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Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court (The Nathan I. Huggins lectures #17)
by Paul FinkelmanIn ruling after ruling, the three most important pre–Civil War justices—Marshall, Taney, and Story—upheld slavery. Paul Finkelman establishes an authoritative account of each justice’s proslavery position, the reasoning behind his opposition to black freedom, and the personal incentives that embedded racism ever deeper in American civic life.
The Gandhian Moment
by Ramin JahanbeglooThe father of Indian independence, Gandhi was also a political theorist who challenged mainstream ideas. Sovereignty, he said, depends on the consent of citizens willing to challenge the state nonviolently when it acts immorally. The culmination of the inner struggle to recognize one’s duty to act is the ultimate “Gandhian moment.”
The Iron Princess: Amalia Elisabeth And The Thirty Years War
by Tryntje HelfferichIn the bloodiest conflict Europe had ever experienced, Amalia Elisabeth fought to save her tiny German state, her Calvinist church, and her children’s inheritance. Tryntje Helfferich reveals how this embattled ruler used diplomacy to play the European powers against one another, while raising one of the continent’s most effective fighting forces.
The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck and the Fortunes of German Science, With a New Afterword
by J. L. HeilbronIn this moving and eloquent portrait, Heilbron describes how the founder of quantum theory rose to the pinnacle of German science. He shows how Planck suffered morally and intellectually as his lifelong habit of service to his country and to physics was confronted by the realities of World War I and the brutalities of the Third Reich.
Star Studies: A Critical Guide (Film Stars Series (PDF))
by Martin Shingler Susan Smithtar Studies: A Critical Guide provides a lively introduction to the major approaches and key developments within this key area of film studies. It identifies a number of dominant themes, explains major theories, concepts and methodologies, and explores the diversity of approaches that have helped shape the international study of stars and stardom. Comparing the stars and star systems of Hollywood, Bollywood, China and many European countries, from the early-twentieth to the first decade of the twenty-first century, Martin Shingler considers the multiple functions of stars: as an elite workforce within the film industry, as actors and performers, as role models and cultural representatives, as icons and images, as transnational and national symbols, and as commodities. The scope of star studies is wide, historically and geographically, but this book helpfully focuses on salient features of the discipline, providing a cogent overview of star studies, while suggesting some useful avenues for further research. Published in the BFI Film Stars series, Star Studies provides an essential theoretical and historical companion to the individual star volumes in the series.
Bonaparte
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.
Narrative of My Escape from Slavery
by Moses RoperThis 1838 autobiography ranks among the most important and authentic accounts of life in slavery, recounting the experiences of a North Carolina native who was sold or traded until his successful escape to New England. Roper's moving reminiscences offer a powerful first-hand account of the realities of life in bondage. Introduction.
Lake Views: This World And The Universe
by Steven WeinbergA Physics World Top Ten Book of 2010 Steven Weinberg, considered by many to be the preeminent theoretical physicist alive today, continues the wide-ranging reflections that have also earned him a reputation as, in the words of New York Times reporter James Glanz, “a powerful writer of prose that can illuminate—and sting.”
Soldier of Christ: The Life of Pope Pius XII
by Robert A. VentrescaSoldier of Christ reveals a paradoxical figure: a prophetic reformer of limited vision whose leadership stimulated the emergence of a global Catholicism while sowing doubt and dissension among some of the Church’s most faithful servants. The Cold War and Pius XII’s manner of engaging with the modern world defined his pontificate, Ventresca argues.
Admiral Bill Halsey: A Naval Life
by Thomas Alexander HughesWilliam Halsey, the most famous naval officer of World War II, was known for fearlessness, steely resolve, and impulsive errors. In this definitive biography, Thomas Hughes punctures the popular caricature of the fighting admiral to present a revealing human portrait of his personal and professional life as it was lived in times of war and peace.
Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life (Walter Benjamin Ser. #Vol. 1)
by Howard EilandWalter Benjamin was perhaps the twentieth century's most elusive intellectual. His writings defy categorization, and his improvised existence has proven irresistible to mythologizers. In a major new biography, Howard Eiland and Michael Jennings present a comprehensive portrait of the man and his times, as well as extensive commentary on his work.
America's Pastor: Billy Graham And The Shaping Of A Nation
by Grant WackerMore than a conventional biography, Grant Wacker’s interpretive study deepens our understanding of why Billy Graham has mattered so much to so many, and how his uncanny ability to appropriate trends in the wider culture allowed him to transform his born-again theology into a moral vocabulary capturing the aspirations and fears of average Americans.
The Lives of Frederick Douglass
by Robert S. LevineFrederick Douglass’s changeable sense of his own life story is reflected in his many conflicting accounts of events during his journey from slavery to freedom. Robert S. Levine creates a fascinating collage of this elusive subject—revisionist biography at its best, offering new perspectives on Douglass the social reformer, orator, and writer.
Boswell's Enlightenment
by Robert ZaretskyThroughout his life James Boswell struggled to fashion a clear account of himself, but try as he might he could not reconcile the truths of his era with those of his religious upbringing. Few periods better crystallize this turmoil than 1763–1765, the years of his Grand Tour and the focus of Robert Zaretsky’s thrilling intellectual adventure.
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.
Dante: The Story of His Life
by Marco SantagataA Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year A Marginal Revolution Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year A Seminary Co-op Notable Book of the Year A Times Higher Education Book of the Week A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year Marco Santagata’s Dante: The Story of His Life illuminates one of the world’s supreme poets from many angles—writer, philosopher, father, courtier, political partisan. Santagata brings together a vast body of Italian scholarship on Dante’s medieval world, untangles a complex web of family and political relationships for English readers, and shows how the composition of the Commedia was influenced by local and regional politics. “Reading Marco Santagata’s fascinating new biography, the reader is soon forced to acknowledge that one of the cornerstones of Western literature [The Divine Comedy], a poem considered sublime and universal, is the product of vicious factionalism and packed with local scandal.” —Tim Parks, London Review of Books “This is a wonderful book. Even if you have not read Dante you will be gripped by its account of one of the most extraordinary figures in the history of literature, and one of the most dramatic periods of European history. If you are a Dantean, it will be your invaluable companion forever.” —A. N. Wilson, The Spectator
August Weismann: Development, Heredity, And Evolution
by Frederick B. ChurchillAugust Weismann’s 1892 theory that inheritance is transmitted through eggs and sperm provided the biological mechanism for natural selection. In this full-length biography, Frederick Churchill situates Weismann in the swirling intellectual currents of his day and shows how his work paved the way for the modern synthesis of genetics and evolution.
The Return of Martin Guerre
by Natalie Zemon Davis Martin Guerre Arnault Du TilhThe clever peasant Arnaud du Tilh had almost won his case, when a man with a wooden leg swaggered into the French courtroom, denounced du TiIh, and reestablished his claim to the identity, property, and wife of Martin Guerre. This book, by the noted historian who served as a consultant for the film, adds new dimensions to this famous legend.
Inside Captive, Indian King: Peter Williamson in America and Britain
by Timothy J. ShannonIn 1758 Peter Williamson, dressed as an Indian, peddled a tale in Scotland about being kidnapped as a young boy, sold into slavery and servitude, captured by Indians, and made a prisoner of war. Separating fact from fiction, Timothy Shannon illuminates the curiosity about America among working-class people on the margins of empire.
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.
The Family Of Abraham: Jewish, Christian, And Muslim Interpretations
by Carol Bakhos"Abrahamic religions" has gained currency in scholarly and ecumenical circles as a way to refer to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Carol Bakhos steps back from the convention to ask: What is Abrahamic about these three faiths? She challenges references to Judaism and Islam as sibling religions and warns against uncritical adoption of the term.
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.
The Short American Century: A Postmortem
by Edited by Andrew J. BacevichIn February 1941, Henry Luce announced the arrival of “The American Century.” But that century—extending from World War II to the recent economic collapse—has now ended, victim of strategic miscalculation, military misadventures, and economic decline. Here some of America’s most distinguished historians place the century in historical perspective.
Milosz: A Biography
by Andrzej FranaszekAndrzej Franaszek’s award-winning biography of Czeslaw Milosz—winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature—recounts the poet’s odyssey through WWI, the Bolshevik revolution, the Nazi invasion of Poland, and the USSR’s postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. This edition contains a new introduction by the translators, along with maps and a chronology.
The Boatman: Henry David Theoreau's River Years
by Robert M. ThorsonRobert Thorson gives readers a Thoreau for the Anthropocene. The boatman and backyard naturalist was keenly aware of the way humans had altered the waterways and meadows of his beloved Concord River Valley. Yet he sought out for solace and pleasure those river sites most dramatically altered by human invention and intervention—for better and worse.