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Book SynopsisTrade Review“Charles Blow’s uncommonly specific and clear remedy for overcoming racial injustice in America is provocative, intriguing, innovative, and insightful. You won’t read another contemporary book on race as powerful as this bold work by one of the nation’s most compelling writers.” — Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and author of Just Mercy "In cogent arguments bound together by his customary incandescent prose, Blow explores how the white backlash towards the Great Migration that never really ended has created a situation where racism in these Northern 'destination cities' of the Great Migration makes life untenable for Black Americans.... [Weaves] together deeply thought out analysis and in-depth sociological and historical research.... 'In a society and system in which white supremacy is ubiquitous and inveterate, Black people need fierce advocates to help restore the balance in the first instance,' writes Blow. Throughout his legendary career in journalism, Charles Blow has long been that voice." — NPR “Blow is in fact making an argument, not just offering a lament.... The Devil You Know reminds that America’s mobility has not always meant progress, that alongside the allure of movement are the tears and disappointments that keep us moving, always seeking a new place where we can and must belong.” — Washington Post "Searing.... A helpful introduction for those seeking to make sense of fractious political debates about race and voting rights in the South, and the broken promises of American democracy." — New York Times “A must-read in the effort to dismantle deep-seated poisons of systemic racism and white supremacy.” — San Francisco Chronicle “In his provocative manifesto Charles Blow gives us one of the most thrilling experiences as readers: the challenge of imagining an alternate future. Writing in a long tradition of Black visionaries who’ve wrestled with the political implications of place and power, he exhorts African Americans to reconsider the possibilities of home against an historical backdrop of past migrations. Blow is one of our most penetrating thinkers and brilliant essayists, and in The Devil You Know he is putting it all on the line.” — Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University “Renders an unflinching diagnosis of the ravages of white supremacy and a rousing prescription for Black Americans to eliminate its harms…. This is daring work, accessible and easily digested by a wide audience…. There’s a sense of urgency to it that resonates. One doesn’t often expect a work of nonfiction to be this propulsive and exciting…. Both as polemic and as proposal, The Devil You Know is convincing — powerful and enticing arguments buoyed by accessible and pressing prose.” — The Grio “Daring…. Valuable as a thought experiment alone but also an “actual plan” for effecting lasting political change.” — Kirkus, starred review “A compelling argument on how a second migration back to the South could prove a way forward for Black America.” — Library Journal “Blow’s provocative call for action contains much food for thought…. He paints a devastating picture of how white liberals have failed to match rhetorical support for Blacks with action, and buttresses his political arguments with painful personal experiences.” — Publishers Weekly “Blow's powerful writing is always stirring, but perhaps never more than in this timely, often personal call for the building of a better tomorrow.” — Town & Country

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Book SynopsisIn this groundbreaking book, Keith Law, baseball writer for The Athletic and author of the acclaimed Smart Baseball, offers an era-spanning dissection of some of the best and worst decisions in modern baseball, explaining what motivated them, what can be learned from them, and how their legacy has shaped the game.For years, Daniel Kahneman’s iconic work of behavioral science Thinking Fast and Slow has been required reading in front offices across Major League Baseball. In this smart, incisive, and eye-opening book, Keith Law applies Kahneman’s ideas about decision making to the game itself.Baseball is a sport of decisions. Some are so small and routine they become the building blocks of the game itself—what pitch to throw or when to swing away. Others are so huge they dictate the future of franchises—when to make a strategic trade for a chance to win now, or when to offer a millions and a multi-year contract for a twenty-eight-year-old star. These decisions have long shaped the behavior of players, managers, and entire franchises. But as those choices have become more complex and data-driven, knowing what’s behind them has become key to understanding the sport. This fascinating, revelatory work explores as never before the essential question: What were they thinking?Combining behavioral science and interviews with executives, managers, and players, Keith Law analyzes baseball’s biggest decision making successes and failures, looking at how gambles and calculated risks of all sizes and scales have shaped the sport, and how the game’s ongoing data revolution is rewriting decades of accepted decision making. In the process, he explores questions that have long been debated, from whether throwing harder really increases a player’s risk of serious injury to whether teams actually “overvalue” trade prospects.Bringing his analytical and combative style to some of baseball’s longest running debates, Law deepens our knowledge of the sport in this entertaining work that is both fun and deeply informative.

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Book SynopsisThoroughly researched and beautifully written history.?New York Times Book Review?Absorbing . . . a David-and-Goliath tale of the industrial age.??Wall Street JournalA propulsive human drama that chronicles the mass exodus of Jews from Eastern Europe to America in the early years of the twentieth century, and the men who made it possible.Over thirty years, from 1890 to 1921, 2.5 million Jews, fleeing discrimination and violence in their homelands of Eastern Europe, arrived in the United States. Many sailed on steamships from Hamburg.This mass exodus was facilitated by three businessmen whose involvement in the Jewish-American narrative has been largely forgotten: Jacob Schiff, the managing partner of the investment bank Kuhn, Loeb & Company, who used his immense wealth to help Jews to leave Europe; Albert Ballin, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line, who created a transportation network of trains and steamships to carry them across continents and an ocean; and J. P. Morgan, mastermind of the International Mercantile Marine (I.M.M.) trust, who tried to monopolize the lucrative steamship business. Though their goals were often contradictory, together they made possible a migration that spared millions from persecution. Descendants of these immigrants included Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Estée Lauder, George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Fanny Brice, Lauren Bacall, the Marx Brothers, David Sarnoff, Al Jolson, Sam Goldwyn, Ben Shahn, Hank Greenberg, Moses Annenberg, and many more?including Ujifusa?s great grandparents. That is their legacy.Moving from the shtetls of Russia and the ports of Hamburg to the mansions of New York?s Upper East Side and the picket lines outside of the notorious Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, The Last Ships from Hamburg is a history that unfolds on both an intimate and epic scale. Meticulously researched, masterfully told, Ujifusa?s story offers original insight into the American experience, connecting banking, shipping, politics, immigration, nativism, and war?and delivers crucial insight into the burgeoning refugee crisis of our own time.

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Book SynopsisMont Saint Michel and Chartres is a record not of a literal jouney but of a meditative journey across time and space into the medieval imagination. Using the architecture, sculpture, and stained glass of the two locales as a starting point, Adams breathes life into what others might see merely as monuments of a past civilization. With daring and inventive conceits, Adams looks at the ordinary people, places, and events in the context of the social conventions and systems of thought and belief of the thirteenth century turning the study of history into a kind of theater.As Raymond Carney discusses in his introduction, Adams' freeedom from the European traditions of study lends an exuberance—and puckish wit—to his writings.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout histTable of ContentsMont Saint Michel and ChartresAcknowledgments Introduction by Raymond Carney A Brief Chronology of Adams' Life A Note on the Text Mont Saint Michel and Chartres Notes Glossary of Architectural Terms Suggestions for Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisJoseph M. Marshall’s thoughtful, illuminating account of how the spiritual beliefs of the Lakota people can help us all lead more meaningful, ethical lives.Rich with storytelling, history, and folklore, The Lakota Way expresses the heart of Native American philosophy and reveals the path to a fulfilling and meaningful life. Joseph Marshall is a member of the Sicunga Lakota Sioux and has dedicated his entire life to the wisdom he learned from his elders. Here he focuses on the twelve core qualities that are crucial to the Lakota way of life--bravery, fortitude, generosity, wisdom, respect, honor, perseverance, love, humility, sacrifice, truth, and compassion. Whether teaching a lesson on respect imparted by the mythical Deer Woman or the humility embodied by the legendary Lakota leader Crazy Horse, The Lakota Way offers a fresh outlook on spirituality and ethical living.

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Trade ReviewPrioleau is almost incapable of writing a dreary sentence... Delightful philosophy and wickedly wonderful advice. (USA Today)Prioleau has gathered together historyÆs sexiest vixens and given them a delicious voice. (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel)Table of ContentsAcknowledgments viiPreface x1. Seductress: The Women and the Art 12. The Seductress Archetype 253. Belles Laides: Homely Sirens 494. Silver Foxes 835. Scholar-Sirens 1196. Sorcières: Siren-Artists 1557. Machtweiber: Seductresses in Politics 1958. Siren-Adventurers 2339. Goddess-Trippin’: Into the Future 277Notes 294Suggested Reading 353Index 355

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Book SynopsisA tremendous book, the biography of a city which charts the multifarious pathways from bacilli to burgomaster. - Roy Porter, London Review of BooksWhy were nearly 10,000 people killed in six weeks in Hamburg, while most of Europe was left almost unscathed? As Richard J. Evans explains, it was largely because the town was a “free city” within Germany that was governed by the “English” ideals of laissez-faire. The absence of an effective public-health policy combined with ill-founded medical theories and the miserable living conditions of the poor to create a scene ripe for tragedy. The story of the “cholera years” is, in Richard Evans’s hands, tragically revealing of the age’s social inequalities and governmental pitilessness and incompetence; it also offers disquieting parallels with the world’s public-health landscape today, including the current coronavirus crisis.Trade Review"A tremendous book, the biography of a city which charts the multifarious pathways from bacilli to burgomaster." - Roy Porter, London Review of Books"A brilliantly written work of great analytical penetration." —Gordon A. Craig, The New York Review of Books"A marvelous book, splendidly written, full of wit and anecdote, exuding scholarship and wisdom." —New Scientist

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Book SynopsisIn the newest volume in the award-winning Penguin History of American Life series, James R. Barrett chronicles how a new urban American identity was forged in the streets, saloons, churches, and workplaces of the American city. This process of Americanization from the bottom up was deeply shaped, Barrett argues, by the Irish. From Lower Manhattan to the South Side of Chicago to Boston's North End, newer waves of immigrants and African Americans found it nearly impossible to avoid the Irish. While historians have emphasized the role of settlement houses and other mainstream institutions in Americanizing immigrants, Barrett makes the original case that the culture absorbed by newcomers upon reaching American shores had a distinctly Hibernian cast. By 1900, there were more people of Irish descent in New York City than in Dublin; more in the United States than in all of Ireland. But in the late nineteenth century, the sources of immigration began to shift, to southern and eastern Europe aTrade Review“Richly detailed, often fascinating . . . a very absorbing work of social history.” — The Wall Street Journal"A fast-paced tour." — The Boston Globe“The Irish Way will be of high interest to anyone who cherishes the old industrial cities of America and, of course, the Irish story.” — The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette“Barrett has written an excellent, bottom-up survey of the Irish experience over the past two centuries . . . he is most successful in describing the Americanization of policemen, teachers, nuns, and even gang leaders. This is a superior ethnic study that will have value for both scholars and general readers.” — Booklist“Portraying colorful characters like New York reformer politician boss Timothy Sullivan and showing how the blending of African-American and Irish dance resulted in tap dancing, Barrett gives us an authoritative, fact-filled analysis.” — Publishers Weekly

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Book SynopsisTo what extent did people think they could identify an ''obvious'' sodomite before the construction of the homosexual as a type of person during the latter part of the nineteenth century? What role did secrecy and denial play in relation to the visual expression of same-sex desire before the term ''the closet'' came into widespread use in the latter part of the twentieth century? And what, therefore, did sodomites/homosexuals/gays/queers look like in Britain in 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2000? Could they be spotted mincing down the street? Or were such as these just the flamboyant few whose presence conveniently drew attention away from the many others who wanted to appear ''normal''? These issues are not peripheral to the struggle of the last several decades for individual self-determination and self-expression. It was this set of cultural constructions that the pioneering writer Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950-2009) attacked in her book Epistemology of the Closet as representing ''the defining structure for gay oppression in this century''. This book represents a visual culture counterpart to Sedgwick''s study and aims, through the use of a series of interdisciplinary case-studies, to explore both the pre-history of the closet since the eighteenth century and its evolution through to the present day. Chapters explore key moments and issues within the British cultural experience and make pioneering use of a wide range of source materials ranging from art to fashion, literature, philosophy, theology, film and archival records.Trade ReviewFar from simply illustrating a pre-existing history of the closet, this fascinating study exploits the potential of visual culture to reveal patterns of expression and obfuscation that exceed the verbal. The result is a compelling argument that the closet pre-existed the articulation of homosexual identity, and offered its own spectacular forms of 'self-fulfillment and expression.' * Christopher Reed, author of Art and Homosexuality: A History of Ideas *In this wide-ranging, lucid and informative book, Dominic Janes explores the complex visibilities and invisibilities of the male homosexual 'closet' in Britain from the eighteenth century to the present day. His immense range of sources and examples, his nuanced explications, and his sophisticated method will be useful to specialists, and his narrative brio will draw in readers new to the subject. A major achievement in queer cultural history. * Whitney Davis, author of Queer Beauty: Sexuality and Aesthetics from Winckelmann to Freud and Beyond *This is an ambitious and impressively broad study that reminds us of the importance of aesthetics in considerations of same-sex desire in Britain in the modern period. Janes not only traces the history of the closet, noting its eighteenth century origins, but also reminds us that this literal and metaphorical space was more than a site and symbol of oppression. It was also a space of enormous creativity that produced vitally important ideas and images about both male homosociality and subversive queer subjectivities. * Paul Deslandes, author of Oxbridge Men: British Masculinity and the Undergraduate Experience, 1850-1920 *Picturing the Closet offers a compelling and nuanced history of the border zones in which men's desires for each other were signaled and recognized. Dominic Janes's illuminating and wide-ranging assessment of the structuring roles of desire, dissemblance, and disclosure is an important contribution to the study of British visual culture since the eighteenth century. * David J. Getsy, author of Rodin: Sex and the Making of Modern Sculpture *Table of ContentsCh. 1, Introduction: Picturing the Closet ; Part One ; Ch. 2, Hogarth's Panic ; Ch. 3, Burke's Solution ; Ch. 4, The Decorative and the Damned ; Part Two ; Ch. 5, Athletics and Aesthetics ; Ch. 6, Strachey in Earnest ; Ch. 7, Expulsion ; Part Three ; Ch. 8, Criminal Practices ; Ch. 9, The Unliberated ; Ch. 10, After the Outrage ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisIndian peoples made some four hundred treaties with the United States between the American Revolution and 1871, when Congress prohibited them. They signed nine treaties with the Confederacy, as well as countless others over the centuries with Spain, France, Britain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, Canada, and even Russia, not to mention individual colonies and states. In retrospect, the treaties seem like well-ordered steps on the path of dispossession and empire. The reality was far more complicated.In Pen and Ink Witchcraft, eminent Native American historian Colin G. Calloway narrates the history of diplomacy between North American Indians and their imperial adversaries, particularly the United States. Treaties were cultural encounters and human dramas, each with its cast of characters and conflicting agendas. Many treaties, he notes, involved not land, but trade, friendship, and the resolution of disputes. Far from all being one-sided, they were negotiated on the Indians'' cultural aTrade Reviewthe book is especially well-written. Its narrative flows easily through the tortuous paths (both literal and figurative) of treaty making, while always giving proper attention to Native agency and hitherto forgotten historical players ... Suited both for the student and for the historian of American expansionism ... Pen and Ink Witchcraft will be a valuable addition to libraries and classrooms. * Phillip H. Round, American Hisorical Review *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ; Ch. 1: Treaty Making in Colonial America: The Many Languages of Indian Diplomacy ; Ch. 2: Fort Stanwix, 1768: Shifting Boundaries ; Ch. 3: Treaty Making, American-Style ; Ch. 4: New Echota, 1835: Implementing Removal ; Ch. 5: Treaties in the West ; Ch. 6: Medicine Lodge, 1867: Containment on the Plains ; Ch. 7: The Death and Rebirth of Indian Treaties ; Appendix: The Treaties ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisDespite dire predictions in the late twentieth century that public libraries would not survive the turn of the millennium, their numbers have only increased. Two of three Americans frequent a public library at least once a year, and nearly that many are registered borrowers. Although library authorities have argued that the public library functions primarily as a civic institution necessary for maintaining democracy, generations of library patrons tell a different story.In Part of Our Lives, Wayne A. Wiegand delves into the heart of why Americans love their libraries. The book traces the history of the public library, featuring records and testimonies from as early as 1850. Rather than analyzing the words of library founders and managers, Wiegand listens to the voices of everyday patrons who cherished libraries. Drawing on newspaper articles, memoirs, and biographies, Part of Our Lives paints a clear and engaging picture of Americans who value libraries not only as civic institutions, Trade ReviewThe surprising connection between libraries and alcohol is one of the many fascinating revelations of Wiegand's narrative, which demonstrates that library history is also the history of social life and civic culture. * Faye Hammill, Times Higher Education *Wayne Wiegand, a distinguished academic, has entered the arena with a narrative covering almost three centuries which neatly complements his previous books ... This book presents a fascinating snapshot of social history in local communities, well compiled, and with a thoughtful commentary. * K.A. Manley, Library & Information History *Part of Our Lives is a richly detailed, deeply researched, eminently readable book. It will certainly become a standard work in the historiography of American public libraries. * Tom Glynn, Journal of American History *For impatient readers, I will cut right to the chase: this is a landmark book. Wayne A. Wiegand, if there was any doubt, is a fine historian. He is also a fine scholar and has a supple grasp of contemporary theory. This book blends both but is overwhelmingly straight-on history done chronologically, extraordinarily well documented and imaginatively researched ... a fresh look at what is known and a fresh look at what has been overlooked ... It is an excellent history that should be read throughout the profession and beyond. * The Library Quarterly *Wayne Wiegand, a distinguished academic, has entered the arena with a narrative covering almost three centuries which neatly complements his previous books ... This book presents a fascinating snapshot of social history in local communities, well compiled, and with a thoughtful commentary. * Library & Information History *Wiegand's commitment to libraries and his extensive grounding in American library history make this people's perspective account particularly useful for scholars and others interested in librarianship, cultural studies, and American history. * Indiana Magazine of History *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. 'Improv'd the General Conversation of Americans': Social Libraries Before 1854 ; 2. For 'Plain People': The American Public Library,1854-1876 ; 3. 'The Best Reading for the Greatest Number at the least Cost': 1876-1893 ; 4. 'The Liberty to Read What They Will and When': 1893-1917 ; 5. 'Habitations on a Literary Map:' 1917-1929 ; 6. 'One Island of Refuge': 1929-1945 ; 7. 'Winning the Battles of Daily Life': 1945-1964 ; 8. 'An Individual Meaning to Each User': 1964-1980 ; 9. 'Library Paste is a Precious Part of Social Glue': 1980-2000 ; Epilogue. 2000-Present

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Book SynopsisDuring the past several decades, the fetus has been diversely represented in political debates, medical textbooks and journals, personal memoirs and autobiographies, museum exhibits and mass media, and civil and criminal law. Ourselves Unborn argues that the meanings people attribute to the fetus are not based simply on biological fact or theological truth, but are in fact strongly influenced by competing definitions of personhood and identity, beliefs about knowledge and authority, and assumptions about gender roles and sexuality. In addition, these meanings can be shaped by dramatic historical change: over the course of the twentieth century, medical and technological changes made fetal development more comprehensible, while political and social changes made the fetus a subject of public controversy. Moreover, since the late nineteenth century, questions about how fetal life develops and should be valued have frequently intersected with debates about the authority of science and reliTrade ReviewDubow offers up an important contribution to the field, forcing the reader to contend both with why the fetus is such a fascinating topic for investigation and the deeper social tensions expressed in each conversation about the objects. * Journal of the History of Medicine *The great strength of this book is the author's wide-angle lens on the human fetus across more than a century of American culture and politics. Sara Dubow offers a thoroughly researched, elegantly written, and comprehensive biography of the unborn. Readers interested in the history of medicine, science, and technology, as well as the history of women's health and reproduction, will find much to savor here. * Bulletin of the History of Medicine *Dubow's history of the fetus as symbol is a major addition to our history of politics, gender, the body, and reproduction in America. To understand American politics and culture since the nineteenth century requires grasping American's long standing interest in the unborn and the many uses of the concept of fetus. Dubow gives the unknowable "unborn" a history, thus revealing that today's fetus is a construction that grew out of specific political circumstances. * Journal of American History *[I]lluminating, even gripping...Dubow has provided an indispensable contribution to US political thought. * Women's Review of Books *A nuanced analysis...Dubow's work makes a significant contribution to our understanding of fetal history...This work will quickly become a standard in the field. Dubow places fetal history within a broad historical context that makes the book valuable to scholars interested in twentieth-century gender, race, politics, and medicine. * American Historical Review *Dubow's book is a reminder of the moral dilemmas, the politicisation and the sometimes shameful decisions that have been taken over the years.This careful book allows the reader to navigate a course through highly-politicised waters. * The Economist *Provocative * Slate *Splendidly informative. * Commonweal *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Fetal Stories Ch 1: Discovering Fetal Life, 1870s-1920s Ch 2: Interpreting Fetal Bodies, 1930s-1970s Ch 3: Defining Fetal Personhood, 1973-1976 Ch 4: Defending Fetal Rights: 1970s-1990s Ch 5: Debating Fetal Pain, 1984-2007 Epilogue: Fetal Meanings Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisIran''s heritage is as varied as it is complex, and the archaeological, philological, and linguistic scholarship of the region has not been the focus of a comprehensive study for many decades. The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran provides up-to-date, authoritative essays on a wide range of topics extending from the earliest Paleolithic settlements in the Pleistocene era to the Arab conquest in the 7th century AD. The volume, authored by specialists based both inside and outside of Iran, is divided into sections covering prehistory, the Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Achaemenid period, the Seleucid and Arsacid periods, the Sasanian period, and the Arab conquest. In addition, more specialized chapters are included which treat numismatics, religion, languages, political ideology, calendrics, the use of color, textiles, Sasanian silver and reliefs, and political relations with Rome and Byzantium. No other single volume covers as much of Iran''s archaeology and history with Trade ReviewThe Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran commendably achieves its goal of providing an authoritative, up-to-date, multidisciplinary overview of this region for all periods up to the Islamic conquest, thanks in large part to the meticulous oversight of its editor D. T. Potts. ... This is a volume in which experts in history, archaeology, numismatics, linguistics, and other fields have been brought together to give a rich, multifaceted picture. ... The volume is sweeping, ambitious, and exemplary. Classicists will find within these thousand pages many nuggets of scholarly gold. * ICJ-Online, a service of The Classical Journal *The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran at last provides a comprehensive overview and bibliography of the archaeology of pre-Islamic Iran. Potts has done a remarkable job bringing together scholars from every country that has played an important role in the archaeology of Iran. This book will certainly become the first source to turn to when embarking on a study on aspects of ancient Iran. * Steve Renette, BiOr no. LXXI 3/4 *Table of ContentsContributors Acknowledgements List of abbreviations Introduction Part I. Background and beginnings 1. The history of archaeological research in Iran: A brief survey Ali Mousavi 2. Key questions regarding the palaeoenvironment of Iran Matthew D. Jones 3. The Paleolithic of Iran Nicholas J. Conard, Elham Ghasidian and Saman Heydari-Guran 4. The development and expansion of a Neolithic way of life Lloyd R. Weeks Part II. The Chalcolithic period 5. The Chalcolithic of northern Iran Barbara Helwing 6. The Chalcolithic in the central Zagros Abbas Moghaddam and Ardashir Javanmardzadeh 7. The Later Village (Chalcolithic) period in Khuzestan Abbas Moghaddam 8. The Chalcolithic in southern Iran Cameron A. Petrie Part III. The Bronze Age 9. The Early Bronze Age in northwestern Iran Geoffrey D. Summers 10. The Bronze Age in northeastern Iran Christopher P. Thornton 11. Luristan and the central Zagros in the Bronze Age D. T. Potts 12. Khuzestan in the Bronze Age Javier Álvarez-Mon 13. Early writing in Iran J.L. Dahl 14. The use of Akkadian in Iran Katrien De Graef 15. Bronze Age Fars Bernadette McCall 16. Eastern Iran in the Early Bronze Age Holly Pittman Part IV. The Iron Age 17. The Late Bronze and Early Iron Age in northwestern Iran Michael D. Danti 18. Luristan during the Iron Age Bruno Overlaet 19. The central Alborz region in the Iron Age Ali Mousavi 20. Linguistic groups in Iran Ran Zadok 21. Iranian migration M. Witzel 22. Assyria and the Medes Karen Radner 23. Elam in the Iron Age Javier Álvarez-Mon 24. Elam, Assyria, and Babylonia in the early 1st millennium BC Matt Waters 25. Iron Age southeastern Iran Peter Magee Part V. The Achaemenid period 26. Southwestern Iran in the Achaemenid period Rémy Boucharlat 27. Administrative realities: The Persepolis Archives and the archaeology of the Achaemenid heartland Wouter F.M. Henkelman 28. Avesta and Zoroastrianism under the Achaemenids and early Sasanians P.O. Skjærvø 29. Royal Achaemenid iconography Mark B. Garrison 30. Color and gilding in Achaemenid architecture and sculpture Alexander Nagel 31. Eastern Iran in the Achaemenid period Bruno Genito 32. Old Persian Jan Tavernier 33. Greek sources on Achaemenid Iran Maria Brosius VI. Seleucid, post-Achaemenid and Arsacid archaeology and history 34. Alexander the Great and the Seleucids in Iran Paul Kosmin 35. Media, Khuzestan and Fars between the end of the Achaemenids and the rise of the Sasanians Pierfrancesco Callieri and Alireza Askari Chaverdi 36. Fratarak? and Seleucids Josef Wiesehöfer 37. The Arsacids (Parthians) Stefan R. Hauser 38. Parthian and Elymaean rock reliefs Trudy S. Kawami 39. Arsacid, Elymaean and Persid coinage Khodadad Rezakhani 40. Aramaic, Parthian and Middle Persian Seiro Haruta 41. The use of Greek in pre-Sasanian Iran Georges Rougemont VII. The Sasanian period 42. Sasanian political ideology M. Rahim Shayegan 43. Sasanian coinage Nikolaus Schindel 44. Sasanian interactions with Rome and Byzantium P. Edwell 45. Sasanian rock reliefs Matthew P. Canepa 46. Kuh-e Khwaja and the religious architecture of Sasanian Iran Soroor Ghanimati 47. Sasanian administation and sealing practices Negin Miri 48. Luxury silver vessels of the Sasanian period Kate Masia-Radford 49. Sasanian textiles Carol Bier 50. Pre-Islamic Iranian calendrical systems in the context of Iranian religious and scientific history Antonio Panaino 51. The Islamic conquest of Sasanian Iran Michael Morony

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Book SynopsisSince the appearance of Homo sapiens on the planet hundreds of thousands of years ago, human beings have sought to exploit their environments, extracting as many resources as their technological ingenuity has allowed. As technologies have advanced in recent centuries, that impulse has remained largely unchecked, exponentially accelerating the human impact on the environment. Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist, rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes--epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions--have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them. At the same time, he traces the history of anthropogenic changes in the environment--species extinctions, global warming, deforestation, and resource depletion--back to the age of hunters and gatherers and the first farmers and herders. He shows how human interventions such as irrigation systems, over-fishing, and the Industrial Revolution have in turn harmed the very societies that initiated them. Throughout, Headrick examines how human-driven environmental changes are interwoven with larger global systems, dramatically reshaping the complex relationship between people and the natural world. In doing so, he roots the current environmental crisis in the deep past.Trade ReviewThose of us who teach world environmental history will find this a nearly essential textbook, yet the work is valuable to anyone teaching world history. It may allow whole new environmental units to be placed easily into an existing course framework. At the very least, practitioners can consult chapters to incorporate specific examples or ideas more fully into their surveys. In the end, Headrick's work is the best textbook on global environmental history to date. * Thomas Anderson, World History Connected *...the ultimate reference work on global environmental history. * Eric L. Jones, University of Buckingham, EH.net *Headrick's book is the most comprehensive global environmental history in existence. It synthesizes vast knowledge from several scholarly disciplines into a coherent story of the 300,000-year human adventure on -- and with -- Earth. If one has time to read only one environmental history book, this should be the one. * J.R. McNeill, author of Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World *Humans versus Nature is a gift to students and teachers of environmental history: a single volume that captures the vast scope and scale of nature's role in human history and humanity's accelerating impact on the natural world. * Sam White, author of A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe's Encounter with North America *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Global Environmental History Chapter 1 The Foragers Chapter 2 Farmers and Herders Chapter 3 Early Civilizations Chapter 4 Eurasia in the Classical Age Chapter 5 Medieval Eurasia and Africa Chapter 6 The Invasion of America Chapter 7 The Transformation of the Old World Chapter 8 The Transition to an Industrial World Chapter 9 The West and the Non-West in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 10 War and Developmentalism in the Twentieth Century Chapter 11 Peace and Consumerism in the Twentieth Century Chapter 12 Climate Change and Climate Wars Chapter 13 Plundering the Oceans Chapter 14 Extinctions and Survivals Chapter 15 Environmentalism Epilogue One Past, Many Futures Notes Index

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Trade ReviewIn a monograph that now appears on many course syllabi, Hardwick uncovers how women in early modern Lyon took charge of their sexual and reproductive lives with much community support. The scope of the book pertains to "young urban workers"...The book makes bold contributions to contemporary conversations about gender violence and abortion. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, in the recent Dobbs decision, drew on seventeenth century barrister Matthew Hale's writings to claim that "an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment" had "persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973." Hardwick takes her readers across the channel and behind the law's normative façade to show how popular urban mores contrasted with such interdictions and how extensive early modern women's bodily autonomy could be. * Benjamin Bernard, Eighteenth Century Studies *Grounded in the archival stories of young workers in early modern Lyon, this study effectively challenges much accepted wisdom about the mechanisms of sexual discipline. Hardwick explores intimacy, illegitimacy, marriage formation and pregnancy through a holistic rending of what she terms the 'archive of reproduction'. This approach offers a nuanced and provocative reading of the complexities of intimate relations that applies far beyond her archival focus on Lyon.... In excavating how local regulation and informal policing worked about reproduction, Hardwick resituates our understanding of the pressures and possibilities for women as a matter of gendered power in significant ways. Simply put, this is an absolute must read for anyone interested in the history gender, sexuality and power. * Katherine Crawford, Social History of Medicine *Captivating reading for anyone interested in early modern European social or gender history. By weaving together subtle analysis with deeply human stories, Hardwick gives us unparalleled insight into an almost inaccessible aspect of working people's lives: the world of intimacy and emotion, courtship, and reproduction in early modern France. * Suzanne Desan, H-France *Hardwick's book...lays out not just the precarious and contingent lives of workers but also makes a forceful argument for integrating the history of sexuality more fully into the social history of work, showcases an innovative approach to the archives, and redefines our understanding of the relationship between the state and ordinary life in the Old Regime.... The reader comes away with an understanding of both the familiar and unexplored ways that young women and men engaged with one another three centuries ago. We witness their fears about sex and pregnancy, for example, and the ways a single night could change the course of an entire life....Ultimately, Hardwick paints a picture of working-class sexual life that revolved around navigating the constraints and opportunities constructed by a community invested in ensuring that young people could find and keep sexual partners. * Andrew Israel Ross, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas *Hardwick has produced a nuanced and persuasive case-study of early modern urban sexual behaviour which deserves a wide readership.... The richness of the material enables Hardwick to situate her subjects within the built environment and rural hinterlands of the early modern city too, and her attention to space (as practised place) and topography enables her to offer evocative reading of the evidence. * Tim Reinke-Williams, Urban History *Hardwick's... monograph, based on a diligent exploitation of the municipal and departmental archives of Lyon,...provides a usefully thought-provoking corrective, and an evocative illustration of one of the most important general discoveries of the past half-century of historical scholarship. * Henry C. Clark, French Studies *A new, sometimes surprising, and always compelling approach to the history of intimacy in the early modern period....It is also a book about growing up, settling down, or breaking up in old regime Europe....This book represents an incredible feat of archival research....[and] is written in such a lively style that these details lie under the surface....Hardwick's book is part of a major new approach to understanding women's lives in the early modern period in terms of their lived experiences and not only the prescriptions of moralists and men. * Tom Hamilton, Gender & History *Hardwick's book convincingly challenges current arguments about eighteenth-century attitudes toward sexuality and, in particular, the disciplining of women's sexuality. This alone make the book worth the read. * Carol L. White, Clayton State University, XVIII New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century *Historiography has come a long way since Foucault and first-wave feminism. In Julie Hardwick's compelling study of youthful intimacy in early modern Lyon, the word 'patriarchy' never even appears. This is not because the city was a sexual utopia...but because our understandings of the early modern state, law and gender have changed. A royal edict of 1556 against clandestine pregnancy which supported much of the disciplining narrative turned out to be misunderstood by historians and mostly ignored at the time....Her close reading of hundreds of cases reveals not a parade of sexual transgressions in need of discipline but commonly accepted courtship practices that went wrong.... Far from disciplining young women, then, the Lyon court disciplined men for failing to keep their promises. In so doing they restored women's honour. * Jan Machielsen, Times Literary Supplement *Through an examination of young workers' intimacy, Hardwick...upends the commonly accepted idea that disciplining women's sexuality was a major goal of the early modern state and shows how communities pragmatically accepted and managed consequences of physical intimacy, including out-of-wedlock pregnancy....She finds that communities accepted young people's intimacy and pragmatically worked with couples to manage the consequences....The community support systems that developed, encompassing clerics, lawyers, wet nurses, midwives, and landladies, were part of the larger old regime economy and sought to minimize the disruptions of pregnancy to women's roles in the labor force and their chances of marriage later on. * CHOICE *An eye-opener and a veritable tour-de-force, Hardwick's book offers a fascinating window into sexual standards in ancien régime France and reveals a stunning and complex system of communal complicity. Her careful exploration of Lyon's archival records sheds new light on the lives and intimate stories of ordinary working-class young adults pre-1789 and offers a new historiography of sex at the time. * Evelyne M. Bornier, Seventeenth-Century News *A superb reconstruction of a lost world of intimacy and power. Julie Hardwick's absorbing, enriching work reveals the common language of love; the balance of force and caresses in courtship; the pragmatic concerns of marriage; and the solutions to unplanned pregnancies, showing the capacity of young women and men to shape their own circumstances and tell their stories. * Laura Gowing, King's College London *Sex in an Old Regime City explores a topic that seems well beyond the reach of historians: sexual intimacy between urban adolescents at a quarter of a millennium remove. Julie Hardwick's remarkable study is based on the 'archive of reproduction' accumulated around the biological and emotional consequences of that intimacy — ranging from pregnancy declarations, paternity suits, notarial documents, doctors' prescriptions, religious injunctions, infant autopsies and hospital archives through to billet-doux and foundlings' tokens. Hardwick's humane and sympathetic eye reveals a richly delineated world that has poignant continuities as well as contrasts with our own. * Colin Jones, Queen Mary University of London *A boldly written and brilliantly researched tour-de-force. Drawing upon meticulous archival work, Julie Hardwick explodes our understanding of what we thought we knew about pregnancy declarations, licit intimacy, and patriarchal discipline and reveals a far more complex system of communal complicity. Sex in an Old Regime City is a must-read for all scholars of the early modern world, especially those interested in legal, social, and gender history. * Meghan Roberts, Bowdoin College *This well-written and impressively researched book sheds important new light on sexual intimacy, reproduction, and marriage among young adults in eighteenth-century France. Stories of the lives and loves of ordinary working people bring their previously inaccessible intimate world to life. * Clare Crowston, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign *Hardwick invites us to ponder the distress and relief of mothers who consigned newborns to fathers or strangers, not to mention latrines and limbo, without implying that they shared our sensibilities or that we can penetrate their sentiments...This searching and subtle account of safety netting in another place and time provides much food for thought. It is not a long book, but it is a big one. It provides an object lesson in how to make the most of records from a world we have lost, with humility and humanity. * Jeffrey Merrick, American Historical Review *This remarkable book supplies a model for how creatively to read legal documents to listen in on the secret and the unspoken...Sex in an Old Regime City recounts many intimate relationships between male and female workers, but even more effectively brings to life an entire urban community and animates the ways that love and sex took place within a dense matrix of landladies, bosses, notaries, and priests. * Jennifer M. Jones, Rutgers University, Early Modern Women *In her impressive new book, Julie Hardwick provides a compelling account of young workers' intimate lives in Old Regime Lyon based on extensive and exacting archival research. With hermasterful command of the sources,Hardwick vividly illuminates working class heterosexual intimacy in this beautifully nuanced study. * E. Claire Cage, University of South Alabama, Journal of Modern History *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction A Foundling's Garter and the World of Young People's Intimacy Ch.. 1. Sourcing Intimate Histories: The Social World of Young Workers Ch. 2. Peril Stories: Licit Intimacy, Space, and Community Safeguarding Ch. 3. Holding Men Responsible: Fertility, Community, and Court Ch. 4. "Remedies" and Remedies: Managing Out-of-Wedlock Pregnancy Ch. 5. Intimate Labor: Paid Work and an Intimate Economy of Reproduction Ch. 6. Foundlings and Makeshift Coffins: Community Complicity and Dead Babies Conclusion: The End of the Old Regime? Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDescribed as ''one of the most tragic human experiences in human history'', the Soviet Union as an empire holds much intrigue and fascination for the Western world. It held unquestionable status as an empire, with its coverage of over 100 nationalities. Its status as the ''Last of the Empires'' depends on what the future may hold, but any future ''empires'' will undoubtedly be based on intellectual and institutional foundations far different from those developed during the Soviet era. Here John Keep presents the narrative history of the USSR, from the last years of Stalin, to the checkered fate of Gorbachev''s reform policies, and the ultimate collapse of the empire under manifold centrifugal pressures. Focusing upon political, economic, social, and cultural developments, the book is divided into four parts: the last years of Stalin; Nikita Krushchev''s abortive attempts to reform Communist rule; the years 1964-1985, covered largely by Breshnev''s long tenure of power; and lastly GorbaTrade ReviewReview from previous edition Written in a clear, scholarly but penetrable style, it provides an abundance of information in a form that is accessible to anybody who wants or needs to remind himself of the chronology and content of those tumultuous years in the Soviet Union. It incorporates much of the new information that is emerging in post-communist, post-Soviet Russia, as formerly top-secret archives are opened to Russian and western scrutiny. * Economist *A shrewd, well-sourced history of the Soviet Union ... [Keep's] fluent narrative heeds murmurs from below as well as diktats from above. * New Statesman & Society *It is as fortunate as it is productive that Keep is a distinguished and vastly experienced historian of Russia in its several phases, that he should apply the rigour of exacting scholarship and the advantage of perspective to the death of a system whose antecedents and birth he had earlier chronicled. The temperate, scholarly analysis of Last of the Empires provides an exhaustive explanation for this complex, protracted tragedy whose consequences are yet fully to unfold. * Times Higher Education Supplement *Last of the Empires is filled with interest information gathered from a very broad range of sources which Keep recounts and analyses in a thoroughly professional manner ... judicious and well-informed work. * Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1. STALIN'S LAST YEARS; 2. A REFORMER IN THE KREMLIN; 8. FOR FAITH AND FREEDOM; 16. REVOLUTION FROM ABOVE

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Book SynopsisHanging people for small crimes as well as grave, the Bloody Penal Code was at its most active between 1770 and 1830. In those years some 7,000 men and women were executed on public scaffolds, watched by thousands. Hanging was confined to murderers thereafter, but these were still killed in public until 1868. Clearly the gallows loomed over much of social life in this period. But how did those who watched, read about, or ordered these strangulations feel about the terror and suffering inflicted in the law''s name? What kind of justice was delivered, and how did it change?This book is the first to explore what a wide range of people felt about these ceremonies (rather than what a few famous men thought and wrote about them). A history of mentalities, emotions, and attitudes rather than of policies and ideas, it analyses responses to the scaffold at all social levels: among the crowds which gathered to watch executions; among `polite'' commentators from Boswell and Byron on to Fry, ThackTrade Review[a] classic study * The Sunday Times Culture Magazine *There is plenty to incite horror, but the cleverness of the book is the way it puts the English way of execution into a political context * Jeremy Paxman, Independent *monumental in the subtlety and richness of the argument ... a rare combination of pellucid clarity and passion that carries the reader on to the final chapter without a single longeur. * John Adamson, Sunday Telegraph *A quite outstanding book, moving, perceptive ... richly imaginative. * Linda Colley, Observer *

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Trade ReviewA vivid and detailed account of life in the westward sweep between 1776 and 1890. * The Los Angeles Times *

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Book SynopsisOwens' fascinating study explores the personality and behavior of the slave within the context of what it meant to be a slave. Based on a variety of plantation records, diaries, slave narratives, travelers' accounts, and other items bearing on the slave's experiences in his relationships to slaveholders, it concentrates on the years between 1770 and 1865.Trade Review"A major work because of its unprecedented use of plantation records to augment ex-slave autobiographies and narratives...[It] establishes Leslie Howard Owens as a major historian of Afro-American slavery."--The New Republic "Provides a fuller description of slave life than can be found elsewhere."--Journal of Southern History "Excellent book...[It offers] great insight into the lives of the slaves as well as providing a good demonstration of historical methodology."--Terence Roehrig, Cardinal Stritch College "A work of original scholarship presented in an accessible and 'student-friendly' style."--John Rhinehart, San Bernadino Valley College

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Trade Review"This magisterial study is a triumph of scholarship....Must reading for anyone interested in American legal history or the Civil War."--Virginia Quarterly Review

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Book Synopsis'This is history of education in its finest tradition, i.e., education s social history rather than as mere schooling... Carefully researched, well written, and even-handed, Nasaw's book is an important addition to the debate over the evolution of public education in the United States.'Trade Review"A significant new addition to the field of educational and social history. The broad perspective and effective blending of varying historical assessments reveal Nasaw's strength as a writer and historian."--Journal of Southern History"An important and provocative first book."--History: Reviews of New Books

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Book SynopsisA comparative history of race relations in the U.S. and South Africa seeks to explain the different paths each nation followedTrade ReviewThe history of race relations on two continents is enormously enriched by this comparative study. * C. Vann Woodward, Yale University *A stunning work, Fredrickson's book is the most important study * by farof race relations written in our time.Herbert Gutman *One of the most brilliant and successful studies in comparative history ever written...sheds new light on the entire sweep of American and South African history. * David Brion Davis, The New York Times Book Review *Thorough and interesting. Valuable background for my students. * Darcy James, Lewis Clark State College *Sophisticated, well-focused, and accessible. . . . provides exactly the context I need for a course in Apartheid. * Judiana Lawrence, St. John Fisher College *

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Book SynopsisThe Crucible of Race, a major reinterpretation of black-white relations in the South, was widely acclaimed on publication and compared favorably to two of the seminal books on Southern history: Wilbur J. Cash's The Mind of the South and C. Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow. Representing 20 years of research and writing on the history of the South, The Crucible of Race explores the large topic of Southern racerelations for a span of a century and a half. Oxford is pleased to make available an abridgement of this parent volume: A Rage for Order preserves all the theme lines that were advanced in the original volume and many of the individualstories. As in Crucible of Race, Williamson here confronts the awful irony that the war to free blacks from slavery also freed racism. He examines the shift in the power base of Southern white leadership after 1850 and recounts the terrible violence done to blacks in the name of self-protection. This condensation of one of the most imTrade Review"Excellent--I am adopting this for a course on the New South."--L. Musslewhite, Cameron University "Excellent analysis of race relations--very comprehensive in its consideration of both the black and white sides of race relations."--W. Marvin Dulaney, University of Texas, Arlington On The Crucible of Race:"The most conspicuous landmark of scholarship in an important field...a deeper and more thorough penetration of the endless complexities of the subject than any every attempted before."--C. Vann Woodward, The New Republic "A major reinterpretation of black-white relations since the Civil War...Williamson has deepened our understanding of [Southern history's] tragic dimensions and enduring legacies."--The New York Times Book Review "A full and fresh overview of black-white relations in the South...Williamson tells his...story with rich detail and surrounds it with information and insights on an array of related topics."--Philadelphia Inquirer "A remarkable mixture of careful, empirically based historical work and free-wheeling cultural commentary in the vein of W. J. Cash and other imaginative writers on the Southern psyche."--George M. Frederickson, The New York Review of Books "A stimulating and controversial book...[A] significant contribution toward our understanding of a fundamental American riddle."--Los Angeles Times "One of the best books I've read in the last ten years. Williamson sets the rise of Southern segregation within the region's obsession with the sense of place, is less powerful in psychological than it was in physical terms. He manages to do this without losing himself and his narrative in a mass of pseudo-therapeutic speculations. I deeply appreciate this book and look forward to using it with my students this fall."--David Stricklin, Tulane University "Excellent for upper-division students."--Kathryn Olmsted, University of California, Davis

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Book SynopsisBoth interesting and accessible, this book looks at sport and recreation in ancient Greece through the translated accounts of ancient Greek and Latin authors.Trade Review'This lively and energetic book well matches its subject matter. The sources are excellent - plainly and vigorously translated, meticulously ascribed, and presented with a full and critical commentary. A vast range is used, much of it unfamiliar. This book will prove a delight alike to specialists and non-specialists ... I would like to see such source book appear on every aspect of Greek and Roman life. Professor Sweet has set a fine example.' Jennifer Gibbon, Highbury Fields School. JACT ReviewTable of ContentsPreface Foreword by Erich Segal Introduction to Greek Athletics Athletics in Homer Running Events Pentathlon Diskos Jump Javelin Scoring the Pentathlon Combat Sports Wrestling Boxing Pankration Horse Racing Ball Playing Weight Lifting Miscellaneous Games and Activities Palestra and Training Attitudes toward Athletics Nudity in Greek Athletics Women in Greek Athletics Individual Athletes Walking and Mountaineering Swimming and Boating Hunting and Fishing Music Dance Theater Dining Pindar Philostratos Pausanias Lucian Greek Anthology BL Footnotes BL Bibliography BL Index of Testimonia BL List of Illustrations BL General Index and Glossary

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Book SynopsisThroughout history, the reality of America''s diverse religious life has continually been subordinated to the themes of Protestant unity and dominance. At the centre of this study are seven religious groups that are usually accorded a secondary influence on American culture: the Mormons, Catholics, Jews, Christian Scientists, Millennialists, 20th-century Protestant Fundamentalists, and the black churches. Through these groups Moore boldly shows that the conventional distinctions between what is mainstream and what is marginal in American culture are largely strategical fictions created by historians and historical actors, and that many of these outside groups in fact embody values that are quintessentially American. The book also examines the part that religious persecution has played in American history, and the ways in which religious groups have often turned persecution to their own advantage. The author''s analysis of pluralism provides a solid and important new context for viewingTrade Review'penetrating analysis ... Moore's stimulating analysis of pluralism not only offers an important new context for viewing America's religious past; it also provides important perspectives for understanding what is happening in America today.' Month'collection of wide-ranging and learned essays ... the book will help set the agenda for future studies ...American religious historians should anticipate with pleasure the conversations this excellent book will provoke.' Robert Orsi, Indiana University, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

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Book SynopsisThis classic Pulitzer Prize-winning book depicts the various ways the Old and the New Worlds responded to the intrinsic contradictions of slavery from antiquity to the early 1770s, and considers the religious, literary, and philosophical justifications and condemnations current in the abolition controversy.Trade Review`Immensely learned, readable, disturbing.' New York Review of Books

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Book SynopsisUtilizing the records of several Venetian courts that dealt with sex crimes, Ruggiero traces the evolution of both licit and illicit sexuality during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Through this examination of illicit sexuality, Ruggiero sheds light on the institutions, languages, social life, and values not only of this shadow-culture, but also of Venetian society and, ultimately, the Renaissance itself.Trade Review`Colourful groundbreaking ... Ruggeriero's vivid survey of sexual behavior is an important contribution to Venetian historiography which no social, political, or cultural study will be able to ignore.' Renaissance Quarterly`Extremely welcome for its systematic attempt to squeeze information about changing attitudes to sexuality from the judicial records.' London Review of Books'fascinating and pioneering work ... particularly satisfying ... a triumph of historical reconstruction' Journal of Social History'This is an important and fascinating study that provides a new perspective on Renaissance culture and society. Highly recommended.' Library Journal

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Book SynopsisThis study describes how two late 19th-century electronic technologies - the telephone and the electric light - were publicly envisaged both by specialized engineering trade journals and the popular media.Trade Review'A wide-ranging, informative, and entertaining account of the early years of electric and electronic development, this book rethinks the traditional artifactual and institutional approaches to media history.' Electrical Review'full of aptly chosen anecdotes and quotations from contemporary newspapers and magazines, some of which are very amusing' Antony Anderson, New Scientist'This is an important book, not only for media historians but also for electrical engineers who are interested in learning about how the public reacted to the introduction of electrical inventions and how these affected social habits and customs.' R.W. Burns, Life Review'splendid history of the late nineteenth century's version of the information technology revolution ... Marvin has told a fascinating story and drawn on a wealth of contemporary material.' Roger Silverstone, Times Higher Education Supplement'This most informative book helps the modern reader to comprehend the speed at which electricity-dependent technologies have altered human perceptions of humankind and the world.' Choice'engaging book ... Professor Marvin's research is firmly based on the technical literature of the time, and fluently expressed ... many intriguing questions are implicit in her presentation.' American Studies International'not only is the book a good read, but also it is a valuable source book for writers, historians and researchers pursuing the history of, or writing on, the subject of mass communications ... The anecdotes are often highly amusing, but mostly are entertaining or informative ... an important book' Electronics and Communications EngineeringTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. Inventing the Expert: Technological Literacy as Social Currency 2. Communitiy and Class Order, Progress Close to Home 3. Locating the Body in Electrical Space and Time, Competing Authorities 4. Dazzling the Multitude, Original Media Spectacles 5. Annihilating Space, Times, and Difference, Experiments in Cultural Homogenization Epilogue Notes Index

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Book SynopsisBerkeley, California stood at the center of the political, social, and cultural upheaval that made the 1960s a unique period in American history. In Berkeley at War, W.J. Rorabaugh, who attended the graduate school of the University of California at Berkeley in the 1970s, presents a lively, informative account of the events that changed forever what had once been a quiet, conservative white suburb. Rorabaugh''s meticulously researched, authoritative narrative covers the entire period, from the rise of the Free Speech Movement to the growth and increasing militance of a black community struggling to end segregation; from the emergence of radicalism and the anti-war movement to the blossoming hippie culture; and from the explosive conflict over People''s Park to the beginnings of modern-day feminism and environmentalism. An invaluable account of its time and place, Berkeley at War anchors the sixties in American history, both before and since that colorful decade.Trade ReviewAccessible and stiulating. * Perry Blatz, Duquesne University *Thorough and engaging popular history. * New York Newsday *A skillful researcher who also possesses a vigorous narrative style, Rorabaugh brings scholarly clarity to the turmoil of the mid- to late-1960's. * Publisher's Weekly *Evocative and smoothly written....A compelling story of politics and power, silliness and cynicism, ideology and idiosyncrasies....Rorabaugh catches the temper of the times....He leads deftly from boardroom to classroom, coffeehouse to crash pad, in a perceptive and evenhanded Baedeker to a turbulent era. * Kirkus Reviews *[Rorabaugh's] meticulous account brings back those years, while showing how little most of us really knew about the forces setthing around us then....The book conveys many vivid images of a unique city as well as provides an authoritative account of an era. The significance of Berkeley at War lies in the fact that Berkeley was a quintessential American city of the 1960s * and those times still shape our world today.The Seattle Times *Rorabaugh narrates the events and identifies the issues that swirled into headlines and newscasts as the disenfranchised sought to get their messages and their cases before the general public. The success and outcome of that power struggle are authoritatively assessed in this detailed chronicle of a watershed moment in American society's development. * Booklist *A welcome addition to literature about the sixties....Can help readers better understand both Berkeley in the 1960s and our contemporary historical circumstances as well. It is a book about the past, but also one very much about the present. With it...we will be able to place our own lives in context, in proper perspective. * The Stanford Daily *A sober and absorbing chronicle of the transformation of a university town into a political battlefield. * Indochina Chronology *Excellent....A unique, well-balanced, and solidly researched study. * Perspective *Excellent....A unique, well-balanced, and solidly researched study that will be of interest to scholars and laypersons interested in the turbulent decade that now lies twenty years in the past but that still strongly reverberates in the consciousness of all who lived through it. * Perspective *[A] stimulating history of the tumult at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1960s. * The Washington Post *In prose that is clear and frequently elegant, Rorabaugh has succeeded in providing a coherent overview of both the place and the decade, not an easy challenge. * California Monthly *[The] sources utilized here are voluminous and minded extremely well....Comprehensive, if not always forceful, narrative. * Barbara L. Tischler, Queens College, CUNY *

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Book SynopsisThis is a book about the formation, development, and success or failure of new high technology companies, focusing on those that grew under the auspices of entrepreneurs from MIT in Boston at the end of World War Two. Edward Roberts has conducted extensive empirical research on these firms for the past 25 years and has written widely on the subject. He is one of the acknowledged academic experts on entrepreneurship. This book is the culmination of his work and synthesizes his findings.Trade Review`One has only to look at a book such as Edward Roberts' Entrepreneurs in High Technology ... to see how much can be achieved.' Margaret Sharp, Times Higher Education Supplement'this is clearly the premiere work in the more specialized field of technological entrepreneurship ... Highly recommended for university and professional collections.' N. Gersony, Castleton State College, Choice Jan '92'Roberts reveals some striking similarities in the family backgrounds of the successful entrepreneurs. He also has gleaned what he considers valuable lessons for the founders of future startups.' The Boston Globe, 9/12/91`A major new book ... A gold mine of facts and data on both successful and unsuccessful start-up high-tech firms.' Journal of Product Innovation Management`A masterpiece in covering the complex aspects of entrepreneurship.' James M. Howell, The Howell Group'By focusing on firms in the greater Boston area, many of which have had links with the Massachusetts Insitute of Technology (MIT), this study provides support for all these variables, but identifies even more critical aspects of culture and attitude that have fostered a congenial business environment ... a mine of useful material for industrial historians interested in the role of entrepreneurship, especially where this is considered in a regional or high-technology setting.' Geoffrey Tweedale, University of Sheffield, Business History, Oct '92'his data and interests cover the last quarter-century and so provide a mine of useful material for industrial historians interested in the role of entreprenurship, especially where this is considered in a regional or high-technology setting' Geoffrey Tweedale, Business History, Vol. 34, No. 4, Oct '92

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Book SynopsisThe third of Kevin Starr''s monumental studies of the origins and development of the California dream covers the decade, which perhaps glittered the most brightly in the history of the Golden State - the 1920s. This was the era of colourful, larger-than-life individuals - from movie stars to evangelists to grandiose town planners; the era of Valentino, as well as that of William Ellsworth Smyth, tireless crusader for the irrigation of the desert. It was also the period in which the characteristics of Los Angeles'' vital culture were established.Trade Review`Material Dreams is a splendid achievement: impressively researched, expertly argued and nicely varied ... (Starr) has taken a sprawling, recalcitrant subject, at once encrusted with cliche and dogged by obscurity, and made it vivid and comprehensible.' Boston Sunday Globe`Kevin Starr has written an engaging, eccentric history of Southern California in the '20s ... It is richly researched, informative, fun to read and the writing is bright (with substance, pace and vigor).' Los Angeles Times

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Book SynopsisWhen William Freehling''s Prelude to Civil War first appeared in 1965 it was immediately hailed as a brilliant study of the origins of the American Civil War. Three decades later, its importance remains undiminished and is still considered one of the most significant studies in its field. This vivid description of a society on the brink powerfully conveys the combustive social elements of the Old South, as well as the political manoeuvring and combative personalities that finally ensured secession and war, and insists upon the central importance of the South''s `peculiar institution'' in understanding the roots of the Civil War.Trade Review"The definitive study of the nullification crisis in South Carolina."--The Free Lance-Star "Well done....Fine companion to Freehling's other work. Chapters are well organized; summaries are excellent."--Richard Owens, Lewis University "Combines incisive analysis with great narrative power....An important event....Highly readable and absorbing."--Book Week "An excellent piece of research and writing."--Library Journal "[Freehling's] special talent seems to be the capacity to etch characters richly, precisely, and briefly. By this means a very complicated story is made clear and interesting."--The Virginia Quarterly Review

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