Biography: historical, political and military Books

Book SynopsisProviding the most balanced and comprehensive portrayal of Wade Hampton III to date, Robert K. Ackerman's biography explores the remarkable abilities and tragic failings of the planter-statesman who would come to personify the Civil War and Reconstruction in South Carolina. Ackerman traces Hampton's esteemed lineage and his preparation for life as a Southern aristocrat. Though Hampton benefited from third-generation wealth, a classical education, and an inherent sense of noblesse oblige, as Ackerman notes, prior to the war Hampton served almost without distinction in the South Carolina General Assembly - with the exception of his opposition to reopening the slave trade. Hampton did not favor secession, but once South Carolina left the Union, he committed himself fully to the Confederate effort and thus began his path to legend. Ackerman follows Hampton from amateur soldier to decorated cavalry leader, from multiple wounds at Gettysburg to the defense of the Confederate flank at Petersburg. Hampton eventually succeeded J. E. B. Stuart as commander of Lee's cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia and distinguished himself as one of three non - West Point graduates to attain the rank of lieutenant general in the Confederate army. Emotionally and financially devastated by the Confederacy's defeat, Hampton briefly pondered continuing the conflict as a guerrilla war before emerging as a leading advocate for policies of moderation. His election to the governorship in 1876 brought an end to Federal Reconstruction in South Carolina. Ackerman elaborates on Hampton's limited success in enacting policies of moderation and his eventual defeat at the hands of virulent racists and anti-autocratic populists. Ackerman suggests that, despite some success as governor and later as a U.S. senator, Hampton was ultimately overwhelmed by forces of racism, with tragic consequences for his state, yet he remains for many a revered icon of the Old South.

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Book SynopsisFirst treatment of a conspicuously East German feature in today's German literature, that of autobiographical writing -- and rewriting. A striking feature of today's German literature is the survival of an East German subculture characterized by its authors' self-reflexive concern with their own lives, not only in texts labeled as autobiography but also those in the more ambiguous territory of what Christa Wolf has called "subjective authenticity." Dennis Tate provides the first detailed account of this phenomenon: its origins in the 1930s' exile debates, its evolution during the GDR's lifespan, and its manifestations in the work of five East German authors still widely read today: Brigitte Reimann, Franz Fühmann, Stefan Heym, Günter de Bruyn, and Christa Wolf. Tate shows how the preoccupation with self arose fromthe unusually turbulent circumstances in which this generation has lived. Having succumbed early to the temptation to simplify their life stories for misguided educational purposes, these authors have repeatedly reconstructed their personal and political identities as their perspectives on the past have shifted. Tate shows the importance of viewing their autobiographical writing as a multilayered historical process, exposing problems with canonical accounts of East German literature and enabling texts published under GDR censorship to be properly appreciated for the first time. Dennis Tate is Professor of German Studies at the University of Bath, UK.Trade ReviewA valuable addition to the growing number of studies engaged in rethinking East German literary history and reassessing the categories with which that literature is read. * MONATSHEFTE *Tate focuses on ... prose works that combine self-reflexive narrative and autobiographical subject matter. ... His highly original study shows how this particular form of prose writing became a vehicle for each writer's self-exploration and self-protection, a creative response to the various forms of political turbulence each experienced before and after the end of the GDR. * CHOICE *The study reveals profound knowledge of the topic and will enrich in significant areas our understanding of East German literature, especially after 1990. Because it is written with wit and courage and opens new avenues in GDR literature, it will provoke discussion if the study receives the attention it deserves. * DEUTSCHLAND ARCHIV *This thoroughly researched monograph arrives at a very convincing reassessment of [the] development in East German literature from stereotypical socialist realist autobiographical writing to modernist multi-layered narratives. It can be recommended as a significant and stimulating contribution to scholarship on the autobiographical genre in particular and on GDR and postunification German literature in general. * GLOSSEN *[Offers] a contribution to the collective biography of the GDR's second generation.. This literary generation, which Tate sees exemplified by Christa Wolf, faced the task of accounting for what Franz Fühmann famously described as the path to socialism via Auschwitz. Represented by Wolf, Fühmann, Brigitte Reimann, and others, this generation is largely responsible for the dynamic reception of East German literature in the west. * GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW *In its detailed interpretation of primary texts, archival sources and cultural-political contexts, Tate's study is never anything less than utterly authoritative and persuasive, and that in a style which is always fluent and engaging. Through its rare combination of academic rigour and genuine critical sympathy Tate's book seems certain to become a standard work on East German life writing. * JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES *Table of ContentsIntroduction: East German Autobiographical Prose: Challenging Conventional Genre Distinctions Autobiographical Writing in the East German Context and Beyond Brigitte Reimann: The Constraints of First-Person Fiction Franz Fühmann: The Deconstruction of an "Exemplary" Biography Stefan Heym: Strategies of Self-Concealment in Fictional and Autobiographical Mode Günter de Bruyn: From the "Lies" of Fiction to the "Truth" of Autobiography? Christa Wolf: "Subjective Authenticity" in Practice: An Evolving Autobiographical Project Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisOf the one hundred thousand Southerners who donned Federal uniforms during the Civil War, more than forty thousand were Tennesseeans. Not surprisingly, most came from the Appalachian counties of East Tennessee—but not all. A Middle Tennessean named Marcus Woodcock, not yet nineteen when the war began, was among the exceptions.A Southern Boy in Blue is Woodcock's own account of his experiences during the war. After joining the 9th Kentucky Infantry, Woodcock barely missed the battle of Shiloh—a bout of measles kept him from the front lines—but he went on to see action at Stones River, Chickamauga, and Missionary Ridge. He also participated in the Atlanta campaign and the siege of Corinth and was among the reserves at the battle of Perryville. In three years he rose from the rank of private to that of first lieutenant. Since Woodcock wrote his memoir in 1865 (instead of much later as many veterans did), his descriptions of battles, camp life, and period politics have a special vividness. Woodcock's account is also significant in showing how his views and opinions of the war changed over time. Initially opposed to the use of black troops and to Lincoln's re-election, he eventually converted to both positions and describes the process by which he transformed his thinking.Woodcock's memoir has been meticulously annotated by Kenneth Noe, who also provides an introduction that places Woodcock's experiences in historical context and describes his postwar career as a prominent Tennessee legislator, attorney, business administrator, and Baptist layman. The book is not only a compelling personal account but an important addition to the literature on Southern Unionism.The Editor: Kenneth W. Noe is associate professor of history at West Georgia College. He is the author of Southwest Virginia's Railroad: Modernization and the Sectional Crisis.

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Book SynopsisFew figures in American political history are as reviled as Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth president of the United States. Taking office after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he clashed constantly with Congress during the tumultuous early years of Reconstruction. He opposed federally-mandated black suffrage and the Fourteenth Amendment and vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights bills. In this new book, Paul H. Bergeron, a respected Johnson scholar, brings a new perspective on this often vilified figure. Previous books have judged Johnson out of the context of his times or through a partisan lens. But this volume—based on Bergeron’s work as the editor of The Papers of Andrew Johnson—takes a more balanced approach to Johnson and his career. Admiring Johnson's unswerving devotion to the Union, Lincoln appointed him as military governor of Tennessee, a post, Bergeron argues, that enhanced Johnson's executive experience and his national stature. While governor, Johnson implemented the emancipation of slaves in the state and laid the foundation for a new civilian government. Bergeron also notes that Johnson developed a close connection with the president which eventually resulted in his vice-presidential candidacy. In many respects, therefore, Johnson's Civil War years served as preparation for his presidency.Bergeron moves beyond simplistic arguments based on Johnson’s racism to place his presidency within the politics of the day. Putting aside earlier analyses of the conflict between Johnson and the Republican Radicals as ideological disputes, Bergeron discusses these battles as a political power struggle. In doing so, he does not deny Johnson’s racism but provides a more nuanced and effective perspective on the issues as Johnson tried to pursue the “politics of the possible.”Bergeron interprets Johnson as a strong-willed, decisive, fearless, authoritarian leader in the tradition of Andrew Jackson. While never excusing Johnson’s inflexibility and extreme racism, Bergeron makes the case that, in proper context, Johnson can be seen at times as a surprisingly effective commander-in-chief—one whose approach to the problems of reestablishing the Union was defensible and consistent.With its fresh insight on the man and his times, Andrew Johnson’s Civil War and Reconstruction is indispensable reading for students and scholars of the U.S. presidency and the Civil War and Reconstruction periods.Trade Review“This is an excellent political history and analysis of Johnson’s career between 1861 and 1869.” — Kenneth D. Williams, Civil War NewsFull review: http://www.civilwarnews.com/reviews/2011br/sept/johnson-bergeron-b091120.html “Bergeron has written a very original book quite unlike any modern study of Johnson. Bound to create quite a bit of controversy among scholars and Civil War enthusiasts, Bergeron seeks to provide a balanced analysis of this much-vilified figure.” —John David Smith, Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History, UNC Charlotte “This book serves as a much-needed reflection on the most recent scholarship on Andrew Johnson and provides the perspective of a historian who has a justifiable claim to be the most prominent expert on Johnson. Bergeron moves beyond simplistic arguments based on Johnson’s racism to place his presidency within the politics of the period. He provides a more complex, and effective, perspective on the issues as Johnson tried to pursue the ‘politics of the possible.’” —Richard B. McCaslin, author of Andrew Johnson: A Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis is the story of Toussaint Charbonneau, a French Canadian fur trader, and his Shoshone wife, Sacagawea, who both joined the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 as interpreters and guides. Sacagawea has become a near-legendary figure for her role on the expedition, but Toussaint's contribution largely has been overlooked - Lewis himself called him ""a man of no peculiar merit."" Now W. Dale Nelson offers a frank and honest portrayal of Toussaint, showing that his contributions as interpreter and guide were just as valuable as Sacagawea's help. Nelson also explores the life of Toussaint and Sacagawea's son, Jean Baptiste, who was born on the expedition, and follows his later western exploits as mountain man, scout, mayor, and judge in this family biography.Trade ReviewQuite useful to scholars and lay people alike as an enthusiastic public seeks the best biographies available on the men and women of the Lewis and Clark expedition. - William Swagerty, editor, Scholars and the Indian Experience. ""A page-turner that will hold the reader's interest late into the night."" - Roundup Magazine; ""An insightful, honestly presented, superbly written study that offers the truth behind the myths."" - Midwest Book Review

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Book SynopsisIn this second edition, historians Chuck Parsons and Donaly E. Brice present a complete picture of N. O. Reynolds (1846–1922), a Texas Ranger who brought a greater respect for the law in Central Texas. Reynolds began as a sergeant in famed Company D, Frontier Battalion in 1874. He served honorably during the Mason County ""Hoo Doo"" War and was chosen to be part of Major John B. Jones's escort, riding the frontier line. In 1877 he arrested the Horrells, who were feuding with their neighbors, the Higgins party, thus ending their Lampasas County feud. Shortly thereafter he was given command of the newly formed Company E of Texas Rangers. Also in 1877 the notorious John Wesley Hardin was captured; N.O. Reynolds was given the responsibility to deliver Hardin to trial in Comanche, return him to a safe jail during his appeal, and then escort him safely to the Huntsville penitentiary.

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Book SynopsisAward-winning author Bob Alexander presents a biography of 20th-century Ranger Captain Jack Dean, who holds the distinction of being one of only five men to serve in both the Officer's Corps of the Rangers and also as a President-appointed United States Marshal.Jack Dean's service in Texas Ranger history occurred at a time when the institution was undergoing a philosophical revamping and restructuring, all hastened by America's Civil Rights Movement, landmark decisions handed down by the United States Supreme Court, zooming advances in forensic technology, and focused efforts designed to diversify and professionalize the Rangers. His job choice caused him to circulate in the duplicitous underworld of dishonesty and criminality where twisted self-interest overrode compliance with societal norms. His biography is packed with true-crime calamities: double murders, single murders, negligent homicides, suicides, jailbreaks, manhunts, armed robberies and home invasions, kidnappings, public corruption, sexual assaults, illicit gambling, car-theft rings, dope smuggling, and arms trafficking.Trade ReviewBob Alexander personally interviewed Jack Dean, a renowned Texas lawman who wore a badge for forty-three years. These conversations form the core of a well-researched and fascinating account of Lone Star justice from the mid-twentieth century into the new millennium."" - Darren L. Ivey, author of The Ranger Ideal, Volumes 1 and 2

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Book SynopsisBen Thompson was a remarkable man, and few Texans can claim to have crowded more excitement, danger, drama, and tragedy into their lives than he did. He was an Indian fighter, Texas Ranger, Confederate cavalryman, mercenary for a foreign emperor, hired gun for a railroad, an elected lawman, professional gambler, and the victor of numerous gunfights.As a leading member of the Wild West's sporting element, Ben Thompson spent most of his life moving in the unsavory underbelly of the West: saloons, dance-houses, billiard halls, bordellos, and gambling dens. During these travels many of the Wild West's most famous icons—Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok, John Wesley Hardin, John Ringo, and Buffalo Bill Cody—became acquainted with Ben Thompson. Some of these men called him a friend; others considered him a deadly enemy. In life and in death no one ever doubted Ben Thompson's courage; one Texas newspaperman asserted he was “perfectly fearless, a perfect lion in nature when aroused.” This willingness to trust his life to his expertise with a pistol placed Thompson prominently among the western frontier's most flamboyant breed of men: gunfighters.

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Book SynopsisAmerica’s Wild West created an untold number of notorious characters, and in southwestern Texas, John King Fisher (1855– 1884) was foremost among them. To friends and foes alike, he insisted he be called “King.” He found a home in the tough sun-beaten Nueces Strip, a lawless land between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. There he gathered a gang of rustlers around him at his ranch on Pendencia Creek. For a decade King and his gang raided both sides of the Rio Grande, shooting down any who opposed them. Newspapers claimed King killed potential witnesses—he was never convicted of cattle or horse stealing, or murder.King’s reign ended when he was arrested by Texas Ranger Captain Leander McNelly. In no uncertain terms he advised Fisher to change his ways, so King became deputy sheriff of Uvalde County. But his hard-won respectability would not last. On a spring night in 1884, King made the mistake of accompanying the truly notorious gambler and gunfighter Ben Thompson on a tour of San Antonio, where several years prior Thompson shot down Jack Harris at the latter’s saloon and theater, the Vaudeville. Recklessly, King Fisher accompanied Thompson back to the theater, where assassins were waiting. When the smoke cleared, Fisher was stretched out beside Thompson, dead from thirteen gunshot wounds.

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Book SynopsisDouglas Haig's career is at the center of a debate concerning the nature of the Great War. Traditionalists contend that, like the majority of general from both sides, he was a hidebound relic of a bygone age who could not come to grips with modern war and sent his soldiers "over the top" in futile attacks, with a criminal disregard for the enormous cost in lives. Indeed, under Haig's leadership, the British Expeditionary Force fought its two signature battles of the war at the Somme and Passchendaele, earning him a reputation as a "butcher and bungler." A revisionist school now contends that wartime leaders, including Haig, inaugurated a phenomenal period of innovation, one that laid the foundations for modern warfare. This learning curve led from the killing fields of the Somme to the protoblitzkrieg tactics of the Hundred Days Battles. While the Hundred Days Battles often go unnoticed or unappreciated in the history of World War I, obscured as they were by the failures of earlier campaigns, here modern war came of age. Haig's role in that transformation makes him the central figure of the war on the western front.

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Book SynopsisAn analysis of the congressional career of Barber B. Conable, Jr., one of the most-respected legislators of modern times. Barber B. Conable Jr. served as a Republican congressman from western New York from 1965 to 1985. He is recognized as one of the most respected members of the House of Representatives in recent years. This biography explores his twenty-year congressional career, focusing on his remarkable educational abilities as a gifted teacher-legislator. Using excerpts from Conable's private journal, his newsletters and news columns, and from personal interviews, JamesS. Fleming has crafted a book that enables readers to appreciate why Conable was held in high regard by his constituents, his colleagues, the press, and congressional scholars. Political scientist Charles O. Jones expressed the opinion of many when he observed that "Barber Conable was just about everybody's idea of what a congressman should be." Recognizing the importance of Conable's western New York heritage, James Fleming traces Conable's story from his childhood in Warsaw, New York, to his election to the historic Eighty-ninth Congress of 1965-1966. Fleming's chronicle of Conable's subsequent legislative career offers a window on Congress and on an historic period in American history. As the fourth-ranking Republican leader in the House, Conable played a critical role in the Watergate investigation that led to the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. As the ranking Republican leader of the Ways and Means Committee, he was a key contributor to the tax legislation passed during the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations. The highlight of his legislative career was his crucial work in solving the 1983 Social Securitycrisis. Fleming concludes the biography with a look at Conable's service as World Bank President and his retirement to his beloved western New York home. In his foreword the renowned congressional scholar, Richard F. Fenno Jr. writes, "Barber Conable was an especially admirable United States Representative; and Jim Fleming has written an especially admirable congressional biography. This book is, therefore, a special gift."Trade ReviewWith his fascinating portrait of one of the ablest legislators on Capitol Hill, Barber Conable of New York, James Fleming has illuminated our understanding of the crucial role of Congress in shaping national policy. -- -- John Brademas, President Emeritus, New York University; Member of Congress Dem-Ind., 1959-1981Barber Conable is one of those rare politicians worthy of a book-length biography by an expert in his field. And Professor Fleming's biography is worthy of Barber Conable. -- -- Theodore J. Lowi, John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions, Cornell UniversityA great member of Congress has found a wonderful biographer. -- -- Burdett Loomis, Department of Political Science, University of KansasTable of ContentsIntroduction Roots in Western New York Becoming a Lawyer and Politician Mr. Conable Goes to Albany A Freshman in the Eighty-Ninth Congress Appointment to the Ways and Means Committee Support for Richard Nixon The Watergate Betrayal Toughest Reelection A Friend in the White House Republican Leader of Ways and Means Cutting Taxes Saving Social Security Concluding a Congressional Career Life After Congress

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Book SynopsisAn intensely personal meditation on the nature of America by a White Philosopher who joined a Black Studies Department and found his understanding of the world transformed by the experience. Autobiography of an Ex-White Man is an intensely personal meditation on the nature of America by a White Philosopher who joined a Black Studies Department and found his understanding of the world transformed by the experience. The book begins with an autobiographical narrative of the events leading up to Wolff's transfer from a Philosophy Department to the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, and his experiences in the Department with his new colleagues, all of whom had come to Academia from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Wolff discovered that the apparently simple act of moving across campus to a new Department in a new building worked a startling change in the way he saw himself, his university, and his country. Reading as widely as possible to bring himself up to speed in his new field of academic responsibility, Wolff realized after a bit that his picture of American history and culture was undergoing an irreversible metamorphosis. America, he realized, has from its inception been a land both of Freedom and of Bondage -- Freedom for the few, and then forthose who are White, Bondage at first for the many, and then for those who are not White. Slavery is thus not an aberration, an accident, a Peculiar Institution -- it is the essence and core of the American experience. Wolff's optimistic outlook leads him to express the hope that acknowledging the realities of America's racial history and present will begin to tear down the formidable barrier to change. He sees this refashioning of the American story as a first step toward the crafting of a truly liberatory project. Robert Paul Wolff is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the author of numerous books, including Introductory Philosophy and In Defense of Anarchism.Trade Review[this] should be required reading for all introductory courses in American and Afro-American history courses. It should perhaps be the initial book assigned. Wolff provides one of the fullest treatments to date of how writers of American history have failed to portray pre- and post-Civil War blacks as individuals with passion, skills, and a fully developed ironic understanding of their own situation. -- Jesse T. Moore, Jr., Professor of History, University of Rochester, and author of The Search for Equality: The National Urban League, 1910-1961Robert Paul Wolff has worn many hats in his distinguished philosophical career. Now, in this fascinating memoir/manifesto, he recounts what may be his most remarkable transformation yet: from unwittingly Eurocentric white Professor of Philosophy to Professor in an Afro-American Studies Department undergoing a black personal enlightenment about the real racial history of the United States, the extent to which textbooks by established authorities in the field are full of racial mystifications, and -- ineluctably and most intimately--his own white self. -- Charles Mills, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Illinois, and author of The Racial Contract

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Book SynopsisA biography of the poet and libertine the Earl of Rochester. Of the glittering, licentious court around King Charles II, John Wilmot, the second Earl of Rochester, was the most notorious. Simultaneously admired and vilified, he personified the rake-hell. Libertine, profane, promiscuous, heshocked his pious contemporaries with his doubts about religion and his blunt verses that dealt with sex or vicious satiric assaults on the high and mighty of the court. This account of Rochester and his times provides the facts behind his legendary reputation as a rake and his deathbed repentance. However, it also demonstrates that he was a loving if unfaithful husband, a devoted father, a loyal friend, a serious scholar, a social critic, and an aspiringpatriot. An Emeritus professor of English at the University of Rochester, James William Johnson is the author or editor of nine books and many articles treating British and American Literature.Trade ReviewJohnson (emer., University of Rochester) wrote this generous biography - a veritable progress of a rake's rake - with enthusiasm and engaged fascination with Rochester (1647-1680)...Johnson's forte, in addition to the extensiveness of his information, is his strong narrative sweep: this is an exciting biography. Highly Recommended. * CHOICE *Within the last five years there have been two other new biographies of the poet and courtier, both oriented towards a more general reader than is implied here. However, any reader would be advised to choose Johnson's as the most authoritative account to date. . . . An additional strength of this biography is the way in which it uncovers so much more than an individual life. Interwoven with Rochester's fortunes are those of King and country, court and parliament and a huge array of other personalities. * ENGLISH: THE JOURNAL OF THE ENGLISH ASSOCIATION *A life of Rochester could not be better done. It is a biography not only for the scholar, replete with footnotes, references and bibliography, but also for the reader, being written in an easy style with learning lightly worn... A fine biography unlikely to be bettered in the foreseeable future. * THE PRESS (New Zealand) *Table of ContentsA Christian Upbringing (1647-1655) A Classical Education (1656-1659) Growing Debauched at Oxford (1660-1661) The Grand Tour (1662-1664) Campaigns and Engagements (1665) Pursuits and Conquests (1666) Man's Estate (1667) The King's Pimp (1668-1669) Love Raised to Extremes (1669-1670) The Quintessence of Debauchery (1671) Sallies in the Country (1671-1672) Sodom (1673) New Scenes of Foppery (January-June 1674) Dog Days and Masques (July-December 1674) Reversals and Recognitions (1675) Livy and Sickness (January-April 1676) Flights and Disguises (May-December 1676) Sessions Poetical and Political (1677) Scurvy Alarums (1678) Extremity: on All Sides (1678-1679) An End of Communion (1679-1680) Sapience Angelical (May-July 1680)

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Book SynopsisUncovers the life of Jane Cumming, who scandalized her contemporaries with tales of sexual deviancy but also defied cultural norms, standing up to male authority figures and showing resilience. In 1810 Edinburgh, the orphaned Scottish-Indian schoolgirl Jane Cumming alleged that her two schoolmistresses were sexually intimate. The allegation spawned a defamation suit that pitted Jane's grandmother, a member of the Scottish landed gentry, against two young professional women who were romantic friends. During the trial, the boundary between passion and friendship among women was debated and Jane was viewed "orientally," as morally corrupt and hypersexual. Located at the intersection of race, sex, and class, the case has long been a lightning rod for scholars of cultural studies, women's and gender history, and, given Lillian Hellman's appropriation of Jane's story in her 1934 play The Children's Hour, theater history as well. Frances B. Singh's wide-ranging biography, however, takes a new, psychological approach, putting the notorious case in the context of a life that was marked by loss, separation, abandonment--and resilience. Grounded in archival and genealogical sources never before consulted, Singh's narrative reconstructs Cumming's life from its inauspicious beginnings in a Calcutta orphanage through her schooling in Elgin and Edinburgh, an abusive marriage, her adherence to the Free Church at the time of the Scottish Disruption, and her posthumous life in Hellman's Broadway play. Singh provides a detailed analysis not only of the case itself, but of how both Jane's and her teachers' lives were affected in the aftermath.Trade Review[Makes] an important contribution to unveiling the complicated relationship that involves racial, gender/sexual, and class prejudice in nineteenth-century Scotland. * BAVS NEWSLETTER *A welcome addition to histories of modern sexuality in Scotland, a field in which significant lacunae remain. * INNES REVIEW *A pacy highly readable and detailed account of the fascinating life of a young Indian-Scottish woman. * HISTORY SCOTLAND *This book is one of the first monographs to grapple with the history of Indian-Scottish children and in its rich research begins to open up the experiences of such children and to ask what happened to them when they were placed in Scottish society. In this, it offers an important starting point for what shall no doubt become a larger conversation. * English Historical Review *Singh's lively conference presentations . . . have prompted many of us to express hope that she would offer us a deeper dive into the influences around and within the life of a woman who embodies the figure of an outsider in many ways . . . The result is a many-faceted examination of not just Cumming and her extended family, but the eighteenth century as a whole. -- Susan Spencer, University of Oklahoma * Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer *Scandal and Survival is a timely and interesting contribution to the literature on the ways that concepts of race and sexuality shaped the lives of early 19th-century women. The use of recent sociological work on the experience of international adoptions adds a compelling frame to the treatment of Jane Cumming's experience. * Pam Perkins, University of Manitoba *Frances Singh's new biography brilliantly narrates each dramatic turn in this serpentine saga, giving perhaps the most detailed and thorough account yet of Cumming's extraordinary life. . . . Singh's thorough scholarship makes an important contribution to that effort and reveals an early modern world that bears some astonishing similarities to the present. * 1650–1850 Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Placing Jane Ante Jane Educating Jane (1) Educating Jane (2) Jane and the Lords of the Law (1) Jane and the Lords of the Law (2) Jane and William Tulloch Jane, Posthumously Conclusion: Assessing Jane Acknowledgments Appendix A: Marianne Woods, Jane Pirie and Romantic Friendship Appendix B: What Really Happened to Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Jane Pirie? Appendix C: Corinna: A Ballad Appendix D: Richard Rose's letter Written from the Manse of Kinnedar dated January 12, 1835 Appendix E: Jane's letter Written from the Dallas Manse dated 15 February 1836 to Sir William regarding wood stealing at Dallas Works Cited

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Book SynopsisUncovers the life of Jane Cumming, who scandalized her contemporaries with tales of sexual deviancy but also defied cultural norms, standing up to male authority figures and showing resilience. In 1810 Edinburgh, the orphaned Scottish-Indian schoolgirl Jane Cumming alleged that her two schoolmistresses were sexually intimate. The allegation spawned a defamation suit that pitted Jane's grandmother, a member of the Scottish landed gentry, against two young professional women who were romantic friends. During the trial, the boundary between passion and friendship among women was debated and Jane was viewed "orientally," as morally corrupt and hypersexual. Located at the intersection of race, sex, and class, the case has long been a lightning rod for scholars of cultural studies, women's and gender history, and, given Lillian Hellman's appropriation of Jane's story in her 1934 play The Children's Hour, theater history as well. Frances B. Singh's wide-ranging biography, however, takes a new, psychological approach, putting the notorious case in the context of a life that was marked by loss, separation, abandonment--and resilience. Grounded in archival and genealogical sources never before consulted, Singh's narrative reconstructs Cumming's life from its inauspicious beginnings in a Calcutta orphanage through her schooling in Elgin and Edinburgh, an abusive marriage, her adherence to the Free Church at the time of the Scottish Disruption, and her posthumous life in Hellman's Broadway play. Singh provides a detailed analysis not only of the case itself, but of how both Jane's and her teachers' lives were affected in the aftermath.Trade Review[Makes] an important contribution to unveiling the complicated relationship that involves racial, gender/sexual, and class prejudice in nineteenth-century Scotland. * BAVS NEWSLETTER *A welcome addition to histories of modern sexuality in Scotland, a field in which significant lacunae remain. * INNES REVIEW *A pacy highly readable and detailed account of the fascinating life of a young Indian-Scottish woman. * HISTORY SCOTLAND *This book is one of the first monographs to grapple with the history of Indian-Scottish children and in its rich research begins to open up the experiences of such children and to ask what happened to them when they were placed in Scottish society. In this, it offers an important starting point for what shall no doubt become a larger conversation. * English Historical Review *Singh's lively conference presentations . . . have prompted many of us to express hope that she would offer us a deeper dive into the influences around and within the life of a woman who embodies the figure of an outsider in many ways . . . The result is a many-faceted examination of not just Cumming and her extended family, but the eighteenth century as a whole. -- Susan Spencer, University of Oklahoma * Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer *Scandal and Survival is a timely and interesting contribution to the literature on the ways that concepts of race and sexuality shaped the lives of early 19th-century women. The use of recent sociological work on the experience of international adoptions adds a compelling frame to the treatment of Jane Cumming's experience. * Pam Perkins, University of Manitoba *Frances Singh's new biography brilliantly narrates each dramatic turn in this serpentine saga, giving perhaps the most detailed and thorough account yet of Cumming's extraordinary life. . . . Singh's thorough scholarship makes an important contribution to that effort and reveals an early modern world that bears some astonishing similarities to the present. * 1650–1850 Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Placing Jane Ante Jane Educating Jane (1) Educating Jane (2) Jane and the Lords of the Law (1) Jane and the Lords of the Law (2) Jane and William Tulloch Jane, Posthumously Conclusion: Assessing Jane Acknowledgments Appendix A: Marianne Woods, Jane Pirie and Romantic Friendship Appendix B: What Really Happened to Miss Marianne Woods and Miss Jane Pirie? Appendix C: Corinna: A Ballad Appendix D: Richard Rose's letter Written from the Manse of Kinnedar dated January 12, 1835 Appendix E: Jane's letter Written from the Dallas Manse dated 15 February 1836 to Sir William regarding wood stealing at Dallas Works Cited

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Book SynopsisWilliam Watson spent two years evading Union gunboats and dealing with the ""sharpers"" who fed off the misfortune of the Civil War. In 1892, using log books, personal papers, and business memoranda, he published this ""plain, blunt,"" account of ""events just as they happened."" The result was a classic adventure tale whose careful description of seafaring in the 1860s gives us a glimpse into a world now closed to us. Watson is the protagonist, but he shares his story with his ship, the Rob Roy, a center-board schooner whose shallow draft and wide beam made it the ideal vessel for slipping over shoals and dashing in and out of blockaded ports. He peoples his account with the good, the bad, and the unlucky, from the likeable and irrepressible Capt. Dave McLusky to the loathsome and dishonest Mr. R. M. He takes his reader from Havana, where land sharks greet incoming sailors, to Galveston, where sharp businessmen and corrupt officials connive to confiscate both profits and ships. His crew braves gales and a hurricane, and he survives plots against his ship and his life. This adventure story is held together by the nuts and bolts of sailing. Watson's discussion of why sail was superior to steam for running blockades is superb; his detailed accounts of outrunning Federal cruisers are fascinating. Through it all, he maintains his honor and guards his profits. For the reader who wants to ply the Gulf of Mexico under sail, play the lottery in Havana, and visit Texas when it was ""a new country,"" Watson is the perfect guide to run the blockade that time imposes on posterity.

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Book SynopsisWhen George H. W. Bush took office in January 1989, he brought to the presidency an impressive resume. A former member of Congress, national party leader, CIA director, ambassador to China, and two-term vice president, he had the credentials and experience for a uniquely successful presidency. Less than four years later, the American electorate resoundingly proclaimed his administration a failure. Many pundits and scholars have echoed the voters' judgment. In a considered and balanced reassessment, Ryan J. Barilleaux and Mark J. Rozell ask whether the public and the pundits have applied the wrong criteria of presidential evaluation. Looking at the context in which Bush came into office, Barilleaux and Rozell argue that his strategy of incrementalism may indeed have been right for the times and any failure may have lain only in Bush's inability to convince the public of that. Moreover, the authors disagree with the common assessment that Bush pursued incrementalism only in domestic policy, arguing that it characterized his foreign policy as well. Power and Prudence is a study in presidential evaluation. It represents a challenge to the conventional wisdom that has developed on the first Bush administration and presents an important reinterpretation of the leadership of a poorly understood president. This thought-provoking analysis suggests that the circumstances of his presidency may have limited Bush's opportunities to articulate or achieve far-reaching policy objectives. These circumstances included the lack of an electoral mandate, Bush's succession to a very popular and ideological leader, his inheritance of a daunting budget deficit, and the situation of divided government. The authors' interpretation of the Bush administration is supported by interviews with members of Bush's White House staff and the limited archival record thus far opened to scholars. A detailed read into the workings of a contemporary presidency, Power and Prudence will appeal to presidential scholars as well as the politically minded reader.

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Book Synopsis Octavius Valentine Catto was an orator who shared stages with Frederick Douglass, a second baseman on Philadelphia’s best black baseball team, a teacher at the city’s finest black school and an activist who fought in the state capital and on the streets for equal rights. With his racially-charged murder, the nation lost a civil rights pioneer—one who risked his life a century before Selma and Birmingham. In Tasting Freedom Murray Dubin and Pulitzer Prize winner Dan Biddle painstakingly chronicle the life of this charismatic black leader—a “free” black whose freedom was in name only. Born in the American south, where slavery permeated everyday life, he moved north where he joined the fight to be truly free—free to vote, go to school, ride on streetcars, play baseball and even participate in July 4th celebrations. Catto electrified a biracial audience in 1864 when he proclaimed, “There must come a change,” calling on free men and women to act and educate the newly freed slaves. With a group of other African Americans who called themselves a “band of brothers,” they challenged one injustice after another. Tasting Freedom presents the little-known stories of Catto and the men and women who struggled to change America.Trade Review"Daniel Biddle and Murray Dubin have brought to life a leader of the Civil War-era struggle against slavery and for equal rights for blacks. This dramatic book not only rescues the intrepid Octavius Catto from obscurity but reminds us that this struggle—and the violent opposition to it—long predated the modern civil rights era."—Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History, Columbia University"[A] marvelous historical feast for lovers of Afro-American, Philadelphia, and American history alike.... The book's particular magic is that it shows how real people, black and white, rich and poor, were tossed about in the historical currents that flowed through Philadelphia.... One would have to search far and wide to find a better-researched and more compellingly readable biography." —The Philadelphia Inquirer"This is a great story and a compelling history of the original civil rights movement—with its own Dr. King. In Tasting Freedom, Biddle and Dubin bring to light a hero whose footprints helped lead America through the challenges of racial injustice: Octavius Catto. The story is both riveting and elucidative"—Juan Williams, author of Eyes on the Prize and Thurgood Marshall"Tasting Freedom is masterfully researched and cogently written. Biddle and Dubin transport us to yesteryear, profiling some of the central figures of the Civil War era and revealing the birth and rise of the black intelligentsia in this country. Tasting Freedom is a valuable triumph—and a work of importance."—Elijah Anderson, Yale University"Tasting Freedom is required reading for anyone who thinks the civil rights movement started in the 1950s, with Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks (hint: you're off by a full century). This is a revelation for those of us who grew up being fed morality tales about righteous Northern free staters standing against Southern slaveholders (hint: neither offered real freedom). Biddle and Dubin’s book is for all of us who love a story about baseball and war, about race and the making of America."—Larry Tye, author of Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend"If you fancy knowing about growing up black in mid-nineteenth-century Philadelphia, there is no better place to start than with Biddle and Dubin's powerful and poignant biography of Octavius V. Catto. For those who believe that post–Civil War Reconstruction was only a Southern affair, this book is an eye-opener."—Gary B. Nash, Director of the National Center for History in the Schools, UCLA, and author of The Liberty Bell"An entrancing portrait of a leading Renaissance man for equal rights. . . . Nothing matches it at the moment as a prequel to Thomas J. Sugrue’s much-noted Sweet Land of Liberty."—Library Journal"This rich biography...restores Catto to his important place in the pantheon of civil rights heroes."—ForeWordTable of ContentsPreface Introduction “A Hundred O. V. Cattos” 1. Charleston 2. Arm in Arm 3. “Keep the Flame Burning . . .” 4. With Giants 5. Lessons 6. The Irish, the Killers, and Squire McMullen 7. “Arise, Young North” 8. How Much I Yearn to Be a Man” 9. A Chance on the Pavement 10. The Wolf Killers 11. Manhood 12. The Battle for the Streetcars 13. Baseball 14. The Hide of the Rhinoceros 15. Election Day 16. The Venus of the High Trapeze Epilogue The Legacy Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn August 1914, Russia entered the First World War, and with it, the Imperial family of Tsar Nicholas II was thrust into a conflict from which they would not emerge. His eldest child, Olga Nikolaevna, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, had begun a diary in 1905 when she was 10 years old and kept writing her thoughts and impressions of day-to-day life as a Grand Duchess until abruptly ending her entries when her father abdicated his throne in March 1917. Held at the State Archives of the Russian Federation in Moscow, Olga's diaries during the wartime period have never been translated into English until this volume. At the outset of the war, Olga and her sister, Tatiana, worked as nurses in a military hospital along with their mother, Tsarina Alexandra. Olga's younger sisters, Maria and Anastasia, visited their own infirmaries to help raise the morale of the wounded and sick soldiers. The strain was indeed great as Olga records her impressions of tending to the officers who had been injured and maimed in the fighting on the Russian front. Concerns about her sickly brother, Aleksei abound, as well those for her father who is seen attempting to manage the ongoing war.Gregori Rasputin appears in entries, too, in an affectionate manner as one would expect of a family friend. While the diaries reflect the interests of a young woman, her tone increases in seriousness as the Russian army suffers setbacks, Rasputin is ultimately murdered, and a popular movement against her family begins to grow. At the point Olga ends her writing in 1917, the author continues the story by translating letters and impressions from family intimates, such as Anna Vyrubova, as well as the diary kept by Nicholas II himself. Finally, once the Imperial family has been put under house arrest by the revolutionaries, observations by Alexander Kerensky, head of the initial Provisional Government, are provided, these too in English translation for the first time. Olga would offer no further personal writings as she and the rest of her family were crowded into the basement of a house in the Urals and shot to death in July 1918.The Diary of Olga Romanov: Royal Witness to the Russian Revolution, translated and introduced by scientist and librarian Helen Azar, and supplemented with additional primary source material, is a remarkable document of a young woman who did not choose to be part of a royal family and never exploited her own position, but lost her life simply because of what her family represented.

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Book SynopsisThe country Frank Springer rode into in 1873 was one of immense beauty and abundant resources - grass and timber, wild game, precious metals, and a vast bed of commercial-grade coal. It was also a stage upon which dramatic and sometimes violent events played out. A lawyer and newspaperman for the Maxwell Land Grant company and a foe of the speculators known as ""the Santa Fe Ring,"" Springer found himself in the middle of the Colfax County War. A man of many sides, he typified the Gilded Age entrepreneurs who transformed the territorial American Southwest. As president of the Maxwell Land Grant company, Springer led in the development of mining, logging, ranching, and irrigation enterprises. His Supreme Court victory establishing title to the 1.7 million acre Maxwell grant earned him a reputation as a brilliant attorney.Trade Review[Caffey] chronicles the contentious and sometimes dangerous work of Frank Springer that established property ownership and rights in the New Mexico Territory, eventually leading to statehood. His legacy is evident here as well as in the Fine Arts in Santa Fe, in higher education in New Mexico, and in the science of paleontology where Springer was a leading authority on crinoid fossils. - William I. Ausich, Professor of Geological Sciences, Ohio State University and Director, Orton Museum

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Book SynopsisWith more than 400 photographs, extensive interviews with the descendants of pioneer Jewish Texan families, and reproductions of rare historical documents, Natalie Ornish's Pioneer Jewish Texans quickly became a classic following its original release in 1989. This new Texas A&M University Press edition presents Ornish's meticulous research and her fascinating historical vignettes for a new generation of readers and historians. She chronicles Jewish buccaneers with Jean Lafitte at Galveston; she tells of Jewish patriots who fought at the Alamo and at virtually every major engagement in the war for Texan independence; she traces the careers of immigrants with names like Marcus, Sanger, and Gordon, who arrived on the Texas frontier with little more than the packs on their backs and went on to build great mercantile empires. Cattle barons, wildcatters, diplomats, physicians, financiers, artists, and humanitarians are among the other notable Jewish pioneers and pathfinders described in this carefully researched and exhaustively documented book. Filling a substantial void in Texana and Texas history, the Texas A&M University Press edition of Natalie Ornish's Pioneer Jewish Texans brings back into circulation this treasure trove of information on a rich and often overlooked vein of the multifaceted story of the Lone Star State.

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Book SynopsisJames Cook, son of a farm laborer and onetime shopkeeper's apprentice, became one of England's greatest explorers. After learning his trade as a seafarer in the Royal Navy, he commanded three epic voyages that took him around the world twice and from the Antarctic to the Arctic. His many discoveries included the Great Barrier Reef of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands. His exploration of the South Pacific added immeasurably to the geography of that region, and his rigorous insistence on a diet intended to prevent diseases like scurvy served as a model for generations of captains. On his final voyage, Cook was stabbed to death during the season of war in Hawaii. In ""Captain James Cook"", learn how this daring explorer charted far-flung regions of the globe.

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Book SynopsisIn May 1863, eighteen-year-old William Brooke Rawle graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and traded a genteel, cultured life of privilege for service as a cavalry officer. Travelling from his home in Philadelphia to Virginia, he joined the Third Pennsylvania Cavalry and soon found himself in command of a company of veterans of two years’ service, some of whom were more than twice his age. Within eight weeks, he had participated in two of the largest cavalry battles of the war at Brandy Station and Gettysburg. Brooke Rawle and the Third Pennsylvania Cavalry would serve with the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac through April 1864, fighting partisans and guerillas in Northern Virginia and also seeing action during the Bristoe Station and Mine Run battles of late 1863. A meticulous diarist and letter writer, Brooke Rawle documented nearly everything that came under his observant eye in 150 well-written letters home to his family. These letters, supplemented by his diary entries, provide a fascinating, richly detailed look into the life of a regimental cavalry officer during the last two years of the Civil War in the East.

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Book SynopsisAn essential biography of one of Ohio's most influential—but overlooked—historical figuresThe Brilliance of Charles Whittlesey offers the first full-length biography of one of the most outstanding and influential Americans of the 19th century, Charles Whittlesey (1808–1886). Whittlesey advanced numerous fields, including geology, exploration, history, archaeology, and military strategy. However, until now, much of Whittlesey's work has been treated as a mere footnote of American history and largely neglected by historians. Stanley M. Totten's recovery of Whittlesey's life and work relies on Whittlesey's own insights and private papers, which provide a unique window into his many talents and interests as well as the hardships he endured. This exhaustive volume uncovers—perhaps most significantly—Whittlesey's important geological discoveries. Notably, Totten describes how Whittlesey accurately determined the amount by which oceans lowered during the height of the Ice Age. His geological maps of Native American earthworks were informational and enhanced our understanding of these ancient structures, although, as Totten persuasively argues, other geologists have undeservedly been given credit for Whittlesey's work. Totten also highlights Whittlesey's contributions during the Civil War and his work as a preservationist of historic materials on both the national and local levels. Drawing extensively from papers housed in the Western Reserve Historical Society, The Brilliance of Charles Whittlesey is an overdue, exhaustive biography that will undoubtedly serve as an important foundational text for future scholarship into each of these areas.Trade Review"Colonel Charles Whittlesey (1808-1886) was one of those few remarkable 'men for all seasons' of the 19th century whose contributions spanned the realms of natural science, military engineering, archaeology, and history, but for whom proper recognition is lacking. Stanley M. Totten's new book resolves this deficiency. ….the book is a valuable and detailed documentation of Charles Whittlesey's life's work, the significance of his many contributions, and particularly the development of scientific thinking in the mid-1800s."—Ohio Journal of Science Stanley Totten's readable and fact-packed book from original sources is an excellent tribute to a man who previously has barely surfaced in the history of the Midwest, despite his enormous contributions to our area and nation. Finally…Whittlesey has received the biographical treatment he deserves. —Smile Politely.com "Finally, we have a biography of Col. Charles Whittlesey, an adventurous pioneering geologist, a soldier, an engineer (both military and civil), an archaeologist, and a historian. You will find it a fascinating journey into the life of a major figure who is finally getting the attention he deserves."—Joe Hannibal, Cleveland Museum of Natural History "Charles Whittlesey was a transformational figure in 19th-century Ohio whose story has never been fully told—that is, until now. Stanley Totten's book, The Brilliance of Charles Whittlesey, is the first in-depth study of Whittlesey's life and career and is, in itself, a landmark publication. Absent Whittlesey, regional history would have evolved differently— and absent Stanley Totten's work, we would not be able to grasp the impact Whittlesey had during a long, productive, and event-filled lifetime."—John J. Grabowski, coauthor of Cleveland's Cultural Gardens: A Landscape of Diversity

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Book SynopsisThe first full biography of Warren Lewis, brother and secretary of C. S. LewisDetailing the life of Warren Hamilton Lewis, author Don W. King gives us new insights into the life and mind of Warren's famous brother, C. S. Lewis, and also demonstrates how Warren's experiences provide an illuminating window into the events, personalities, and culture of 20th-century England. Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother will appeal to those interested in C. S. Lewis and British social and cultural history.As a career soldier, Warren served in France during the nightmare of World War I and was later posted to Sierra Leone and Shanghai. On his retirement from the army, he became an active member of the household at the Kilns, the residence outside Oxford that he co-owned with his brother and Mrs. Janie Moore, and he played an important role in the relationship between his brother and Joy Davidman, the woman who became C. S. Lewis's wife. A talented writer and accomplished amateur historian, Warren also researched and wrote seven books on 17th-century French history.Inkling, Historian, Soldier, and Brother examines Warren Lewis's role as an original member of the Oxford Inklings—that now famous group of novelists, thinkers, clergy, poets, essayists, medical men, scholars, and friends who met regularly to drink beer; discuss books, ideas, history, and writers; and share pieces of their own writing for feedback from the group. Drawing from Warren Lewis's unpublished diaries, his letters, the memoir he wrote about his family, and other primary materials, this biography is an engaging story of a fascinating life, period of history, and of the warm and loving relationship between Warren and his brother, which lasted throughout their lives.Trade ReviewIndependent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) 2023 Bronze Medal Winner in World History "A consistently interesting and well-paced life story of Warren Lewis. …. To bring Warren out of the shadows, Don King's biography draws upon a wide range of sources, especially published and unpublished passages from his diary." —CSL: The Bulletin of the New York C.S. Lewis Society "Don W. King offers a consistently fact-filled and engaging account of Warren Lewis's life and times, providing as well an illuminating social history of 20th-century Britain. This work allows readers to view C. S. Lewis's life from a new perspective. Warren's story deserves to be told, and Don King is just the right person to tell that story." —David C. Downing, codirector, Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College "King gives us a richly detailed life of Warnie Lewis to make the case that he is interesting not only because of his famous brother but in his own right. We see Warnie with C. S. Lewis growing up, living at the Kilns, and as Inklings, but we also clearly see the complexities of Warnie himself, proud soldier and self-taught historian who yet was psychologically dependent on his brother and tragically diminished by alcoholism." —John Rosegrant, author of Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss: Steps on the Developmental Journey "King offers a treasure trove of new information and at the same time succeeds admirably in engaging both the expert and someone new to Lewis studies. This book is a must have for any serious Lewis collection—as much for its insights and commentary as for the information it provides." —Devin Brown, professor of English, Asbury University, and author of A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis

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Book SynopsisThe story of one Ohio senator's impact on the early abolition movement More than 175 years after his death, Senator Thomas Morris has remained one of the few early national champions of political and constitutional antislavery without a biography devoted to him. In this first expansive study of Morris's life and contributions, David C. Crago persuasively argues that historians have wrongly marginalized Morris's role in the early antislavery movement.Morris was the first member of the US Senate to defend abolitionist positions in that body. Confronted with Southern demands for Congressional action to silence abolitionists and endorse slavery, he asserted that a proslavery interpretation of the Constitution was a distortion of the text. Instead, he argued, the Constitution neither identified people as property nor granted Congress the power to establish slavery in the territories or the District of Columbia. Although far outside the 1830s political consensus, Morris's ideas were quickly adopted by the nascent antislavery movement and became the cornerstone of antislavery political beliefs.Ultimately expelled from the Ohio Democratic Party and denied reelection to the Senate, within a decade his ideas would shape the core principles of both the Free-Soil and Republican Parties' platforms. The Creation of a Crusader fills an important gap in understanding the early American antislavery movement and sheds light on Morris's overlooked yet significant influence.Trade Review"David Crago's splendid biography of Thomas Morris is truly a major contribution to the history of American politics. In his time, Morris, a stalwart antislavery pioneer, loomed so large that many thought his reputation would be immortal. With imagination, unstinting research, and analytical clarity, Crago has written a rare life study that illuminates the entire antislavery political tradition."—Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln "This impressive study seeks to return Ohio senator Thomas Morris, who for a brief time became a central figure in political abolitionism, to his rightful place in the history of American antislavery." —Jonathan Earle, author of Jacksonian Antislavery and the Politics of Free Soil, 1824–1854"With the determination of a detective and the craft of a historian, law professor David Crago restores antebellum Ohio senator Thomas Morris to the meteoric presence he had in his own time—a hard-money Jacksonian in 1836 who broke from his party, who became the first public figure to denominate and denounce the aggrandizing 'Slave Power,' who reversed himself to argue that the Constitution never sanctioned humans as property, and who by 1842, as the vice presidential candidate of the Liberty Party, declared that Congress had the power and the obligation to abolish slavery to achieve the Declaration's equal justice for all."—Sydney Nathans, author of To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker

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Book SynopsisA governor embraces patriotism over partisanship in a crucial Union stateBefore his election to the state's executive office in 1862, David Tod was widely regarded as Ohio's most popular Democrat. Tod rose to prominence in the old Western Reserve, rejecting the political influence of his well-known father, a former associate justice of Ohio's Supreme Court, a previous member of the Federalist Party, and a new, devoted Whig. As a fierce Democratic Party lion, the younger Tod thrilled followers with his fearless political attacks on Whig adversaries and was considered an unlikely figure in the battle to keep the Union intact.However, the Civil War and the serious consequences of its potential outcome came to outweigh his loyalty to the Democratic Party. Placing the restoration of the Union above all else, Tod eagerly shed his partisan identity to take up the Union cause. As governor, he quickly pledged Ohio's support to the nation's leader, President Abraham Lincoln. Tod rallied Ohioans to support the war and equipped scores of physicians and nurses with medical supplies to tend to Ohio's wounded soldiers. He also had to protect the state's borders from invasion by developing defenses at home.Despite his patriotic service, partisan politics and political intrigue denied Tod a second term. The Political Transformation of David Tod chronicles Tod's unwavering support for the Union and describes the importance of one man's loyalty to country over partisanship.Trade Review"This engagingly written book is a marvelous addition to the political history of the Civil War. By bringing Ohio's governor David Tod out of obscurity, Lambert showcases Tod's ability to rise to the challenge of putting the Union above party to restore the nation, and he places Tod's inspired leadership and the nation-state alliance at the forefront of the war's tumultuous years of 1862 and 1863."—Stephen D. Engle, author of Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln and the Union's War Governors"Modern political biographies of Civil War leaders beyond the national and presidential level have been neglected for too long. Joseph Lambert Jr. provides us a study of one of Ohio's war governors, taking us into the experience of politics during the rebellion at the state level with this insightful look at David Tod, a 'War Democrat' whose tenure reflected the deep divisions and political realities of the war years in the Union heartland."—A. James Fuller, University of Indianapolis, author of Oliver P. Morton and the Politics of the Civil War and Reconstruction "Lambert's detailed and concise biography of David Tod provides a long-overdue study of Ohio's most notable Civil War governor. A lifelong Democrat, Tod became a Lincoln ally, and his leadership during the turbulent years of 1862 and 1863 ensured the Buckeye State would be a steadfast supporter of the Union cause."—Thomas Crowl, author of Opdycke's Tigers in the Civil War: A History of the 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry

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Book SynopsisFrom his humble beginnings in Sumter, South Carolina, to his prominence on the Washington, D.C., political scene as the third highest-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, U.S. Congressman James E. Clyburn has led an extraordinary life. In Blessed Experiences, Clyburn tells in his own inspirational words how an African American boy from the Jim Crow-era South was able to beat the odds to achieve great success and become, as President Barack Obama describes him, ""one of a handful of people who, when they speak, the entire Congress listens.Born in 1940 to a civic-minded beautician and a fundamentalist minister, Clyburn began his ascent to leadership at the age of twelve, when he was elected president of his National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) youth chapter. He broke barriers through peaceful protests and steadfast beliefs in equality and justice. Of his success Clyburn says he was ""blessed with nurturing parents, a supportive family, and loyal friends."" But, he added, ""my life was not just about knocking down doors and lowering barriers. I spent some time marching in the streets and occupying the inside of South Carolina jails."" As a civil rights leader at South Carolina State College, as human affairs commissioner under John C. West and three subsequent governors, and as South Carolina's first African American congressman since 1897, Clyburn has established a long and impressive record of public leadership and advocacy for human rights, education, historic preservation, and economic development. Clyburn was elected to Congress in 1992. Serving as copresident of his freshman class, he rose quickly through the ranks and was elected chair of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1999 and House Democratic Caucus vice chair in 2002. Three years later he was unanimously elected chair of the Democratic Caucus. When Democrats regained the House majority in 2006, Clyburn was elected House majority whip. Now as assistant Democratic leader in the 112th Congress, Clyburn, a self-described independent, prides himself on working to overcome barriers and destroy myths without becoming too predictable. ""I have worked across party lines to further legislative causes, and on occasion publicly differed with some of my allies in the civil rights community,"" says Clyburn. ""My experiences have not always been pleasant, but I have considered all of them blessings."" Blessed Experiences includes a foreword from Emmy Award-winning actress and the congressman's longtime friend Alfre Woodard.

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Book SynopsisA historical figure's attempts to secure freedom for America and her slaves winning a reputation for reckless bravery in a succession of major battles and sieges, John Laurens distinguished himself as one of the most zealous, self-sacrificing participants in the American Revolution. A native of South Carolina and son of Henry Laurens, president of the Continental Congress, John devoted his life to securing American independence. In this comprehensive biography, Gregory D. Massey recounts the young Laurens's wartime record --a riveting tale in its own right --and finds that even more remarkable than his military escapades were his revolutionary ideas concerning the rights of African Americans.Massey relates Laurens's desperation to fight for his country once revolution had begun. A law student in England, he joined the war effort in 1777, leaving behind his English wife and an unborn child he would never see. Massey tells of the young officer's devoted service as General George Washington's aide-de-camp, interaction with prominent military and political figures, and conspicuous military efforts at Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Newport, Charleston, Savannah, and Yorktown. Massey also recounts Laurens's survival of four battle wounds and six months as a prisoner of war, his controversial diplomatic mission to France, and his close friendship with Alexander Hamilton. Laurens's death in a minor battle in August 1782 was a tragic loss for the new state and nation. Unlike other prominent southerners, Laurens believed blacks shared a similar nature with whites, and he formulated a plan to free slaves in return for their service in the Continental Army. Massey explores the personal, social, and cultural factors that prompted Laurens to diverge so radically from his peers and to raise vital questions about the role African Americans would play in the new republic.

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Book SynopsisFrancis Pegahmagabow (1889–1952), an Ojibwe of the Caribou clan, was born in Shawanaga First Nation, Ontario. Enlisting at the onset of the First World War, he served overseas as a scout and sniper and became Canada’s most decorated Indigenous soldier. After the war, Pegahmagabow settled in Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario, where he married and raised six children. He served his community as both Chief and Councillor and was a founding member of the Brotherhood of Canadian Indians, the first national Indigenous political organization. In 1949 and 1950, he was elected the Supreme Chief of the National Indian Government.Francis Pegahmagabow’s stories describe many parts of his life and are characterized by classic Ojibwe narrative. They reveal aspects of Francis’s Anishinaabe life and worldview. Interceding chapters by Brian McInnes provide valuable cultural, spiritual, linguistic, and historical insights that give a greater context and application for Francis’s words and world. Presented in their original Ojibwe as well as in English translation, the stories also reveal a rich and evocative relationship to the lands and waters of Georgian Bay.In Sounding Thunder, Brian McInnes provides a new perspective on Pegahmagabow and his experience through a unique synthesis of Ojibwe oral history, historical record, and Pegahmagabow family stories.

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Book SynopsisMy Seven Lives is the English translation of the best-selling memoir of Slovak journalist Agneša Kalinová (1924-2014): Holocaust survivor, film critic, translator, and political prisoner. An oral history written with her colleague Jana Juráňová My Seven Lives provides a window into Jewish history, the Holocaust, and the cultural evolution of Central and Eastern Europe. The conversational approach gives the book a relatable immediacy that vividly conveys the tone and temperament of Agneša, bringing out her lively personality and extraordinary ability to stay positive in the face of adversity.Each chapter reflects a distinct period of Agneša's long and tumultuous life. Her idyllic childhood gives way to the rise of Nazism and restrictions of the anti-Jewish legislation, which led to deportations and her escape to Hungary, where she found refuge in a Budapest convent. Surviving the Holocaust, she returned to Slovakia and married writer J?ín Ladislav Kalina. They embraced communism, and Agneša began her career as a journalist and film critic and became involved in the Prague Spring, ending with the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Agneša and her husband lost their jobs and were imprisoned, which led to their decision to immigrate to West Germany. She found a new career as a political commentator for Radio Free Europe, and after decades of political oppression, Agneša lived to see the euphoric days of the Velvet Revolution and its freeing aftermath.My Seven Lives shows the impact of an often brutal twentieth century on the life of one remarkable individual. It's a story of survival, perseverance, and ultimately triumph.Trade Review"This book is not a conventional autobiography, but takes the form – commonly used in Central Europe – of a transcribed dialogue between the subject and a friendly interlocutor [...] As impressive as Kalinová’s recall of names and events is her lack of bitterness. Refusing to let herself be defined by the loss of family in the Holocaust and of her career in middle age, she says: “I’ve always regarded life as a kind of adventure: let’s see what it throws at me and how things will pan out.”" - Times Literary SupplementTable of Contents Preface 1. Childhood and Adolescence 1924–1942 2. War—Deportations—Escape—Return 1942–1945 3. Bratislava After the War 1945–1956 4. From Oppression to Freedom and Back Again 1956–1969 5. Normalization and Emigration 1969–1978 6. Exile 1978–1990 7. Returns 1990–1995 What Happened Next Farewell to Agneša Kalinová Appendix: Biographical Notes on Selected Individuals Mentioned Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe story of a union organizer who found a second career in community organizing and helped a Jim Crow city become a better place. Ernest Thompson dedicated his life to organizing the powerless. This lively, illustrated personal narrative of his work shows the great contribution that people’s coalitions can make to the struggle for equality and freedom. Thompson cut his teeth organizing one of the great industrial unions, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, and brought his organizing skills and commitment to coalition building to Orange, New Jersey. He built a strong organization and skillfully led fights for school desegregation, black political representation, and strong government in a city he initially thought of as a “dirty Jim Crow town going nowhere.” Thompson came to love the City of Orange and its caring citizens, seeing in its struggles a microcosm of America. This story of people’s power is meant for all who struggle for human rights, economic opportunity, decent housing, effective education, and a chance for children to have a better life. Ernest Thompson (1906-1971) grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on a farm that had been given to his family at the end of the Civil War. The family was very poor and oppressed by racist practices. Thompson was determined to get away and to obtain power. He migrated to Jersey City, where he became part of the union organizing movement that built the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO). He became the first African American to hold a fulltime organizing position with his union, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). He eventually headed UE’s innovative Fair Employment Practices program and fought for equal rights and pay for women and minority workers. Thompson also helped build the National Negro Labor Council, 1951-1956, and served as its director of organizing. In 1956, under the onslaught of the McCarthy era, UE was split in two, and Thompson lost his job. His wife, Margaret Thompson, brought the local school segregation to his attention. Ernie “Home” Thompson organized to desegregate the regional schools, building strong coalitions and political power for the black community that ultimately served all the people of Orange.Trade Review"Thompson helped people see that what’s morally right is politically astute and that the racist and classist power structures you are fighting against want nothing more than for you to fight among yourselves, rather than organize. Organizing, when it’s done right, when people really listen to themselves and each other, isn’t just about winning a race or a campaign. It is a collective act of love. More than anything, Ernie Thompson shows us how to love." -- Robert Sullivan * author, My American Revolution *"Homeboy Came to Orange is an essential read for anyone who wants to organize for change in their towns, schools, churches or communities. It is a story that is at once inspiring, challenging, and unwavering." -- Terri Baltimore * Director of Community Engagement, Hill House Association *"The re-release of Ernie Thompson's book about his rich life as an anti-racism union organizer should be read by young (and other) human beings who have decided to hold church in the streets, courts, state houses, and ballot boxes in the south (and other) parts of the U.S., against the white nationalism of the fake GOP." -- Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, * co-director of the New Poor People's Campaign, architect of the Moral Monday Movement, and past president of the NC NAACP. *"This book encourages the reader to not be complacent with injustice anywhere and to draw from their own strengths to build coalitions that work to actualize a People's Democracy rooted in universal equality (equity)." -- Rev. Dr. Anika Whitfield of Little Rock

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Book SynopsisThe story of a union organizer who found a second career in community organizing and helped a Jim Crow city become a better place. Ernest Thompson dedicated his life to organizing the powerless. This lively, illustrated personal narrative of his work shows the great contribution that people’s coalitions can make to the struggle for equality and freedom. Thompson cut his teeth organizing one of the great industrial unions, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America, and brought his organizing skills and commitment to coalition building to Orange, New Jersey. He built a strong organization and skillfully led fights for school desegregation, black political representation, and strong government in a city he initially thought of as a “dirty Jim Crow town going nowhere.” Thompson came to love the City of Orange and its caring citizens, seeing in its struggles a microcosm of America. This story of people’s power is meant for all who struggle for human rights, economic opportunity, decent housing, effective education, and a chance for children to have a better life. Ernest Thompson (1906-1971) grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, on a farm that had been given to his family at the end of the Civil War. The family was very poor and oppressed by racist practices. Thompson was determined to get away and to obtain power. He migrated to Jersey City, where he became part of the union organizing movement that built the Congress of Industrial Unions (CIO). He became the first African American to hold a fulltime organizing position with his union, the United Electrical Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). He eventually headed UE’s innovative Fair Employment Practices program and fought for equal rights and pay for women and minority workers. Thompson also helped build the National Negro Labor Council, 1951-1956, and served as its director of organizing. In 1956, under the onslaught of the McCarthy era, UE was split in two, and Thompson lost his job. His wife, Margaret Thompson, brought the local school segregation to his attention. Ernie “Home” Thompson organized to desegregate the regional schools, building strong coalitions and political power for the black community that ultimately served all the people of Orange.Trade Review"Thompson helped people see that what’s morally right is politically astute and that the racist and classist power structures you are fighting against want nothing more than for you to fight among yourselves, rather than organize. Organizing, when it’s done right, when people really listen to themselves and each other, isn’t just about winning a race or a campaign. It is a collective act of love. More than anything, Ernie Thompson shows us how to love." -- Robert Sullivan * author, My American Revolution *"Homeboy Came to Orange is an essential read for anyone who wants to organize for change in their towns, schools, churches or communities. It is a story that is at once inspiring, challenging, and unwavering." -- Terri Baltimore * Director of Community Engagement, Hill House Association *"The re-release of Ernie Thompson's book about his rich life as an anti-racism union organizer should be read by young (and other) human beings who have decided to hold church in the streets, courts, state houses, and ballot boxes in the south (and other) parts of the U.S., against the white nationalism of the fake GOP." -- Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, * co-director of the New Poor People's Campaign, architect of the Moral Monday Movement, and past president of the NC NAACP. *"This book encourages the reader to not be complacent with injustice anywhere and to draw from their own strengths to build coalitions that work to actualize a People's Democracy rooted in universal equality (equity)." -- Rev. Dr. Anika Whitfield of Little Rock

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Book SynopsisTo read these interviews given between 1969 and 1996 is to gain insights into William Kennedy's high seriousness in pursuing the craft of fiction and to witness the artistic growth of this remarkable writer. The twenty-four interviews in this collection reveal how the opportunities and challenges in Kennedy's writing life parallel those other contemporary writers have faced in the last years of the century.""The high drama of imagined worlds,"" he says, ""becomes a Rosetta Stone, the key that unlocks the very real mysteries and complexities of our daily lives.""""You're inventing out of a confluence of known facts and random ideas,"" he says about the process of writing, ""juxtaposing reality and abstractions, and then wham! You've got something brand new in your head, and on the page. You're functioning on a plane of existence you didn't know was possible. That's creation, and it's profound pleasure. It's what you live for.""Readers of these interviews will be privy to another process as well, the arduous but exciting process by which Kennedy has emerged as a major voice in contemporary letters. His meteoric rise to fame in 1983 and his continuing popularity since are the stuff of drama and folklore. In that year his novel Ironweed, rejected earlier by thirteen publishers, was finally published by Viking. It earned him a MacArthur Award, the New York Book Critics Circle Award, and a Pulitzer Prize. Governor Mario Cuomo honored him with the New York State Governor's Arts Award and declared that in Kennedy ""Albany [had] found its Homer."" Hollywood came calling and secured screen rights to Ironweed, Legs, and Billy Phelan's Greatest Game. With Francis Ford Coppola, Kennedy co-wrote the screenplay of The Cotton Club.The career that lifted off with such dramatic momentum has shown no signs of flagging. With steady regularity, Kennedy continues to add to his Albany Cycle of novels, as he experiments boldly with the craft of fiction.

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Book SynopsisIn contrast to Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, the armies and events of the Civil War’s Trans-Mississippi Theater have received scant historical attention, to the detriment of our understanding not only of individuals and events west of the Mississippi River, but also to the east of it. In Confederate Generals in the Trans-Mississippi, Volume 2, noted Civil War historians offer fresh scholarship on eight generals who made names for themselves in the region, providing intriguing insight into important wartime issues in the Trans-Mississippi and beyond.Contrary to popular belief, the Trans-Mississippi did not serve as a dumping ground for generals who had failed in Virginia. Instead, the majority of generals who served in the region were homegrown and faced challenges unknown to their counterparts in the East—expansive territory, few men, and limited transportation for the meager supplies available. Superior Union numbers in the West, however, did not guarantee Union victory. As these essays show, southern generals often beat themselves because of personal failings or an inability to work together. Sterling Price and Ben McCulloch refused to cooperate, Henry Sibley combined alcoholism with cowardice, and the able French-born Prince de Polignac faced language barriers. The war ended before Joseph Brent, a visionary regarding tank warfare, could make his name as a brigadier, and “Prince John” Magruder’s achievements in Texas remain overshadowed by his earlier career in Virginia. The Cajun Alfred Mouton, a superior leader, died on a battlefield in his native Louisiana, while Mosby Parsons survived the war only to be murdered by Mexican cavalry. While some of these generals breathed life into the Confederacy, others hastened its downfall.By chronicling the lives and careers of these eight generals, this welcome volume integrates the Trans-Mississippi more fully with the Western Theater and illuminates critical issues vital to understanding the South’s ultimate defeat.Lawrence Lee Hewitt is professor of history emeritus at Southeastern Louisiana University. He is the author of Port Hudson: Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi and coeditor of six anthologies dealing with America’s Civil War.Thomas E. Schott worked as a historian for the Department of Defense. He is the author of Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography, winner of the Jefferson Davis Award, and coeditor with Lawrence Hewitt of Lee and His Generals: Essays in Honor of T. Harry Williams.

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Book SynopsisBorn to an affluent family in 1836, Hylan B. Lyon claimed ancestors among Irish rebels, patriots of the American Revolution, and slaveowners in his native Kentucky. Biographer Dan Lee chronicles Lyon’s military career, which began with service in the Third US Artillery after his graduation from West Point in 1856. Lyon first saw action in the Third Seminole War. Later stationed at Fort Yuma in California, he went on to fight in the Coeur d’Alene War. Witnessing the execution of Yakima chief Qualchan during this last conflict nearly made Lyon leave the army. Yet the young lieutenant persevered. After serving with troops building the Mullan Road between Washington and Montana, Lyon returned to Kentucky just as Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election. Though his home state never seceded from the Union, Lyon cast his lot with the Confederacy. He served with the Third Kentucky Infantry Regiment (CSA), led the Eighth Kentucky Infantry, and later commanded the Kentucky Brigade under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. Lyon saw action in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, spending several months as a prisoner of war and winning special commendation for his performances at the Battles of Coffeeville and Brice’s Crossroads. He ultimately earned the rank of brigadier general. After the Civil War, Lyon sought refuge with other ex-Confederates in Mexico, working as a railroad surveyor. He requested and received a presidential pardon and returned to Kentucky by mid-1866. Lyon remained there until his death in 1907, devoting himself to farming and prison reform, as well as serving in the state house of representatives. He was the mayor of Eddyville, Kentucky, when he died in 1907. Trade Review“Hylan Lyon blazed a path across the latter part of the Civil War under Nathan Bedford Forrest. Dan Lee has uncovered new material on this unjustly neglected general, and readers of Civil War history, especially the Western Theater, should celebrate.” — Brian Wills, director, Center for the Study of the Civil War Era, Kennesaw State University

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Book SynopsisOn October 10, 2002, Congressman John J. Duncan Jr. cast a vote in the U.S. House that he thought might end his political career. Going against his own party, he was one of only six House Republicans who voted against the Iraq War resolution. Constituents in his district were shocked, but over time Duncan felt his least popular vote became his most popular one—and probably the most significant in his thirty-year political career.Congressman Duncan served as U.S. Representative for Tennessee’s Second Congressional district from 1988 to 2019. While he could have written a dense political memoir, in From Batboy to Congressman, Duncan employs a journalistic flair to provide just the right insight into a series of anecdotes from his storied life. Duncan’s family, early life, and time as a lawyer and judge all figure into the generous narrative, shared with both warmth and a self-deprecating sense of humor. He details unique experiences meeting celebrities, presidents, and sports stars; and, of course, he shares insights into the decisions that charted his Congressional career on issues such as Iraq, NAFTA, and concern for fiscal responsibility. Over his decades-long career, Duncan was known for his commitment to constituent service—even among constituents who disagreed with his views—so he offers a refreshing perspective on bipartisanship and connections across the aisle; indeed, he names conservatives, moderates, and liberals alike among his closest friends.While this book contains timely reflections on issues of war and poverty, of leadership and the lack of it, of the proper relationship between citizens and government, its intention is to highlight moments in a singular career. “As you will read in this book,” writes Congressman Duncan, “every job gave me strange, funny, unusual stories.”

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Book SynopsisJacob D. Cox experienced more facets of the Civil War than most officers: by land and sea, in both Western and Eastern Theaters, among the inner political circles of Ohio and Washington, DC, in territories hostile and friendly, amidst legal conflicts both civilian and military, and in the last campaigns in Tennessee and North Carolina. The Union general capitalized on his experience by penning his two-volume Military Reminiscences of the Civil War, one of the war’s finest memoirs and arguably the best by a nonprofessional soldier, as well as Atlanta and The Battle of Franklin, both definitive studies for nearly a century. In 2012, Gene Schmiel, Cox’s biographer, learned of a cache in the Oberlin College archives of 213 letters Cox wrote to his wife, Helen, during the war. Schmiel recognized these documents as a ready resource for Cox as he wrote his histories, and many stand as first drafts of Cox’s analyses of the military and sociopolitical events of the day. Helen Finney Cox (her husband affectionately referred to her as “Lilla”) was a mother of six and the daughter of Oberlin College president Charles Finney. These intimate and insightful wartime letters show both the fondness Cox had for his spouse and his respect for her as an intellectual equal. To Helen, the stoic, introverted statesman revealed—as he did to no one else—his inner thoughts and concerns, presenting observant, lucid, and informative reports and analyses of the war, his changing life, and his ambitions. This collection illustrates the life of a Gilded Age Renaissance man as he made the transition from untested soldier to respected general and statesman.Trade Review“Jacob D. Cox’s Civil War letters to his beloved wife ‘Lilla’ capture how the war transformed the civilian Cox to corps commander as he withstood significant combat in both the Eastern and Western Theaters and maintained a strong relationship with Lilla whom he considered both a confidant and an intellectual equal. Cox’s letters provide a significant window into the intellectual, emotional, political, and military dynamics of the Civil War era.” —Angela Zombek, associate professor of history at University of North Carolina Wilmington, author of Penitentiaries, Punishment, and Military Prisons: Familiar Responses to an Extraordinary Crisis during the American Civil War “Cox’s wartime letters to his wife effectively package his first-hand personal observations on a variety of themes—military, socio-cultural, even a sort of travelogue—which form a basis for Cox’s historical work.”—Benjamin Franklin Cooling, author of To the Battles of Franklin and Nashville and Beyond: Stabilization and Reconstruction in Tennessee and Kentucky, 1864–1866“Dr. Gene Schmiel has done a great service to Civil War scholars here. Jacob Cox's letters home provide insights into his thinking about the conduct of war, his own experiences in battle, and the nation's postwar future. Anyone interested in nearly any aspect of the Civil War will find this book invaluable.”—Benjamin T. Arrington, historian and author of The Last Lincoln Republican: The Presidential Election of 1880

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Book SynopsisIn an era of online streaming, it may be difficult to recognize the importance of a woman who in 1908 established the first silent movie theater in Richmond, Virginia: the Dixie nickelodeon. But Amanda Thorp, an independent, self-made woman, was on the ground floor of a popular culture that would grow to be enormously influential in our modern era. In Nickelodeons and Black Vaudeville: The Forgotten Story of Amanda Thorp, Kathi Clark Wong’s extensive archival research uncovers Thorp’s impressive contributions not only to moviegoing and its growth in America, but also perhaps even more surprisingly, Thorp’s support of early Black vaudeville in the Jim Crow South. Movie theater entrepreneurs like Thorp, who got her start at her Wonderland Theater in Bucyrus, Ohio, helped create our culture’s insatiable appetite for film. But it was after she established the Dixie in Richmond, that Thorp—a White woman—also saw a market for providing Black-centric entertainment. She converted the Dixie to all-Black patronage and began to bring in scores of Black vaudeville acts. Later, she built the Hippodrome Theater, in the heart of Richmond’s now-historic Jackson Ward, expressly for Black entertainment. Though she eventually left the field of Black entertainment behind, Thorp developed other movie venues in Richmond that brought in tens of thousands of (White) moviegoers over the years and which were widely admired for their elaborate trappings. Thanks to Wong’s research, contemporary readers can now benefit from the story of Amanda Thorp, a woman who amidst severe gender role constraints not only claimed social capacity on the crest of a rapidly growing industry but also, almost inadvertently, contributed to the success of early Black vaudeville, a subject which thus far has not received the scholarly attention it deserves.

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Book SynopsisWilliam Byrd II was a prominent eighteenth-century Virginian who at the time of his death owned over 180,000 acres and employed laborers and enslaved Africans to work his land. His letters, diaries, and surveying documents have become key texts in the study of American history, and he is one of the most quoted and discussed figures of his era. Byrd himself was perhaps the early colonial epitome of a patriarch, and typically, when historians examine Byrd and the prominence of patriarchal thought in colonial Virginia, they examine his relationships with his immediate family. In this book, however, Dennis Todd examines the patriarchal relations between Byrd and the workers on his plantations—his apprentices, his wageworkers, his overseers, his white servants, and especially his slaves. In doing so, this book illuminates a neglected stage in the formation of slavery in Virginia. Todd argues that patriarchal principles, which are often assumed to have justified slavery and to have offered a template for slave management, in fact did neither. Byrd was not the only Virginian to wrestle with the contradictions between patriarchal values and the realities of slavery, but few were as articulate. In examining Byrd through the twin lens of slavery and patriarchy, Patriarchy in Peril makes an important contribution to our understanding of the man and his place in Virginia society as well as the contentious formation of early America.

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Book SynopsisThe legacy of the historic mutual aid organizing by US Mexicans, with its emphasis on self-help and community solidarity, continues to inform Mexican American activism and subtly influence a number of major US social movements. In Democratic Renewal and the Mutual Aid Legacy of US Mexicans, Julie Leininger Pycior traces the early origins of organizing in the decades following the US-Mexican War, when Mexicans in the Southwest established mutualista associations for their protection. Further, she traces the ways in which these efforts have been invoked by contemporary Latino civil rights leaders. Pycior notes that the Mexican immigrant associations instrumental in the landmark 2006 immigration reform marches echo mutualista societies at their peak in the 1920s. Then Mexican immigrants from San Diego to New York engaged in economic, medical, cultural, educational, and legal aid. This path-breaking study culminates with an examination of Southwest community organizing networks as crucial counterweights to the outsize role of large financial contributions in the democratic political process. It also finds ways in which this community organizing echoes the activity of mutualista groups in the very same neighbourhoods a century ago.

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Book SynopsisDrawn from personal recollections, historical records, and biographical research, Capitan Chiquito: A Personal History of an Apache Chief, 1821–1919 relates the little-known life and career of a leader of the Aravaipa band of Apaches during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During his nearly 100 years of life, Chief Capitan Chiquito spent time in prison with Geronimo; defended his home territory in Aravaipa Canyon from the depredations of Anglo-Americans, Mexicans, and rival Native American tribes; suffered the brutal massacre and abduction of many of his people; and ultimately won from the federal government the right to live on and cultivate his canyon homestead. He died in 1919 at the age of 98 from complications of influenza while caring for ill members of his clan.In the opening pages, author John Paul Hartman reminisces about some of the people he has loved—and lost—during his time on the San Carlos Reservation in southeastern Arizona. His wife, Velma Bullis, great-granddaughter of Chief Capitan Chiquito; her father, Lonnie, the chief’s grandson; and many others have preceded him through “the Western portal,” departing this life. “There is nothing for me here in San Carlos now,” he writes. “It is time for me to leave . . . But before they will let me go, I have a story to tell.” As Hartman ends this work, he explains that he undertook the research and writing about his wife’s ancestor as a means of closure for his two decades of life on the San Carlos Reservation. With the care of a historian and the dedication of an enthusiast, he has followed the trail of this notable leader, affording readers a unique view of a previously little-known yet intensely revealing historical narrative.

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Book SynopsisIn 1943, Charlotte Delbo and 229 other women were deported to a station with no name, which they later learned was Auschwitz. Arrested for resisting the Nazi occupation of Paris, Delbo was sent to the camps, enduring both Auschwitz and RavensbrÜck for twenty-seven months. There, she, her fellow deportees, and millions of others were subjected to slave labor and nearly succumbed to typhus, dysentery, and hunger. She sustained herself by reciting MoliÈre and resolved to someday write a book about herself and her fellow deportees, a stunning work called None of Us Will Return. After the camps, Delbo devoted her life to the art of writing and the duty of witnessing, fiercely advocating for the power of the arts to testify against despotism and tyranny. Ghislaine Dunant's unforgettable biography of Delbo, La vie retrouvÉe (2016), captivated French readers and was awarded the Prix Femina. Now translated into English for the first time, Charlotte Delbo: A Life Reclaimed depicts Delbo's lifelong battles as a working-class woman, as a survivor, as a leftist who broke from the Communist Party, and most of all, as a writer whose words compelled others to see.Trade Review"Deeply researched and deeply empathetic, this is a spectacular biography.” - CHOICE “This splendid biography brings to life a woman of uncommon courage and intellect who needs to be better known and understood in America, in a fine translation by Kathryn Lachman. Detailed and fully documented, A Life Reclaimed is a gripping narrative told with empathy and deep understanding of the issues and traumas faced by so many in the unhappy history of France in the twentieth century.”- David Bellos, author of Georges Perec: A Life in Words; "Five years after its 2016 publication in French, Ghislaine Dunant’s award-winning biography of Auschwitz and RavensbrÜck survivor and writer Charlotte Delbo has found its voice in English in this lyrical, even musical translation by Kathryn Lachman. Delbo’s life and work have long been regarded as essential reading for all students of the Holocaust era, and now this staggeringly beautifully translation of Dunant’s brilliant biography is no less essential, a must-read for all who ask how art and literature shape and have been shaped by the concentration camp universe.”- James Young, author of The Stages of Memory: Reflections on Memorial Art, Loss, and the Spaces Between; “Charlotte Delbo is one of the most important testimonial writers of the Holocaust, alongside Primo Levi. She is also one of the rare witnesses to have focused on the lives of women in Nazi concentration camps. As the first biography of Delbo to appear in English, A Life Reclaimed is likely to become a reference for anyone seeking context for Delbo’s work. The translation is excellent.”- David Caron, author of The Nearness of Others: Searching for Tact and Contact in the Age of HIV ; “The force and focus of Dunant’s biography is its evocation of the lived experience of its subject. Given the extremity, indeed horror, of the central episode of that life, no one should, would, or could suggest that Dunant’s biography allows its readers to share Delbo’s point of view. What it does do, however, is bring us closer to that perspective, and make unmistakable its importance, not just for understanding (if such a thing is possible) one of the most unspeakable episodes of human history, but for responding to the political exigencies of our own times.”- Jim Hicks, executive editor of the Massachusetts Review

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Book SynopsisAuthor, advocacy journalist, disability rights activist, feminist, and founder of Mouth magazine, Lucy Gwin (1943—2014) made her mark by helping those in "handicaptivity" find their voice. Gwin produced over one hundred issues of the magazine—one of the most radical and significant disability rights publications—and masterminded its acerbic, sometimes funny, and often moving articles about people from throughout the disability community.In this engrossing biography, James M. Odato provides an intimate portrait of Gwin, detailing how she forged her own path into activism. After an automobile accident left her with a brain injury, Gwin became a tireless advocate for the equal rights of people she termed "dislabled." More than just a publisher, she fought against corruption in the rehabilitation industry, organized for the group Not Dead Yet, and much more. With Gwin's story at the center, Odato introduces readers to other key disability rights activists and organizations, and supplies context on current contentious topics such as physician-assisted suicide. Gwin's impact on disability rights was monumental, and it is time her story is widely known.

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Book SynopsisJournalist, activist, popular historian, and public intellectual, Lerone Bennett Jr. left an indelible mark on twentieth-century American history and culture. Rooted in his role as senior editor of Ebony magazine, but stretching far beyond the boundaries of the Johnson Publishing headquarters in Chicago, Bennett's work and activism positioned him as a prominent advocate for Black America and a scholar whose writing reached an unparalleled number of African American readers.This critical biography—the first in-depth study of Bennett's life—travels with him from his childhood experiences in Jim Crow Mississippi and his time at Morehouse College in Atlanta to his later participation in a dizzying range of Black intellectual and activist endeavors. Drawing extensively on Bennett's previously inaccessible archival collections at Emory University and Chicago State, as well as interviews with close relatives, colleagues, and confidantes, Our Kind of Historian celebrates his enormous influence within and unique connection to African American communities across more than half a century of struggle.

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Book SynopsisThe only historic figure outside the early Christian tradition to whom the Gospels ascribe a dialogue with Jesus is the first-century Roman prefect Pontius Pilate. Presiding over the trial and execution of Jesus, Pilate is a figure who has straddled history and legend for over two thousand years. Now, Aldo Schiavone presents a comprehensive, revisionist biography of Pilate that meticulously reconstructs the social, religious and political context in which his fateful encounter with Jesus took place. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Schiavone weaves together the sources, from epigraphs to the Gospels, from Josephus to Tacitus and Philon, to create a portrait that approaches its subject as if for the first time, without any other intent than to try to explain what happened.

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