Beloved best-selling author Tony Horwitz retraces Frederick Law Olmsted's epic journey across the American South in the 1850s, as he too searches for common ground in a dangerously riven nation.On the eve of the Civil War, an up-and-coming newspaper, the New York Times, sent a young travel writer to explore the South, which was alien territory to the Connecticut Yankee correspondent and to his Northern readers. Identified in the paper as "Yeoman," to protect his identity, the writer roamed eleven states and six thousand miles, jolting the nation with his dispatches about slavery and the extremism of its defenders. This extraordinary journey would also re-shape the nation's landscape, driving "Yeoman"--real name Frederick Law Olmsted--to embark on his career as America's first and foremost architect of urban parks and other public spaces. Over a century and half later, there are echoes of the pre-Civil War in the angry ferment and fracturing of our own time. Is America still one country? Tony Horwitz, like Olmsted a Yankee and roving scribe, sets forth to find out by retracing Yeoman's journey through the South. Following his route and whenever possible his mode of transport--rail, riverboats, in the saddle--Horwitz travels Appalachia, down the Ohio and Mississippi, through Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and across Texas to the Rio Grande. Venturing, as Olmsted did, far off the beaten paths, Horwitz discovers colorful traces of an old weird America, shocking vestiges of the Cotton Kingdom, and strange new mutations that have sprung from its roots. The result is a masterpiece in the tradition of Great Plains, Bad Land, and the author's own classic, Confederates in the Attic. Spying on the South is an intrepid, wise, and frequently hilarious expedition through an outsized landscape and its equally outsized state of mind. It is also a probing and poignant study of the young Olmsted, whose own life, and thinking about landscape and society, would be forever altered by his Southern odyssey.
Penguin Press
|
9781101980286
|
Hardcover
Catton
By Catton, Bruce
Library of America restores to print a masterpiece of Civil War history in a deluxe collector's editionBruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy is a landmark of historical story-telling, one of the most popular and influential works ever written about the Civil War. And yet for decades it has been unavailable in full. Now, Library of America restores the entirety of this essential classic to print in a deluxe, single-volume collector's edition, with full-color endpaper maps, and detailed notes and a newly-researched chronology of Catton's life and career by acclaimed Civil War scholar Gary W. Gallagher. Mr. Lincoln's Army, the first book in the trilogy, describes the Army of the Potomac's formation as the bulwark of the Union war effort as emerging friction between the army's commanding general George McClellan and the Commander in Chief in Washington reaches a crisis in the wake of the deadly battle at Antietam.
Library of America
|
9781598537253
|
Hardcover
Symbols in Art
By Wilson, Matthew
Thoroughly user-friendly and covering a broad historical sweep, this book is a reference guide to fifty of the most frequently occurring symbols in global art history.Iconography, or the study of symbols -- be they animals, artifacts, plants, geometric shapes, or gestures -- is an essential aspect of interpreting art. One of the most consistent features of human society throughout time has been the use of visual symbols, which often act as substitutions for the written word, crossing dialects and borders and uniting understandings of the world through a shared language. Incorporating and analyzing a wealth of cultures, Symbols in Art serves as a reference guide to fifty of the most frequently occurring symbols in global art history from 2300 BCE to the present day, exploring their subtle implications and covert meanings.
Thames & Hudson
|
9780500295748
|
Paperback
1876
By Wiegand, Steve
Veteran journalist and historian Steve Wiegand takes readers across the post-Civil War Wild West. Wiegand introduces -- or re-introduces -- us to lawmen such as Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp and outlaws such as the Younger and James Brothers, as well as larger-than-life figures such as Buffalo Bill and George Custer. He details the stories of these real-life legends, the aftermath and legacies they left behind, and the innumerable myths frequently attributed to them. Juxtaposing their real lives with the often-outlandish accounts of their exploits, 1876 swings from lighthearted humor to cliff-hanger suspense. It also portrays how the Wild West's initial, tantalizing promise of fame and glamour often disintegrated. But 1876 also offers readers a unique element noticeably absent from most Wild West books: historical context.
Bancroft Press; 1st edition
|
9781610885805
|
Hardcover
Joe Gould's Teeth
By Lepore, Jill
From New Yorker staff writer and Harvard historian Jill Lepore, the dark, spellbinding tale of her restless search for the long-lost, longest book ever written, a century-old manuscript called "The Oral History of Our Time." Joe Gould, a madman, believed he was the most brilliant historian of the twentieth century. So did some of his friends, a group of modernist writers and artists that included E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, John Dos Passos, and Ezra Pound. Gould began his life's work before the First World War, announcing that he intended to write down nearly everything anyone ever said to him. "I am trying to preserve as much detail as I can about the normal life of every day people," he explained, because "as a rule, history does not deal with such small fry." By 1942, when The New Yorker published a profile of Gould written by the reporter Joseph Mitchell, Gould's manuscript had grown to more than nine million words. But when Gould died in 1957, in a mental hospital, the manuscript was nowhere to be found. Then, in 1964, in "Joe Gould's Secret," a second profile, Mitchell claimed that "The Oral History of Our Time" had been, all along, merely a figment of Gould's imagination. Lepore, unpersuaded, decided to find out. Joe Gould's Teeth is a Poe-like tale of detection, madness, and invention. Digging through archives all over the country, Lepore unearthed evidence that "The Oral History of Our Time" did in fact once exist. Relying on letters, scraps, and Gould's own diaries and notebooks - including volumes of his lost manuscript - Lepore argues that Joe Gould's real secret had to do with sex and the color line, with modernists' relationship to the Harlem Renaissance, and, above all, with Gould's terrifying obsession with the African American sculptor Augusta Savage. In ways that even Gould himself could not have imagined, what Gould wrote down really is a history of our time: unsettling and ferocious.
Knopf Publishing Group
|
9781101947586
|
Print book
River of Ink
By Christensen, Thomas
Thomas Christensen’s previous title 1616: The World in Motion looked at a single year in the age of early maritime globalism--PW gave it a starred review, calling it “a stunning overview of the nascent modern world.” By contrast his new gorgeously illustrated River of Ink ranges widely across time and cultures and offers what amounts to a magisterial history of literacy.The book’s title refers to the sacking of Baghdad in 1258 when the Tigris ran black with the ink of books flung into the water by Mongol invaders. Other essays range from the writings of prehistoric Chinese cultures known only through archaeology to the state of book reviewing in the US today to the heroic efforts of contemporary Afghanis to keep the legacy of their ancient culture alive under the barrage of endless war.
Counterpoint; ILL edition
|
9781619024267
|
Hardcover
Forgotten Women
By Tsjeng, Zing
Forgotten Women is a new series of books that uncover the lost herstories of influential women who have refused over hundreds of years to accept the hand they've been dealt and, as a result, haveformed, shaped and changed the course of our futures. From leaders and scientists to artists and writers, the fascinating stories of these women that time forgot are now celebrated, putting their achievements firmly back on the map.The Scientists celebrates 48* unsung scientific heroines whose hugely important, yet broadly unacknowledged or incorrectly attributed, discoveries have transformed our understanding of the scientific world. From Mary Anning, the amateur paleontologist whose fossil findings changed scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the Earth's history to Emmy Noether dubbed "The Mighty Mathematician You've Never Heard Of" and whose theorem is still critical to modern physics - these are the stories of some truly remarkable women. Chapters including Earth & Universe; Biology & Natural Sciences; Medicine & Psychology; Physics & Chemistry; Mathematics and Technology & Inventions profile the female scientists who have defied the odds, and the opposition, to change the world around us.*The number of Nobel-prize-winning women.
Cassell
|
9781788400428
|
Hardcover
Conquering the Pacific
By Reséndez, Andrés
It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal's monopoly trade with the fabled Orient, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific - and then, critically, to attempt the never-before-accomplished return, the vuelta. Four ships set out from Navidad, each one carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by seaman Lope Martn, a mulatto who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet. It was the beginning of a voyage of epic scope, featuring mutiny, murderous encounters with Pacific islanders, astonishing physical hardships - and at last a triumphant return to the New World. But the pilot of the fleet's flagship, the Augustine friar mariner Andrs de Urdaneta, later caught up with Martn to achieve the vuelta as well.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
|
9781328515971
|
Hardcover
Breath from Salt
By Trivedi, Bijal P.
"Elaborating on the science as well as the business behind the fight against cystic fibrosis, Trivedi captures the emotions of the families, doctors, and scientists involved in the clinical trials and their 'weeping with joy' as new drugs are approved, and shows how cystic fibrosis, once a 'death sentence,' became, for many, a manageable condition. This is a rewarding and challenging work." - Publishers Weekly Cystic fibrosis was once a mysterious disease that killed infants and children. Now it could be the key to healing millions with genetic diseases of every type - from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to diabetes and sickle cell anemia. In 1974, Joey O'Donnell was born with strange symptoms. His insatiable appetite, incessant vomiting, and a relentless cough - which shook his tiny, fragile body and made it difficult to draw breath - confounded doctors and caused his parents agonizing, sleepless nights.
BenBella Books
|
9781948836371
|
Hardcover
The Cartiers
By Brickell, Francesca Cartier
The captivating story of the family behind Cartier, and the three brothers who turned their grandfather's humble Parisian jewelry store into a global luxury icon--as told by a great-granddaughter with exclusive access to long-lost family archives.The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty -- four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1960s. At its heart are the three brothers whose motto was "Never copy, only create" and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents: Louis Cartier, the visionary designer who created the first men's wristwatch to help an aviator friend tell the time without taking his hands from the controls of his flying machine; Pierre Cartier, the master dealmaker who bought the New York headquarters on Fifth Avenue for a double-stranded natural pearl necklace; and Jacques Cartier, the globe-trotting gemstone expert whose travels to India gave Cartier access to the world's best rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, inspiring the celebrated Tutti-Frutti jewelry.Francesca Cartier Brickell, whose great-grandfather was the youngest of the Cartier brothers, has traveled the world researching her family's history, tracking down those connected with her ancestors and discovering long-lost pieces of the puzzle along the way. Now she reveals never-before-told dramas, romances, intrigues, betrayals, and more. The Cartiers also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the firm's most iconic jewelry--the notoriously cursed Hope Diamond, the Romanov emeralds, the classic panther pieces--and the long line of stars from the worlds of fashion, film, and royalty who wore them, from Indian maharajas and Russian grand duchesses to Wallis Simpson, Coco Chanel, and Elizabeth Taylor. Published in the two hundreth anniversary year of the birth of the dynasty's founder, Louis-Francois Cartier, this book is a magnificent, definitive, epic social history shown through the deeply personal lens of one legendary family.
Spying on the South
By Horwitz, Tony
Beloved best-selling author Tony Horwitz retraces Frederick Law Olmsted's epic journey across the American South in the 1850s, as he too searches for common ground in a dangerously riven nation.On the eve of the Civil War, an up-and-coming newspaper, the New York Times, sent a young travel writer to explore the South, which was alien territory to the Connecticut Yankee correspondent and to his Northern readers. Identified in the paper as "Yeoman," to protect his identity, the writer roamed eleven states and six thousand miles, jolting the nation with his dispatches about slavery and the extremism of its defenders. This extraordinary journey would also re-shape the nation's landscape, driving "Yeoman"--real name Frederick Law Olmsted--to embark on his career as America's first and foremost architect of urban parks and other public spaces. Over a century and half later, there are echoes of the pre-Civil War in the angry ferment and fracturing of our own time. Is America still one country? Tony Horwitz, like Olmsted a Yankee and roving scribe, sets forth to find out by retracing Yeoman's journey through the South. Following his route and whenever possible his mode of transport--rail, riverboats, in the saddle--Horwitz travels Appalachia, down the Ohio and Mississippi, through Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, and across Texas to the Rio Grande. Venturing, as Olmsted did, far off the beaten paths, Horwitz discovers colorful traces of an old weird America, shocking vestiges of the Cotton Kingdom, and strange new mutations that have sprung from its roots. The result is a masterpiece in the tradition of Great Plains, Bad Land, and the author's own classic, Confederates in the Attic. Spying on the South is an intrepid, wise, and frequently hilarious expedition through an outsized landscape and its equally outsized state of mind. It is also a probing and poignant study of the young Olmsted, whose own life, and thinking about landscape and society, would be forever altered by his Southern odyssey.
Catton
By Catton, Bruce
Library of America restores to print a masterpiece of Civil War history in a deluxe collector's editionBruce Catton's Army of the Potomac trilogy is a landmark of historical story-telling, one of the most popular and influential works ever written about the Civil War. And yet for decades it has been unavailable in full. Now, Library of America restores the entirety of this essential classic to print in a deluxe, single-volume collector's edition, with full-color endpaper maps, and detailed notes and a newly-researched chronology of Catton's life and career by acclaimed Civil War scholar Gary W. Gallagher. Mr. Lincoln's Army, the first book in the trilogy, describes the Army of the Potomac's formation as the bulwark of the Union war effort as emerging friction between the army's commanding general George McClellan and the Commander in Chief in Washington reaches a crisis in the wake of the deadly battle at Antietam.
Symbols in Art
By Wilson, Matthew
Thoroughly user-friendly and covering a broad historical sweep, this book is a reference guide to fifty of the most frequently occurring symbols in global art history.Iconography, or the study of symbols -- be they animals, artifacts, plants, geometric shapes, or gestures -- is an essential aspect of interpreting art. One of the most consistent features of human society throughout time has been the use of visual symbols, which often act as substitutions for the written word, crossing dialects and borders and uniting understandings of the world through a shared language. Incorporating and analyzing a wealth of cultures, Symbols in Art serves as a reference guide to fifty of the most frequently occurring symbols in global art history from 2300 BCE to the present day, exploring their subtle implications and covert meanings.
1876
By Wiegand, Steve
Veteran journalist and historian Steve Wiegand takes readers across the post-Civil War Wild West. Wiegand introduces -- or re-introduces -- us to lawmen such as Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp and outlaws such as the Younger and James Brothers, as well as larger-than-life figures such as Buffalo Bill and George Custer. He details the stories of these real-life legends, the aftermath and legacies they left behind, and the innumerable myths frequently attributed to them. Juxtaposing their real lives with the often-outlandish accounts of their exploits, 1876 swings from lighthearted humor to cliff-hanger suspense. It also portrays how the Wild West's initial, tantalizing promise of fame and glamour often disintegrated. But 1876 also offers readers a unique element noticeably absent from most Wild West books: historical context.
Joe Gould's Teeth
By Lepore, Jill
From New Yorker staff writer and Harvard historian Jill Lepore, the dark, spellbinding tale of her restless search for the long-lost, longest book ever written, a century-old manuscript called "The Oral History of Our Time." Joe Gould, a madman, believed he was the most brilliant historian of the twentieth century. So did some of his friends, a group of modernist writers and artists that included E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, John Dos Passos, and Ezra Pound. Gould began his life's work before the First World War, announcing that he intended to write down nearly everything anyone ever said to him. "I am trying to preserve as much detail as I can about the normal life of every day people," he explained, because "as a rule, history does not deal with such small fry." By 1942, when The New Yorker published a profile of Gould written by the reporter Joseph Mitchell, Gould's manuscript had grown to more than nine million words. But when Gould died in 1957, in a mental hospital, the manuscript was nowhere to be found. Then, in 1964, in "Joe Gould's Secret," a second profile, Mitchell claimed that "The Oral History of Our Time" had been, all along, merely a figment of Gould's imagination. Lepore, unpersuaded, decided to find out. Joe Gould's Teeth is a Poe-like tale of detection, madness, and invention. Digging through archives all over the country, Lepore unearthed evidence that "The Oral History of Our Time" did in fact once exist. Relying on letters, scraps, and Gould's own diaries and notebooks - including volumes of his lost manuscript - Lepore argues that Joe Gould's real secret had to do with sex and the color line, with modernists' relationship to the Harlem Renaissance, and, above all, with Gould's terrifying obsession with the African American sculptor Augusta Savage. In ways that even Gould himself could not have imagined, what Gould wrote down really is a history of our time: unsettling and ferocious.
River of Ink
By Christensen, Thomas
Thomas Christensen’s previous title 1616: The World in Motion looked at a single year in the age of early maritime globalism--PW gave it a starred review, calling it “a stunning overview of the nascent modern world.” By contrast his new gorgeously illustrated River of Ink ranges widely across time and cultures and offers what amounts to a magisterial history of literacy.The book’s title refers to the sacking of Baghdad in 1258 when the Tigris ran black with the ink of books flung into the water by Mongol invaders. Other essays range from the writings of prehistoric Chinese cultures known only through archaeology to the state of book reviewing in the US today to the heroic efforts of contemporary Afghanis to keep the legacy of their ancient culture alive under the barrage of endless war.
Forgotten Women
By Tsjeng, Zing
Forgotten Women is a new series of books that uncover the lost herstories of influential women who have refused over hundreds of years to accept the hand they've been dealt and, as a result, haveformed, shaped and changed the course of our futures. From leaders and scientists to artists and writers, the fascinating stories of these women that time forgot are now celebrated, putting their achievements firmly back on the map.The Scientists celebrates 48* unsung scientific heroines whose hugely important, yet broadly unacknowledged or incorrectly attributed, discoveries have transformed our understanding of the scientific world. From Mary Anning, the amateur paleontologist whose fossil findings changed scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the Earth's history to Emmy Noether dubbed "The Mighty Mathematician You've Never Heard Of" and whose theorem is still critical to modern physics - these are the stories of some truly remarkable women. Chapters including Earth & Universe; Biology & Natural Sciences; Medicine & Psychology; Physics & Chemistry; Mathematics and Technology & Inventions profile the female scientists who have defied the odds, and the opposition, to change the world around us.*The number of Nobel-prize-winning women.
Conquering the Pacific
By Reséndez, Andrés
It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal's monopoly trade with the fabled Orient, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific - and then, critically, to attempt the never-before-accomplished return, the vuelta. Four ships set out from Navidad, each one carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by seaman Lope Martn, a mulatto who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet. It was the beginning of a voyage of epic scope, featuring mutiny, murderous encounters with Pacific islanders, astonishing physical hardships - and at last a triumphant return to the New World. But the pilot of the fleet's flagship, the Augustine friar mariner Andrs de Urdaneta, later caught up with Martn to achieve the vuelta as well.
Breath from Salt
By Trivedi, Bijal P.
"Elaborating on the science as well as the business behind the fight against cystic fibrosis, Trivedi captures the emotions of the families, doctors, and scientists involved in the clinical trials and their 'weeping with joy' as new drugs are approved, and shows how cystic fibrosis, once a 'death sentence,' became, for many, a manageable condition. This is a rewarding and challenging work." - Publishers Weekly Cystic fibrosis was once a mysterious disease that killed infants and children. Now it could be the key to healing millions with genetic diseases of every type - from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to diabetes and sickle cell anemia. In 1974, Joey O'Donnell was born with strange symptoms. His insatiable appetite, incessant vomiting, and a relentless cough - which shook his tiny, fragile body and made it difficult to draw breath - confounded doctors and caused his parents agonizing, sleepless nights.
The Cartiers
By Brickell, Francesca Cartier
The captivating story of the family behind Cartier, and the three brothers who turned their grandfather's humble Parisian jewelry store into a global luxury icon--as told by a great-granddaughter with exclusive access to long-lost family archives.The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty -- four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1960s. At its heart are the three brothers whose motto was "Never copy, only create" and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents: Louis Cartier, the visionary designer who created the first men's wristwatch to help an aviator friend tell the time without taking his hands from the controls of his flying machine; Pierre Cartier, the master dealmaker who bought the New York headquarters on Fifth Avenue for a double-stranded natural pearl necklace; and Jacques Cartier, the globe-trotting gemstone expert whose travels to India gave Cartier access to the world's best rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, inspiring the celebrated Tutti-Frutti jewelry.Francesca Cartier Brickell, whose great-grandfather was the youngest of the Cartier brothers, has traveled the world researching her family's history, tracking down those connected with her ancestors and discovering long-lost pieces of the puzzle along the way. Now she reveals never-before-told dramas, romances, intrigues, betrayals, and more. The Cartiers also offers a behind-the-scenes look at the firm's most iconic jewelry--the notoriously cursed Hope Diamond, the Romanov emeralds, the classic panther pieces--and the long line of stars from the worlds of fashion, film, and royalty who wore them, from Indian maharajas and Russian grand duchesses to Wallis Simpson, Coco Chanel, and Elizabeth Taylor. Published in the two hundreth anniversary year of the birth of the dynasty's founder, Louis-Francois Cartier, this book is a magnificent, definitive, epic social history shown through the deeply personal lens of one legendary family.