Showing results by narrator "Barry Abrams" in All Categories

Zionism: An Emotional State expertly demonstrates how the energy propelling the Zionist project originates from bundles of feeling whose elements have varied in volume, intensity, and durability across space and time.

From prosecuting murderers in Chicago, to arguing before the Supreme Court, to authoring more than a dozen books, Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett has played an integral role in the rise of originalism—the movement to identify, restore, and defend the original meaning of the Constitution. Thanks in part to his efforts, by 2018 a majority of sitting Supreme Court justices self-identified as "originalists."

As abundant and layered as the National Pastime itself, The Big Book of Baseball Stories takes the listener on a rich journey that circles the bases of the game's history and literature—its Giants, its dramas, its tragedies, and its laughs—as it rolls through the typewriters of some of the game's mightiest scribes, from Walt Whitman and Mark Twain to Grantland Rice and Ring Lardner, even Abbott and Costello.

Collectively, Rick Pitino, Jim Calhoun, and Gary Williams have won more than 2,300 games and six national championships and reached thirteen Final Fours. Before Pitino became the face of the Providence, Kentucky, and Louisville programs, before Calhoun turned UConn into a national power, and before Williams brought Maryland to its first national championship, these coaches cut their teeth in front of modest-sized crowds in college gymnasiums of Boston during the '70s and '80s. Boston Ball charts how this trio of coaches, seemingly out of nowhere, started a basketball revolution

Humor or horror? You decide, as sports atheist Walter Witty renders a play-by-play account of America's own most radical of religions: sports obsessions. From the hundred million plus salaries of sports gods to the games played by politicians and televangelists, witty whistles and points at both icons and emperors prancing in their skivvies.

By now, football's concussion crisis is well known: every year brings headlines of our Hall of Fame heroes behaving erratically and dying young. But did you know that several kid players across the continent drop dead every year before a single ball is snapped—just from extreme conditioning drills directed by all-powerful coaches? Without Helmets or Shoulder Pads takes the conversation about football and public health to a new level with investigations of the sport's underreported worst tragedies and their cover-ups, at major universities, obscure junior colleges, and high schools.

Western Christianity's long-standing support of Israel has, perhaps unintentionally, nurtured a prejudice against Arab people—the descendants of Abraham's first son, Ishmael. Author Tony Maalouf contends that this bias differs dramatically from the biblical portrayal of Ishmael and the nations that have sprung from him. With meticulous research and theological astuteness, Maalouf surfaces the positive portrayal of the Arab people in ancient and prophetic history, clearly showing that the Israeli-Arab conflict is a recent development in history.

No origin story of the New York Mets is complete without Ed Kranepool. The lefty first baseman known as "Steady Eddie" made his major-league debut at age seventeen during the team's inaugural season and would eventually depart, nearly two decades later, with his name written throughout the franchise's record books. In this definitive autobiography, Kranepool shares a remarkable life story.

Maverick Marketer is the story of National Sailing Hall of Fame marketing guru, Bob Johnstone, who built the leading performance brands of J/Boats in sailboats and MJM Yachts in powerboats.

The paradox of poverty amidst plenty has plagued the United States throughout the twenty-first century—why should the wealthiest country in the world also have the highest rates of poverty among the industrialized nations? Based on his decades-long research and scholarship, one of the nation's leading authorities provides the answer. In The Poverty Paradox, Mark Robert Rank develops his unique perspective for understanding this puzzle.

The Gas and Flame Men explores how these famous baseball men, along with an eclectic mix of polo players, collegiate baseball and football stars, professors, architects, and prominent social figures all came together in the Chemical Warfare Service. Jim Leeke examines their service and its long-term effects on their physical and mental health-and on Major League Baseball and the world of sports.

In Mallparks, Michael Friedman observes that just as cathedrals represented power relations in medieval towns, and skyscrapers epitomized those within industrial cities, sports stadiums exemplify urban America at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Chaim Gans's A Political Theory for the Jewish People examines the two dominant interpretations of Zionism, contrasts them with post-Zionist alternatives, and develops a third model.