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Bernard Goldstein’s memoir describes a hard world of taverns, toughs, thieves, and prostitutes; of slaughterhouse workers, handcart porters, and wagon drivers; and of fist- and gunfights with everyone from anti-Semites and Communists to hostile police, which is to say that it depicts a totally different view of life in prewar Poland than the one usually portrayed. As such, the book offers a corrective view in the form of social history, one that commands attention and demands respect for the vitality and activism of the generation of Polish Jews so brutally annihilated by the barbarism of the Nazis. In Warsaw, a city with over 300,000 Jews (one third of the population), Bernstein was the Jewish Labor Bund’s “enforcer,” organizer, and head of their militia—the one who carried out daily, on-the-street organization of unions; the fighting off of Communists, Polish anti-Semitic hooligans, and antagonistic police; marshaling and protecting demonstrations; and even settling family disputes, some of them arising from the new secular, socialist culture being fostered by the Bund. Goldstein’s is a portrait of tough Jews willing to do battle—worldly, modern individuals dedicated to their folk culture and the survival of their people. It delivers an unparalleled street-level view of vibrant Jewish life in Poland between the wars: of Jewish masses entering modern life, of Jewish workers fighting for their rights, of optimism, of greater assertiveness and self-confidence, of armed combat, and even of scenes depicting the seamy, semi-criminal elements. It provides a representation of life in Poland before the great catastrophe of World War II, a life of flowering literary activity, secular political journalism, successful political struggle, immersion in modern politics, fights for worker rights and benefits, a strong social-democratic labor movement, creation of a secular school system in Yiddish, and a youth movement that later provided the heroic fighters for the courageous Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Why did Yugoslavia fall apart? Was its violent demise inevitable? Did its population simply fall victim to the lure of nationalism? How did this multinational state survive for so long, and where do we situate the short life of Yugoslavia in the long history of Europe in the twentieth century? The Complete History of Yugoslavia by Marie-Janine Calic provides a concise, accessible, comprehensive synthesis of the political, cultural, social, and economic life of Yugoslavia—from its nineteenth-century South Slavic origins to the bloody demise of the multinational state of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. In this book, Calic takes a fresh and innovative look at the colorful, multifaceted, and complex history of Yugoslavia, emphasizing major social, economic, and intellectual changes from the turn of the twentieth century and the transition to modern industrialized mass society. She traces the origins of ethnic, religious, and cultural divisions, applying the latest social science approaches, and drawing on the breadth of recent state-of-the-art literature, to present a balanced interpretation of events that takes into account the differing perceptions and interests of the actors involved. Uniquely, Calic frames the history of Yugoslavia for readers as an essentially open-ended process, undertaken from a variety of different regional perspectives with varied composite agenda; thus, she shuns traditional, deterministic explanations that notorious Balkan hatreds or any other kind of exceptionalism are to blame for Yugoslavia’s demise, and along the way she highlights the agency of twentieth-century modern mass society in the politicization of differences. Additionally, while analyzing nuanced political and social-economic processes, Calic describes the experiences and emotions of ordinary people in a vivid way. As a result, her groundbreaking work provides scholars and learned readers alike with an accessible, trenchant, and authoritative introduction to Yugoslavia's complex history.

Featuring over seventy images from the heroic age of space exploration, Through Astronaut Eyes presents the story of how human daring along with technological ingenuity allowed people to see the Earth and stars as they never had before. Photographs from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs tell powerful and compelling stories that continue to have cultural resonance to this day, not just for what they revealed about the spaceflight experience, but also as products of a larger visual rhetoric of exploration. The photographs tell us as much about space and the astronauts who took them as their reception within an American culture undergoing radical change throughout the turbulent 1960s. This book explores the origins and impact of astronaut still photography from 1962 to 1972, the period when human spaceflight first captured the imagination of people around the world. Photographs taken during those three historic programs are much admired and reprinted, but rarely seriously studied. This book suggests astronaut photography is particularly relevant to American culture based on how easily the images were shared through reproduction and circulation in a very visually oriented society. Space photography's impact at the crossroads of cultural studies, the history of exploration and technology, and public memory illuminates its continuing importance to American identity.

The army was perhaps the most important single institution in the multinational empire of the Hapsburgs. The Austro-Hungarian dynasty survived through the military power it could command, and the rise and fall of the fortress of the Hapsburgs were mirrored accurately in the state of its military establishment. It was in the army alone, with its common language, ideals, and loyalty, that the concept of a great empire headed by an emperor was even partially translated into reality. But in an age of nationalism, the army alone could not save the multinational state. Tradition and circumstance cast it into the role of a loyal servant the Emperor Francis Joseph and his dynasty, a role which proved inadequate to deal with the problems of the age. Rothenberg's work is the first analytical, full-length study of the army of Francis Joseph throughout its history from 1815-1918. He considers campaigns, battles, and leaders, but places his main emphasis on analyses of the overall developments in the military establishment, its role in foreign and internal policy, and above all on its struggle against the disintegration of the empire under the strain of growing national division.

Treadway's work is the first comprehensive study of Montenegro's relations with her Great-Power neighbors on the eve of WWI.

Balkan Anschluss tackles the thorny issue of the disappearance of Montenegro as a sovereign state in the course of and as a result of the First World War - a problem with clear contemporary relevance. In particular, Pavlovic investigates the ambiguous and often troubled relationship between two "Serb states," Montenegro with its ruling house of Petrovic-Njegos and Serbia with its ruling house of Karadjordjevic. At the same time, the book addresses the equally challenging question of Montenegrin national identity. The author examines in considerable detail the politics and power plays of numerous actors - Serbs, Montenegrins, and others. The author analyzes the activities of the Podgorica Assembly of November 1919, which proclaimed the union of Montenegro with Serbia in a greater Yugoslav polity. The author assesses the role(s) played by the various Great Powers during the Great War and the Paris Peace Conference that followed. The ultimate conclusion this book makes is that Montenegro was not so much "liberated" as it was "annexed" by Serbia at the end of World War I (the result of careful calculation on the part of certain Serbian leaders, including Prime Minister Nikola Pasic) - and that the people of Montenegro were denied an opportunity to exercise self-determination according to internationally recognized norms. Indeed, the world community - i.e., the Great Powers at Paris - turned a blind eye to Montenegro.

Mitrovic's volume fills the gap in Balkan history by presenting an in-depth look at Serbia and its role in WWI. The Serbian experience was in fact of major significance in this war. In the interlocking development of the wartime continent, Serbia's plight is part of a European jigsaw. Also, the First World War was crucial as a stage in the construction of Serbian national mythology in the twentieth century.

This English-language translation of Mark Hengerer's Kaiser Ferdinand III: 1608–1657 Eine Biographie is based on an analysis of the weekly reports sent by the papal nuncio's office to the Vatican. These reports give detailed information about the daily whereabouts of the dynasty, courtiers, and foreign visitors, and they contain the gossip of the court in addition to weekly analysis of some political problems. This material enabled the author to report on daily life of the dynasty and to analyze the circumstances under which policy was made, which has led to a balance between the personality of Ferdinand III and the problems with which he dealt. In this biography, Hengerer provides answers to the question: Why did it take the emperor more than ten years to end a devastating war, the traumatizing effects of which on central Europe lasted into the twentieth century, particularly since there was no hope of victory against his foreign adversaries from the very moment he came into power?

In November 1950, the greatest storm of the twentieth century crippled the eastern United States, affecting more than 100 million people. Sometimes referred to as the Great Appalachian or Thanksgiving storm, this was no ordinary weather event. Its giant size and multiple record-setting hazards—including snow, ice, flooding, wind, and cold temperatures—were cataclysmic. This superstorm was the most costly weather-related disaster when it occurred. Only two other storms that affected the US mainland since then, both hurricanes, have exceeded its death toll. The weather records it established remain benchmarks of extreme weather to this day.Superstorm 1950 examines the immediate impact of the storm, covering not just meteorology, but also its wide-ranging social impacts, which varied by race, class, and gender. The repercussions continue to affect us today, in obvious areas like weather forecasting, and in surprising areas like Ohio State football and government tax policy. Because superstorms are not as familiar as hurricanes or tornadoes, they can be overlooked in terms of weather-related disasters. This is a mistake. Vulnerability to weather disasters is increasing, and a similar storm today would likely be the most expensive weather disaster ever in the United States. Superstorm 1950 serves not only as a riveting account of one of the greatest disasters in US history, but also provides a premonition of what may come if global climate change is not confronted.

Aristocratic Redoubt: The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office on the Eve of the First World War is a study of the nobility who served in the foreign office prior to World War I. Following the lead of historians who are reexamining pre-industrial elites in England and Germany, Godsey deals with such facets of aristocratic life as education, wealth, religion, and ethnicity. He contends that although the pre-war aristocracy has been stereotyped as frivolous and decadent, the Austro-Hungarian nobility, and thus the monarchy, in fact had great staying power. This work is a social history of the bureaucracy of the Ballhausplatz primarily in the decade leading up to 1914, though it provides a thorough overview of the service during the entire Dualist period.

When Austria annexed Galicia during the first partition of Poland in 1772, the province's capital Lemberg was a decaying Baroque town. By the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Lemberg had become a booming city with a modern, urban and, at the same time, distinctly Habsburg flavor. In the process of the ""long"" nineteenth century both Lemberg's appearance and the use of public space changed remarkably. The city center was transformed into a showcase of modernity and a site of conflicting symbolic representations, while other areas were left decrepit, overcrowded and neglected.""Habsburg Lemberg: Architecture, Public Space, and Politics in the Galician Capital, 1772-1914"" reveals that behind a variety of national, and positivist historical narratives of Lemberg - and of its architecture - there always existed a city that was labeled ""cosmopolitan"" yet ""provincial;"" and a Vienna, but still ""of the East."" Buildings, streets, parks and monuments became part and parcel of a complex set of culturally driven politics. The modern architecture influenced the portrayal of the Lemberg populace as much more sophisticated than they actually were.

These thirty Idylls, written by the Sicilian Theokritos in the third century B.C., present the charms of rustic life in learned, polished verse aimed at a sophisticated audience. A bucolic paradise is seen "through the eyes of city men going to the harvest festival for a holiday, to rest their bodies and minds for awhile in nature's beauty and bounty-not unprovided with well-aged wine." In this handsome volume, which won the Best Poetry Award at the 1963 Indiana Author's Day, Professor Mills translates them into modern English verse that preserves the pastoral quality of the original but emphasizes those qualities of Theokritos that speak most directly to the modern reader.

With the appearance of Homer's study, it is no longer possible to base any serious work about organized crime on the superficial debate over whether or not this set of activities is dominated by one or more particular ethnic groups, writes political scientist Michael A. Weinstein in his introduction. Homer removes the study of organized crime from the realm of sensationalism and ethnic chauvinism, and places it in the context of contemporary American social structure. He reviews prevalent myths and hypotheses about organized crime and critically analyzes them in the framework of contemporary organization theory. In this context, organized crime is analyzed in its economic, political, ethnic, and social class dimensions.

What kind of man was George Orwell, whose Nineteen Eighty-Four, Animal Farm, and many essays are known to millions, but whose character is an enigma? Who was this person who wrote under a pseudonym and wanted no biographies of him written? Orwell was an intellectual who continually damned intellectuals. He was a leading political writer despite his disgust with politics and an ardent believer in socialism despite his contempt for most socialists. He deplored violence, yet fought in the Spanish Civil War. In chronically poor health, he performed extraordinary physical labor. Richard J. Voorhees shows how Orwell rebelled against contemporary politics, yet had too much sense of responsibility to be anarchistic. He portrays Orwell's horror of modern tyrants, together with his unstinting use of his abilities to fight them. He describes Orwell's dedication to socialism and his revulsion from some of its by-products. From this skillful study of a controversial figure there emerges a picture of a crusader for democracy, a shrewdly independent thinker who deals with the major issues of our time.

Georg Groddeck (1866-1934), who was trained as a physicianbut became famous for his success as a healer, introduced a radical concept inThe Book of It: that we virtually always cause our own illness and injury;therefore, we can cure and avoid both. Groddeck utilized the technique of psychoanalysis – which hadjust been invented by Freud – to communicate with the source of the illness,which he called the "the it" (or the map of the psyche). He believed the "it"had the power to cure illness as well as cause it. Perhaps science is catching up with Groddeck's notion, formodern currents in medicine suggest there is a linkage between the way we live,the way we think, and illness. Readings in behavioral medicine indicate that wedo have control over our immune system; and empirical studies of behavior showa strong relationship between stress and illness. In TheInterpretation of Illness, Homer goes beyond Groddeck's initial insight toemphasize that illness is a communication to others, especially a call forsympathy. No one consciously likes to be sick or hurt; but we all, consciouslyor unconsciously, tell others about our ills, expecting them to extendsympathy. Homer argues that if we change this pattern of communication – eitherby learning to forego sympathy or by gaining it in less destructive ways – we canprevent illness or alleviate existing symptoms. The change in communicationinvolves expressing ourselves knowingly and deliberately to others. Interpretationis a series of letters from Homer, writing under the persona Augie, to afriend. Appropriately enough, this style is similar to the format used byGroddeck in The Book of the It.

The Arguments of Agriculture presents the major issues, questions, and conflicting opinions of influential policymakers and critics concerning the role and future of modern agriculture. Today, while modern farm tools and chemicals take huge and unprecedented yields from those fields, they often cause an equally unprecedented loss of topsoil. Increased productivity has reduced the farming population drastically, and economic realities force many small farms out of business. A growing international market for food and fiber puts mounting pressure on farmers all over the world, even in traditional cultures, to use ever more sophisticated techniques to push their productivity higher – with new risks. Under this kind of pressure, the basic question about farming splits into several ones. There is a multitude of contradictory answers. The author urges the reader to weigh and consider all positions and supplies a primer in the basic arguments of agriculture. Each chapter begins with a series of hypothetical cases that illustrate the range of theoretical issues discussed in the chapter. The next section analyzes the basic issues, and the section entitled "Review" summarizes and contrasts the opinions of a number of prominent critics. Each chapter concludes with a list of recommended readings.

This study provides a detailed, in-depth analysis of a single incident rooted in the effort of a group of professional employees to serve the public welfare. It reveals in microcosm the interplay of political forces, economic interests, personal ambition, organizational structure, and professional ethics that culminated in an act of whistle-blowing. The incident took place during the final construction phase of the Bay Area Rapid Transit System (BART), designed to be America's first attempt at space-age mass transportation. Three BART engineers, convinced of the lack of responsiveness of management to their concerns about the system's safety, were fired for insubordination and other organizational sins. Based upon repeated interviews with the engineers, with BART managers and directors, and with the professional societies involved, as well as upon an extensive body of documents and court depositions, legislative reports, media reports, and institutional memoranda. Divided Loyalties sets a theoretical context for the issues, traces the incident from its beginning, examines the aftermath of the engineers' dismissal, and concludes with a set of recommendations that should be considered by public and private organizations, professional associations, agencies of government, and individual professional employees.

In the fall of 1999, at the close of the 20th century, there were 3,726 international students on the West Lafayette campus of Purdue University. They came from 127 countries. Three of the largest groups came from Taiwan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, continuing a tradition that has stretched throughout the century. The stories behind Purdue's long-term relationship with Taiwan, Korea, and Hong-Kong have never been told before. Three Tigers and Purdue describes that history, as told in the stories of the people who lived it.

This collection of speeches delivered in 1987 presents the widely diverging opinions of four influential men: an eminent politician, a professional soldier, a government consultant, and a distinguished scholar. The first contributor, Senator George S. McGovern, ran as the Democratic candidate for president in 1972 on a platform that called for the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. The second speaker, General William C. Westmoreland, commanded American military forces in Vietnam until growing battlefield casualties and economic costs undermined support for the strategy of attrition in the United States. The third essay is by Edward N. Luttwak, a strong advocate for military reform in the United States and a frequent participant in high-level government discussions about American strategic interests throughout the world. The fourth speaker Thomas J. McCormick, is a diplomatic historian at the University of Wisconsin and an astute critic of American foreign policy. Each lecture is followed by a lively question-and-answer session that highlights the key points of agreement and disagreement with respect to the fundamental issues raised in the lectures. In a stimulating foreword, Akira Iriye challenges readers to think about the Vietnam War in relationship to the current debate about the role that the United States should play in world affairs.As a whole, the volume seeks to answer the multitude of questions raised, above all, by our nation's younger generations: Why did the United States become involved in the Southeast Asia? How did American military leaders and foot soldiers conduct themselves during the bitter struggle? Why did the United States fail to accomplish its objectives in Indochina? What lessons can be learned from the frustrating American experience in Vietnam? This book excites valuable discussion and controversy, for the speakers disagree among themselves over these fundamental questions. Their concise presentation of the issues and arguments will help readers not only to gain a deeper understanding of the Vietnam War but also to participate with greater insight in the current debate about the role that the United States should play in world affairs.

In Food for the Winter,Geraldine Connolly recovers the lost world of childhood in the years ofsmall-town America following World War II. The prevailing imagery is that offire, the fire of bombing recollected, the fire of Roman Catholicism, of riflesand steel mills, candles and cigarettes, fires both intellectual and physical,fires of emotion and spirit. Connolly's collection fixes the past and itslosses in place then moves from girlhood themes into the emergence of womanhoodand its passions. The book's real subject is love and the rich and variedpossibilities of human relationships. The rites of passages become more thanthose of an individual life, achieving an identity that both records aparticular moment in time yet transcends a particular human body and names usall as suffers of experience and enjoyers of perceptions.

The fruit of the author's many courses on Emmanuel Levinas in Europe and the United States, this study is a clear introduction for graduate students and scholars who are not yet familiar with Levinas's difficult but exceptionally important oeuvre. After a first chapter on the existential background and the key issues of his thought, chapters 2, 3, and 4 concentrate on and include a short text, "Philosophy and the idea of the Infinite," which contains the program of Levinas's entire oeuvre. Chapter 5 is a companion to the reading of Levinas's first opus magnum, Totality and the Infinite. It analyzes the structure of this book and shows how its questions and answers adhere together. "Through phenomenology toward a saying beyond phenomena and essence" could be the summary of Levinas's attempt to think, with and against Martin Heidegger, the otherness of the Other. This is brought out even more clearly in his second opus magnum, Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, whose significance is shown in chapter 6. A bibliography is added to facilitate further study.

This study of the social content of the only surviving Spanish epic provides a means of assessing the motives and intentions of the protagonist and of other characters. Chapters are devoted to such themes as the multifarious significance of kinship and lineage, with special attention to the role of fathers, uncles, and cousins in the world of clan loyalties; amity as a system of fictive kinship, personal honor, and public organization; the importance of women, and the meaning and function of marriage, dowry, and related practices; the emergence of the polity as a rivalry of social, legal, and economic systems; and the implications, within an essentially kin-ordered world, of the poem's notions of shame, honor, status, and social inequality.

Between 1585 and 1631, the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega wrote more than forty-five plays dealing with the theme of conjugal honor. Drawing on recent feminist theories and touching on literary, social, and anthropological aspects, Professor Yarbro-Rejarano demonstrates that hierarchical relations of gender, race, and social status mutually inform one another as structuring principles of these plays. She takes into account plays that reveal their conventional, formulaic views of the Christian feminine ideal as well as those whose variety and flexibility present women subverting their expected roles. By identifying moments of resistance and subversion in the texts, the author argues against excessively monolithic interpretations of such discourses of containment.

The Ku Klux Klan reached its height in the 1920s, and nowhere was it as large and politically powerful as in Indiana, where about 30 percent of the native-born white male population were Klansmen. This book explores the career of D. C. Stephenson, grand dragon of the Indiana Klan, his rise to power, and his eventual conviction for second-degree murder in 1925. Grand Dragon traces Stephenson's background, still shrouded in mystery due to Stephenson's own colorful but imaginary accounts of his early years. A political opportunist, Stephenson's rise to power in the Klan was startlingly swift, but so was his fall from grace. Tried in Klan country for the rape and murder of a young government worker, Stephenson was convicted and imprisoned for a crime of which some still consider him innocent. Who was the man who could proclaim with arrogant self-confidence, "I am the law in Indiana," and how did he and the Ku Klux Klan rise to a position of power unparalleled in other states? Lutholtz gives a valuable history of the Ku Klux Klan and dispels many misconceptions about the Klan, including the notion that it was only a southern organization targeted solely against black Americans. In the 1920's, Lutholtz argues, the Klan in Indiana was not "scented with magnolia blossoms and blood"; rather, its hatred was directed toward Catholics, Jews, and non-native Americans. The compelling force in Stephenson's career was money and political power, not ideology. Thecornerstone of Lutholtz's narration is his account of Stephenson's trial, forwhich the 2,347-page court transcript had been missing for thirty years. A model of investigative reporting, Grand Dragon captures the reader with its skillful narration and compelling story. It also raises troubling issues for the modern reader: Was Stephenson guilty of the crime for which he was imprisoned? Why was membership in the Klan so widespread in the 1920s? What are the dangers of charismatic leadership? And why is this disturbing chapter in Indiana history not better known?

Michel Tournier, member of the Acadimie Goncourt and one of the most influential French writers of the post-Nouveau roman period, stresses the crucial interrelationship that exists between myth and literature. It is the writer's duty, he states, to keep myths alive by continually renewing and transforming them, re-releasing them in an ever changing social context. Written in French, this study considers the Tournier novel as the story of a voyage in a literal and figurative sense. Jonathan Krell uses the term "elementary" to characterize this voyage through the universe of Tournier's imagination, which is dominated by the four primordial element&--earth, water, air, and fire. Building on a foundation of Western culture's rudimentary myths, such as the ogre, twinship, and the Biblical stories of creation and the magi, Tournier performs a radical and disturbing transformation. Professor Krell shows how the transformation is made.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, which journalist LuciusBeebe once called the "Mother of Railroads," was the brainchild of Baltimorecity planners who hoped to outstrip New York in the race for western trade,wealth, and populace. Although Baltimore lost the race, it gave New York a runfor its money early in the 19th century and certainly achieved manyfirsts: the first timetable in 1830, the first eight-wheel passenger coach in1831, and right-of-way for the first telegraph in 1844. In later decades, itwould be a pioneer in the introduction of electric locomotives, diesels, andair conditioning. Author of six earlier books about United States railroads,John F. Stover packs this narrative history with careful scholarship andcolorful description which will appeal to the railroad buff and theprofessional historian, as well as to any reader who wishes to travel with the "Motherof Railroads" through an exciting period in United States history.

Long recognized as one of the greatest medieval philosophical theologians, John Duns Scotus made his most innovative theoretical contributions in the area of metaphysics. A careful and detailed study of his argument for the existence of God and the theory of knowledge that makes this possible provides the most direct access to his basic ideas. Unlike the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas or Anselm's famous Proslogion argument, Scotus's proof is of another order of complexity and amounts to a little summa of his metaphysics. Among those theologians to accept Aristotle's scientific theory, Scotus is perhaps the first to realize fully its negative consequences if the philosophical doctrines of divine illumination and the analogical concept of being interact. His treatment of the God-question is distinguished for its deliberatively holistic approach to what was conventionally a series of unrelated topics.

By analyzing a varied body of writing- hagiographies, histories, treatises, and correspondence- in the context of religious colonial culture and European mercantilism, Mario Cesareo shows how Portuguese and Spanish missionaries created a Christian understanding of the colonial process. The material excess of the colonial world, experienced as a capricious parade of signs, masks, objects, races, languages, and bodies subjected to European exploitation, presented a problem of the first magnitude for Christian missionaries. In order to render intelligible the incongruities of the colonial experience, the missionary turned the materiality of the Indian and the black body of the slave into God's privileged instruments for revelation. Materiality, in its remotest minutiae, became understood as an enigmatic system of signs, as a divine riddle to be discerned. The attempts to recognize, elaborate, and synthesize this new experience constitute the Christian herme-neutics that is the focus of the study. The book posits the existence of a repertoire of stances through which the missionary was able to represent, perform, and theorize the colonial experience. In this social sensibility, the body emerges as a privileged locus for the aesthetic, theoretic, and practical experimentation that allowed the missionary to carry on his utopian ideals within the imperialist workings of European mercantilism.

Pets play a greater role in our emotional and physical health than ever before, says the Purdue University professor who is co-author of his revised edition of Between Pets and People: The Importance of Animal Companionship. The book by Alan M. Beck of Purdue's School of Veterinary Medicine and Aaron H. Katcher, psychiatrist and professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, explores the emotional and physical benefits of owning a pet and analyzes the complex relationship between people and pets. "The study of the importance of the relationship between people and animals is a growing field and has the potential to be part of the whole human-health field," says Beck, director of Purdue's Center for Applied Ethology and Human-Animal Interaction. "The social milieu on where animals fit into society has really changed in the last 13 years. We've gone from recognizing the potential of animals being a significant positive contribution to certain populations, such as the elderly, to actual documentation." Beck and Katcher note a 1992 study by an Australian cardiologist of 5,000 people who visited a clinic to find ways to reduce heart disease. The study found that people with pets had lower blood pressure and lower blood fat levels than those without pets, even though the two groups were alike in diet and exercise. The authors also point to the trend by nursing homes to incorporate animals into the routine and environment for patients. For example, in the early 1980s nursing homes typically did not allow pets to visit patients, while today nearly half of the homes have an organized program for animal therapy, Beck says. In addition to exploring physical benefits, the book covers such topics as pets as family members, pets as therapists, talking to pets, and how pets can teach us to become better companions to friends and family. The book also has a list of Web sites by such organizations as Canine Companions for Independence and the American Kennel Club. While pets provide health benefits, they can create problems, Beck and Katcher say. "There is no medicine that doesn't have some side effects," Beck says. For example, more pet ownership has public-health implications such as more dog bites, he notes. And some people whose pets die grieve to the point of illness, he says. But grief over the loss of an animal is not new, Beck says. Ancient Egyptians shaved their eyebrows after their cats died, and the Roman emperor Caligula had his horse entombed.