1322 results for "American History"

Tattoo for a Slave

Hortense Calisher
A tattoo is a bugle call, a summoning that lingers in the ear. Although Hortense Calisher's family eventually migrated north to New York City, the echoes of their days as a slave-owning family in the South still resonate with this acclaimed author, who uncovers a part of history never before so strongly and tenderly revealed. Calisher traces her family's years in the South and their transformative move up north, beautifully evoking the mood and texture of the early twentieth century. Her family was an eccentric combination of traditions and tragedies. Her Virginia-born father, a perfume manufacturer, was twenty-two years older than her German-born mother. Marked by longer-than-normal gaps between the generations and conflicts between the mercantile and the scholarly, the "American" and the emigre, her family is characterized by Calisher as "volcanic to meditative to fruitfully dull, and bound to produce someone interested in character, society, and time." "
Harcourt 2005 324 pages

The Jewish enigma: an enduring people

Englander, David
The survival of Jewish identity and culture is one of the great enigmas of history. Faced with persecution, dispersal, pogroms and Hitler's "Final Solution", the future of the Jewish people was far from secure. "The Jewish Enigma" seeks to discover what made survival possible. In seven chapters, scholars trace the history of the Jewish people from the first Babylonian exile to the current state of Western and American Jewry. Topics covered include Jews in Islamic lands, the Emancipation, the history of anti-Semitism, the history of East European Jewry as well as the troubled history of Zionism and the Palestinians.
Open University in association with P. Halban : Spiro Institute 1992 266 pages

The assassination of Hole in the Day

Treuer, Anton
On June 27, 1868, Hole in the Day (Bagonegiizhig) the Younger left Crow Wing, Minnesota, for Washington, DC, to fight the planned removal of the Mississippi Ojibwe to a reservation at White Earth. Several miles from his home, the self-styled leader of all the Ojibwe was stopped by at least twelve Ojibwe men and fatally shot. Hole in the Day's death was national news, and rumors of its cause were many: personal jealousy, retribution for his claiming to be head chief of the Ojibwe, retaliation for the attacks he fomented in 1862, or retribution for his attempts to keep mixed-blood Ojibwe off the White Earth Reservation. Still later, investigators found evidence of a more disturbing plot involving some of his closest colleagues: the business elite at Crow Wing. While most historians concentrate on the Ojibwe relationship with whites to explain this story, Anton Treuer focuses on interactions with other tribes, the role of Ojibwe culture and tradition, and interviews with more than fifty elders to further explain the events leading up to the death of Hole in the Day. The Assassination of Hole in the Day is not only the biography of a powerful leader but an extraordinarily insightful analysis of a pivotal time in the history of the Ojibwe people. " An essential study of nineteenth-century Ojibwe leadership and an important contribution to the field of American Indian Studies by an author of extraordinary knowledge and talent. Treuer's work is infused with a powerful command over Ojibwe culture and linguistics." --Ned Blackhawk, author of Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West "The Assassination of Hole in the Day is a masterful history, and more. Anton Treuer illuminates the character of a controversial and charismatic Ojibwe leader from within Ojibwe culture, and tells a powerful story of loss that reverberates in the present." --Louise Erdrich "This is more than a murder mystery. It provides insights into the evolution of clan structure, tribal governance and relations with the Dakota and other tribes since the time a century and a half ago when white pressure, the declining fur trade and other factors led to the cession of great tracts of land and the people's removal to reservations." --Star Tribune "This highly recommended work provides insights into the challenges faced by native peoples during an era when they were under intense pressure by the federal government to move to reservations." --Library Journal "Treuer explores the life and death of this brash young leader, and delves into tribal history and the intricate machinations of Ojibwa politics." --Booklist Anton Treuer, professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, is the author of Ojibwe in Minnesota and several books on the Ojibwe language. He is also the editor of Oshkaabewis Native Journal, the only academic journal of the Ojibwe language.
Borealis Books 2011 295 pages

Pragmatism's advantage: American and European philosophy at the end of the twentieth century

Margolis, Joseph
This book addresses the rift between major philosophical factions in the United States, which the author describes as a "philosophically becalmed" three-legged creature made up of analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, and pragmatism. Joseph Margolis offers a modified pragmatism as the best way out of this stalemate. Whether he is examining Heidegger or rethinking the foibles of Dewey, Rorty, and Peirce, much of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Western philosophy comes into play as Margolis presents his history of philosophy's evolution and defends his views. He does not, however, mean for philosophy to turn to the pragmatism of yore or even to its revival in the 1970s. Rather, he finds in recent approaches to pragmatism a middle ground between analytic philosophy's scientism (and its disinterest in analyzing human nature)and continental philosophy's reliance on attributing transcendental powers to mere mortals.
Stanford University Press 2010-01-29 172 pages

Lies with a Straight Face Exposing the Cranks and Cons Inside the 'Ex-Gay' Industry

Wayne R. Besen
Lies with a Straight Face tells the fascinating story of the precipitous rise and fall of the "ex-gay" conversion industry in a manner that is both enlightening and entertaining. This fast-moving, fact-based book is perfect for those who enjoy the marriage of politics, history and current events. The book features the riveting story of the 1998 Truth in Love ad campaign, where the Religious Right's most prominent organizations joined forces to prove that LGBTQ people could be converted to heterosexuality through prayer and therapy. Their provocative national ad campaign created saturation media coverage, turned "ex-gay" into a household term and sparked innumerable water cooler conversations. In this book, you'll find out the shocking results of the Truth in Love campaign and learn about what happened to their outspoken "ex-gay" poster boys and girls. Lies with a Straight Face also discusses the contemporary con artists in the "ex-gay" industry and offers tangible ways for today's leaders to fight back. Lies with a Straight Face is a sequel published on the twenty-year anniversary of Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth. Nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, Besen's original book documents the history of conversion "cure" programs from the early 20th Century to 2002. His new book discusses what happened from 2003 up to the present day. "To prevail in our present-day battles, we must learn from our past," said Besen. "Ex-gay conversion programs are a farce that wreck families and destroy lives."
Truth Wins Out 2023-10-11 456 pages

Tony Kushner in conversation

Kushner, Tony
In the Fall of 1992, Millennium Approaches, the first part of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, won England's prestigious Evening Standard award as the season's Best Play. By the Spring of 1993, Millennium had come to Broadway and won its highest honor, the Tony Award for Best Play, and the distinguished Pulitzer Prize for drama as well. Through its epic theatrical panorama of the intimate and political dynamics that arise when individuals, histories, and cultures intersect, Millennium captured the imagination and the conscience of all who saw it. Its ability to deeply move the audience in personal, communal, and political ways was admirably (and astoundingly) matched by the subsequent production of the play's second part, Perestroika, which brought Kushner yet another Evening Standard award and Tony Award for Best Play (1994). Tony Kushner has, almost overnight, become the premier American male playwright to "represent" the 1990s, as David Mamet and August Wilson dominated critical attention in the 1980s. The phenomenally positive response to Angels in America was matched by the equally enthusiastic reception of its young, politically engaged playwright, who impressed journalists and scholars with his eloquent intellect, wit, and moral convictions. Kushner spoke for a younger generation of American artists and activists whose art is intimately connected to social vision and "revolutionary" possibilities in the public and private sectors. His role as a generational (read "national," "liberal," "socialist," "Jewish," "queer") spokesman has provided him with a public platform from which to address concerns that lie at the center of national debate. In a short time Kushner has capturedand retained a nation's fascination, and his opinions are widely sought out on a wide range of topics. And, most often, the platform from which Kushner expresses his ideas is the personal interview, in which he boldly confronts Americans to rethink, even to reinvent, themselves as the Millennium approaches. Tony Kushner in Conversation is the first book to compile Kushner's most significant interviews of the past decade, tracing his career from its early years to his maturing artistic and political visions. The collection includes pieces that first appeared in an amazingly broad range of periodicals as well as interviews not previously published, such as his appearance on PBS on The Charlie Rose Show. In addition to Angels in America, Tony Kushner is author of Slavs! and is currently finishing work on Henry Box Brown, scheduled to have its world premiere at the Royal National Theatre in the summer of 1997. Robert Vorlicky is Associate Professor of Drama at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.
University of Michigan Press 1997 286 pages

Grace Paley's life stories

Arcana, Judith
Is Faith Darwin Asbury really Grace Paley? Or is it coincidental that the personal history, politics, and relationships of the fictional Asbury seem to mirror those of the well-known author? And do other characters in Paley's stories represent individuals she has known, in scenes and entire episodes she has experienced? A writer who translates her life into art not only saves her own life, according to Paley, but offers others the revelation of its meaning. That idea is at the core of Judith Arcana's biographical reading of this strongly autobiographical writer. Grace Paley's Life Stories interweaves details about Paley with critical discussions of her works, examining her as a woman, mother, activist, and Jew. Arcana visited and interviewed Paley at her homes in Vermont and New York over a period of several years. She also interviewed Paley's family, friends, and colleagues. Such extensive research is unmatched in Paley scholarship; Arcana's focus on the political crucible of Paley's consciousness is rare in contemporary literary criticism.
Eberhardt Press 2018 311 pages

Herman Wouk: The Novelist as Social Historian

Beichman, Arnold
Arnold Beichman's comprehensive study of the writings of Herman Wouk, one of America's leading writers, shows how Wouk's plays and novels exemplify an extraordinary and often highly perceptive preoccupation with American society in war and in peace. Situating Wouk in the same literary tradition as Cervantes, Richardson, Balzac, and Dickens, Beichman demonstrates that Wouk's novels have strong plots, moralist outcomes, and active--essentially positive--characters. The new introduction serves to bring Wouk's work over the past two decades into the reckoning. Making extensive use of Wouk's personal papers and manuscripts as well as personal interviews with him, Beichman's focus is on the social and literary qualities of Wouk's work. In particular, he examines eight novels including War and Remembrance and The Winds of War; The Traitor, one of his three plays; and two moral tracts on Judaism. Wouk has written four more novels, including his latest, A Hole in Texas, his twelfth. Beichman portrays Wouk as one of the few living novelists concerned with virtue, and sees his work as against the mainstream of contemporary American novelists. These, he argues, have eschewed such elements of the traditional novel as invention, coincidences, surprises, suspense, and a moral perspective more presumed than examined.
[distributor] Taylor & Francis, c/o Bookpoint 2017-08-02 144 pages

Nicolaus of Damascus Life of Augustus

Of Damascus Nicolaus
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Creative Media Partners, LLC 2022-10-27 266 pages

Inside the Halo and Beyond: The Anatomy of a Recovery

Maxine Kumin
"Here is a singular story of survival, an earthly miracle wrought by family devotion, gardens, horses, guts. A compelling read."—Carolyn Heilbrun In July 1998, when Maxine Kumin's horse bolted at a carriage-driving clinic, she was not expected to live. Yet, less than a year later, her progress pronounced a miracle by her doctors, she was at work on this journal of her astonishing recovery. She tells of her time "inside the halo," the near-medieval device that kept her head immobile during weeks of intensive care and rehabilitation, of the lasting "rehab" friendships, and of the loving family who always believed she would heal. "[S]he resonates wisdom while announcing a triumph of body and soul."—Anne Roiphe, New York Times Book Review "Maxine Kumin brings the sensitivity and imagination of a poet to her extraordinary ordeal."—Richard Selzer, author of Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery "From a singular experience she has created a lesson that is universal, which, it seems to me, is the essence of being a poet."—Abraham Verghese, author of The Tennis Partner
W. W. Norton & Company 2001-11-17 208 pages

Do lord remember me

Lester, Julius
In a gray fieldstone house in Nashville, Tennessee, the Reverend Joshua Smith Sr.--the staunch and gentle man known to thousands in black churches throughout the South as the Singing Evangelist and to one white reporter as "the Colored Billy Graham"--is trying to compose his own obituary on what will be the last day of his life. In doing so, he looks back over that life--from his childhood in rural nothern Mississippi to the civil rights movement of the 1960s, from tears of humiliation to songs of celebration and triumph. When Do Lord Remember was first published in 1984, the Chicago Sun-Times compared it to Alex Haley's Roots , Newsday described it as "exquisitely crafted," People as "distinguished," the Philadelphia Inquirer as "riveting," and the Cleveland Plain-Dealer declared "every page has something worth remembering." Twenty years later and now a classic, Do Lord Remember Me is an eloquent and deeply moving story about a black family's dignified struggle for survival.
Griffin 2004-10 224 pages

The death and rebirth of American radicalism

Aronowitz, Stanley
The Death and Rebirth of American Radicalism differentiates the ""Social Justice Left"" from ""Cultural Radicalism"" and the various social movements for individual freedom. In The Death and Rebirth of American Radicalism, Stanley Aronowitz asks the question, ""Is there anything left of the Left?"" With the rise of Newt Gingrich and his ""Contract With America,"" how is it that conservativism staged such a remarkable recovery after being discounted in the turbulent 1960s? Aronowitz addresses these and other burning issues of contemporary politics.
Routledge 1996 222 pages

Socialist thought: a documentary history

Albert Fried,Ronald Sanders
Nearly five centuries after the first wave of Catholic missionaries arrived in the New World to spread their Christian message, contemporary religious workers in the Bolivian highlands have begun to encourage Aymara Indians to return to traditional ritual practices. All but eradicated after hundreds of years of missionization, the "old ways" are now viewed as local cultural expressions of Christian values. In order to become more Christian, the Aymara must now become more Indian. This groundbreaking study of the contemporary encounter between Catholic missionaries and Aymara Indians is the first ethnography to focus both on the evangelizers and the evangelized. Andrew Orta explores the pastoral shift away from liberation theology that dominated Latin American missionization up until the mid-1980s to the recent "theology of inculturation," which upholds the beliefs and practices of a supposedly pristine Aymara culture as indigenous expressions of a more universal Christianity. Addressing essential questions in cultural anthropology, religious studies, postcolonial studies, and globalization studies, Catechizing Culture is a sophisticated documentation of the widespread shift from the politics of class to the politics of ethnicity and multiculturalism.
Columbia University Press 1992 619 pages