D.G.Wills Books

The story of Negro League baseball is the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is a perfect mirror for the social and political history of black America in the first half of the twentieth century. But most of all, the story of the Negro Leagues is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation, hatred, terrible conditions, and low pay to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.

Using an "Everyman" player as his narrator, Kadir Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947. The voice is so authentic, you will feel as if you are sitting on dusty bleachers listening intently to the memories of a man who has known the great ballplayers of that time and shared their experiences. But what makes this book so outstanding are the dozens of full-page and double-page oil paintings, breathtaking in their perspectives, rich in emotion, and created with understanding and affection for these lost heroes of our national game.

Kadir Nelson’s commissions from publishers and production studios include Dreamworks, where he served as the lead conceptual artist for Steven Spielberg’s Amistad and Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Sports Illustrated, Coca-Cola, The United States Postal Service and Major League Baseball, among others. In 1999, Nelson began to collaborate with several notable authors on a series of picture books. Presently, almost twenty illustrated books are in print, including Debbie Allen's Dancing in the Wings, Ntozake Shange’s Coretta Scott King Award-winning book, Ellington Was Not a Street, Deloris and Roslyn Jordan's best-seller Salt in his Shoes: Michael Jordan in Pursuit of a Dream, Spike and Tonya Lee’s Please, Baby, Please, and Carol Boston Weatherford’s Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom, for which Nelson won a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, a Caldecott Honor and an NAACP Image Award.

Drawing on a passion for music, a remarkably diverse interdisciplinary toolbox, and a gift for accessible language that speaks equally to scholars and the general public, Jann Pasler invites us to read as she writes "through" music, unveiling the forces that affect our sonic encounters. In an extraordinary collection of historical and critical essays, some appearing for the first time in English, Pasler deconstructs the social, moral, and political preoccupations lurking behind aesthetic taste. Arguing that learning from musical experience is vital to our understanding of past, present, and future, Pasler's work trenchantly reasserts the role of music as a crucial contributor to important public debates about who we can be as individuals, communities, and nations. The author's wide-ranging and perceptive approaches to musical biography and history challenge us to rethink our assumptions about important cultural and philosophical issues including national identity and postmodern musical hybridity, material culture, the economics of power, and the relationship between classical and popular music. Her work uncovers the self-fashioning of modernists such as Vincent d'Indy, Augusta Holmes, Jean Cocteau, and John Cage, and addresses categories such as race, gender, and class in the early 20th century in ways that resonate with experiences today. She also explores how music uses time and constructs narrative. Pasler's innovative and influential methodological approaches, such as her notion of "question-spaces," open up the complex cultural and political networks in which music participates. This provides us with the reasons and tools to engage with music in fresh and exciting ways.

Sixty years have passed since the Nuremberg trials of the major Nazi war criminals, but that event still stands as the foundation of international justice. Nuremberg not only ignited a revolution in international law but affected domestic law as well with its simple but profound principle that every individual accused of crime is entitled to a full and fair hearing. This book reveals how the precedents set at Nuremberg have affected human rights, race relations, medical practice, big business and even Germany's post-war development. It also examines the Nuremberg trials' influence on the modern war crimes trials of tyrants like Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein.

Norbert Ehrenfreund has served as a judge for thirty years in the Superior Court of California. He served as a correspondent for The Stars and Stripes during the Nuremberg trials.

"The Nuremberg trials hold many lessons in justice and human rights that resonate today. From his unique vantage point as an eyewitness to the trials and as a judge, Norbert Ehrenfreund sets out a clear warning about the direction our nation is taking but gives us hope with this refreshing new take on the founding principles of justice as we know it."

--Senator Christopher J. Dodd

"Most Americans today don’t even know the difference between the Nuremberg laws (Nazi racist legislation enacted before WWII) and the Nuremberg principles (the rules that emerged from the trials of Nazi war criminals after WWII). This readable eyewitness account – combining fascinating anecdotes with brilliant insights – will educate and inspire. It is as relevant today, as we confront a new form of totalitarian terrorism and can only hope that we are able to bring its perpetrators to justice under the Nuremberg principle." --Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

We all sail across the wine-dark sea, and Sailing Home gives humane, wise instruction for our voyage. In these pages, Zen master and poet Norman Fischer, beloved for his forthright honesty and kind heart, guides us to understand our own odyssey, our own hard-earned, vulnerable, mysterious life journey, with genuine compassion and newfound understanding. -- Jack Kornfield, author of The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology and A Path with Heart

This book reminds us that the great literature of the world and the great religions of the world share something in common. They each reveal us to ourselves. Fischer focuses on the actual experience of our life as an odyssey -- a journey toward our unknown fulfillment, which is welling up in the ground beneath our feet. -- James Finley, author of Merton's Palace of Nowhere and The Contemplative Heart

Homer's Odyssey has a timeless allure. It is an ancient story that is significant for every generation: the struggle of a homesick, battle-weary man longing to return to love and family. Odysseus's strivings to overcome divine and earthly obstacles and to control his own impulsive nature hold valuable lessons for people facing their own metaphorical battles and everyday conflicts -- people who are, like Odysseus, "heartsick on the open sea," whether from dealing with daily skirmishes at the office or from fighting in an international war. Sailing Home breathes fresh air into a classic we thought we knew, revealing its profound guidance for navigating life's pitfalls, perils, and spiritual challenges. Norman Fischer deftly incorporates Buddhist, Judaic, Christian, and popular thought, as well as his own unique and sympathetic understanding of life, in his reinterpretation of Odysseus's familiar wanderings as lessons that everyone can use.

Zoketsu Norman Fischer is a poet and Zen Buddhist priest. For many years he has taught at the San Francisco Zen Center, the oldest and largest of the new Buddhist organizations in the West, where he served as Co-abbot from 1995-2000. He is presently a Senior Dharma Teacher there as well as the founder and spiritual director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, an organization dedicated to adapting Zen Buddhist teachings to Western culture. He has taught extensively with his old friend Rabbi Alan Lew on the relationship between Buddhist and Jewish practice; has taught Buddhist principles to business people, Buddhist compassion-in-action to lawyers and conflict resolvers; led workshops at Esalen Institute in California, the Open Center in New York City, and Hollyhock Farm in British Columbia; teaches Zen regularly at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California, as well as in Canada, Mexico, and Europe; and has participated with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in conferences on Buddhist Christian dialogue and non-violence. His many books include I Was Blown Back, Slowly But Dearly, Like a Walk Through a Park, On Whether or Not To Believe in Your Mind, The Devices, Turn Left in Order to Go Right, The Narrow Roads of Japan and Success.

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