Ocean State Libraries

Abandoning his wife and children, Aaron Sisson leaves the mining community in pursuit of the 'life single': individual freedom, personal friendship, the 'male power' of passion and art. Playing the flute to pay his way he travels to post-war London, where he mixes with the modern Bohemian set and finds male friendship in Rawdon Lilly. Further travels take him to Milan and Florence ('a town of men') preoccupied with thoughts on the decline of humanity...

In this scathing book, the author produced a landmark study of affluent American society that exposes, with brilliant ruthlessness, the habits of production and waste that link invidious business tactics and barbaric social behavior. Veblen's analysis of the evolutionary process sees greed as the overriding motive in the modern economy, and with an impartial gaze he examines the human cost paid when social institutions exploit the consumption of unessential...

The first two plays in author David Rabe's Vietnam Trilogy. In the "Basic Training of Pavolo Hummel," the title character is drafted and immediately has conflicts with both his sergeants and his fellow recruits. Hummel's determination to be a soldier, and help from a mysterious guide called Ardell, help him complete his training. But as flash-forward scenes indicate, Hummel's decision to go to war is a fatal one.