Afternoon Tea: A History explores the development of the afternoon tea meal, diving deeper than the popular tale of the Duchess of Bedford's afternoon gatherings to find the meals that inspired those early afternoon teas. Julia Skinner carefully separates the fact and lore around the meal and sets the story of afternoon tea within its historic contexts. Recognizing that a meal's birth and life never happen in a vacuum, the book sets aside the already well-documented conversations surrounding tea etiquette, instead exploring the social contexts that made the meal possible and popular, moving it from one small subset of the population to a widespread and beloved phenomenon, one that nearly died out at the end of the 20th century before experiencing a resurgence in the 21st.
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
|
9781442271012
|
Hardcover
Dear Los Angeles
By Kipen, David
A rich mosaic of diary entries and letters from the likes of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Susan Sontag, Albert Einstein, Cesar Chavez, Joan Rivers, and many more, this is the story of Los Angeles as told by locals, transplants, and some just passing through. The City of Angels has played a distinct role in the hearts, minds, and imaginations of millions of people, who see it as the ultimate symbol of the American Dream. David Kipen, a cultural historian and avid scholar of Los Angeles, has scoured libraries, archives, and private estates to assemble a kaleidoscopic view of a truly unique city. From the Spanish missionary expeditions in the early 1500s to the Golden Age of Hollywood to the strange new world of social media, this collection is a slice of life in L.A. through the years. The pieces are arranged by date - January 1st to December 31st - featuring selections from different decades and centuries. What emerges is a vivid tapestry of insights, personal discoveries, and wry observations that together distill the essence of the city. As sprawling and magical as the city itself, Dear Los Angeles is a fascinating, must-have collection for everyone in, from, or touched by Southern California. With excerpts from the writing of Ray Bradbury * Edgar Rice Burroughs * Octavia E. Butler * Italo Calvino * Winston Churchill * Noel Coward * Simone De Beauvoir * T. S. Eliot * William Faulkner * Lawrence Ferlinghetti * Richard Feynman * Allen Ginsberg * Dashiell Hammett * Charlton Heston * Zora Neale Hurston * Christopher Isherwood * John Lennon * H. L. Mencken * Anas Nin * Sylvia Plath * Ronald Reagan * James Thurber * Dalton Trumbo * Evelyn Waugh * Tennessee Williams * P. G. Wodehouse * and many morePraise for Dear Los Angeles"This book's a brilliant constellation, spread out over a few centuries and five thousand square miles. Each tiny entry pins the reality of the great unreal city of Angels to a moment in human time - moments enthralled, appalled, jubilant, suffering, gossiping or bragging - and it turns out, there's no better way to paint a picture of the place." - Jonathan Lethem "A Los Angeles native and lion of the city's literary culture gathers writers' impressions of the City of Angels from across several centuries. . . . Like the city itself, the book mashes wildly diverse sources into an intriguing and surprising whole." - Kirkus Reviews
Modern Library
|
9780812993981
|
Hardcover
Lexington and Concord
By Daughan, George C
An award-winning historian reinterprets the battle that launched the American Revolution.George C. Daughan's magnificently detailed account of the Battle of Lexington and Concord challenges the prevailing narrative of the American War of Independence. It was, Daughan argues, based as much in economic concerns as political ones. When Massachusetts militiamen turned out in overwhelming numbers to fight the British, they believed they were fighting for their farms and livelihoods, as well as for liberty.Benjamin Franklin was not surprised by this widespread belief. In the years prior to the Revolution, Franklin had toured Great Britain and witnessed the wretched living conditions of the king's subjects. They wore rags for clothes, went barefoot, and had little to eat. They were not citizens, but serfs. Franklin described the appalling situation in a number of letters home. In the eyes of many American colonists, Britain's repressive measures were not seen simply as an effort to reestablish political control of the colonies, but also as a means to reduce the prosperous colonists themselves to the serfdom described in the Franklin letters.Another key factor in the outcome of this historic battle, according to Daughan, was the scorn British officers had for colonial fighters. Although the British officers had fought alongside colonial Americans in the ferocious French and Indian War, they failed to anticipate the skill, organization, and sheer numbers of the colonial militias. Daughan explains how British arrogance led them to defeat at the hands of motivated, experienced patriot fighters determined to protect their way of life.Authoritative and immersive, Lexington and Concord gives us a new understanding of a battle that became a template for colonial uprisings in later centuries. 3 maps
W. W. Norton & Company
|
9780393245745
|
Hardcover
Ghosts
By Clarke, Roger
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice"Roger Clarke tells this [the story that inspired Henry James' The Turn of the Screw] and many other gloriously weird stories with real verve, and also a kind of narrative authority that tends to constrain the skeptical voice within ... [an] erudite and richly entertaining book." - New York Times Book Review"Is there anybody out there?" No matter how rationally we order our lives, few of us are completely immune to the suggestion of the uncanny and the fear of the dark. What explains sightings of ghosts? Why do they fascinate us? What exactly do those who have been haunted see? What did they believe? And what proof is there?Taking us through the key hauntings that have obsessed the world, from the true events that inspired Henry James's classic The Turn of the Screw right up to the present day, Roger Clarke unfolds a story of class conflict, charlatans, and true believers. The cast list includes royalty and prime ministers, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, Harry Houdini, and Adolf Hitler. The chapters cover everything from religious beliefs to modern developments in neuroscience, the medicine of ghosts, and the technology of ghosthunting. There are haunted WWI submarines, houses so blighted by phantoms they are demolished, a seventeenth-century Ghost Hunter General, and the emergence of the Victorian flash mob, where hundreds would stand outside rumored sites all night waiting to catch sight of a dead face at a window.Written as grippingly as the best ghost fiction, A Natural History of Ghosts takes us on an unforgettable hunt through the most haunted places of the last five hundred years and our longing to believe.
St. Martin's Press
|
9781466857865
|
Hardcover
Gone at Midnight
By Jake, Anderson,
A Los Angeles hotel with a haunting history. A missing young woman. A disturbing video followed by a shocking discovery. A cold-case mystery that has become an internet phenomenon--and for one determined journalist, a life-changing quest toward uncomfortable truths.
Twenty-one-year-old Vancouver student Elisa Lam was last heard from on January 31, 2013, after she checked into downtown L.A.'s Cecil Hotel--a 600-room building with a nine-decade history of scandal and tragedy. The next day, Elisa vanished. A search of the hotel yielded nothing. More than a week later, complaints by guests of foul-smelling tap water led to a grim discovery: Elisa's nude body floating in a rooftop water tank, in an area extremely difficult to access without setting off alarms. The only apparent clue was a disturbing surveillance video of Elisa, uploaded to YouTube in hopes of public assistance. As the eerie elevator video went viral, so did the questions of its tens of millions of viewers. Was Elisa's death caused by murder, suicide, or paranormal activity? Was it connected to the Cecil's sinister reputation? And in that video, what accounted for Elisa's strange behavior? With the help of web sleuths and investigators from around the world, journalist Jake Anderson set out to uncover the facts behind a death that had become a macabre internet meme, as well as a magnet for conspiracy theorists. In poring through Elisa's revealing online journals and social media posts, Anderson realized he shared more in common with the young woman than he imagined. His search for justice and truth became a personal journey, a dangerous descent into one of America's quiet epidemics. Along the way, he exposed a botched investigation and previously unreported disclosures from inside sources who suggest there may have been a corporate conspiracy and a police cover-up. In Gone at Midnight, Anderson chronicles eye-opening discoveries about who Elisa Lam really was and what--or whom--she was running from, and presents shocking new evidence that may re-open one of the most chilling and obsessively followed true crime cases of the century.
CITADEL PR
|
9780806540054
|
The Politicians and the Egalitarians
By Wilentz, Sean
One of our most eminent historians reminds us of the commanding role party politics has played in America's enduring struggle against economic inequality."There are two keys to unlocking the secrets of American politics and American political history." So begins The Politicians & the Egalitarians, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz's bold new work of history.First, America is built on an egalitarian tradition. At the nation's founding, Americans believed that extremes of wealth and want would destroy their revolutionary experiment in republican government. Ever since, that idea has shaped national political conflict and scored major egalitarian victories -- from the Civil War and Progressive eras to the New Deal and the Great Society -- along the way.Second, partisanship is a permanent fixture in America, and America is the better for it. Every major egalitarian victory in United States history has resulted neither from abandonment of partisan politics nor from social movement protests but from a convergence of protest and politics, and then sharp struggles led by principled and effective party politicians. There is little to be gained from the dream of a post-partisan world.With these two insights Sean Wilentz offers a crystal-clear portrait of American history, told through politicians and egalitarians including Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, and W. E. B. Du Bois -- a portrait that runs counter to current political and historical thinking. As he did with his acclaimed The Rise of American Democracy, Wilentz once again completely transforms our understanding of this nation's political and moral character.
W. W. Norton & Company
|
9780393285024
|
Print book
Composers
By Dk,
A compelling celebration of more than 90 of the world's most influential composers from the medieval period to the present day, Composers reveals the fascinating stories of their lives, loves, and works. Biographical entries - introduced with a stunning portrait of each featured composer - trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each musical genius. Profiles offer revealing insights into what drove each individual to create the musical masterpieces - symphonies, concertos, and operatic scores - that changed the direction of classical music and are still celebrated and treasured today.Lavishly illustrated with paintings or photographs of each composer, alongside original musical scores and personal correspondence, images of their homes and where they worked, and personal effects and other important artifacts, the book introduces the key influences, themes, and working methods of each individual, setting their works within a wider historical and cultural context.
DK
|
9781465491367
|
Hardcover
Please Please Tell Me Now
By Davis, Stephen
In Please Please Tell Me Now, bestselling rock biographer Stephen Davis tells the story of Duran Duran, the quintessential band of the 1980s. Their pretty boy looks made them the stars of fledgling MTV, but it was their brilliant musicianship that led to a string of number one hits. By the end of the decade, they had sold 60 million albums; today, they've sold over 100 million albums--and counting.Davis traces their roots to the austere 1970s British malaise that spawned both the Sex Pistols and Duran Duran--two seemingly opposite music extremes. Handsome, British, and young, it was Duran Duran that headlined Live Aid, not Bob Dylan or Led Zeppelin. The band moved in the most glamorous circles: Nick Rhodes became close with Andy Warhol, Simon LeBon with Princess Diana, and John Taylor dated quintessential British bad girl Amanda De Cadanet.
Afternoon Tea
By Skinner, Julia
Afternoon Tea: A History explores the development of the afternoon tea meal, diving deeper than the popular tale of the Duchess of Bedford's afternoon gatherings to find the meals that inspired those early afternoon teas. Julia Skinner carefully separates the fact and lore around the meal and sets the story of afternoon tea within its historic contexts. Recognizing that a meal's birth and life never happen in a vacuum, the book sets aside the already well-documented conversations surrounding tea etiquette, instead exploring the social contexts that made the meal possible and popular, moving it from one small subset of the population to a widespread and beloved phenomenon, one that nearly died out at the end of the 20th century before experiencing a resurgence in the 21st.
Dear Los Angeles
By Kipen, David
A rich mosaic of diary entries and letters from the likes of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Susan Sontag, Albert Einstein, Cesar Chavez, Joan Rivers, and many more, this is the story of Los Angeles as told by locals, transplants, and some just passing through. The City of Angels has played a distinct role in the hearts, minds, and imaginations of millions of people, who see it as the ultimate symbol of the American Dream. David Kipen, a cultural historian and avid scholar of Los Angeles, has scoured libraries, archives, and private estates to assemble a kaleidoscopic view of a truly unique city. From the Spanish missionary expeditions in the early 1500s to the Golden Age of Hollywood to the strange new world of social media, this collection is a slice of life in L.A. through the years. The pieces are arranged by date - January 1st to December 31st - featuring selections from different decades and centuries. What emerges is a vivid tapestry of insights, personal discoveries, and wry observations that together distill the essence of the city. As sprawling and magical as the city itself, Dear Los Angeles is a fascinating, must-have collection for everyone in, from, or touched by Southern California. With excerpts from the writing of Ray Bradbury * Edgar Rice Burroughs * Octavia E. Butler * Italo Calvino * Winston Churchill * Noel Coward * Simone De Beauvoir * T. S. Eliot * William Faulkner * Lawrence Ferlinghetti * Richard Feynman * Allen Ginsberg * Dashiell Hammett * Charlton Heston * Zora Neale Hurston * Christopher Isherwood * John Lennon * H. L. Mencken * Anas Nin * Sylvia Plath * Ronald Reagan * James Thurber * Dalton Trumbo * Evelyn Waugh * Tennessee Williams * P. G. Wodehouse * and many morePraise for Dear Los Angeles"This book's a brilliant constellation, spread out over a few centuries and five thousand square miles. Each tiny entry pins the reality of the great unreal city of Angels to a moment in human time - moments enthralled, appalled, jubilant, suffering, gossiping or bragging - and it turns out, there's no better way to paint a picture of the place." - Jonathan Lethem "A Los Angeles native and lion of the city's literary culture gathers writers' impressions of the City of Angels from across several centuries. . . . Like the city itself, the book mashes wildly diverse sources into an intriguing and surprising whole." - Kirkus Reviews
Lexington and Concord
By Daughan, George C
An award-winning historian reinterprets the battle that launched the American Revolution.George C. Daughan's magnificently detailed account of the Battle of Lexington and Concord challenges the prevailing narrative of the American War of Independence. It was, Daughan argues, based as much in economic concerns as political ones. When Massachusetts militiamen turned out in overwhelming numbers to fight the British, they believed they were fighting for their farms and livelihoods, as well as for liberty.Benjamin Franklin was not surprised by this widespread belief. In the years prior to the Revolution, Franklin had toured Great Britain and witnessed the wretched living conditions of the king's subjects. They wore rags for clothes, went barefoot, and had little to eat. They were not citizens, but serfs. Franklin described the appalling situation in a number of letters home. In the eyes of many American colonists, Britain's repressive measures were not seen simply as an effort to reestablish political control of the colonies, but also as a means to reduce the prosperous colonists themselves to the serfdom described in the Franklin letters.Another key factor in the outcome of this historic battle, according to Daughan, was the scorn British officers had for colonial fighters. Although the British officers had fought alongside colonial Americans in the ferocious French and Indian War, they failed to anticipate the skill, organization, and sheer numbers of the colonial militias. Daughan explains how British arrogance led them to defeat at the hands of motivated, experienced patriot fighters determined to protect their way of life.Authoritative and immersive, Lexington and Concord gives us a new understanding of a battle that became a template for colonial uprisings in later centuries. 3 maps
Ghosts
By Clarke, Roger
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice"Roger Clarke tells this [the story that inspired Henry James' The Turn of the Screw] and many other gloriously weird stories with real verve, and also a kind of narrative authority that tends to constrain the skeptical voice within ... [an] erudite and richly entertaining book." - New York Times Book Review"Is there anybody out there?" No matter how rationally we order our lives, few of us are completely immune to the suggestion of the uncanny and the fear of the dark. What explains sightings of ghosts? Why do they fascinate us? What exactly do those who have been haunted see? What did they believe? And what proof is there?Taking us through the key hauntings that have obsessed the world, from the true events that inspired Henry James's classic The Turn of the Screw right up to the present day, Roger Clarke unfolds a story of class conflict, charlatans, and true believers. The cast list includes royalty and prime ministers, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, Harry Houdini, and Adolf Hitler. The chapters cover everything from religious beliefs to modern developments in neuroscience, the medicine of ghosts, and the technology of ghosthunting. There are haunted WWI submarines, houses so blighted by phantoms they are demolished, a seventeenth-century Ghost Hunter General, and the emergence of the Victorian flash mob, where hundreds would stand outside rumored sites all night waiting to catch sight of a dead face at a window.Written as grippingly as the best ghost fiction, A Natural History of Ghosts takes us on an unforgettable hunt through the most haunted places of the last five hundred years and our longing to believe.
Gone at Midnight
By Jake, Anderson,
A Los Angeles hotel with a haunting history. A missing young woman. A disturbing video followed by a shocking discovery. A cold-case mystery that has become an internet phenomenon--and for one determined journalist, a life-changing quest toward uncomfortable truths.
Twenty-one-year-old Vancouver student Elisa Lam was last heard from on January 31, 2013, after she checked into downtown L.A.'s Cecil Hotel--a 600-room building with a nine-decade history of scandal and tragedy. The next day, Elisa vanished. A search of the hotel yielded nothing. More than a week later, complaints by guests of foul-smelling tap water led to a grim discovery: Elisa's nude body floating in a rooftop water tank, in an area extremely difficult to access without setting off alarms. The only apparent clue was a disturbing surveillance video of Elisa, uploaded to YouTube in hopes of public assistance. As the eerie elevator video went viral, so did the questions of its tens of millions of viewers. Was Elisa's death caused by murder, suicide, or paranormal activity? Was it connected to the Cecil's sinister reputation? And in that video, what accounted for Elisa's strange behavior? With the help of web sleuths and investigators from around the world, journalist Jake Anderson set out to uncover the facts behind a death that had become a macabre internet meme, as well as a magnet for conspiracy theorists. In poring through Elisa's revealing online journals and social media posts, Anderson realized he shared more in common with the young woman than he imagined. His search for justice and truth became a personal journey, a dangerous descent into one of America's quiet epidemics. Along the way, he exposed a botched investigation and previously unreported disclosures from inside sources who suggest there may have been a corporate conspiracy and a police cover-up. In Gone at Midnight, Anderson chronicles eye-opening discoveries about who Elisa Lam really was and what--or whom--she was running from, and presents shocking new evidence that may re-open one of the most chilling and obsessively followed true crime cases of the century.The Politicians and the Egalitarians
By Wilentz, Sean
One of our most eminent historians reminds us of the commanding role party politics has played in America's enduring struggle against economic inequality."There are two keys to unlocking the secrets of American politics and American political history." So begins The Politicians & the Egalitarians, Princeton historian Sean Wilentz's bold new work of history.First, America is built on an egalitarian tradition. At the nation's founding, Americans believed that extremes of wealth and want would destroy their revolutionary experiment in republican government. Ever since, that idea has shaped national political conflict and scored major egalitarian victories -- from the Civil War and Progressive eras to the New Deal and the Great Society -- along the way.Second, partisanship is a permanent fixture in America, and America is the better for it. Every major egalitarian victory in United States history has resulted neither from abandonment of partisan politics nor from social movement protests but from a convergence of protest and politics, and then sharp struggles led by principled and effective party politicians. There is little to be gained from the dream of a post-partisan world.With these two insights Sean Wilentz offers a crystal-clear portrait of American history, told through politicians and egalitarians including Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, and W. E. B. Du Bois -- a portrait that runs counter to current political and historical thinking. As he did with his acclaimed The Rise of American Democracy, Wilentz once again completely transforms our understanding of this nation's political and moral character.
Composers
By Dk,
A compelling celebration of more than 90 of the world's most influential composers from the medieval period to the present day, Composers reveals the fascinating stories of their lives, loves, and works. Biographical entries - introduced with a stunning portrait of each featured composer - trace the friendships, loves, and rivalries that inspired each musical genius. Profiles offer revealing insights into what drove each individual to create the musical masterpieces - symphonies, concertos, and operatic scores - that changed the direction of classical music and are still celebrated and treasured today.Lavishly illustrated with paintings or photographs of each composer, alongside original musical scores and personal correspondence, images of their homes and where they worked, and personal effects and other important artifacts, the book introduces the key influences, themes, and working methods of each individual, setting their works within a wider historical and cultural context.
Please Please Tell Me Now
By Davis, Stephen
In Please Please Tell Me Now, bestselling rock biographer Stephen Davis tells the story of Duran Duran, the quintessential band of the 1980s. Their pretty boy looks made them the stars of fledgling MTV, but it was their brilliant musicianship that led to a string of number one hits. By the end of the decade, they had sold 60 million albums; today, they've sold over 100 million albums--and counting.Davis traces their roots to the austere 1970s British malaise that spawned both the Sex Pistols and Duran Duran--two seemingly opposite music extremes. Handsome, British, and young, it was Duran Duran that headlined Live Aid, not Bob Dylan or Led Zeppelin. The band moved in the most glamorous circles: Nick Rhodes became close with Andy Warhol, Simon LeBon with Princess Diana, and John Taylor dated quintessential British bad girl Amanda De Cadanet.