This book tells the inspiring story of Peter F. Vallone, the second most powerful political official in New York City after the mayor for 12 years – as Speaker of the City Council during the Koch, Dinkins, and Giuliani Administrations. In a personal, breezy style this political "page turner" tells the story of how Vallone rose from a Queens clubhouse to the seat of power in City Hall - and in the process overturned the structure of the city’s government. 
Although he has been a major figure in New York State - he was Democratic candidate for Governor in 1998 - and for a while even in national politics - Vallone never left his roots in a typical New York City neighborhood. Learning to Govern presents a view of a lifelong Democrat with strong spiritual values as well as a loving husband and friend who strives to always "do the right thing." 
- A unique portrait of the interaction between the City Council and Mayor's office in a large city. 
- A "fly on the wall" perspective of the inner workings of city government, and shows how conflicts are resolved and alliances fromed among contending parties. 
- A vivid chronicle of the political life of New York City for the past 30 years. 
"Peter Vallone served as Speaker of the City Council during part of my administration and during the administrations of David Dinkins and Rudy Giuliani. He has written a superb book. If you want to know how government functions and how the City Council and Mayor of New York City conduct the business of the people, this is the book to read. I know. I was there. Read Peter's book and become the fly on the wall." – Ed Koch, former Mayor of New York City "Peter Vallone was an invaluable partner during my years as mayor. In this book he provides a keen legislative view of the workings of city government that should be required reading for anyone who wants to know how New York began its rebirth in the early 1990s." —David Dinkins, former Mayor of New York City "This book displays the power of working together. Peter Vallone and I disagreed on many occasions about many things. But we shared a love of New York City and a belief in the power of cooperation. Because we were - and are - friends, we were able to accomplish things that benefited all New Yorkers. Drawing on his years of public service and his commitment to the highest level of integrity, Peter Vallone provides a memorable account of government that all who care about New York City and American government will appreciate." —Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City "Learning to Govern will teach you why one should run for public office and how to do it when you get there. No one has ever done it with more sincerity or integrity than Peter Vallone." —Mario Cuomo

Learning to Govern: My Life in New York Politics, From Hell Gate to City Hall

Biographies & Memoirs

Vallone, Peter F.

Leaders & Notable People

Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc.

The authors contend that delusion is a form of intelligence that erupts when the individual is overwhelmed by the uncertainties of life and cannot find an exact cause. While often harmless, it can lead to chaos, disorganization and conduct dangerous to self and/or others. The individual enters into a state called delusional disorder, the most common of which is the persecutory type, where he (or she) believes that he is being persecuted by others, and must take protective action. The situation is worsened when the individual discovers that no one confirms his belief. Delusional disorder now takes over with a vengeance. At this point the individual enters fully into a state of "negation," by which is meant that he transfers his torment to those he believes have been torturing him. The transfer seems to accomplish a miracle. Lo and behold: As if by magic the individual is freed from personal torment. Whereas before he hated himself and his tormenters, now he no longer accepts personal responsibility; only his tormentors are at fault. It is a marvelous accomplishment, this process, were it not for the fact that the result--at least from the point of view of an interested observer--is catastrophic, because the profound symptoms of delusional disorder appear as a means to reinforce unconsciousness. The authors attempt to make their case from several viewpoints, preponderantly using the clinical essay. The book should be of value to anyone interested in or associated with the fields of psychology or psychiatry.

The Psychology of Delusion

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Zuk, Gerald H

Zuk, Carmen V.

Psychology & Counseling

This groundbreaking book convincingly explains why a Learning Community Pedagogy (LCP) is a critical supplement to traditional teacher-student relationships. Based on a participatory democratic learning dynamic, LCP empowers both professor and student to discover themselves as present to one another, which generates freedom—an informing principle of the Learning Community. Through LCP, classroom participants are specifically liberated through dynamisms unleashed by the following four assumptions: (1) The world is in a state of profound crisis that requires critical thinking to inform decisions necessary for human survival in freedom and dignity; (2) Humans must place their primary faith in intellect as an evolutionary capacity that is potentially universal when liberated from the separate “pasts” of disparate groups; (3) Intellect is the primary path toward imagining and conceptualizing a future that all can see, collectively, as “Our Future”; (4) LCP focuses on empowering the young to describe their world to themselves and others, have faith in the intellectual possibilities of all humans, and reference their world to a sharable global future. A major thesis of the book, which is arranged in 32 concise “Meditations,” is that LCP fosters security and trust that both infuse student participation and professorial authority and enable “ego” to, paradoxically, be independent of and engaged with “issue” and others at the same time. Throughout his discussion, Dr. Weigert illustrates the many ways that LCP reverses standard practices and assumptions of traditional pedagogy, such as that “grades” are useful, that professors must be “expert” in some specialty, and that answers should be given to questions rather than that answers should invite questions, thus making contingent what was certain. These features make the LCP classroom experience an adventure, since no one—not even the professor— knows what will emerge or even “happen” in any given class! Andrew J. Weigert is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame.  He has a B.A. and Licentiate in Philosophy and an M.A. in Economics from St. Louis University, a B.Th. from Woodstock College, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota.  He joined the Faculty of the University of Notre Dame in 1968, and taught Sociology of Religion for one year at Yale Divinity School. He is author or co-author of over 80 articles and nine books in Sociology and Social Psychology, more recently concerned with identity and environment.  His teaching was recognized with a Sheedy Award from the College of Arts and Letters, 2002 (sole recipient), and Kaneb Awards for Undergraduate Teaching in 1999, 2002, and 2005 (multiple recipients). 

Pragmatic Meditations on Learning Community Pedagogy

Education & Teaching

Weigert, Andrew J.

Higher & Continuing Education

Studies In Structural Sociology

Politics & Social Sciences

Young, Frank W.

Social Sciences

The inspiring true story of a courageous Jewish family's escape from the Nazis and survival against all odds. In this action-packed memoir that reads like a novel, the author recounts the severe hardship that she, her sister, and parents, Markus and Rena Finder, endured as they escaped Krakow, Poland, in September 1939, just ahead of the advancing Nazi invaders. They survived imprisonment in a Siberian Gulag and near-death illness and starvation on their courageous and harrowing three-and-a-half-year odyssey through Russia, Uzbekistan, Iran, and the Nazi submarine-infested Indian Ocean, before finally securing freedom in Palestine in 1943. The author subsequently became an M.D. and practicing psychoanalyst in Los Angeles. When she returned to Poland in 2001 as a representative of the International Psychoanalytical Association to assist in the formation of a new psychoanalytic institute in Warsaw, she used the opportunity to explore the history of the Jewish community in Krakow, where her family had resided for hundreds of years. This visit compelled her to finally write down the details of her family's incredible survival story, as a tribute to her parents' tenacity, resourcefulness, and courage. Throughout this unique memoir she skillfully integrates how their escape was impacted by major events during the first three years of WWII with legendary, often recounted family stories about how they managed to endure against all odds. Where Are We Going? promises to be a page-turner for lovers of fact-based action/adventure, World War II, and Holocaust stories. "A trained psychoanalyst, Tasini does an admirable job of reconstructing the narrative of her own survival, along with that of her sister and parents, Markus and Rena; and her aunt, uncle and cousin, who shared this long struggle. She was but a young child, and her direct memories of the events she lived were few, but that did not hamper her as a writer and storyteller. She clearly had absorbed the stories of family lore. She had listened in detail to the family histories, and she knows how to write."-Jewish Journal of Los Angeles MIRIAM FINDER TASINI, MD, a practicing psychoanalyst, is a professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine and a training and supervising psychoanalyst at L.A.'s New Center for Psychoanalysis who is currently serving as President of the American College of Psychoanalysts.

Where Are We Going?

Tasini, Miriam Finder

Historical

The first book to present plays by Sweden's greatest living playwright in English Lars Norén, generally considered Sweden's greatest playwright since August Strindberg, had his first play produced in 1973 at the Royal Dramatic Theater in Stockholm, when he was about 30. His breakthrough came in 1982 with Night Is Mother to the Day. Norén has since written about 75 plays that combine humor with powerful emotional impact and feature his dynamic search for new forms of expression. His work has been translated into several languages and regularly performed in Nordic and European countries. Two Plays: And Give Us the Shadows and Autumn and Winter is the first book to present Norén's plays in English. And Give Us the Shadowsis a fictional work based on Eugene O'Neill's life, set in Marblehead, MA, on O'Neill's 61st birthday, when he and his wife, Carlotta, are expecting a visit from his two sons. Autumn and Winter centers on parents and their two grownup daughters who reveal family secrets during one of their regular monthly dinners. . Endorsements: "Lars Norén, regarded by many as the greatest Swedish playwright since Strindberg, has dealt with the love-hate relationships of modern dysfunctional families in emotionally powerful and sombre plays spiced with absurd humour."-Encyclopedia Britannica Online "He has made the present time our home and exposed the anxiety beneath the surface of the welfare state."-Per Wastberg, former chairman of International PEN and editor-in- chief of Sweden's largest daily newspaper. BIOGRAPHIES Lars Norén is a Swedish playwright, novelist and poet. He is considered Sweden's most prominent contemporary playwright. Translator Marita Lindholm Gochman was born in Sweden and came to America in 1964, where she has had a rich theatrical career. In 1985, she translated her first Norén play into English, The Last Supper, and since then has worked with him on 25 of his plays-making her Norén's foremost English language translator. Since 1987 Ms. Gochman has served as a board member of Circle in the Square, The International Theatre Institute, and The Signature Theatre.

Two Plays: And Give Us the Shadows and Autumn and Winter

Literature & Fiction

Norén, Lars

Contemporary

Informed by the author's more than 40 years of experience as a leading executive in the lodging industry, Do Not Disturb is the gripping story of the dashing, global hotelier Rolfe Ritter. He appears to have it all--surrounded by beautiful, accomplished women and living in luxurious settings--but is haunted by the childhood memory of witnessing his father's murder amid post-World War II espionage and intrigue. This one defining moment robbed him of his innocence and unleashed a chain of events that forever affected his career and personal relationships. Rolfe's insatiable need for dominance in the world of luxury hotels compels him to compromise his beliefs, sacrifice love, make dangerous deals, and breed powerful enemies. When he stands to lose everything and the lives of those he holds dear are at risk, will his death prove to be the only way out? Set amid modern-day greed, corruption, and betrayal, Do Not Disturb reveals the inner workings of the hotel industry as it skillfully weaves a tale of suspense, passion, and the burning need to uncover the truth that will appeal to devotees of action-adventure novels.

Do Not Disturb

Geller, Laurence

United States

This is the second volume in a series that presents plays by Sweden's greatest living playwright in English. Lars Norén is generally considered Sweden's greatest playwright since August Strindberg. He has written about 75 plays that combine humor, a powerful emotional impact and the search for new forms of expression, which are regularly performed throughout the Nordic and European countries. Although his work has been translated into various languages for the stage, we are exclusively publishing Norén's plays in book format in English-a project started in spring 2013 with Two Plays: And Give Us the Shadows and Autumn and Winter. This volume includes: • Demons (1982), a very dark comedy that is an expressionist take on Albee's A Delicate Balance and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, set in a Stockholm apartment on the eve of a funeral; • Act (2000), about a power struggle between a female terrorist on a hunger strike and the doctor who tries to make her eat again, set in a German prison; and • Terminal 3 (2006), a beautiful, sparse play set in a hospital waiting room where a young couple is there to welcome the birth of their first baby and a middle-age couple is there to identify their dead son. Translator Marita Lindholm Gochman was born in Sweden and came to America in 1964, where she has had a rich theatrical career. In 1985, she translated her first Norén play into English, The Last Supper, and since then has worked with him on 25 of his plays-making her Norén's foremost English language translator. Since 1987 Ms. Gochman has served as a board member of Circle in the Square, The International Theatre Institute, and The Signature Theatre. "Lars Norén, regarded by many as the greatest Swedish playwright since Strindberg, has dealt with the love-hate relationships of modern dysfunctional families in emotionally powerful and sombre plays spiced with absurd humour." -Encyclopedia Britannica Online "He has made the present time our home and exposed the anxiety beneath the surface of the welfare state." -Per Wastberg, former chairman of International PEN and editor-in-chief of Sweden's largest daily newspaper

Three Plays by Lars Norén: Demons, Act, Terminal 3

Dramas & Plays

Lars Norén, generally considered Sweden's greatest playwright since August Strindberg, has written about 75 plays. While they are regularly performed in Nordic and European countries and have been translated into several languages, English-language readers were deprived of his major works until 2013, when Chaucer Press Books published Two Plays: And Give Us the Shadows and Autumn and Winter, followed by Three Plays: Demons, Act, and Terminal 3 (2014). This volume presents two more of Norén's major plays in English, including: • Blood (1994), about a wife and husband tormented over their missing son and the husband's male lover, who are eventually brought together in a heartrending denouement as the unbearable truth of their lives is revealed; and • War (2005), a raw depiction of a family reduced to mere survival, set in an unnamed war-torn country. Their world explodes when the mother and her daughters must confront the unexpected return of her husband-who was presumed to be killed in action-and is now blind and virtually devoid of any humanity. TRANSLATOR: Translator Marita Lindholm Gochman was born in Sweden and came to America in 1964, where she has had a rich theatrical career. In 1985, she translated her first Norén play into English, The Last Supper, and since then has worked with him on 25 of his plays-making her Norén's foremost English language translator. Since 1987 Ms. Gochman has served as a board member of Circle in the Square, The International Theatre Institute, and The Signature Theatre. ENDORSEMENTS: "Lars Norén, regarded by many as the greatest Swedish playwright since Strindberg, has dealt with the love-hate relationships of modern dysfunctional families in emotionally powerful and sombre plays spiced with absurd humour."-Encyclopedia Britannica Online "He has made the present time our home and exposed the anxiety beneath the surface of the welfare state."-Per Wastberg, former chairman of International PEN and editor-in- chief of Sweden's largest daily newspaper.

Plays by Lars Noren: Blood -- War

This unique anthology has one primary goal: to inspire or motivate students to want to learn and use statistics. Through carefully selected readings by the founders of statistics and probability, contemporary statisticians, and well-known individuals in the arts, politics, and science, Dancing on the Tails of the Bell Curve provides readers with role models who have experienced joy from their use of statistics and concrete examples of how statistics shape almost every decision in society that affect our medications, food supply, educational programs, sporting events, mass media, and entitlement programs, to name only a few. Designed to supplement the technical materials professors assign in their classrooms, this book is both an invaluable resource for students and professors as well as for professionals in fields such as marketing, advertising, demographics, politics, polling, and healthcare who want to gain motivation to learn and use statistics. Richard Altschuler, Ph.D., has been a statistician and research consultant for over forty years. He is the founder and president of Expert Research Studies, a company specializing in statistical analysis, research consulting, and tutoring, and taught statistics at Temple University and New York University. A sociologist by academic training, he has written, edited and published over thirty books on topics in sociology, psychology, healthcare and politics.

Dancing on the Tails of the Bell Curve: Readings on the Joy and Power of Statistics

Science & Math

Mathematics

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc. publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Richard Altschuler & Associates, Inc.