Includes index.

Contents: Personal observation and narration: Facing social pressure -- Three diaries from states of siege -- Fathers -- From story to film: Paul's case -- To die by law -- Mothers -- Fact and fiction: Two accounts of one disaster -- An Ancient story told and retold -- Immigrants: Horror and hope -- Analysis and explanation: Twentieth-century homelessness -- Imagining the end of the world -- Thought for food -- Mickey mouse: An American myth -- Why is weight so weighty -- Meaning on the mall -- Reimagining a fairy tale -- Advocacy and argument: Language and manners -- The Power of naming -- Two visions of freedom -- Einstein's brain -- When the earth shook -- Regulating speech -- Language as power -- Mirror, mirror.