993 results for "Biography"
The hands of peace
"Born in Hamburg in the 1930s, Marione Ingram survived the Holocaust in Nazi Germany, only to find when she came to the United States that racism was as pervasive in the American South as anti-Semitism was in Europe. Moving first to New York and then to Washington, DC, Marione joined the burgeoning civil rights movement, protesting discrimination in housing, employment, education, and other aspects of life in the nation's capital, including the denial of voting rights. She was a volunteer in the legendary March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, and she was an organizer of an extended sit-in to support the Mississippi Freedom Party. In 1964, at the urging of civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, Marione went south to Mississippi. There, she worked for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and taught African American youth at one of the country's controversial freedom schools. With her boldness came threats--white supremacists made ominous calls and left a blazing cross in front of her school--and an arrest and conviction. She narrowly escaped a three-month prison sentence. As a white woman and a Holocaust escapee, Marione was perhaps the most unlikely of heroes in the American civil rights movement; and yet, her core belief in the equality of all people, regardless of race or religion, did not waver and she refused to be quieted, refused to accept bigotry. This empowering, true story offers a rare up close view of the civil rights movement. It is a story of conviction and courage--a reminder of how far the rights movement has come and the progress that still needs to be made."--Page 2 of book jacket.
Josephus's interpretation of the Bible
Josephus (A.D. 37-?100), a pro-Roman Jew closely associated with the emperor Titus, is the earliest systematic commentator on the Bible, as well as one of the foremost historians of the beginning of the Christian era. Politically, Josephus was pro-Roman, and although he had no sympathy for extreme Jewish nationalism, he was a zealous defender of Jewish religion and culture. Louis H. Feldman examines the principles that guided Josephus in his understanding of the Bible, investigating his creative contribution in the rewriting of biblical accounts. This comprehensive study evaluates Josephus as a historian and demonstrates the originality and consistency of his work as an author. The first part of Feldman's work attempts to understand Josephus's purposes and techniques in retelling the Bible. The second part reviews Josephus's treatment of twelve key biblical figures. In addition to its reevaluation of an important early historian, this unique compendium provides a mine of information on the reassessment of the most important biblical figures.
Winners make it happen: reflections of a self-made man
Leonard Lavin epitomizes the American Dream. In this book Lavin reveals how his instinct-driven vision led him to build the Alberto Culver Corporation from a tiny beauty supply company into a revered Fortune 500 buisness.
Fight for the right to read: Samuel Wilbert Tucker and the 1939 Sit-Down Strike for library reading equality
"Banning people from libraries is even worse than banning books! Decades before the Civil Rights Movement, Samuel Wilbert Tucker, a Black lawyer in Virginia, organized a peaceful read-in at the local public library, which was segregated. He wanted to affirm the right of everyone to use the library. Thanks to efforts like his, we can all sit at a table, any table, pick up a book, any book, and read."--Back cover.
The essential Herman Kahn: in defense of thinking
By the time of his untimely death in 1983, Herman Kahn was recognized by both friends and intellectual adversaries as "one of the world's most creative and best minds." The current growing resurgence of interest in Kahn's ideas and intellectual legacy demonstrates the enduring relevance of his work. Yet, in spite of the constant influence of his arguments, there is a shortage of books summarizing Kahn's essential contributions, and thus his work is not as well known as it should be. The Essential Herman Kahn is an attempt to cope with this predicament and offer the public for the first time.
The damned don't cry -- they just disappear: the life and works of Harry Hervey
"In The Damned Don't Cry -- They Just Disappear, literary historian and Lamba Award--winning novelist Harlan Greene has created a portrait of a nearly forgotten Southern writer, unearthing information from archives, rare books, film libraries, and small-town newspapers. Greene brings Harry Hervey (1900-1951) to life and explicates his works to reveal him as a hardworking writer and master of many genres, bravely unwilling to conform to conventional values. As Greene illustrates, Hervey's novels, short stories, nonfiction books, and film scripts contain complex mixtures of history and thinly disguised homoerotic situations and themes. They blend local color, naturalism, melodrama, and psychological and sexual truths that provide a view of the circles in which he moved. Living openly with his male lover in Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, Hervey set novels in these cities that scandalized the locals and critics as well. He challenged the sexual mores of his day, sometimes subtly and at other times brazenly presenting texts that told one story to gay male readers, while still courting a mainstream audience. His novels and nonfiction may have been coded and thus escaped detection in their day, but twenty-first-century readers can decipher them easily" --
Haunted by slavery: a southern white woman in the freedom struggle
The memoir of Gwendolyn Midlo Hall offers today's activists and readers an accessible and intimate examination of a crucial era in American radical history. Born in 1929 New Orleans to left-wing Jewish parents, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's life has spanned nearly a century of engagement in anti-racist, internationalist political activism. In this moving and instructive chronicle of her remarkable life, Midlo Hall recounts her experiences as an anti-racist activist, a Communist Party militant, and a scholar of slavery in the Americas, as well as the wife and collaborator of the renowned African-American author and Communist leader Harry Haywood. Telling the story of her life against the backdrop of the important political and social developments of the 20th century, Midlo Hall offers new insights about a critical period in the history of labor and civil rights movements in the United States. Detailing everything from Midlo Hall's co-founding of the only inter-racial youth organization in the South when she was 16-years-old, to her pioneering work establishing digital slave databases, to her own struggles against cruel and pervasive sexism, Haunted by Slavery is a gripping account of a life defined by profound dedication to a cause.
To life: the story of a Chicago lawyer
Elmer Gertz has defended famous people--including Henry Miller, Nathan Leopold, and Jack Ruby--and he has become famous in his own right through his struggle for civil liberties and personal rights. Gertz has taken on a lengthy list of cases and causes over the six decades of his legal career. He fought successfully against the censorship of Henry Miller's book Tropic of Cancer , which had been banned in Chicago for obscenity. He got Nathan Leopold released from prison after Leopold had served 34 years for his part in the death of 14-year-old Bobby Franks. An ardent foe of the death penalty, Gertz labored for years as part of a national team of lawyers that was finally able to overturn Jack Ruby's death sentence for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. Gertz's cases have helped make libel law in the nation. For this edition, Gertz adds an afterword that covers the 15 years since the book's first publication. Gertz talks of Henry Miller's last days and his travels to the USSR on behalf of the Refuseniks.
Israel through my lens: sixty years as a photojournalist
The compelling autobiography of Israel's preeminent photojournalist, illustrated with his most memorable images. Today, photojournalist David Rubinger stands at the peak of his profession: a winner of the Israel Prize for services to the media and a fixture on the masthead of Time, he is the only photographer whose work is on permanent display at the Knesset, Israel’s legislature. In this fascinating volume, he reports his own story, which in many ways reflects the history of Israel that he has recorded so faithfully with his camera. Born in Vienna in 1924, he emigrated to British Palestine in 1939 and developed a passion for photography while serving in the British army’s Jewish Brigade. After fighting in Israel’s War of Independence, he became a professional news photographer, reporting on each of his young nation’s subsequent wars from the front lines, at first for the Israeli media and later as a correspondent for Time-Life. He photographed all of Israel’s leaders, many of whom have allowed him a remarkable degree of access to their lives; Ariel Sharon said, “I trust Rubinger even though I know he doesn’t vote for me.” But Rubinger has not confined his reporting to war and politics; by photographing the successive waves of Jewish immigrants from Europe, the Arab world, Russia, and Ethiopia, he has also created a valuable record of Israel’s transformation from a country of six hundred thousand to one of seven million. In recounting his eventful career, Rubinger proves himself a gifted raconteur, sharing anecdotes of the many leading personalities he has photographed and telling the stories behind his most famous pictures, many of which are reproduced here at full-page size. Also illustrated are a selection of Rubinger’s never-before-published personal photographs, which provide vivid behind-the-scenes glimpses into the fast-paced and sometimes daring work of a photojournalist. Both a personal account of one man’s life with the camera and a visual document of the birth of a nation, Israel through My Lens is an essential book for anyone with an interest in Israeli history or the art of photojournalism.
The King's mistress: the true and scandalous story of the woman who stole the heart of George I
Wings of gold: the story of the first women naval aviators
"This is the story of the first women naval aviators and their struggles and triumphs as they earned their Wings of Gold, learned to fly increasingly sophisticated jet fighters and helicopters, mastered aircraft carrier landings, served at sea, and reached heights of command that would have been unthinkable less than a generation before. It is also the story of the legacy they left behind"--
The murder of Napoleon
A narrative of Napoleon's final years in exile on the island of St. Helena and of a 20th century toxicologistdetective's efforts to prove that his death was caused by arsenic poisoning.
The Penguin dictionary of musical performers: a biographical guide to significant interpreters of classical music - singers, solo instrumentalists, conductors, orchestras and string quartets - ranging from the seventeenth century to the present day
For solo violin: a Jewish childhood in fascist Italy : a memoir
" For Solo Violin is a gracefully written, elegiac memoir of childhood."— The Los Angeles Times "An eloquent tribute to [and] a moving account of those who, despite the cruelty of so many around them, found ways to rejoice and trust in the kindness of a few. One is instantly reminded of Life Is Beautiful ."—André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt In an extraordinary literary debut, Aldo Zargani reconstructs the lost world of his Jewish childhood during the perilous years 1938–45 when he and his family fled from Fascists and Nazis in northern Italy. His haunting memoir acquires a cinematic intensity as he crosscuts from the blood-red stone spires of Basel, where his father failed to find refuge for his family in 1939, to fiery scenes of the Allied bombing of Turin in 1942, to the freezing winter of 1943–44, which Zargani and his brother spent hidden in a Catholic boarding school deep in the countryside. For Solo Violin is filled with colorful portraits of Italian aristocrats and peasants, priests and soldiers, teachers and students, informers and partisans. At its heart is Zargani's vivid depiction of his father, a concert violinist forced to give up his career when the Fascists came to power. In this time of persecution, the Zargani family survived through their own resourcefulness and through the efforts of the many Italians who came to their aid, from the young doctor who helped them escape from Turin to the shepherd who supplied them with milk during the last year of the war, when they lived among the partisans in a remote Piedmont valley. Looking back over a distance of fifty years, Zargani rediscovers the enchantment of childhood shining in "fable-like constellations" even amidst the inferno of war. Lullabies and school games, fairy tales and family jokes are interwoven with the events of terror and oppression. Lyrical, humorous, tender, and wise, For Solo Violin is a testament to resilience and hope during the darkest period in human history. "A broad panorama of Italian-Jewish history in [the last] century. Elegant in its style and, however tragic, also rich with understatement, irony, and wit, For Solo Violin counts among the great, enduring works of art."— Focus Magazine , Germany "A tragic, deeply engaging, delicious book—yes delicious, too. (Reading it makes you smile.) It's a miracle…It makes one think of the wit of Kafka!"— L'Espresso , Italy "Zargani depicts a wealth of sad, despairing, but often also incredibly funny episodes…But vibrating along with the humor is always the sense of threat, and behind it opens the abyss of terror."— Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Switzerland
Alva's boy
"This book is a frank, confronting yet surprisingly funny memoir based on the life experiences and recollections of a Jewish childhood over a time span from 1928 to the mid-forties. In some telling, names of people, places and dates have been changed. Mercifully, those named who are or were of a repellent nature have long since gone to God. The stories present incidents from the life of one person, the first-person narrator. The memoir is purposely unsentimental. The writer has worked hard to circumvent cheap emotion. Some readers might find it confronting. The linked stories encompass a childs unsparingly honest observations as he is buffeted by events which range from indifference and naked cruelty to sparkling life-affirming exuberance."--Provided by publisher.
The Challenge of feminist biography: writing the lives of modern American women
This path-breaking anthology illuminates the lives of ten influential twentieth-century American women and looks at the challenges experienced by the women who have written about them. Exploring the frequently complicated dialogue between writer and subject, the contributors discuss tools appropriate to writing women's biography while their riveting accounts reveal how feminist scholarship led them to approach the study of women's lives in unconventional ways. "This wonderful collection demonstrates the significance of women's biography as a central part of feminist scholarship. The feminist biographer inserts a second life into a biography, her own, giving us yet another layer of depth and insight."--Ann J. Lane, author of To "Herland" and Beyond: The Life and Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Vladimir I. Lenin A Political Biography
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Lyndon B. Johnson The Exercise of Power
A candid political biography of LBJ from congressman to chief executive.
The Damp and the Dry A Brief Incursion Into Fascist Territory
A critical biography of Belgium's highest-ranking Nazi collaborator, Léon Degrelle, who fought with the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front during the Second World War and served as inspiration for the protagonist of Jonathan Littell's bestselling, Prix Goncourt-winning novel The Kindly Ones ([Gallimard 2006] HarperCollins 2009). Originally published in French as Le sec et l'humide: Une brève incursion en territoire fasciste (Gallimard 2008) and translated into Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Czech, Catalan, and now English, The Damp and the Dry is a critical case study of a fascist true believer who was supported by both Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War and later sheltered by Franco in Spain. Littell pays close attention to Degrelle's autobiographical writings, especially his account of fighting on the Eastern Front, The Russian Campaign, and uncovers an "anatomy of fascist discourse," developing on the theories of German sociologist Klaus Theweleit, whose Afterword follows the text.