1472 results for "Biography"

The Ojibwa Woman

Ruth Landes
The Ojibwa Woman is a book written by Ruth Landes that explores the life and culture of the Ojibwa people, specifically focusing on the experiences of Ojibwa women. The book is based on Landes' fieldwork among the Ojibwa people in the early 1930s, during which she lived among the tribe and conducted extensive interviews with women to gain a better understanding of their lives, beliefs, and customs.The book covers a wide range of topics related to Ojibwa women, including their roles in the community, their relationships with men and other women, their experiences of motherhood and childbirth, and their spiritual beliefs and practices. Landes also explores the impact of colonialism and Christianity on the Ojibwa people, and the ways in which these forces have affected the lives of Ojibwa women.Throughout the book, Landes presents a nuanced and empathetic portrait of the Ojibwa people and their culture, drawing on her own observations and the insights of the women she interviewed. The book is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the history and culture of indigenous peoples, as well as for those interested in the experiences of women in different cultures and societies.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
Literary Licensing, LLC 2011-08 256 pages

Blue-Eyed Boy A Memoir

Robert Timberg
Acclaimed journalist Robert Timberg's extraordinary, long-awaited memoir of his struggle to reclaim his life and find his calling after being severely burned as a young Marine lieutenant in Vietnam In January 1967, Robert Timberg was a short-timer, counting down the days until his combat tour ended. He had thirteen days to go before he got to go back home to his wife in Southern California. That homecoming would eventually happen, but not in thirteen days, and not as the person he once was. The moment his vehicle struck a Vietcong land mine divided his life into before and after. He survived, barely, with third-degree burns over his face and much of his body. It would have been easy to give up. Instead, Robert Timberg began an arduous and uncertain struggle back--not just to physical recovery, but to a life of meaning. Remarkable as his return to health was--he endured thirty-five operations, one without anesthesia--just as remarkable was his decision to reinvent himself as a journalist and enter one of the most public of professions. Blue-Eyed Boy is a gripping, occasionally comic account of what it took for an ambitious man, aware of his frightful appearance but hungry for meaning and accomplishment, to master a new craft amid the pitying stares and shocked reactions of many he encountered on a daily basis. By the 1980s, Timberg had moved into the upper ranks of his profession, having secured a prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard and a job as White House correspondent for The Baltimore Sun . Suddenly his work brought his life full circle: the Iran-Contra scandal broke. At its heart were three fellow Naval Academy graduates and Vietnam-era veterans, Oliver North, Bud McFarlane, and John Poindexter. Timberg's coverage of that story resulted in his first book, The Nightingale's Song , a powerful work of narrative nonfiction that follows these three academy graduates and two others--John McCain and Jim Webb--from Annapolis through Vietnam and into the Reagan years. In Blue-Eyed Boy , Timberg relates how he came to know and develop a deep understanding of these five men, and how their stories helped him understand the ways the Vietnam War and the furor that swirled around it continued to haunt him, and the nation as a whole, as they still do even now, nearly four decades after its dismal conclusion. Like others of his generation, Robert Timberg had to travel an unexpectedly hard and at times bitter road. In facing his own life with the same tools of wisdom, human empathy, and storytelling grit he has always brought to his journalism, he has produced one of the most moving and important memoirs of our time.
Penguin 2015-07-14 320 pages

Conspiracy to Riot The Life and Times of One of the Chicago 7

Lee Weiner
A memoir of a life in activism by one of the original defendants in the Trial of the Chicago 7, subject of the 2020 Oscar-nominated Aaron Sorkin film of the same name. In March 1969, eight young men were indicted by the federal government for conspiracy to incite a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. First dubbed the Conspiracy 8 and later the Chicago 7, the group included firebrands like Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Bobby Seale. But it also included a little-known community activist and social worker from the South Side of Chicago named Lee Weiner, who was just as surprised as the rest of the country when his name was included in the indictment. The ensuing trial of the Chicago 7 became a media sensation, and it changed Weiner's life forever. In this irreverent, freewheeling memoir of an indelible moment in history--which Kirkus Reviews called a welcome addition to the library of the countercultural 1960s left--Conspiracy to Riot shows how a commitment to your ideals can change your destiny forever. With startling relevance to today's polarized political climate, Conspiracy to Riot is a book for anyone who hopes for a better, more just world, and offers a blueprint for how to make it happen.
Belt Publishing 2020 208 pages

Trapped The 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster

Karen Tintori
A gripping account of the worst coal mine fire in US history—the 1909 Cherry Mine Disaster that claimed the lives of 259 men. "Drawing on diaries, letters, written accounts of survivors and testimony from the coroner's inquest...Tintori's engaging prose keeps readers on the edge" ( Publishers Weekly ). Inspired by a refrain of her girlhood—"Your grandfather survived the Cherry Mine disaster"—Karen Tintori began a search for her family's role in the harrowing tragedy of 1909. She uncovered the stories of victims, survivors, widows, orphans, townspeople, firefighters, reporters, and mine owners, and wove them together to pen Trapped, a riveting account of the tragic day that would inspire America's first worker's compensation laws and hasten much-needed child labor reform. On a Saturday morning in November of 1909, four hundred and eighty men went down into the mines as they had countless times before. But a fire erupted in the mineshaft that day and soon burned out of control. By nightfall, more than half the men would either be dead or trapped as officials sealed the mine in an attempt to contain the blaze. Miraculously, twenty men would emerge one week later, but not before the Cherry Mine disaster went down in history as the worst ever coal mine fire in the US—and not before all the treachery and heroism of mankind were revealed.
Simon and Schuster 2003-09-17 288 pages

Jimmy Carter

Julian E. Zelizer
A peanut farmer from Georgia, Jimmy Carter rose to national power through mastering the strategy of the maverick politician. As the face of the "New South", Carter's strongest support came from his ability to communicate directly to voters who were disaffected by corruption in politics. But running as an outsider was easier than governing as one, as Princeton historian Julian E. Zelizer shows in this examination of Carter's presidency.
Thorndike Press 2010 262 pages

Now and Then From Coney Island to Here

Joseph Heller
From the author of two of our most legendary novels, Catch-22 and Something Happened , comes a slyly funny, vastly revelatory memoir that is at once a loving evocation of a lost America and an exploration of the frontier where life turns into literature. Now and Then follows Joseph Heller from his fatherless childhood on the boardwalks of Depression-era Coney Island, where he grew up amid the rumble of the Cyclone and the tantalizing aroma of Mrs. Shatzkin's knishes. It offers a dizzying bombardier's-eye view of the sky over wartime Italy, where Heller encountered the characters and incidents he would later translate into Catch-22. It depicts a writer coming to terms with both rejection and celebrity. Here, in short, is a life filled with incident and insight, recollected with subversive humor, exquisite timing, and a fine appreciation for the absurd.
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 1999-01-26 272 pages

The Natural The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton

Joe Klein
Joe Klein, best-selling author of Primary Colors and one of our most brilliant political analysts, now tackles the subject he knows best: Bill Clinton. Astute, even-handed, and keenly intelligent, The Natural is the only book to read if you want to understand exactly what happened–to the military, to the economy, to the American people, to the country–during Bill Clinton’s presidency, and how the decisions made during his tenure affect all of us today. Much has been written about Clinton, but The Natural is the first work to cut through the gossip, scandals, media hype, and emotional turbulence that Clinton always engendered, to step back and rationally analyze the eight years of his tenure, a period during which America rose to unprecedented levels of prosperity. Joe Klein puts that record into perspective, showing us what worked and what didn’t, exactly what was accomplished and why, and who was responsible for the successes and the failures. We see how the Clinton White House functioned on the inside, how it dealt with the maneuvers of Congress and the Gingrich revolution, and who held power and made the decisions during the endless crises that beset the administration. Klein’s access to the White House over the years as a journalist gave him a prime spot from which to view every crucial event–both political and personal–and he sets them forth in an insightful, readable, and completely engrossing manner. The Natural is stern in its criticism and convincing with its praise. It will cause endless debate amongst friends and foes of the Clinton administration. It is a book that anyone interested in contemporary politics, in American history, or in the functioning of our democracy, should read.
Crown 2003-02-11 240 pages

An American Saga The Story of Helen Thomas and Simon Flexner

James T. Flexner
This tale of two families is set on a grand scale, as James Thomas Flexner brings his talents to bear on his own noteworthy heritage. An American Saga is an historical narrative, grounded on documentary sources, which ends with the marriage of Helen Thomas and Simon Flexner. The account deals equally with the lives and the backgrounds of husband and wife, the author's parents. Simon Flexner was the famous medical investigator, discoverer of the "Flexner vacillus" and the "Flexner serum," who became the creating director of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University) and eventually acknowledged leader of American medical science. The Kentucky-born son of impoverished German Jewish immigrants, he grew up in penury. As he never completed the eighth grade, he was almost completely self-educated when he appeared at the Johns Hopkins University before its celebrated medical school had been founded. Almost instantly he began making the discoveries that soon made him the leading younger medical scientist in the United States.
Fordham University Press 1993 494 pages

City Room

Arthur Gelb
A New York Times Notable Book Arthur Gelb was hired by The New York Times in 1944 as a night copyboy—the paper’s lowliest position. Forty-five years later, he retired as its managing editor. Along the way, he exposed crooked cops and politicians, mentored a generation of our most-talented journalists, was the first to praise the as-yet-undiscovered Woody Allen and Barbra Streisand, and brought Joe Papp instant recognition. From D-Day to the liberation of the concentration camps, from the agony of Vietnam to the resignation of a President, from the fall of Joe McCarthy to the rise of the “Woodstock Nation,” Gelb gives an insider’s take on the great events of this nation's history—what he calls “the happiest days of my life.”
Penguin Group 2004-11-02 672 pages

Before the fall: an inside view of the pre-Watergate White House

Safire, William
William Safire was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon from 1968 to 1973. During that time, as a Washington insider, Safire was able to observe the thirty-seventh president in his entirety: as noble and mean-spirited; as good and bad; as a man desirous of greatness. Rarely has there been a White House memoir more intimate or revealing in its exploration of the great events that took place "before the fall" of Watergate. In this anecdotal history, Nixon and his associates come alive, not as caricatures, but as men with high and low purpose: Henry Kissinger, William Rogers, H. R. (Bob) Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, and Arthur Burns struggle not just for power, but for ideals. As William Safire says in his Prologue: "In this memoir, which is neither a biography of [Nixon] nor an autobiography of me nor a narrative history of our times, there is an attempt to figure out what was good and bad about him, what he was trying to do and how well he succeeded, how he used and affected some of the people around him, and an effort not to lose sight of all that went right in examining what went wrong." The book is divided into ten sections, in which run three main themes: the President, the Partisan, and the Person. As a president, Safire discusses Nixon and the Vietnam War, foreign policy, economics, and race relations. As a partisan, he discusses Nixon's attempt to form an alignment across party lines, successful in many respects before the president tolerated the excesses that eventually corrupted his administration. And as a person, Safire finds that Nixon was a mixture of Woodrow Wilson, Machiavelli, Theodore Roosevelt, and Shakespeare's Cassius--an idealistic conniver evoking the strenuous life while he thinks too much. This paperback edition of a classic primary source for historians includes a new introduction by its author. Studded with direct quotations that put the reader in the room where history was being made, Before the Fall is a realistic, shades-of-gray study of the Nixon years. William Safire joined the New York Times in 1973 as a political columnist, where he also writes a Sunday column, "On Language," about grammar, usage, and etymology. The author of several books including Freedom , Full Disclosure , and Scandalmonger , he is the winner of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary and served nine years as a member of the Pulitzer Board.
Transaction Publishers 2005 704 pages

The JFK ASSASSINATION DIARY My Search For Answers to the Mystery of the Century

Edward Jay Epstein
One of the most important original documents about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy to be published on the 50th anniversary of the event. The never before published diary of Edward Jay Epstein's investigation into the assassination reveals startling new details. Epstein, one of America's most acclaimed investigative journalists and widely acknowledged as the premier expert on the assassination, while still an undergraduate at Cornell, interviewed the members of the Warren Commission and its staff of investigators, and obtained their key files. He was the only journalist, ever, to have gained this access. His full findings are disclosed here for the first time. In his investigation, Epstein also interviewed the top officials of the CIA, including at length the legendary chief of counter-intelligence James Jesus Angleton. He was the only journalist to interview Yuri Nosenko, the KGB officer who claimed to be Oswald's KGB case officer. Jim Garrison, the New Orleans district attorney, who attempted to reopen the case, confided his methods and sources in Epstein. Epstein was, moreover, the last person to see George De Mohrenschildt, Oswald's mysterious White Russian friend, who he interviewed for hours until the moment when he took his secrets with him in death. The JFK Assassination Diary is the true story at last of the incredible answers Epstein unearthed in pursuit of the greatest crime of the 20th century. Praise for Edward Jay Epstein "A grand figure of modern journalism...Show Epstein a juicy crime and he will show you how it has been subverted by unseen powers for their own agenda, by the inevitable incompetence of investigative authorities and by the media because it likes a simple story line." -Michael Wolff, USA Today "Epstein believes that conspiracies are more common than most journalists credit; for much of his career, he has reveled in the kind of tantalizing clues that could lead somewhere, or nowhere." -Joe Nocera, The New York Times "Epstein is a bulldog researcher." -Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post "A brilliant investigator." - Lou Dobbs Praise For Agency of Fear "Epstein tells all." -John Leonard, New York Times " Part detective story, part farce, part exposé, and part textbook on investigative reporting. It is ingenious, perverse, hilarious, and shocking." -Victor Navasky "Exciting research, impressive thesis." -Norman Mailer Praise For Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald A fascinating, alarming, and enormously significant book on the mystery of Lee Harvey Oswald-- The New York Times Book Review ABOUT THE AUTHOR Edward Jay Epstein is the author of fifteen books. He studied government at Cornell and Harvard and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1973. His thesis on the search for political truth became a best-selling book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth. His doctoral dissertation on television news was published as News From Nowhere. He is the recipient of numerous foundation grants and awards, including the prestigious Financial Times/Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award for both best biography and best business book for Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer. He has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York City.
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2013-09-26 110 pages

The gilded rage: a wild ride through Donald Trump's America

Zaitchik, Alexander
"2016 continues to be the most surreal and unpredictable election year in recent memory and this is due in large part to one Donald J. Trump and the millions of Americans who made him this year's Republican nominee for president. As Trump continues to succeed despite behavior that would cripple any other politician, whether it is questioning the patriotism of the Gold Star Khan family or banishing a baby from one of his press conferences, it is imperative to understand why so many continue to support him. And this is what makes The Gilded Rage so important; it provides insight into the forgotten Americans that continue to befuddle pundits and "experts" on CNN and FOX alike. This grippingly intimate and heart-breaking book provides a portrait of the walking wounded who make up the base of the Trump movement. Desperate and angry, these are the Americans of the vanishing industrial heartland, depressed Appalachian coal country, and the no-man's land along the Southwestern border. These are coal miners, out of work construction workers, and small business owners, who have watched their fortunes dwindle with each passing year. They have no illusions about the grandstanding billionaire and his glaring flaws. But these men and women feel forgotten and screwed over by political, corporate and media elites...and they feel that Donald Trump, despite his flamboyant demagoguery, might well be their last chance for salvation. Reminiscent of Studs Terkel's Working, with a dash of Hunter S. Thompson, Alexander Zaitchik in this important book takes us deeper into the ravaged soul of America than any other chronicler of our times. Selected as one of Publishers Weekly's Top Ten picks for Politics & Current Events of Fall 2016 Praise for Alexander Zaitchik's Common Sense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance: "A sharp and informative smackdown. For Zaitchik, [Glenn] Beck is just one more American con artist in the P.T. Barnum tradition, a shameless pseudoconservative bottom-feeder who will say anything to keep the spotlight on himself while the money rolls in." -Mark Lilla, The New York Review of Books "A sensational book; This is a beautifully written and insightful biography-thoughtful, considered, and very intentional about the need to understand Beck both as a symbol of something larger going on in America and as a person." -Susan Gardner, Daily Kos "A scathing profile that follows the powerful pundit from a single-parent home in rural Washington state to conservative superstardom." -The Boston Globe "A great political book. Zaitchik tells [Beck's story] well and nobody has told it more soberly." -Slate "An informative study." -Sean Wilentz, The New Yorker "A gripping and thoroughly researched biography." -Joe Conason, Salon"--
Hot Books 2016 127 pages

Julius Rosenwald: repairing the world

Diner, Hasia R.
Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932) rose from modest means as the son of a peddler to immense wealth at the helm of Sears, Roebuck. Yet his most defining legacy stands not upon his business acumen but on the pioneering changes he introduced to the practice of philanthropy. While few may recall Rosenwald's name--he refused to have it attached to the buildings, projects, or endowments he supported--his passionate support of Jewish and African American causes continues to influence lives to this day. This biography of Julius Rosenwald explores his attitudes toward his own wealth and his distinct ideas about philanthropy, positing an intimate connection between his Jewish consciousness and his involvement with African Americans. The book shines light on his belief in the importance of giving in the present to make an impact on the future, and on his encouragement of beneficiaries to become partners in community institutions and projects. Rosenwald emerges from these pages as a compassionate man whose generosity and wisdom transformed the practice of philanthropy itself.
Yale University Press 2017-10-24 237 pages

My Germany: a Jewish writer returns to the world his parents escaped

Raphael, Lev
Haunted by his parents’ horrific suffering and traumatic losses under Nazi rule, Lev Raphael grew up loathing everything German. Those feelings shaped his Jewish identity, his life, and his career. While researching his mother’s war years after her death, he discovers a distant relative living in the very city where she had worked in a slave labor camp, found freedom, and met his father. Soon after, Raphael is launched on book tours in Germany and, in the process, redefines himself as someone unafraid to face the past and let it go. Bookmarks , “Top Ten Nonfiction Titles of 2009”
University of Wisconsin Press 2011-10-23 224 pages

Al Pacino: anatomy of an actor

Longworth, Karina
Anatomy of an Actor titles are comprehensive studies on the craft of the world's greatest actors, through the analysis of ten of their most iconic roles. The authors examine why and how these famous actors have become some of the most respected and influential in the film world. Each title is divided into 10 chapters, each one dedicated to a specific role and fully documented with film stills, on set photography and film sequences.
Phaidon Press Ltd 2014 191 pages

Ellis Island

Perec, Georges
"Georges Perec, employing prose meditations, lists, and inventories (of countries of origin, of what the immigrants carried), conjures up in Ellis Island the sixteen million people who, between 1890 and 1954, arrived as foreigners and stayed on to become Americans. Perec (who by the age of nine was an orphan: his father was killed by a German bullet; his mother perished in Auschwitz) is wide-awake to the elements of chance in immigration and survival: "To me Ellis Island is the ultimate place of exile. That is, the place where place is absent, the non-place, the nowhere... Ellis Island belongs to all those whom intolerance and poverty have driven and still drive from the land where they grew up." Ellis Island is a slender Perec masterwork, unique among his many singular works. The acclaimed poet and scholar Mónica de la Torre contributes an afterword that keeps Perec's writing front and center while situating Ellis Island in the context of current fierce battles over immigration"--
New Directions Publishing 2021 65 pages