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Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic
by Charles N. EdelAmerica’s rise from revolutionary colonies to a world power is often treated as inevitable. But Charles N. Edel’s provocative biography of John Q. Adams argues that he served as the central architect of a grand strategy whose ideas and policies made him a critical link between the founding generation and the Civil War–era nation of Lincoln.
Bonaparte: 1769 - 1802
by Patrice GueniffeyPatrice Gueniffey, the leading French historian of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic age, takes up the epic narrative at the heart of this turbulent period: the life of Napoleon himself, from his boyhood in Corsica, to his meteoric rise during the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, to his proclamation as Consul for Life in 1802.
Freud: In His Time And Ours
by Élisabeth RoudinescoÉlisabeth Roudinesco’s bold reinterpretation of Sigmund Freud is a biography for the twenty-first century—a sympathetic yet impartial appraisal of a genius admired but misunderstood in his time and ours. Alert to tensions in his character and thought, she views Freud less as a scientific thinker than as an interpreter of civilization and culture.
Zbigniew Brzezinski: America’s Grand Strategist
by Justin VaïsseAs National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928–2017) guided U.S. foreign policy at a critical juncture of the Cold War. But his impact on America’s role in the world extends far beyond his years in the White House, and reverberates to this day. His geopolitical vision, scholarly writings, frequent media appearances, and policy advice to decades of presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama made him America’s grand strategist, a mantle only Henry Kissinger could also claim. Both men emigrated from turbulent Europe in 1938 and got their Ph.D.s in the 1950s from Harvard, then the epitome of the Cold War university. With its rise to global responsibilities, the United States needed professionals. Ambitious academics like Brzezinski soon replaced the old establishment figures who had mired the country in Vietnam, and they transformed the way America conducted foreign policy. Justin Vaïsse offers the first biography of the successful immigrant who completed a remarkable journey from his native Poland to the White House, interacting with influential world leaders from Gloria Steinem to Deng Xiaoping to John Paul II. This complex intellectual portrait reveals a man who weighed in on all major foreign policy debates since the 1950s, from his hawkish stance on the USSR to his advocacy for the Middle East peace process and his support for a U.S.-China global partnership. Through its examination of Brzezinski’s statesmanship and comprehensive vision, Zbigniew Brzezinski raises important questions about the respective roles of ideas and identity in foreign policy.
Theodore Roosevelt
by Theodore RooseveltThe firsthand account of the life of adventurer, scholar, war hero, and twenty-sixth president of the United States Theodore Roosevelt.There must be the keenest sense of duty, and with it must go the joy of living. Here, in his own words, Theodore Roosevelt recounts his remarkable journey from a childhood plagued with illnesses to the US presidency and beyond. With candor and vivid detail, this personal account describes a life guided by a restless intelligence, a love for adventure, and an unflagging duty to his country. Roosevelt sheds light on his wide array of roles, from New York police commissioner, where he waged a battle against corruption, to cattle rancher in the Dakotas to assistant secretary of the US Navy under William McKinley to leader of the legendary Rough Riders at the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, when he led the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry to victory in the Battle of San Juan Hill. These extraordinary accomplishments earned Roosevelt national fame and set the stage for his ascent to the White House. As twenty-sixth president of the United States, he ushered in the Progressive Era with his domestic policies, such as the Square Deal, and trust-busting of monopolies, such as Standard Oil. He was a war hero, scholar, statesman, adventurer, and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography provides unique insight into the truly remarkable life of one of America’s most beloved presidents. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Theory of the Leisure Class
by Thorstein VeblenThis scathing critique of America’s preoccupation with wealth and status in the Gilded Age continues to resonate more than a century after it was first published According to economist Thorstein Veblen, the leisure class produces nothing, contributes nothing, and creates nothing, yet exercises a peculiar control over American society. The shallowness of their interests—from fashion to sports to entertainment—endows the practice of “conspicuous consumption” with an undeserving air of respectability. Veblen deploys a razor sharp wit to expose the pretensions of the idle rich and their disastrous influence on the national character. From ruthless business practices to the plight of women in a male-dominated culture, The Theory of the Leisure Class tackles difficult subjects with sophisticated analysis and a vibrant literary style that influenced the work of authors including Edith Wharton, Henry James, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. A must-read for students of American history and anyone concerned about economic inequality, Veblen’s classic treatise is timelier today than ever. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
The Titan
by Theodore DreiserThe second novel in the Trilogy of Desire from the author of The Financier and Sister Carrie. In the Panic of 1873, Frank Cowperwood’s fortune was destroyed and his criminal activity on the stock exchange was exposed. Now, with his prison sentence complete, he is ready to begin the next chapter of his life. Following the same creed of selfishness that guided him to his first fortune, Cowperwood leaves Philadelphia for Chicago and gives up financial speculation to pursue a new frontier. Though he soon rediscovers wealth in stock investment, he remains hounded by scandal as he maneuvers to take control of the Chicago railway system. Through double-dealing, divorce, infidelity, and social disgrace, America’s most corrupt man continues his lifelong pursuit of self-satisfaction. In the sequel to The Financier, Theodore Dreiser presents a man of indomitable force and pitiless ambition. Based on railway tycoon Charles Tyson Yerkes, Frank Cowperwood is widely considered one of the greatest characters of twentieth-century literature. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Twenty Years at Hull House
by Jane AddamsThe classic memoir of one of the Progressive Era’s most important reformers and social activists. If it is natural to feed the hungry . . . it is certainly natural to give pleasure to the young, comfort to the aged, and to minister to the deep-seated craving for social intercourse that all men feel. In 1889, Jane Addams and her partner, Ellen Starr, opened the first settlement house in the United States. On Chicago’s West Side, Hull House was devoted to the city’s poor and forgotten, from immigrants and unwed mothers to the elderly, homeless, and hungry. Its charter proclaimed its mission “to provide a center for higher civic and social life, to institute and maintain educational and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate and improve the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago.” In Twenty Years at Hull House, Addams chronicles her revolutionary work from its conception in the Gilded Age through the dawn of the Progressive Era. A cofounder of the American Civil Liberties Union and the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Addams devoted her life to realizing a more noble vision of democracy. More than a personal memoir, Twenty Years at Hull-House is a landmark document of social theory and political history. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Up from Slavery
by Booker T. WashingtonBooker T. Washington’s classic memoir of enslavement, emancipation, and community advancement in the Reconstruction Era. Born into slavery on a tobacco farm in nineteenth-century Virginia, Booker T. Washington became one of the most powerful intellectuals of the Reconstruction Era. As president of the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, he advocated for the advancement of African Americans through education and entrepreneurship. In Up from Slavery, Washington speaks frankly and honestly about his enslavement and emancipation, struggle to receive an education, and life’s work as an educator. In great detail, Washington describes establishing the Tuskegee Institute, from teaching its first classes in a hen house to building a prominent institution through community organization and a national fundraising campaign. He also addresses major issues of the era, such as the Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan, and “false foundation” of Reconstruction policy. Up From Slavery is based on biographical articles written for the Christian newspaper Outlook and includes the full text of Washington’s revolutionary Atlanta Exposition address. First published in 1901, this powerful autobiography remains a landmark of African American literature as well as an important firsthand account of post–Civil War American history. This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
Field Notes on Science & Nature
by Michael R. CanfieldWhat did George Schaller note when studying the lions of the Serengeti? How does Piotr Naskrecki use relational databases and electronic field notes? In what way is Bernd Heinrich’s approach “truly Thoreauvian,” in E. O. Wilson’s view? Pioneering a new niche in the study of plants and animals in their native habitat, Field Notes on Science and Nature allows readers to peer over the shoulders and into the notebooks of a dozen eminent field workers, to study firsthand their methods, materials, and fleeting impressions. Recording field observations is an indispensable scientific skill, but researchers are not generally willing to share their personal records. Here, for the first time, are reproductions of actual pages from notebooks. And in essays abounding with fascinating anecdotes, the authors reflect on the contexts in which the notes were taken. Covering disciplines as diverse as ecology, paleontology, anthropology, botany, and animal behavior, Field Notes offers specific examples that professional naturalists can emulate to fine-tune their own field methods, along with practical advice that amateur naturalists and students can use to document their adventures.
The Ambiguity of Virtue: Gertrude Van Tijn And The Fate Of The Dutch Jews
by Bernard WassersteinWorking with the Nazi-appointed Jewish Council in Amsterdam, Gertrude van Tijn helped many Jews escape. But she faced difficult moral choices. Some called her a heroine; others, a collaborator. Bernard Wasserstein's haunting narrative draws readers into this twilight world, to expose the terrible dilemmas confronting Jews under Nazi occupation.
Nemesis: Alcibiades and the Fall of Athens
by David StuttardAlcibiades was one of the most dazzling figures of the Golden Age of Athens. A ward of Pericles and a friend of Socrates, he was spectacularly rich, bewitchingly handsome and charismatic, a skilled general, and a ruthless politician. He was also a serial traitor, infamous for his dizzying changes of loyalty in the Peloponnesian War. Nemesis tells the story of this extraordinary life and the turbulent world that Alcibiades set out to conquer. David Stuttard recreates ancient Athens at the height of its glory as he follows Alcibiades from childhood to political power. Outraged by Alcibiades’ celebrity lifestyle, his enemies sought every chance to undermine him. Eventually, facing a capital charge of impiety, Alcibiades escaped to the enemy, Sparta. There he traded military intelligence for safety until, suspected of seducing a Spartan queen, he was forced to flee again—this time to Greece’s long-term foes, the Persians. Miraculously, though, he engineered a recall to Athens as Supreme Commander, but—suffering a reversal—he took flight to Thrace, where he lived as a warlord. At last in Anatolia, tracked by his enemies, he died naked and alone in a hail of arrows. As he follows Alcibiades’ journeys crisscrossing the Mediterranean from mainland Greece to Syracuse, Sardis, and Byzantium, Stuttard weaves together the threads of Alcibiades’ adventures against a backdrop of cultural splendor and international chaos. Navigating often contradictory evidence, Nemesis provides a coherent and spellbinding account of a life that has gripped historians, storytellers, and artists for more than two thousand years.
Oscar Wilde: The Unrepentant Years (Editorial Theory And Literary Criticism Ser.)
by Nicholas FrankelNicholas Frankel presents a revisionary account of Oscar Wilde’s final years, spent in poverty and exile in Europe following his release from an English prison for the crime of gross indecency between men. Despite repeated setbacks and open hostility, Wilde—unapologetic and even defiant—attempted to rebuild himself as a man, and a man of letters.
Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet
by John G. TurnerBrigham Young was a rough-hewn New York craftsman whose impoverished life was electrified by the Mormon faith. Turner provides a fully realized portrait of this spiritual prophet, viewed by followers as a protector and by opponents as a heretic. His pioneering faith made a deep imprint on tens of thousands of lives in the American Mountain West.
Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China
by Ezra F. VogelNo one in the twentieth century had a greater impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist—the pragmatic, disciplined force behind China’s radical economic, technological, and social transformation.
Makers of Modern Asia
by Ramachandra GuhaThe twenty-first century has been dubbed the Asian Century. Highlighting diverse thinker-politicians rather than billionaire businessmen, Makers of Modern Asia presents eleven leaders who theorized and organized anticolonial movements, strategized and directed military campaigns, and designed and implemented political systems.
American Vandal: Mark Twain Abroad
by Roy MorrisUnintimidated by Old World sophistication or travel to undeveloped parts of the globe, Mark Twain spent a surprising amount of time outside the continental United States. Roy Morris, Jr. focuses on the dozen years he lived overseas and the books he wrote encouraging middle-class Americans to follow him around the world, at the dawn of mass tourism.
Africans in the Old South: Mapping Exceptional Lives Across The Atlantic World
by Randy J. SparksThe Atlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration in history, yet most of its stories are lost. Randy Sparks examines the few remaining reconstructed experiences of West Africans who lived in the South between 1740 and 1860. Their stories highlight the diversity of struggles that confronted every African who arrived on American shores.
Charlemagne
by Johannes FriedWhen the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.
Just a Journalist: On the Press, Life, and the Spaces Between (The William E. Massey Sr. lectures in American studies ; #2015)
by Linda GreenhouseA Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter who covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times, Linda Greenhouse trains an autobiographical lens on a moment of transition in U.S. journalism. Calling herself “an accidental activist,” she raises urgent questions about the role of journalists as citizens and participants in the world around them.
Moses Montefiore: Jewish Liberator, Imperial Hero
by Abigail GreenA Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year A New Republic Best Book of the Year Finalist, National Jewish Book Award Sir Moses Montefiore (1784–1885) was the preeminent Jewish figure of the nineteenth century—and one of the first truly global celebrities. His story, told here in full for the first time, is a remarkable and illuminating tale.
The Ambiguity of Virtue: Gertrude Van Tijn And The Fate Of The Dutch Jews
by Bernard WassersteinWorking with the Nazi-appointed Jewish Council in Amsterdam, Gertrude van Tijn helped many Jews escape. But she faced difficult moral choices. Some called her a heroine; others, a collaborator. Bernard Wasserstein's haunting narrative draws readers into this twilight world, to expose the terrible dilemmas confronting Jews under Nazi occupation.
The Falling Sky: Words Of A Yanomami Shaman
by Davi KopenawaAnthropologist Bruce Albert captures the poetic voice of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon, in this unique reading experience--a coming-of-age story, historical account, and shamanic philosophy, but most of all an impassioned plea to respect native rights and preserve the Amazon rainforest.
A Life Worth Living: Albert Camus And The Quest For Meaning
by Robert ZaretskyExploring themes that preoccupied Albert Camus--absurdity, silence, revolt, fidelity, and moderation--Robert Zaretsky portrays a moralist who refused to be fooled by the nobler names we assign to our actions, and who pushed himself, and those about him, to challenge the status quo. For Camus, rebellion against injustice is the human condition.
Emperor Huizong: The Collections Of Emperor Huizong (A\china Program Book Ser. #266)
by Patricia Buckley EbreyChina was the most advanced country in the world when Huizong ascended the throne in 1100 CE. Artistically gifted, he guided the Song Dynasty toward cultural greatness but is known to posterity as a political failure who lost the throne to Jurchen invaders and died their prisoner. In this comprehensive biography, Patricia Ebrey corrects the prevailing view of Huizong as decadent and negligent, recasting him as a ruler ambitious in pursuing glory for his flourishing realm. After a rocky start trying to overcome political animosities at court, Huizong turned his attention to the good he could do. He greatly expanded the court's charitable ventures, founding schools, hospitals, orphanages, and paupers' cemeteries. Surrounding himself with poets, painters, and musicians, he built palaces, temples, and gardens of unsurpassed splendor. Often overlooked, however, is the importance of Daoism in Huizong's life. He treated spiritual masters with great deference, wrote scriptural commentaries, and urged his subjects to adopt his beliefs and practices. This devotion to the Daoist vision of sacred kingship eventually alienated the Confucian mainstream and compromised Huizong's ability to govern. Ebrey's lively biography adds new dimensions of understanding to a passionate, paradoxical ruler who, many centuries later, inspires both admiration and disapproval.