Britain. The novel is highly allusive and also imitates the styles of different periods of English literature. Since its publication, the book has attracted controversy and scrutiny, ranging from an obscenity trial in the United States in 1921 to protracted textual “Joyce Wars”. The novel’s stream of consciousness technique, careful structuring, and experimental prose—replete with puns, parodies, and allusions—as well as its rich characterization and broad humor have led it to be regarded as one of the greatest literary works in history; Joyce fans worldwide now celebrate 16 June as Bloomsday.

UFO Nation The Truth Now

‘Straight from the horse’s mouth’, as they say. Edward Ruppelt was the first head of the U.S. Air Force’s Project Blue Book, the official project initiated to investigate UFO reports beginning in 1952. This report from 1956 takes us inside these initial investigations, separates fact from fiction, and gives insight into who, when, where, and how sightings were reported and researched in open-minded fashion (for which Ruppelt was renowned), rather than in the typical hushed and secretive (and censored) manner most often associated with government and military reports which are released to the public. Dozens of specific sightings are recounted, although hundreds more had come pouring into the agency during the period covered (and hundreds, if not thousands more that were never officially reported). Here we go inside the workings of Project Blue Book, which had evolved from 2 earlier Air Force projects, and we are witness to interviews, press conferences, Pentagon briefings, and many reports from civilian and military pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, office workers, farmers, and the man on the street who reported their accounts with UFOs. And not all sightings that were reported were restricted to the U.S. Although Project Blue Book would continue until 1969, here we witness an in-depth account from it’s inception and it’s earliest stages, the political obstacles, the houndings from the press, the overall confusion encountered during and following many of the sightings, and the near hysteria caused during the heyday of UFO sightings, and all from the man who headed up the project in it’s earliest years. The second edition of Ruppelt’s work was supplemented with 3 additional chapters which were added in 1960, and we are fortunate that they are included here.

Two Tactics of Social-Democracy

Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution is one of the most important of Lenin’s early writings. It was written in June and July 1905, while the Russian Revolution of 1905 was taking place. Lenin’s preface poses these questions: “in educating and organizing the working class;…where should we place the main political emphasis in this work of education and organization? On the trade unions and legally existing associations, or on an insurrection, on the work of creating a revolutionary army and a revolutionary government?” The history of social democracy stretches back to the 19th-century socialist movement. It came to advocate an evolutionary and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism, using established political processes, in contrast to the revolutionary socialist approach to transition associated with orthodox Marxism. In the early post-war era in Western Europe, social democratic parties rejected the Stalinist political and economic model then-current in the Soviet Union, committing themselves either to an alternative path to socialism or to a compromise between capitalism and socialism. In this period, social democrats embraced a mixed economy based on the predominance of private property, with only a minority of essential utilities and public services under public ownership. Social democrats promoted Keynesian economics, state interventionism, and the welfare state while placing less emphasis on the goal of replacing the capitalist system (factor markets, private property, and wage labor) with a qualitatively different socialist economic system.

Twas The Night Before Christmas

Twas the Night Before Christmas has been called “arguably the best-known verses ever written by an American” and is largely responsible for some of the conceptions of Santa Claus from the mid-nineteenth century to today. It has had a massive effect on the history of Christmas gift-giving. Before the poem gained wide popularity, American ideas had varied considerably about Saint Nicholas and other Christmastide visitors. A Visit from St. Nicholas eventually was set to music and has been recorded by many artists.