14302 results for "History"

Outside the Bible: ancient Jewish writings related to Scripture

Louis H. Feldman,James L. Kugel,Lawrence H. Schiffman
"The Hebrew Bible is only part of ancient Israel's writings. Another collection of Jewish works has survived from late- and post-biblical times, a great library that bears witness to the rich spiritual life of Jews in that period. This library consists of the most varied sorts of texts: apocalyptic visions and prophecies, folktales and legends, collections of wise sayings, laws and rules of conduct, commentaries on Scripture, ancient prayers, and much, much more. While specialists have studied individual texts or subsections of this library, Outside the Bible seeks for the first time to bring together all of its major components into a single collection, gathering portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Septuagint, the biblical apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha, and the writings of Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. The editors have brought together these diverse works in order to highlight what has often been neglected; their common Jewish background. For this reason the commentaries that accompany the texts devote special attention to their references to Hebrew Scripture and to issues of halakhah (Jewish law), their allusions to motifs and themes known from later Rabbinic writings in Talmud and Midrash, their evocation of recent or distant events in Jewish history, and their references to other texts in this collection. The work of more than seventy-one contributing experts in a range of fields, Outside the Bible offers new insights into the development of Judaism and early Christianity. This three-volume set of translations, introductions, and detailed commentaries is a must for scholars, students, and anyone interested in this great body of ancient Jewish writings. The collection includes a general introduction and opening essays, new and revised translations, and detailed introductions, commentaries, and notes that place each text in its historical and cultural context. A timeline, tables, and a general index complete the set. "--
The Jewish Publication Society 2013 3361 pages

For the Love of Baseball A Celebration of the Game That Connects Us All

Lee Gutkind,Andrew Blauner
Stefan Fatsis sends his “stunningly perfect, consummately perfect, why-would-anyone-use-anything-else? perfect” glove to be restored by the glove designer at Rawlings. Frank Deford makes the case that the baseball cap may be the most universal article of clothing ever designed. Roger Angell considers why it is that pitchers are “so much livelier and more garrulous than hitters.” George Plimpton reflects on the slow demotion of aging or slumping players from pitcher to first base, to the outfield. United by the authors’ fervent love of the game, each chapter in this book reminds us of the unique role baseball plays in our national history and collective imagination. In addition to the authors mentioned above, the lineup includes: • Kevin Baker • Jeff Greenfield • Katherine A. Powers • Michael Shapiro • John Thorn • Sean Wilentz • And more! Published previously as Anatomy of Baseball and Great Baseball Stories , this wide-ranging collection now includes pieces by A. Bartlett Giamatti, Gay Talese, Matthew McGough, and George Vecsey. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
Skyhorse 2014-05-06 256 pages

The healthiest city: Milwaukee and the politics of health reform

Leavitt, Judith Walzer
Between 1850 and 1900, Milwaukee’s rapid population growth also gave rise to high death rates, infectious diseases, crowded housing, filthy streets, inadequate water supplies, and incredible stench. The Healthiest City shows how a coalition of reform groups brought about community education and municipal action to achieve for Milwaukee the title of “the healthiest city” by the 1930s. This highly praised book reminds us that cutting funds and regulations for preserving public health results in inconvenience, illness, and even death. “A major work. . . . Leavitt focuses on three illustrative issues—smallpox, garbage, and milk, representing the larger areas of infectious disease, sanitation, and food control.”—Norman Gevitz, Journal of the American Medical Association “Leavitt’s research provides additional evidence . . . that improvements in sanitation, living conditions, and diet contributed more to the overall decline in mortality rates than advances in medical practice. . . . A solid contribution to the history of urban reform politics and public health.”—Jo Ann Carrigan, Journal of American History
University of Wisconsin Press 1996-05-15 294 pages

Redeeming American political thought

Shklar, Judith N.
Noted political philosopher Judith Shklar declined to write a book about American political thought because, she once claimed, "the subject is too hard." She finally took on this formidable task late in her career, but her untimely death left most of the work unpublished. Now Redeeming American Political Thought makes these essays, some published here for the first time, available to readers. In these thirteen essays, Shklar explores two themes crucial to discussions of American democracy: first, what she terms the "fundamental social condition" of American life, the tension between expansive political equality and persistent social inequality; and second, "redeeming" American political thought for those who believe it lacks the complexity and depth of the European tradition. She covers issues ranging from the use of history in political discourse to the effect of skepticism on politics and thinkers from Hamilton and Jefferson to Melville. The strength and depth of this collection underscore Shklar's reputation as one of this century's most important liberal scholars. Judith N. Shklar (1928-1992) was Cowles Professor of Government at Harvard University and the author of nine books in political philosophy.
University of Chicago Press 1998-02-03 209 pages

Jewish radical feminism: voices from the women's liberation movement

Antler, Joyce
Jewish women were undeniably instrumental in shaping the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Yet historians and participants themselves have overlooked their contributions as Jews. This has left many vital questions unasked and unanswered—until now. Delving into archival sources and conducting extensive interviews with these fierce pioneers, Joyce Antler has at last broken the silence about the confluence of feminism and Jewish identity.Antler’s exhilarating new book features dozens of compelling biographical narratives that reveal the struggles and achievements of Jewish radical feminists in Chicago, New York and Boston, as well as those who participated in the later, self-consciously identified Jewish feminist movement that fought gender inequities in Jewish religious and secular life. Disproportionately represented in the movement, Jewish women’s liberationists helped to provide theories and models for radical action that were used throughout the United States and abroad. Their articles and books became classics of the movement and led to new initiatives in academia, politics, and grassroots organizing. Other Jewish-identified feminists brought the women’s movement to the Jewish mainstream and Jewish feminism to the Left. For many of these women, feminism in fact served as a “portal” into Judaism.Recovering this deeply hidden history, Jewish Radical Feminism places Jewish women’s activism at the center of feminist and Jewish narratives. The stories of over forty women’s liberationists and identified Jewish feminists—from Shulamith Firestone and Susan Brownmiller to Rabbis Laura Geller and Rebecca Alpert—illustrate how women’s liberation and Jewish feminism unfolded over the course of the lives of an extraordinary cohort of women, profoundly influencing the social, political, and religious revolutions of our era.
New York University Press 2018 453 pages

Politics and sinology: the case of Naitō Konan (1866-1934)

Fogel, Joshua A.
Naito Konan's periodization of Chinese history is responsible for shaping the twentieth-century Western view of China. Naito was a journalist in the vibrant Meiji press for twenty years, during which he became recognized as Japan's leading Sinologist. He then assumed a chair in China Studies at Kyoto University, where he taught for twenty years, remaining all the while a prolific writer on public affairs. Joshua Fogel's biography treats Naito holistically, pointing up the intricate connections between his Sinological and political interests. As a part of an ongoing tradition based in jitsugaku (concern with the practical applications of knowledge), Naito focused on what he took to be Japan's mission, after its own Meiji reforms, to help China implement comparable reforms. His emphasis on Chinese history and culture as the central influence in East Asia strengthened his Pan-Asian political convictions. Fogel's study offers a penetrating look at a scholar-journalist whose influence, fifty years after his death, is still powerful.
Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University 1984-06-22 420 pages

Company C

John Sack
Call it the Television War. For six weeks in 1991, images of the war in Iraq danced on America's TV sets, and we were led to believe that the GIs fought it by sitting at computer monitors and firing missiles at the Iraqis far, far away. It was a new kind of war, mudless and bloodless - a videogame war. Do not believe it. The real war in Iraq was as hellish as anything in The Red Badge of Courage or The Naked and the Dead - the GIs were wet and cold, uncertain and scared, and yet, through it all, courageous and compassionate, but TV wasn't there to report it. John Sack was with the GIs throughout the war. In America, he lived with the soldiers of Company C as they trained for D-Day in Iraq. He was with them in their homes, their churches, their drinking, dancing, and stripper clubs, and he was still with them as they invaded Iraq in sixty-ton tanks. He was with them at the biggest tank battle in American history - the only reporter who was.
HarperCollins Publishers 1996-06 241 pages

The Progressive Presidents Roosevelt, Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson

John Morton Blum
Advocates of a strong versus a weak presidency have struggled throughout American history, but never so fiercely as in the twentieth century, which saw the rise of progressivism. This is the story of four progressive presidents, from the first Roosevelt, who himself brought plenty of backbone to the office, to Woodrow Wilson , who articulated the theory of a progressive presidency, to FDR, who brought it unique power, and, finally, to Lyndon Johnson, who provided perhaps its last great surge in our century. In a time of progressive malaise, it is important to know the history, to see the benefits as well as the liabilities, in the progressive presidential tradition. That is the aim and achievement of this book.
W.W. Norton 1982 221 pages

Genesis: Truman, American Jews, and the origins of the Arab/Israeli conflict

Judis, John B.
"A probing look at one of the most incendiary subjects of our time--the relationship between the United States and Israel. There has been more than half a century of raging conflict between Jews and Arabs--a violent, costly struggle that has had catastrophic repercussions in a critical region of the world. In Genesis, John B. Judis argues that, while Israelis and Palestinians must shoulder much of the blame, the United States has been the principal power outside the region since the end of World War II and as such must account for its repeated failed efforts to resolve this enduring strife. The fatal flaw in American policy, Judis shows, can be traced back to the Truman years. What happened between 1945 and 1949 sealed the fate of the Middle East for the remainder of the century. As a result, understanding that period holds the key to explaining almost everything that follows--right down to George W. Bush's unsuccessful and ill-conceived effort to win peace through holding elections among the Palestinians, and Barack Obama's failed attempt to bring both parties to the negotiating table. A provocative narrative history animated by a strong analytical and moral perspective, and peopled by colorful and outsized personalities, Genesis offers a fresh look at these critical postwar years, arguing that if we can understand how this stalemate originated, we will be better positioned to help end it"--
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2014 432 pages

Birth of a Dynasty Behind the Pinstripes with the 1996 Yankees

Joel Sherman
Following the crushing defeat to Seattle in the 1995 playoffs, the Yankees replaced Buck Showalter with Joe Torre as manager and sparked a championship run that would produce four World Series titles in five years. Teeming with revelations and glorious memories, Birth of a Dynasty celebrates the unforgettable 1996 Yankees season: the season that began one of the most respected team dynasties in sports history. Veteran New York Post columnist Joel Sherman, who has spent more time with the Bronx Bombers in the past 15 years than any other writer, draws on hundreds of interviews and years of on-the-spot reporting to re-create one of the Yankees' greatest years.
Rodale Books 2007-04-03 352 pages

The invention of enterprise: entrepreneurship from ancient Mesopotamia to modern times

David S. Landes,Joel Mokyr,William J. Baumol
Whether hailed as heroes or cast as threats to social order, entrepreneurs - and their innovations - have had an enormous influence on the growth and prosperity of nations. "The Invention of Enterprise" gathers together, for the first time, leading economic historians to explore the entrepreneur's role in society from antiquity to the present. Addressing social and institutional influences from a historical context, each chapter examines entrepreneurship during a particular period and in an important geographic location. The book chronicles the sweeping history of enterprise in Mesopotamia and Neo-Babylon; carries the reader through the Islamic Middle East; offers insights into the entrepreneurial history of China, Japan, and Colonial India; and, describes the crucial role of the entrepreneur in innovative activity in Europe and the United States, from the medieval period to today. In considering the critical contributions of entrepreneurship, the authors discuss why entrepreneurial activities are not always productive and may even sabotage prosperity. They examine the institutions and restrictions that have enabled or impeded innovation, and the incentives for the adoption and dissemination of inventions. They also describe the wide variations in global entrepreneurial activity during different historical periods and the similarities in development, as well as entrepreneurship's role in economic growth. The book is filled with past examples and events that provide lessons for promoting and successfully pursuing contemporary entrepreneurship as a means of contributing to the welfare of society.
Princeton University Press 2010-01-31 566 pages

Only paradoxes to offer: French feminists and the rights of man

Scott, Joan Wallach
When feminists argued for political rights in the context of liberal democracy they faced an impossible choice. On the one hand, they insisted that the differences between men and women were irrelevant for citizenship. On the other hand, by the fact that they acted on behalf of women, they introduced the very idea of difference they sought to eliminate. This paradox--the need both to accept and to refuse sexual difference in politics--was the constitutive condition of the long struggle by women to gain the right of citizenship. In this new book, remarkable in both its findings and its methodology, award-winning historian Joan Wallach Scott reads feminist history in terms of this paradox of sexual difference. Focusing on four French feminist activists--Olympe de Gouges, who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and Citizen during the French Revolution; Jeanne Deroin, a utopian socialist and candidate for legislative office in 1848; Hubertine Auclert, the suffragist of the Third Republic; and Madeleine Pelletier, a psychiatrist in the early twentieth century who argued that women must "virilize" themselves in order to gain equality--Scott charts the repetitions and variations in feminist history. Again and again, feminists tried to prove they were individuals, according to the standards of individuality of their day. Again and again, they confronted the assumption that individuals were men. But when sexual difference was taken to be a fundamental difference, when only men were regarded as individuals and thus as citizens, how could women also be citizens? The imaginative and courageous answers feminists offered to these questions are the subject of this engaging book.
Harvard University Press 1996-03-01 229 pages

When the island had fish: the remarkable story of a Maine fishing community

Smith, Janna Malamud
"When the Island had Fish is the story of a tiny island, Vinalhaven Maine, that offers a close look at the significant history of Maine fishing particularly, but also provides a meditation on America's past and future. Vinalhaven's fishing history is in every way America's history. It's a story of habitations by native peoples and European-American settlers, their use of natural resources, their communities and kin, and their efforts to find ways to live in a harsh environment. Anyone interested in creating a viable collective future will learn from reading about the Penobscot Bay fisheries and fishermen, and about Vinalhaven's citizens' expansive knowledge of craft, husbandry, self-governance and community independence, and interdependence"--
Down East Books 2023-07-15 324 pages

Rooted cosmopolitans: Jews and human rights in the twentieth century

Loeffler, James Benjamin
"A stunningly original look at the forgotten Jewish political roots of contemporary international human rights, told through the moving stories of five key activists The year 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of two momentous events in twentieth-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remained tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet the surprising connections between Zionism and the origins of international human rights are completely unknown today. In this riveting account, James Loeffler explores this controversial history through the stories of five remarkable Jewish founders of international human rights, following them from the prewar shtetls of eastern Europe to the postwar United Nations, a journey that includes the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the founding of Amnesty International, and the UN resolution of 1975 labeling Zionism as racism. The result is a book that challenges long-held assumptions about the history of human rights and offers a startlingly new perspective on the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." --
Yale University Press 2018-01-01 362 pages

The American soul: rediscovering the wisdom of the founders

Needleman, Jacob
In a series of concise portraits of America's founders, the author of Money and the Meaning of Life examines how the spiritual beliefs and vision of Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and others shaped American history and culture and assesses the influence of the spiritual traditions of African slaves, Native Americans, and early mystical communities on early America. 30,000 first printing.
J.P. Tarcher/Putnam 2002-02-04 371 pages

Elegance in science: the beauty of simplicity

Glynn, Ian
"Science is often thought of as a methodical but dull activity. But the finest science, the breakthroughs most admired and respected by scientists themselves, is characterized by elegance." "What does elegance mean in the context of science? Economy is a considerable part of it; creativity too. Sometimes, a suggested solution is so simple and neat that it elicits an exclamation of wonder from the observer. The greatest science, whether primarily theoretical or experimental, reflects a creative imagination." "In this book, the distinguished physiologist and writer Ian Glynn explores some of the finest examples of elegance in science: the delightful simplicity of the laws discovered by Kepler and Newton in the motion of the planets; Galileo's experiments with an inclined plane; the remarkable work of Thomas Young on light; dazzling insights into the counterintuitive workings of our perception demonstrated by Richard Gregory and Vilayanur Ramachandran; and the several breakthroughs that led to Crick and Watson's unravelling of the structure and function of DNA. The result is a fascinating tour through some of the most important episodes in the history of science."--BOOK JACKET.
Oxford University Press 2010-04-22 271 pages

Taming the gods: religion and democracy on three continents

Buruma, Ian
Why religion must be separated from politics if democracy is to thrive around the world For eight years the president of the United States was a born-again Christian, backed by well-organized evangelicals who often seemed intent on erasing the church-state divide. In Europe, the increasing number of radicalized Muslims is creating widespread fear that Islam is undermining Western-style liberal democracy. And even in polytheistic Asia, the development of democracy has been hindered in some countries, particularly China, by a long history in which religion was tightly linked to the state. Ian Buruma is the first writer to provide a sharp-eyed look at the tensions between religion and politics on three continents. Drawing on many contemporary and historical examples, he argues that the violent passions inspired by religion must be tamed in order to make democracy work. Comparing the United States and Europe, Buruma asks why so many Americans―and so few Europeans―see religion as a help to democracy. Turning to China and Japan, he disputes the notion that only monotheistic religions pose problems for secular politics. Finally, he reconsiders the story of radical Islam in contemporary Europe, from the case of Salman Rushdie to the murder of Theo van Gogh. Sparing no one, Buruma exposes the follies of the current culture war between defenders of "Western values" and "multiculturalists," and explains that the creation of a democratic European Islam is not only possible, but necessary. Presenting a challenge to dogmatic believers and dogmatic secularists alike, Taming the Gods powerfully argues that religion and democracy can be compatible―but only if religious and secular authorities are kept firmly apart.
Princeton University Press 2012-08-26 144 pages

Why We Never Danced the Charleston

Harlan Greene
The scene is Charleston, South Carolina; the time, the 1920s, when old ladies dream of the past and a strange new dance, "the Charleston," is seducing the youth of the city. Years later, whispers emerge of something baffling and tragic that happened back then. As an old man confronts those demanding the truth, we catch brilliant flashes of the confrontation between the dark, doomed Hirsch Hess, son of immigrants, and the fantastically ethereal Ned Grimke, a scion of the city. Told in intoxicatingly beautiful prose, this story of passion, beauty and the deadly effects of sexual repression takes us to a specific time and place, yet simultaneously blossoms as a universal tale of the human heart in conflict with its era. This cult classic, set in the most intriguing period of one of America's most beautiful cities, is now restored to print with an afterword by its author that traces the facts upon which it is based.
History Press 2005 128 pages

Mr. Skylark John Bennett and the Charleston Renaissance

Harlan Greene
Based on years of research and thousands of notes left by John Bennett, Mr. Skylark is an unusually intimate biography of a pivotal figure in the Charleston Renaissance, the brief period between the two World Wars that first witnessed many of the cultural and artistic changes soon to sweep the South. The book not only examines Bennett's life but also reveals the rich tapestry of the literary and social history of Charleston. An outsider who became an insider by marrying into the local aristocracy, Bennett was perfectly placed to observe social and artistic change and to prompt it. He published the first scholarly treatise on Gullah, the language of the coastal Southern blacks, and collected African American spirituals and tales. But after breaking several racial taboos of the time, he was publicly condemned, and it was only through mentoring such writers as Hervey Allen and DuBose Heyward that he was eventually welcomed back into the heart of the city. Today, the Charleston aesthetic, which mourned the loss of beauty in a modernizing South, is often overlooked in the study of Southern literature, but Bennett, through his extensive private correspondence and notes, offers insight into the forces that shaped this cultural movement. Restored to us in all his complexity and humor, Bennett is important for his own accomplishments, but also for providing a lens through which to view southern literary history and the complexities of a changing South.
University of Georgia Press 2010-06-01 408 pages