Diana Souhami's critically acclaimed biography of lesbian painter Hannah Gluckstein - the woman, the artist, the legend. To her family, Hannah Gluckstein was known as Hig. To Edith Shackleton Heald, the journalist with whom she lived for almost forty years, she was Dearest Grub. And to the art world, she was simply Gluck. She was born in 1895 into a life of privilege. Her family had founded J. Lyons & Co., a vast catering empire. From the beginning Gluck was a rebel. At a time when only men wore trousers, she scandalized society with her masculine clothing - though she always dressed with style and turned androgyny into high fashion. Her affairs with high-profile women shocked her conservative family, even while she achieved fame as an artist. During the 1920s and thirties, Gluck's paintings - portraits, flowers, and landscapes, presented in frames designed and patented by her - were the toast of the town. At the height of her success, when wounded in love, her own obsessions caused her to fade for decades from the public eye, but then, at nearly eighty, her return to the spotlight ensured her immortality.

Fifteen years after his death, Jacques Lacan remains not only one of the foremost intellectuals of the century, but also one of the most controversial. As a young doctor he set out to reinvent clinical psychotherapy and ended up transforming fundamental notions of the self, sexuality and the culture that shapes it all. This first major biography of Lacan is a fascinating portrait of his life and a masterful explication of the unorthodox, often perplexing ideas that brought him renown. 22 photos.

"A biography of perhaps Ontario's most important premier, who, despite having been out of public life for thirty years, is remembered fondly by many as the head of one of Ontario's most progressive, yet conservative, governments."--

Walter Lippmann began his career as a brilliant young man at Harvard--studying under George Santayana, taking tea with William James, a radical outsider arguing socialism with anyone who would listen--and he ended it in his eighties, writing passionately about the agony of rioting in the streets, war in Asia, and the collapse of a presidency. In between he lived through two world wars, and a depression that shook the foundations of American capitalism. Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) has been hailed as the greatest journalist of his age. For more than sixty years he exerted unprecedented influence on American public opinion through his writing, especially his famous newspaper column "Today and Tomorrow." Beginning with The New Republic in the halcyon days prior to Woodrow Wilson and the First World War, millions of Americans gradually came to rely on Lippmann to comprehend the vital issues of the day. In this absorbing biography, Ronald Steel meticulously documents the philosophers and politics, the friendships and quarrels, the trials and triumphs of this man who for six decades stood at the center of American political life. Lippmann's experience spanned a period when the American empire was born, matured, and began to wane, a time some have called "the American Century." No one better captured its possibilities and wrote about them so wisely and so well, no one was more the mind, the voice, and the conscience of that era than Walter Lippmann: journalist, moralist, public philosopher.

What makes a great judge? How are reputations forged? Why do some reputations endure, while others crumble? And how can we know whether a reputation is fairly deserved? In this ambitious book, Richard Posner confronts these questions in the case of Benjamin Cardozo. The result is both a revealing portrait of one of the most influential legal minds of our century and a model for a new kind of study—a balanced, objective, critical assessment of a judicial career. "The present compact and unflaggingly interesting volume . . . is a full-bodied scholarly biography. . . .It is illuminating in itself, and will serve as a significant contribution."—Paul A. Freund, New York Times Book Review

Born in 70 BC, in a small village near Mantua, Publius Vergilius Maro—Virgil—grew up to be hailed as the greatest Roman poet. And although his work has influenced Western literature for two millennia, little is known about the man himself. Who was the man who created the Aeneid—one of the most important poems in Western literature—and such universal phrases as “love conquers all” and “fortune favors the bold?” Peter Levi here reconstructs the poet's life, from a childhood largely shrouded in mystery to his work as a great literary genius and revolutionary poet, by examining archaeological and historical evidence from Augustan Rome, as well as through close readings of the poet's own work. “Virgil is an intensely personal poet, yet he is anonymous . . . My aim is not so ambitious as to try and restore his prestige single-handed. It has simply been to try to understand him in his original context.” In this highly acclaimed, nowclassic biography, Peter Levi discards the myths and brilliantly reveals the life of Virgil and the extraordinary times during which he lived.

"THE PURPOSE OF POLITICS IS NOT TO DEFEAT YOUR OPPONENT AS MUCH AS IT IS TO PROVIDE SUPERIOR LEADERSHIP AND BETTER IDEAS THAN THE OPPOSITION." --JACK KEMP The late 1970s were miserable for America. It was the post-Vietnam, post-Watergate era, a time of high unemployment, ruinous inflation, gasoline lines, Communist advances, and bottomed-out U.S. morale. In the 1980s, it all turned around: "stagflation" ended and nearly two decades of prosperity ensued. The Soviet Union retreated, then collapsed. America again believed in itself. And around the world, democratic capitalism was deemed "the end of history." Ronald Reagan's policies sparked the American renaissance, but the Gipper's leadership is only part of the story. The economic theory that underpinned America's success was pioneered by a star professional quarterback turned self-taught intellectual and "bleeding-heart conservative": Jack Kemp. Kemp's role in a pivotal period in American history is at last illuminated in this first-ever biography, which also has lessons for the politics of today. Kemp was the congressional champion of supply-side economics--the idea that lowering taxes would foster growth. Even today, almost no one advocates a return to a top income tax rate of 70 percent. Kemp didn't just challenge the Democratic establishment. He also encouraged his fellow Republicans to be growth (not austerity) minded, open their tent to minorities and blue-collar workers, battle poverty and discrimination, and once again become "the party of Lincoln." Kemp approached politics the same way he played quarterback for the Buffalo Bills: with a refusal to accept defeat. Yet he also was incapable of personal attack, arguing always on the level of ideas. He regarded opponents as adversaries, not enemies, and often cooperated with them to get things done. Despite many ups and downs, including failed presidential and vice-presidential bids, he represented a positive, idealistic, compassionate Republicanism. Drawing on never-published papers and more than one hundred Kemp Oral History Project interviews, noted journalists Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes trace Kemp's life, from his childhood through his pro football career to his influential years as a congressman and cabinet secretary. As the American Dream seems to be waning and polarized politics stifles Washington, Kemp is a model for what politics ought to be. The Republican party and the nation are in desperate need of another Kemp.

In this philosophical biography, Liel Leibovitz looks at what it is that makes musician/philosopher/poet Leonard Cohen an enduring international figure in the cultural imagination. Born into a Canadian religious Jewish family, for years a reclusive lyricist on the Greek island of Hydra, known for his bold political commentary, his devotion to Buddhist thought and his later despair over contemporary Zionism, Cohen hardly follows the rules of a conventional rock star. Yet the prophetic themes of his music, often filled with pessimism and apocalyptic visions, prove redemptive to an audience that spans generations, from those who listened in the 1960's to today. As Leonard Cohen requires, this is a passionate and personal evocation of a man who appeals to the inner spirit of his fervent followers.

In this timely and up-to-date biography, Jon Sopel paints a vivid portrait of an ambitious young man with a mission to modernise and transform first the Labour Party, then the country. It is a portrait of a man with all the classic credentials of a Tory politician - but who is odds - on favourite to be Britain's next Labour Prime Minister.

"Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) was the father of the modern novel in Japan, chronicling the plight of bourgeois characters caught between familiar modes of living and the onslaught of Western values and conventions. Yet even though generations of Japanese high school students have been expected to memorize passages from his novels and he is routinely voted the most important Japanese writer in national polls, he remains less familiar to Western readers in comparison to authors such as Kawabata, Tanizaki, and Mishima. In this biography, John Nathan provides a lucid and vivid account of a great writer laboring to create a remarkably original oeuvre in spite of the physical and mental illness that plagued him all his life. He traces Soseki's complex and contradictory character, offering rigorous close readings of Soseki's groundbreaking experiments with narrative strategies, irony, and multiple points of view as well as recounting excruciating hospital stays and recurrent attacks of paranoid delusion. Drawing on previously untranslated letters and diaries, published reminiscences, and passages from Soseki's fiction, Nathan renders intimate scenes of the writer's life and distills a portrait of a tormented yet unflaggingly original author. This biography elevates Soseki to his rightful place as a great synthesizer of literary traditions and a brilliant chronicler of universal experience who, no less than his Western contemporaries, anticipated the modernism of the twentieth century."-- Provided by publisher.

This comprehensive biography uses extensive theater and film archives to reveal Mamet's ideas on writing, acting, and directing, covering his beginnings in Chicago, his relationship to Judaism and reputation for machismo, as well as discussions of and excerpts from early plays and stories that have never before been referenced in print.

A biography of the American poet, activist for humane causes, and friend to immigrants, who wrote the words now inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.

"Emma Lazarus's most famous poem gave a voice to the Statue of Liberty, but her remarkable life has remained a mystery until now. She was a woman so far ahead of her time that we are still scrambling to catch up with her-a feminist, a Zionist, and an internationally famous Jewish American writer before thse categories even existed. Drawing upon a cache of personal letters undiscovered until the 1980, Esther Schor brings this vital woman to life in all her complexity. Born into a wealthy Sephardic family in 1849, Lazarus published her first volume of verse at seventeen and gained entree into New York's elite literary circles. Although she once referred to her family as "outlaw" Jews, she felt a deep attachment to Jewish history and peoplehood. Her compassion for the downtrodden Jews of Eastern Europe-refugees whose lives had little in common with her own-helped redefine the meaning of America itself. In this groundbreaking biography, Schor argues persuasively for Lazarus's place in history as a poet, an activist, and a prophet of the world we all inhabit today-a world that she helped to invent."--Publisher's website. A portrait of the iconoclastic poet and activist whose words are are set on the Statue of Liberty follows the complex life and times of Emma Lazarus, from her early literary success, to her roles as a feminist, Zionist, and renowned Jewish-American writer.

Katherine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Anthony Quinn, and Candice Bergen are among the many movie stars, colleagues, and friends who talk about a favorite director in George Cukor, Master of Elegance. This is the definitive biography of this man, one of Hollywood's greatest directors, whose film work attests to its classic nature and timeless appeal. In a career spanning half a century and fifty features, George Cukor was one of Hollywood's most accomplished and important filmmakers. He won a much-deserved directorial Oscar in 1965 for My Fair Lady, which also won Best Picture.

This biography presents a portrait of Lee Marvin warts and all. A very charismatic, seemingly outgoing and yet private man, Marvin was a decorated soldier, who enlisted at 18 in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, and served with the 4th Marine Division in the Pacific Theater during World War II. His service left its mark on him, but on film he was a man's man, playing hoods, bank robbers, assassins, and a long run of soldiers. But some of his greatest successes were when he played against type, as in Cat Ballou and Paint Your Wagon. Marvin entered the Hollywood food chain during a time of upheaval in both America and the film industry. Movie Star Marvin walked a sublime line between old-school masculinity and new-school subversive spirit. During this transitional period, armed with barely disguised and irresistible contempt, he does exactly what The Man tells him to, but still somehow does what he least expects or intends; as the box-office grosses indicated, there was something nearly every American could love about that. This book discusses his films, his life, and examines how unusual he was as both an actor, and a human being.

Many books in Japanese have been devoted to the poet and critic Ishikawa Takuboku (1886-1912). Although he died at the age of twenty-six and wrote many of his best-known poems in the space of a few years, his name is familiar to every literate Japanese. Takuboku's early death added to the sad romance of the unhappy poet, but there has been no satisfactory biography of his life or career, even in Japanese, and only a small part of his writings have been translated. His mature poetry was based on the work of no predecessor, and he left no disciples. Takuboku stands unique. Takuboku's most popular poems, especially those with a humorous overlay, are often read and memorized, but his diaries and letters, though less familiar, contain rich and vivid glimpses of the poet's thoughts and experiences. They reflect the outlook of an unconstrained man who at times behaved in a startling or even shocking manner. Despite his misdemeanors, Takuboku is regarded as a national poet, all but a saint to his admirers, especially in the regions of Japan where he lived. His refusal to conform to the Japan of the time drove him in striking directions and ranked him as the first poet of the new Japan.

A commander in the Israeli Army from its inception in 1948, and a politician whose tenure bridged numerous governments, as both a general and a politician Ariel Sharon championed the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. But in his later years, as prime minister, he took a dramatic turn, and became the driving force behind Israel’s unilateral disengagement. In this first truly comprehensive biography, David Landau, the former editor-in-chief of Haaretz, paints a vivid picture of the most dramatic and imposing Israeli political and military leader of the last forty years—and takes a penetrating look at how Sharon transformed his country like no one else.

A biography of Mantello, born in 1901 to the Orthodox Jewish family of Mandl in Transylvania. As a businessman, he became honorary consul of El Salvador for several East European countries; in 1942-45 he served as first secretary of the El Salvador consulate in Geneva. With the approval of the consul general, Mantello provided thousands of Jews in Hungary and Transylvania with protective papers. In addition, during 1941-44 he gathered information on the Nazi Final Solution, including operations at Auschwitz. In 1944, using this data, he initiated two press campaigns in Switzerland which alerted that country and the entire world to the Nazi genocide of Jews. The first press campaign forced Horthy to stop the deportations. Dwells, also, on the activities of Florin Manoliu, a Romanian businessman who helped Mantello. During the war, Mantello was arrested several times by Swiss authorities on superficial pretexts. After an inquiry into his wartime activities in the 1950s, Mantello was forgotten and recalled only shortly before his death in 1992.