1322 results for "American History"

Party in the Blitz The English Years

Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti originally intended Party in the Blitz to capture an image of his time in post-war London. Well known throughout Europe, Canetti scorned British intellectuals who weren't familiar with his work. By force of will alone he accumulated English followers, but not before being christened "the godmonster of Hampstead." Canetti's memories of various people in his social circle are brief and scathing brimstone sketches. T.S. Eliot, Iris Murdoch, Wittgenstein, Herbert Read, Bertrand Russell-Canetti rakes them all over the coals. To Canetti, T.S. Eliot was nothing more than an American emigrant trying desperately to act British, and Canetti's portrayal of Iris Murdoch, with whom he had an affair, is nothing short of brutal. Michael Hofmann's translation pulls no punches, delivering the goods on Canetti's searing injection: "when you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about."
New Directions Publishing Corporation 2010-02 256 pages

The Conquest of Space

David Lasser
David Lasser stands as one of the least-known but extraordinary pioneers of spaceflight. In 1930 he founded the American Interplanetary Society (AIAA) -- the same year he wrote this book -- the first book ever written in the English language to address the notion of spaceflight as a serious possibility. The book has not been in print since 1931 and yet it still stands up to scrutiny. The lucid style with which Lasser explains the basic concepts of rocketry make it a delight for anyone to read.
Collector's Guide Publishing, Incorporated 2002 191 pages

Total espionage: Germany's information and disinformation apparatus, 1932-41

Riess, Curt
Total Espionage was first published shortly before Pearl Harbor and is fresh in its style, retaining immediacy unpolluted by the knowledge of subsequent events. It tells how the whole apparatus of the Nazi state was geared towards war by its systematic gathering of information and dissemination of disinformation. The author, a Berlin journalist, went into exile in 1933 and eventually settled in Manhattan in where he wrote for the 'Saturday Evening Post'. He maintained a network of contacts throughout Europe and from inside the regime to garner his facts. The Nazis made use of many people and organizations: officers' associations who were in touch with many who left to help organize the armies of South American countries, and in the USA there were the Friends of the New Germany. German consulates sprang up and aircraft would make unusual detours to observe interesting parts of foreign countries. News agencies and various associations dedicated to maintaining contacts with particular countries were encouraged to supply information. Film studios would send large crews abroad to shoot documentaries as well as perform acts of espionage. Foreign nationals were bribed or blackmailed; and pro-fascist groups in foreign countries were supported via the Auslandsorganization. All Germans living abroad were encouraged to report their observations to the authorities, particular attention was being focused on engineers, technicians, scientists and people in other professions who were particularly likely to obtain valuable information; however, other Germans abroad were also used, even cabaret singers, waiters, language teachers, as well as Germans traveling abroad as tourists. Germans living abroad were exempt from mobilization because of their value as spies. Foreigners were given opportunity to study in Germany, and connections with them were kept in the hope that they would one day provide useful information. All of this was Goebbels' 'Total Espionage'.
Fonthill 2016 288 pages

The London lover: my weekend that lasted thirty years

Sigal, Clancy
'An exuberant, breathless sprint through London in the fifties, sixties and seventies... It's bright, boisterous and extremely funny' Tatler 'Clancy's scapegrace adventures are described with so much vitality and scabrous wit you feel as charmed as one of his serial conquests ... Marvellous' Spectator 'If you're searching for something to keep you on the edge of your sun lounger this summer, look no further' Daily Mail If Fielding's Tom Jones were alive in postwar England he might be Clancy Sigal, the American author of this restlessly curious memoir. Honest and devious, faithful and lustful, a mass of plucky contradictions, Clancy first arrived in London in 1957. He was broke, homeless and, according to his FBI file, a dangerous 'subversive'. Over the next three decades, Clancy was to wander the soot-stained streets of London, devouring as much as life could offer him. From the birth of the CND and his affair with Lessing, to therapy with R. D. Laing and wondering whether the entire world was on acid, Clancy details it all to illuminating effect. Underneath all of these encounters is the character of Clancy himself: funny, hapless, warm-hearted and a self-professed 'crazy American'. Call it luck, charm or sheer lack of good sense, he escaped with a cracking good story.
Bloomsbury 2019 274 pages

A taste for freedom: the life of Astolphe de Custine

Muhlstein, Anka
Anka Muhlstein's lively biography, translated by Teresa Waugh, introduces American readers to Astolphe de Custine, a passionate literary figure, a poet, playwright, essayist, traveler, aristocrat and homosexual adventurer. Against the fascinating background of early-19th-century France, Anka Muhlstein presents the gifted if at times deplorable Custine with vivacity, elegance, and insight. It is a splendid introduction to the Marquis and his world and to his famous 1839 tour of autocratic Russia -- Daniel Aaron. Briliant, visionary, beautiful Astolphe -- man of letters and man of society -- finally gets his biography . . . -- French elle Magazine ... -- Amazon
Helen Marx 2000 391 pages

The unveiling of the national icons: a plea for patriotic iconoclasm in a nationalist era

Boime, Albert
In The Unveiling of the National Icons, Albert Boime analyses the creation and reception of several American national monuments as a means of understanding the politics of memory and national icons. In engaging, 'behind the scenes' accounts of several highly visible symbols, such as the American flag, the Statue of Liberty, and Mount Rushmore, among others, he demonstrates how these icons have been manipulated for patriotic purposes. Boime also shows how these monuments express individual and collective needs and how they are subject to contested readings, despite their origins in the creative imaginations of conservatives and privileged members of America. Examining these symbols as a group for the first time, this book is also the first serious investigation of visual artifacts that are too often taken for granted.
Cambridge University Press 1998 427 pages

The Labor history reader

Daniel J. Leab
The Labor History Reader celebrates the first quarter century of the premier journal in its field and provides the richest available source of contemporary thought on American labor history. The result is not only a revealing look at the history of American labor but also a better understanding of our changing attitudes toward that history.''The list of authors in The Labor History Reader reads like an honor roll of the most distinguished labor historians in the United States. The volume itself is excellent in chronological scope, wide-ranging in subjects treated, and representative of the main currents of thought which stimulate the writing of American working class history today.'' -- Maurice F. Neufeld, professor of labor and industrial relations, Cornell University
University of Illinois Press 1985 470 pages

Art in an age of civil struggle, 1848-1871

Boime, Albert
From the European revolutions of 1848 through the Italian independence movement, the American Civil War, and the French Commune, the era Albert Boime explores in this fourth volume of his epic series was, in a word, transformative. The period, which gave rise to such luminaries as Karl Marx and Charles Darwin, was also characterized by civic upheaval, quantum leaps in science and technology, and the increasing secularization of intellectual pursuits and ordinary life. In a sweeping narrative that adds critical depth to a key epoch in modern art’s history, Art in an Age of Civil Struggle shows how this turbulent social environment served as an incubator for the mid-nineteenth century’s most important artists and writers. Tracing the various movements of realism through the major metropolitan centers of Europe and America, Boime strikingly evokes the milieus that shaped the lives and works of Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, Émile Zola, Honoré Daumier, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, and the earliest photographers, among countless others. In doing so, he spearheads a powerful new way of reassessing how art emerges from the welter of cultural and political events and the artist’s struggle to interpret his surroundings. Boime supports this multifaceted approach with a wealth of illustrations and written sources that demonstrate the intimate links between visual culture and social change. Culminating at the transition to impressionism, Art in an Age of Civil Struggle makes historical sense of a movement that paved the way for avant-garde aesthetics and, more broadly, of how a particular style emerges at a particular moment.
University of Chicago Press 2007 884 pages

Reinventing pragmatism: American philosophy at the end of the twentieth century

Margolis, Joseph
In contemporary philosophical debates in the United States "redefining pragmatism" has become the conventional way to flag significant philosophical contests and to launch large conceptual and programmatic changes. This book analyzes the contributions of such developments in light of the classic formulations of Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey and the interaction between pragmatism and analytic philosophy. American pragmatism was revived quite unexpectedly in the 1970s by Richard Rorty's philosophical heterodoxy and his running dispute with Hilary Putnam, who, like Rorty, is a professed Deweyan. Reinventing Pragmatism examines the force of the new pragmatisms, from the emergence of Rorty's and Putnam's basic disagreements of the 1970s until the turn of the century. Joseph Margolis considers the revival of a movement generally thought to have ended by the 1950s as both a surprise and a turn of great importance. The quarrel between Rorty and Putnam obliged American philosophers, and eventually Eurocentric philosophy as a whole, to reconsider the direction of American and European philosophy, for instance in terms of competing accounts of realism and naturalism.
Cornell University Press 2002 179 pages

Art in an age of counterrevolution, 1815-1848

Boime, Albert
Art for art's sake. Art created in pursuit of personal expression. In Art in an Age of Counterrevolution , Albert Boime rejects these popular modern notions and suggests that history—not internal drive or expressive urge—as the dynamic force that shapes art. This volume focuses on the astonishing range of art forms currently understood to fall within the broad category of Romanticism. Drawing on visual media and popular imagery of the time, this generously illustrated work examines the art of Romanticism as a reaction to the social and political events surrounding it. Boime reinterprets canonical works by such politicized artists as Goya, Delacroix, Géricault, Friedrich, and Turner, framing their work not by personality but by its sociohistorical context. Boime's capacious approach and scope allows him to incorporate a wide range of perspectives into his analysis of Romantic art, including Marxism, social history, gender identity, ecology, structuralism, and psychoanalytic theory, a reach that parallels the work of contemporary cultural historians and theorists such as Edward Said, Pierre Bourdieu, Eric Hobsbawm, Frederic Jameson, and T. J. Clark. Boime ultimately establishes that art serves the interests and aspirations of the cultural bourgeoisie. In grounding his arguments on their work and its scope and influence, he elucidates how all artists are inextricably linked to history. This book will be used widely in art history courses and exert enormous influence on cultural studies as well.
The University of Chicago Press 2016 750 pages

The Houses of the Kwakiutl Indians, British Columbia

Franz Boas
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 24 pages

Dear Donald, Dear Bennett: the wartime correspondence of Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer

Cerf, Bennett
Donald Klopfer and Bennett Cerf had been partners in Random House for seventeen years, but Donald decided that he had to become a part of an even greater endeavor—the defeat of Nazi Germany. Not long after Pearl Harbor, Donald, who was then forty years old, took a leave from Random House and joined the United States Army Air Forces. He served for two and a half years, finally becoming an intelligence major in a B-24 group in England. Donald and Bennett wrote to each other regularly all during that period. Bennett sent Donald long newsy letters about the book business—authors, sales, publishing gossip—as well as about what was happening in New York. Donald reacted in his wise, serene way to Bennett’s letters, and conveyed news of what was going on in the war, though sometimes censorship took its toll. This is nostalgia with substance, and because these letters were never intended to be read by anyone else, they reveal, in a convincing and wonderful way, just how special these two men were and how that specialness was reflected in the company they founded.
Random House 2002-03-05 211 pages

American outback: the Oklahoma Panhandle in the twentieth century

Lowitt, Richard
"Examines how inhabitants of the Oklahoma Panhandle throughout the 20th century used the semiarid lands that Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico did not want, and that Texas, after entering the Union as a slave state, could not have. Focuses particularly on agriculture and production of natural gas and helium"--Provided by publisher.
Texas Tech University Press 2006 137 pages

Scratches on Our Minds American Images of China and India

Harold R. Isaacs
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 was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. 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. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. 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 2015-08-08 430 pages

Scratches On Our Minds American Images Of China And India

Isaacs, Harold R.
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Nabu Press 2011-09-15 430 pages

Morton Feldman says: selected interviews and lectures, 1964-1987

Feldman, Morton
Alongside John Cage and Edgar Varese, Morton Feldman is regarded by many as one of the foremost American composers of the twentieth century. Evidence of his lifelong passion for music can be found in the numerous interviews and lectures he gave about his life and work. But despite his reputationand creative output, very little has been published on this charismatic figure. In Morton Feldman Says, editor Chris Villars has collected two decades of interviews, many available here for the first time, illustrating Feldman's creative process and his wide range of cultural interests and references,especially to visual art. Morton Feldman Says contains the first English translation of Sebastian Claren's biographical notes as well as conversations with Gavin Bryars, Kevin Volans, and Walter Zimmermann, as well as transcriptions of two of Feldman's lectures, held in Toronto (1982) andJohannesburg (1983).
Hyphen Press 2006-05-01 303 pages