University of California Press Public Only Subject List

April 3, 2003 6:47 PM

Religion in Hellenistic Athens, A Medieval Mirror, Losing Face: Status Politics in Japan, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 , Refried Elvis: The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture , Freud and His Critics and Memory for Forgetfulness: August, Beirut, 1982 --all are entire online books from the public section of the University of California Press.

I am, like, going so nutso--Jackpot!
posted by y2karl (25 comments total)

WOW!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:57 PM on April 3, 2003

for once, y2karl, you justify your existence. kudos.

here's the index page.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 7:12 PM on April 3, 2003 [1 favorite]

Almost 400 free books! SCORE!!
posted by roboto at 7:15 PM on April 3, 2003

Wowie - there is something here for everyone - a real goldmine, nice find y2karl!
posted by madamjujujive at 7:33 PM on April 3, 2003

From Cosma Shalizi's review of The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979--1982:

For the beginning of the Afghan war, there is no source of comparable scope, insight and accuracy. Kakar's political sympathies are quite clear --- he is a modernizing, Muslim, democratic nationalist --- but I can find no point at which they have distorted his narrative or conclusions (and I am a cosmopolite atheist, and looked). His writing --- in perfectly grammatical if unpolished English --- is almost always level and simply descriptive; those who want impassioned rhetoric will have to look elsewhere. Yet the words Tacitus sets at the beginning of his Histories ---

I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters, frightful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of horrors

--- might serve as Kakar's epigraph. Tyranny; invasion; rebellion; cruelty; slaughter; the exodus of a people; the destruction of a country by those who professed to be its saviors (``they make a desert and call it peace''): all this recounted in a level academic voice produces an effect of quiet, mounting horror. The horror has not ended yet; and I fear it will not end for a long time to come.

Cosma turns out to be a child of the Afghan diaspora. languagehat and Zurishaddai may have picked up on that but I sure had no clue...

But then I didn't know Zurishaddai means My Rock Is Almighty--I'm thinking it's a subtle Freddie Mercury reference, myself--or that the first Zurishaddai was father of Shelumiel, the chief of the Simeonites at the time of the exodus until I just now Googled his name to make sure I spelled it right. The things you find out by going sideways--first azazello and now Zurishaddai. It's pronounced Tsuwriyshadday {tsoo-ree-shad-dah'-ee}, by the way...

Upon review: not 400, roboto, unless you know how to hack into the Student and Faculty only section, I'm thinking--I gave all I can get into--but if you do know, let us know!

for once, y2karl, you justify your existence. kudos. For once?
posted by y2karl at 7:34 PM on April 3, 2003

Nice! Not much of relevance in my field (don't know how those books even made it into the category) but it certainly provides an opportunity to read some books I wouldn't ordinarily come across!
posted by Jimbob at 7:34 PM on April 3, 2003

badass, man. badass.
posted by sklero at 7:35 PM on April 3, 2003

This is great, y2karl, thanks! I'm overwhelmed, where to begin? Perhaps some Senecan Drama.

Odd, the only book under Buddhism is actually about Jainism.
posted by homunculus at 8:02 PM on April 3, 2003

Jewish Memories and The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama and Owen Lattimore and the "Loss" of China are new must reads for me. You know, I just stumbled across all this about ten minutes before I posted it, by the way. Serendipity, baby!
posted by y2karl at 8:25 PM on April 3, 2003

[sob] Priceless.

Takes me back to the first several years of the last decade of the 20th century. [cue stagecoach sound efx]

After much finagling, sometime in 1992, I had finally gotten my hands on a 300 baud modem all of my own. And finally, after much hawing, sweating and striving, I got the thing to communicate with something other than "null." I was a very proud geekess geekling to say the least. But there was more than technical prowess driving the lust of my machinations. Contorting and configuring the client software, I had finally incanted the correct hex to "gopher" to a storied site I'd heard of once in a dream (or on Usenet.)

Perched on the edge of my chair in front of a tiny monitor I suddenly found my self on the edge of a huge and entirely new world...the ASCII screen sloooooly scrolled its ephemeral epiphanial announcement:

WELCOME to The University of Nebraska Libraries

My heart and head both cried "Eureka!" at the same moment.

I sat there transfixed and awed that I could reach out and touch books that were over a thousand miles away.

That's the exact moment when I thought this "Internet" thing just might catch on. As a matter of fact, I was quite belligerent that it damn well better catch on. Since then I've taken almost daily heart in Internet communication projects as diverse as the Gutenberg Project and Where's Raed? But nothing compares to that "first time."

Thanks, y2karl for giving be back that Eureka moment. [sob] Cheers! [/ancient geek mutterings]
posted by Dunvegan at 8:27 PM on April 3, 2003

Dunvegan, you made me go looking--there's no way into the University of Nebraska Library but the University of Nebraska Press has four online editions, including The Gallery of the Open Frontier . De Proverbio from The University of Tasmania--Hi Tarrama!--has Dictionary of Proverbs in American Country Music Hits (1986-1996) and nine issues of their e-zine De Proverbio. I'm open to any more sources, folks. Let's make this a bookmark resource.
posted by y2karl at 9:17 PM on April 3, 2003

Here's a small contribution: online books from Johns Hopkins UP. (This will primarily interest enthusiasts of Greek literature, since two excellent books by Gregory Nagy are available.)
posted by Zurishaddai at 9:55 PM on April 3, 2003

[this is very very good]
posted by plep at 10:05 PM on April 3, 2003

I wish there were a way to download and read these offline. Almost enough to make me beg the wife (again) for that wifi setup, so I can lay in bed with the laptop and read these....
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:05 PM on April 3, 2003

And you made me go look at sources again, too, y2karl.

Well, all we'd have to configure to travel to that vaunted online library access of yore is to put one of the old host back online (either 129.93.16.1 or odin.unomaha.edu) turn back the hands of time via our way-back machine and gopher what we know.

What my luminous (but foggy) memories whisper to me is that the entire University of Nebraska card catalogue was available, along with a few scholarly volumes and some of those newfangled e-texts. It wasn't the entire library by any description...but it gave me the most tantalizing taste of what-could-be.

As far as finding and putting the old U of N hosts back online...methinks configuring the 300 baud modem was a comparative walk in the park.
posted by Dunvegan at 11:32 PM on April 3, 2003

*hyperventilates*

Even though I have constant access to a fine University Library, this still makes me swoon--I'm thinking of course of all those who don't live near a good library, but who may have computers and internet connections...

Between this and the Old Bailey link earlier, it's been quite the day on Mefi. y2karl, I have reviewed your lists of posts *cough*marryme*cough*

Okay, kidding. Thanks muchly for the link; it also makes me feel like it's 1992 all over again.
posted by jokeefe at 12:10 AM on April 4, 2003

Jackpot indeed. Incredible. The first thing I happened on was The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform: Jadidism in Central Asia, and that will probably occupy me all weekend. The rest will probably occupy me for years. For free, and without further overloading my bookshelves. Bless you, y2karl.
posted by languagehat at 7:56 AM on April 4, 2003

I'm open to any more sources, folks. Let's make this a bookmark resource.

i have always considered this place to be a goldmine.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 9:50 PM on April 4, 2003

Oh, and re my name, to be more specific, "(the) Almighty" is only a conventional translation of the divine name "El Shaddai." Zurishaddai means, "My rock is (El) Shaddai." No one knows for sure what Shaddai means, but this divine name has strong associations with the religion of Abraham and the other patriarchs, as it's in their story that you find it most often. One of the stranger places I recently noticed "El Shaddai" is on the Dartmouth seal.

P.S. I must be dense, but I can't figure out how the topic of the name came up here, y2karl. (Starting to worry I'm going to be the subject of one of those exhaustive MeTa biographies...)
posted by Zurishaddai at 10:08 PM on April 4, 2003

I Googled to make sure I was spelling it right. There was your user page and next to it a page about proper names in the Old Testament, with an entry for your moniker, which I cut and pasted to here. As for azazello, when I did my scapegoat thread, I found that the passages in Leviticus mentioning the scapegoat were associated with a demon, a fallen angel, named Azazel. I Googled azazello out of curiosity and found that was the name of the black cat in The Master And Margarita, which I read about thirty years ago, enjoyed a great deal and remember none of now. So I know the derivations of two of the more arcane names here, a fact for which I feel inordinately pleased.

i have always considered this place to be a goldmine.

feh. Too obvious and all public domain, as in old. New books, please. You have not justified your existence with that.
posted by y2karl at 10:48 PM on April 4, 2003

feh. Too obvious and all public domain, as in old. New books, please. You have not justified your existence with that.

to further aggravate you and delight the masses: project gutenberg.

to delight you personally (maybe): The Manuscript Department of the University Library, Lund, in collaboration with NetLab of Lund University Libraries, is digitizing and making accessible on line its collection of Medieval manuscripts.

or dang, that's OLD schtuff. alright, how about this?

boy, that internet-thingy is big!

damn hippies.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 3:28 PM on April 5, 2003

And have you perhaps heard of this place called Yahoo!

I would assume Project Gutenberg is as well known...

However, you get passing grades for the rest--thanks.
posted by y2karl at 3:53 PM on April 5, 2003

You see, one thing about the UC Press books is they are not in .txt format, nor in as irritating a format as Bartleby's.
To be honest, though, both have great stuff. For instance,
The New Poetry: An Anthology ... But those ads, ow, my eyes...
posted by y2karl at 4:02 PM on April 5, 2003

or dang, that's OLD schtuff. alright, how about this?

On second thought, I must point out that, while The Online Book Source is a great source, it's New Listings are nearly useless.
posted by y2karl at 4:28 PM on April 5, 2003

man, throw a dog a bone. i was assuming that there might be some people who might be reading this who might not know about bartleby and project gutenberg. they really are great resources. as for my linking to the "new" listings page . . . humor. i'll concede it was lame humor. but that is all i shall concede, dude.

if you want to find a good reference page, skip yahoo and go to the source: open directory project. (the open directory database is used by both yahoo and google.)

btw, i still thank you for finding the original uc link. i've been surreptitiously enjoying "freud and his critics" at work.
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 5:01 PM on April 5, 2003