Dan Stone

"The Holocaust is much discussed, much memorialized, and much portrayed. But there are major aspects of its history that have been overlooked. Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust, this sweeping history deepens our understanding. Dan Stone-Director of the Holocaust Research Institute at Royal Holloway, University of London-reveals how the idea of "industrial murder" is incomplete: many were killed where they lived in the most brutal of ways. He...

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, a novel about a future American society that embraces hedonism and bans critical thought through reading.

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Wharton's The age of innocence, a novel about the upper classes of New York and the story of Newland Archer's love for Countess Olenska.

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Jack London's tale of an unusual dog--part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd--that is forcibly taken to the Klondike gold fields where he eventually becomes the leader of a wolf pack.

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Zora Neale Hurston's Their eyes were watching God, a novel about an independent and articulate black woman named Janie Crawford who sets out to be her own person in the 1930s.

Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) is arguably the most widely admired American fantasy novel of the past fifty years. The book's elegant diction, geographical sweep, and mounting suspense are quite irresistible. Earthsea, composed of an archipelago of many islands, is a land of the imagination, like Oz, Faerie, or the dream-like realm of our unconscious. Earthsea may not be a "real" world but it is one that our souls recognize as meaningful...

Concentration camps are a relatively new invention, a recurring feature of twentieth century warfare, and one that is important to the modern global consciousness and identity. Although the most famous concentration camps are those under the Nazis, the use of concentration camps originated several decades before the Third Reich, in the Philippines and in the Boer War, and they have been used again in numerous locations, not least during the genocides...

Readings of excerpts from and critical analysis of Rudolfo Anaya's novel about a young boy in New Mexico in the 1940s who must reconcile the many conflicting influences of his family, religion, and community.