911 results for "History"
Tiny Rowland: a rebel tycoon
This is an account of the life and career of the entrepreneur, Tiny Rowland, the head of Lonrho and the owner of "The Observer". It is a story of empire-building, unresolved mystery, commercial skulduggery, financial acumen, and confrontations with a succession of governments in Europe, America and Africa. The book reflects not only the fortunes of an individualist, but the ambitions, machinations and limitations of an array of power-brokers in the City, Whitehall, Wall Street and elsewhere in the world.
Motor girls: how women took the wheel and drove boldly into the twentieth century
Destined to live: one woman's war, life, loves remembered
Memoirs of a Jew who was born in 1927 in Borisław, Poland. Pp. 31-132 deal with the Holocaust period, based on information found in a diary she kept at the time. Wolanski survived in hiding, at first with a Christian family and then in a bunker in the forest, until the liberation.
East End underworld: chapters in the life of Arthur Harding
First published in 1981, this book examines the life of Arthur Harding, a well-known figure in the East End underworld during the first half of the twentieth century. The first five chapters survey his life in the 'Jago' slum between 1887 and 1896, offering a different view of an often vilified district. The subsequent phases of his life as a cabinet-maker, street trader and wardrobe dealer reflect the changing fortunes of the East End from hand-to-mouth conditions in the late-nineteenth century to comparative security in the 1930s. The reader is introduced to some of the major features of East End life -- back-street enterprise, neighbourhood solidarity, politics and popular culture. Among the many themes that can be traced are the relationship between the underworld and the local working-class community; the collusive understanding established between villains and the police; the effects of the criminalisation of street betting; and the relationship between Jews, non-Jews and what the author terms 'half-jews' in a district of high immigration. Drawn from transcripts of recorded reminiscences, this book provides an important text for understanding the political economy of crime -- extended by the authors extensive footnotes and a preface discussing the peculiar moral complexion of south-west Bethnal Green.
No fixed abode: a Jewish odyssey to Africa
Peter Fraenkel here gives a vivid account of a childhood in a middle-class, non-observant Jewish family in Nazi Germany, forced to emigrate to Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) in 1939. Here the contrast could hardly be greater, from persecuted Jew, to 'enemy alien' in colonial Northern Rhodesia, to re-assimilation into the privileged colonial elite. Following education in Northern and Southern Rhodesia he worked for the Northern Rhodesian and later, Central Broadcasting Service. Here his pioneering work and support for racial equality in a deeply racist society connected with his earlier life - 'no fixed abode' but in tune with humane liberalism.
Sasha and Emma: the anarchist odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman
In 1889 two Russian immigrants, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, met in a coffee shop on the Lower East Side. Over the next fifty years Emma and Sasha would be fast friends, fleeting lovers, and loyal comrades. This dual biography offers an unprecedented glimpse into their intertwined lives, the lasting influence of the anarchist movement they shaped, and their unyielding commitment to equality and justice. Berkman shocked the country in 1892 with "the first terrorist act in America," the failed assassination of the industrialist Henry Clay Frick for his crimes against workers. Passionate and pitiless, gloomy yet gentle, Berkman remained Goldman's closest confidant though the two were often separated-by his fourteen-year imprisonment and by Emma's growing fame as the champion of a multitude of causes, from sexual liberation to freedom of speech. The blazing sun to Sasha's morose moon, Emma became known as "the most dangerous woman in America." Through an attempted prison breakout, multiple bombing plots, and a dramatic deportation from America, these two unrelenting activists insisted on the improbable ideal of a socially just, self-governing utopia, a vision that has shaped movements across the past century, most recently Occupy Wall Street. Sasha and Emma is the culminating work of acclaimed historian of anarchism Paul Avrich. Before his death, Avrich asked his daughter to complete his magnum opus. The resulting collaboration, epic in scope, intimate in detail, examines the possibilities and perils of political faith and protest, through a pair who both terrified and dazzled the world.
Radical passion: Ottilie Assing's reports from America and letters to Frederick Douglass
The end of romance: a memoir of love, sex, and the mystery of the violin
Norma Barzman is a blacklisted writer living in Southern France. Henry Myers is her beloved cousin, a former member of the Algonquin circle who has found his writing talent diminished with age, and is living an isolated life in New York City. When Norma invites Henry to Italy to realize their mutual dream of traveling together to Cremona to write about the mysterious origins of violin making, neither one could have anticipated the explosive consequences of their journey. But their adventure opens a Pandora's box of long-suppressed emotions, family secrets, and forces each to reassess their feelings towards each other, and themselves.
An almost English life
Miriam Gross, as a journalist and editor, has worked with some of the most influential figures of the 20th century poets, philosophers, playwrights and politicians. This book offers recollections from 40 years at the heart of English cultural life. Brought up in wartime Jerusalem, she was deposited by her parents, speaking no English, at the bohemian Dartington Hall School; and then continued her education at Oxford where eschewing her quiet, tea-drinking contemporaries at St Anne s she found her way into more glamorous academic circles. From there it was a short hop to pre-spell-check Fleet Street. Her descriptions whether she is having to mend her boss's bra on her first day at work, or rewriting Angus Wilson's slapdash book reviews, or being asked to make the women s pages of the Observer more raunchy show a merciless eye for the bogus and the absurd. Alongside reflections on everything from feminism and motherhood to education and anti-semitism, she recounts her numerous infatuations, both requited and unrequited, with the sort of self-deprecating candour that makes this memoir a classic of its kind.
Always beginning: essays on a life in poetry
The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet writes about her life, the creative process, and the work of other poets.
Between the yeshiva world and modern orthodoxy: the life and works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg
A biography of the leading halakhic authority Jehiel Jacob Weinberg, born in Ciechanowiecz, Poland. He was the last rector of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary. Ch. 5 (pp. 110-134), "Response to the New Nazi Government (1933-1934), " characterizes the early reaction of Weinberg to the Nazis as naive and apologetic. Weinberg helped the Orthodox Jews deal with problems of daily life under the Nazis (e.g. the ban on ritual slaughter). Ch. 6 (pp. 135-171), "The Nazi Era (1933-1945), " notes that Orthodox German Jews first adopted a policy of appeasement with the regime. With Jews excluded from general education and other aspects of German life, the role of the Seminary became more important. Weinberg had opposed Jewish emigration, and the "Kristallnacht" pogrom came as a tremendous shock to him; the Seminary was closed and most of the students and faculty emigrated. At the outbreak of the war he was in Warsaw, where he helped with communal affairs. As a Soviet citizen, Weinberg suffered less than others; in October 1941 he was transferred from the Warsaw ghetto to a detention camp in Wuelzburg, Germany, possibly in order to trade him for German citizens held captive in the USSR. He remained there until April 1945. Most of his family was murdered in the Holocaust. After the war he became head of a yeshiva in Montreux, Switzerland.
Notes from the other side of night
Notes from the Other Side of Night is a diary-memoir written upon Juliana Geran Pilon's return to her native Romania in 1975, which she had left along with her family when she was just fourteen. Poetically weaving together modern insight and realities with childhood perceptions, Pilon tells the haunting stories of her parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends. Although the scenery of her native home had remained essentially unchanged since her childhood, Pilon recalls streets that are no more, homes and churches that have been demolished. Yet, the hills and forests, the flowers and mountains, the heat of old Bucharest, remained the same. The scenes and characters described in this book are simply unforgettable. Despite the many tragedies it describes--anti-semitism, political imprisonment, and judicial execution were ruthless realities under communism--Notes from the Other Side of Night is not a depressing book. Pilon writes with a detached melancholy about events and characters that illustrate Hannah Arendt's terrifying "banality of evil." But she remembers, as well, those few who managed to remain human beings until the end. Ultimately, hope triumphs in this memoir. This edition includes a new foreword, which discusses the initial writing and publication of this and previous editions.
Jozef Pilsudski: founding father of modern Poland
"An authoritative biography of Jozef Pilsudski, a key figure in interwar Europe regarded as the founding hero of a pluralistic and democratic modern Poland. After the first elected president was assassinated, Pilsudski lost faith in Poles' commitment to democracy, led a military coup, and ruled as a strongman, leaving a complicated legacy"--
The Jews of Windsor, 1790-1990: a historical chronicle
Beginning with the first Jewish settler, Moses David, the important role that Windsor Jews played in the development of Ontario's south is mirrored in this 200-year chronicle. the founding pioneer families transformed their Eastern European shtetl into a North American settlement; many individuals were involved in establishing synagogues, schools, and an organized communal structure in spite of divergent religious, political, and economic interests. Modernity and the growing influences of Zionism and Conservative/Reform Judaism challenged the traditional and leftist leanings of the community's founders. From the outset, Jews were represented in city council, actively involved in communal organizations, and appointed to judicial posts. While its Jewish population was small, Windsor boasted Canada's first Jewish Cabinet members, provincially and federally, in David Croll and Herb Gray. As the new millennium approached, jews faced shrinking numbers, forcing major consolidations in order to ensure their survival.
If only you could bottle it: memoirs of a radical son
"This memoir of a radical Jew follows Jack Nusan Porter's journey from his birth in Ukraine during the Holocaust, through the radical 60s and 70s, to the present day, and details his experiences fighting anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, xenophobia, and hate"--
Unhealed wounds: France and the Klaus Barbie affair
The power of the vote: electing presidents, overthrowing dictators, and promoting democracy around the world
A different world for women: the life of Millicent Garrett Fawcett
Obsessions and confessions of a book life
"An autobiographical narrative of the career of British author, bookseller, and book collector Colin Franklin, discussing his life and experiences in the book world. Includes essays on figures in the book trade who have influenced and fascinated Franklin. Illustrated in color and black and white"--