Search results for ""author merchant"

The long seventeenth century in China was a period of tremendous commercial expansion, and no literary genre was better equipped to articulate its possibilities than southern drama. As a form and a practice, southern drama was in the business of world-building—both in its structural imperative to depict and reconcile the social whole and in its creation of entire economies dependent on its publication and performance. However, the early modern commercial world repelled rather than engaged most playwrights, who consigned its totems—the merchant and his money—to the margins as sources of political suspicion and cultural anxiety.In The Cornucopian Stage, Ariel Fox examines a body of influential yet understudied plays by a circle of Suzhou playwrights who enlisted the theatrical imaginary to very different ends. In plays about long-distance traders and small-time peddlers, impossible bargains and broken contracts, strings of cash and storehouses of silver, the Suzhou circle placed commercial forms not only at center stage but at the center of a new world coming into being. Here, Fox argues, the economic character of early modern selfhood is recast as fundamentally productive—as the basis for new subject positions, new kinds of communities, and new modes of art.

Read more less

Slavery helped finance the Industrial Revolution in England. Plantation owners, shipbuilders, and merchants connected with the slave trade accumulated vast fortunes that established banks and heavy industry in Europe and expanded the reach of capitalism worldwide. Eric Williams advanced these powerful ideas in Capitalism and Slavery, published in 1944. Years ahead of its time, his profound critique became the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development. Binding an economic view of history with strong moral argument, Williams's study of the role of slavery in financing the Industrial Revolution refuted traditional ideas of economic and moral progress and firmly established the centrality of the African slave trade in European economic development. He also showed that mature industrial capitalism in turn helped destroy the slave system. Establishing the exploitation of commercial capitalism and its link to racial attitudes, Williams employed a historicist vision that set the tone for future studies.William A. Darity Jr.'s new foreword highlights Williams's insights for a new generation of readers, and Colin Palmer's introduction assesses the lasting impact of Williams's groundbreaking work and analyzes the heated scholarly debates it generated when it first appeared.

Read more less

NOW A MAJOR ITV DRAMA, THE SINGAPORE GRIP IS A MODERN CLASSIC FROM THE BOOKER-PRIZE WINNING J.G. FARRELL'Brilliant, richly absurd, melancholy' Observer'Enjoyable on many different levels' Sunday Times'One of the most outstanding novelists of his generation' SpectatorSingapore, 1939: Walter Blackett, ruthless rubber merchant, is head of British Singapore's oldest and most powerful firm. And his family's prosperous world of tennis parties, cocktails and deferential servants seems unchanging. No one suspects it - but this world is poised on the edge of the abyss. This is the eve of the Fall of Singapore.A love story and a war story, a tragicomic tale of a city under siege and a dying way of life, The Singapore Grip is a modern classic.'A narrative of exceptional imagination and scope' Newsweek'A fine piece of work, informative, funny tragic. One of those novels that present a whole world for the reader to inhabit' Margaret Drabble'No writer has swallowed all of Singapore with the verve and wit of the late J.G. Farrell' Time'His brilliant of style places him beside such masters of the modern novel as Patrick White and Saul Bellow' Olivia Manning

Read more less

A biography of the great portraitist Frans Hals that takes the reader into the turbulent world of the Dutch Golden Age. Frans Hals was one of the greatest portrait painters in history, and his style transformed ideas and expectations about what portraiture can do and what a painting should look like. Hals was a member of the great trifecta of Dutch Baroque painters alongside Rembrandt and Vermeer, and he was the portraitist of choice for entrepreneurs, merchants, professionals, theologians, intellectuals, militiamen, and even his fellow artists in the Dutch Golden Age. His works, with their visible brush strokes and bold execution, lacked the fine detail and smooth finish common among his peers, and some dismissed his works as sloppy and unfinished. But for others, they were fresh and exciting, filled with a sense of the sitter's animated presence captured with energy and immediacy. Steven Nadler gives us the first full-length biography of Hals in many years and offers a view into seventeenth-century Haarlem and this culturally rich era of the Dutch Republic. He tells the story not only of Hals's life, but also of the artistic, social, political, and religious worlds in which he lived and worked.

Read more less

Whether we are out on the streets or between the sheets, cotton is our constant companion. But behind this ubiquitous fibre prized for its softness lies a darker story of exploitation and hardship. In this penetrating analysis, Adam Sneyd explores the power politics that envelop cotton as major corporate players and countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas compete to control it. In the aftermath of sweatshop scandal exposés and factory collapse disasters, merchants and retailers have called for �better� cotton farming practices. But in seeking to prevent the next transnational media circus, will companies simply end up cementing business-as-usual? Corporate public relations strategy now competes directly with the voices of an alternative global community that seeks to fundamentally transform the way that cotton is farmed. Yet these demands for cotton to work better for people and the planet have flown under the radar as media attention has focused instead on farmer subsidies and prices. From the local to the global, this book takes the reader on an illuminating journey through the multifaceted and often grubby politics of the fluffy white stuff in the world economy. The pile of political laundry it uncovers is voluminous but, as Sneyd argues, must be aired in the interests of sustainability and development.

Read more less

Much is known of life during the Han Empire, but the historical evidence remains fragmentary, and nowhere do we find a continuous account of the life of any one individual.In this engaging volume, Michael Loewe mines the written and material records to depict the imagined life of an ordinary person, Bing Wu, from the hardships of his earliest years on a rural farm to his retirement from a respected position in government service. Underlying the tale of Bing is a richly detailed portrait of life during the Han--the arduous tasks of the conscript laborer; military service on the defense lines of the north; the travels of a merchant; the grueling conditions in an iron foundry; the construction of tombs; preparations for entering the civil service; the duties of a junior clerk and the governing of a commandery. Along the way, we are introduced to the operation of a crossbow; methods of telling time; the practice of writing; the rituals of divination; the ceremony of a state occasion, laws and the harsh consequences of breaking them; the workings of the central government and much more.Included are a concise introduction, explanatory endnotes to each chapter, a selection of illustrations, a map of the Han Empire, notes for further reading and an essay by Loewe entitled, "A Brief History of the Han Empire."

Read more less

Much is known of life during the Han Empire, but the historical evidence remains fragmentary, and nowhere do we find a continuous account of the life of any one individual.In this engaging volume, Michael Loewe mines the written and material records to depict the imagined life of an ordinary person, Bing Wu, from the hardships of his earliest years on a rural farm to his retirement from a respected position in government service. Underlying the tale of Bing is a richly detailed portrait of life during the Han--the arduous tasks of the conscript laborer; military service on the defense lines of the north; the travels of a merchant; the grueling conditions in an iron foundry; the construction of tombs; preparations for entering the civil service; the duties of a junior clerk and the governing of a commandery. Along the way, we are introduced to the operation of a crossbow; methods of telling time; the practice of writing; the rituals of divination; the ceremony of a state occasion, laws and the harsh consequences of breaking them; the workings of the central government and much more.Included are a concise introduction, explanatory endnotes to each chapter, a selection of illustrations, a map of the Han Empire, notes for further reading and an essay by Loewe entitled, "A Brief History of the Han Empire."

Read more less

Whether we are out on the streets or between the sheets, cotton is our constant companion. But behind this ubiquitous fibre prized for its softness lies a darker story of exploitation and hardship. In this penetrating analysis, Adam Sneyd explores the power politics that envelop cotton as major corporate players and countries across Africa, Asia and the Americas compete to control it. In the aftermath of sweatshop scandal exposés and factory collapse disasters, merchants and retailers have called for �better� cotton farming practices. But in seeking to prevent the next transnational media circus, will companies simply end up cementing business-as-usual? Corporate public relations strategy now competes directly with the voices of an alternative global community that seeks to fundamentally transform the way that cotton is farmed. Yet these demands for cotton to work better for people and the planet have flown under the radar as media attention has focused instead on farmer subsidies and prices. From the local to the global, this book takes the reader on an illuminating journey through the multifaceted and often grubby politics of the fluffy white stuff in the world economy. The pile of political laundry it uncovers is voluminous but, as Sneyd argues, must be aired in the interests of sustainability and development.

Read more less

Shipwrecks and the Bounty of the Sea is a work of social history examining community relationships, law, and seafaring over the long early modern period. It explores the politics of the coastline, the economy of scavenging, and the law of 'wreck of the sea' from the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I to the end of the reign of George II. England's coastlines were heavily trafficked by naval and commercial shipping, but an unfortunate percentage was cast away or lost. Shipwrecks were disasters for merchants and mariners, but opportunities for shore dwellers. As the proverb said, it was an ill wind that blew nobody any good. Lords of manors, local officials, officers of the Admiralty, and coastal commoners competed for maritime cargoes and the windfall of wreckage, which they regarded as providential godsends or entitlements by right. A varied haul of commodities, wines, furnishings, and bullion came ashore, much of it claimed by the crown. The people engaged in salvaging these wrecks came to be called 'wreckers', and gained a reputation as violent and barbarous plunderers. Close attention to statements of witnesses and reports of survivors shows this image to be largely undeserved. Dramatic evidence from previously unexplored manuscript sources reveals coastal communities in action, collaborating as well as competing, as they harvested the bounty of the sea.

Read more less

Affiliate marketing is hot; here's how to get your program going Nearly every retailer in the Internet Retailers' Top 500 has an affiliate marketing program. Now free affiliate networks, automation software, and pay-for-performance compensation models are making it easy for small businesses to take advantage of this marketing tool. In the popular An Hour a Day format, this guide features a detailed, real-world, task-based approach to developing, launching, and managing a successful affiliate marketing program. It explores market research, determining payment models and reporting guidelines, recruiting affiliates, crafting appropriate communications, and much more. Affiliate marketing programs help boost marketing efforts without incurring excessive costs; this Hour a Day guide provides everything merchants, business owners, and those charged with managing an affiliate program need to know Offers a modern, real-world, step-by-step guide to researching, launching, managing, and optimizing a successful affiliate marketing program Covers social media; creating policies; working with feeds, coupons, widgets, and video; creating compelling content; handling partners who are not meeting goals; and much more Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day is the do-it-yourself guide to planning and maintaining a successful affiliate program.

Read more less

The Hillwood Museum's Russian silver collection is the largest and most comprehensive outside Russia. 'Russian Silver in America' surveys Russian silver production, its changing forms, styles, imagery and techniques over more than 250 years, drawing on the collections of both the Hillwood and other US museums. A beautifully illustrated book which provides a proper cultural, political and historical context in which to view this fascinating collection, it charts the history of Russian silver through the baroque styles of the reigns of Peter and Elizabeth, the move to Rococo and Neoclassicism under Catherine and Paul, revivalist styles under Alexander I and Nicholas I, 19th-century styles up to Faberge and modernist production. Running throughout is the story of how and why so much Russian silver found its way into American collections - much of it sold by the Soviet government in the 1920s and 30s, as having largely been held in church treasuries and private collections, it was considered to be of no artistic value. A dazzling visual history of Russian silver and a vital record of 18th- and 19th-century silver production in Russia, almost none of which remains in the country today. Features over 160 pieces from the Hillwood Museum and other US collections including objects made for the imperial family and growing merchant class.

Read more less

In the antebellum years, the Western world’s symbolic realities were expanded and challenged as merchant, military, and scientific activity moved into Pacific and Arctic waters. In Antebellum at Sea, Jason Berger explores the roles that early nineteenth-century maritime narratives played in conceptualizing economic and social transitions in the developing global market system and what these chronicles disclose about an era marked by immense change.Focusing on the work of James Fenimore Cooper and Herman Melville, Berger enhances our understanding of how the nineteenth century negotiated its own tenuous progress by portraying how a wide range of maritime stories lays bare disturbing experiences of the new. Berger draws on Slavoj Žižek’s Lacanian notion of fantasy in order to reconsider the complex way maritime accounts operated in the political landscape of antebellum America, examining topics such as the function of maritime labor know-how within a transformation of scientific knowledge, anxiety produced by conflict between gender-specific and culture-specific forms of enjoyment, and how legal practices illuminate troubling juridical paradoxes at the heart of Polk-era political life.Addressing the ideas of the antebellum age from unexpected and revealing perspectives, Berger calls on the conception of fantasy to consider how antebellum maritime literature disputes conventional views of American history, literature, and national identity.

Read more less

"For anyone who wants to learn about the rise and decline of Potosí as a city . . . Lane’s book is the ideal place to begin."—The New York Review of Books In 1545, a native Andean prospector hit pay dirt on a desolate red mountain in highland Bolivia. There followed the world's greatest silver bonanza, making the Cerro Rico or "Rich Hill" and the Imperial Villa of Potosí instant legends, famous from Istanbul to Beijing. The Cerro Rico alone provided over half of the world's silver for a century, and even in decline, it remained the single richest source on earth. Potosí is the first interpretive history of the fabled mining city’s rise and fall. It tells the story of global economic transformation and the environmental and social impact of rampant colonial exploitation from Potosí’s startling emergence in the sixteenth century to its collapse in the nineteenth. Throughout, Kris Lane’s invigorating narrative offers rare details of this thriving city and its promise of prosperity. A new world of native workers, market women, African slaves, and other ordinary residents who lived alongside the elite merchants, refinery owners, wealthy widows, and crown officials, emerge in lively, riveting stories from the original sources. An engrossing depiction of excess and devastation, Potosí reveals the relentless human tradition in boom times and bust.

Read more less

A forgotten historical figure and his influence on the writing of James JoyceIn this book, Neil Davison argues that Albert Altman (1853—1903), Dublin-based businessman and Irish nationalist, influenced James Joyce's creation of the character of Leopold Bloom as well as Ulysses broader themes surrounding race, nationalism, and empire. Using extensive archival research, Davison reveals parallels between the lives of Altman and Bloom, including how the experience of double marginalization which Altman felt as both a Jew in Ireland and an Irishman in the British Empire is a major idea explored in Joyce's work. Altman, successful salt and coal merchant, was involved in municipal politics ove issues of Home Rule and labour, and frequently appeared in the press over the two decades of Joyce's youth. His prominence, Davison shows, made him a familiar name in the Home Rule circles with which Joyce and his father most identified. The book concludes by tracing the influence of Altman's career on the Dubliners story Ivy Day in the Committee Room as well as throughout the whole of Ulysses.Through Altman's biography, Davison recovers a forgotten life story that illuminates Irish and Jewish identity and culture in Joyce's Dublin.A volume in the Florida James Joyce Series, edited by Sebastian D. G. Knowles.

Read more less

This volume, continuing the series of great medieval bishops' registers, offers material valuable for both religious and social history. The register of Archbishop William Melton is one of the largest and most comprehensive to survive. Its backbone is the institution of clergy and licences to them, papal provisions and ordination of vicars and chantries, but it also contains a wealth of material for social history. During the period it covers, the East Riding of Yorkshire was flourishing, and a number of entries in the register reflect the challenges which the newly-founded town of Kingstonupon Hull was causing for the existing parochial structure. The archbishop is shown anathematizing malefactors who stole his swans and invaded his liberties in Beverley and the river Hull, and demanding the return of stolen woolon behalf of a merchant whose ship had been wrecked in the river Humber. The register also covers the origins of one of the last monasteries to be founded in medieval England, Haltemprice, and reveals the shortcomings of monks andnuns as well as secular clergy and members of the laity; more widely, many entries reflect the tensions between outlying vills and chapelries and their mother churches. The text is presented here with introduction, apparatus, and notes which elucidate the entries. David Robinson, until his retirement County Archivist of Surrey, was awarded his PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Read more less

The Battle of the Atlantic - a name coined by Churchill - was the unremitting assault that went on throughout the war on Allied merchant ships that were the lifeline of Great Britain and, from 1941, Russia by aircraft, surface ships but, above all, by the U-boat. Captain Macintyre, who was a distinguished participant in the battle, tells the story with precision and clarity. He describes the measures employed to defeat the amazingly successful 'wolf-pack' tactics of the U-boats, the convoy system and individual convoys, the contribution of the Royal Canadian Navy, the technological advances in radar and asdic, depth charges and aerial support, and does not shirk from describing how desperately close at times was the outcome. Not only does he analyze the strategic issues, above all the importance of the convoy system and of continuous air-cover, he also describes the battle from the viewpoint of the participants themselves. The long drawn-out duel between escort and U-boat is made vivid by quotation from the log-books of some of the ablest escort-commanders and from the combat-reports of the German U-boat ' aces '. Complementing these eye-witness accounts, nearly 50 unfamiliar photographs, drawn from German as well as British sources, make the courage and endurance of all those who fought in the Atlantic the more immediate.

Read more less

This volume publishes for the first time, the journal kept by John Looker (?1670—1715) recording his service as ship’s surgeon on the Blackham Galley, a London-built merchantman on its second trading voyage to the Levant, between December 1696 and March 1698. Preserved in the Caird Library of the National Maritime Museum, Looker’s ‘Journall’ describes his experiences on the voyage from the point at which he joined the ship at Gravesend, to March 1698, when the journal breaks off abruptly in mid-sentence when the ship was off the Kentish ‘Narrows’. John Looker was a Londoner, brought up in one of the parishes to the east of the City which furnished large numbers of mariners to the English sea-borne trades. He served an apprenticeship to a London barber-surgeon, and became a Freeman of the Company of Barber-Surgeons. His fifteen months of service on board the Blackham Galley appears to have been his only employment at sea, but his ready knowledge of maritime ways and language, which are apparent from the first pages of his ‘Journall’, make it more than likely that he came from a seafaring family. Subsequent to his voyage, he married, raised a family, practiced in London as a surgeon, and acquired land in East Anglia. He died at Bath in 1715.Looker’s ‘Journall’ divides naturally into three parts. The Blackham Galley’s outward and homeward voyages were largely without incident. The time spent by the Blackham Galley in Turkish waters, covers its voyage from Smyrna to Constantinople, where the ship stayed for a month, and then returned to Smyrna. Captain Newnam’s ill-advised and disastrous attempt at privateering in Ottoman waters on the return journey to Smyrna, led to the detention of his vessel at Smyrna under a double interdict from the English ambassador at the Porte and from the Ottoman authorities. Looker’s account of the Blackham Galley’s enforced stay in Smyrna furnishes a vigorous and detailed account of social life in the international merchant community, as well as portside life seen ‘from below’, with its taverns and prostitutes, and the activities and frequent ‘debauches’ of an increasingly bored and fractious crew. Looker’s record also provides interesting detail of his professional approach to treatment of the illnesses, accidents and occasional deaths of members of the company of his own and other ships anchored off Smyrna.

Read more less

Modern international business has its origins in the overseas trade of the Middle Ages. Of the various communities active in trade in the Islamic countries at that time, records of only the Jewish community survive. Thousands of documents were preserved in the Cairo Geniza, a lumber room attached to the synagogue where discarded writings containing the name of God were deposited to preserve them from desecration. From them Professor Goitein has selected eighty letters that provide a fascinating glimpse into the world of the medieval Jewish traders. As the letters vividly illustrate, international trade depended on a network of personal relationships and mutual confidence. Organization was largely through partnerships, based usually on ties of common religion but often reinforced by family connections. Sometimes the partners of Jews were Christians or Muslims, and the letters show these merchants working together in greater harmony than has been thought, even in partnerships that lasted through generations. The services rendered to a friend or partner and those expected from him were great, and the book opens with an angry letter from a merchant who believed he had been let down by his friend. The life of a trader was full of dangers, as the letter describing a shipwreck illustrates, and put great strain on personal relationships. One of the most moving letters is that written to his wife by a man absent in India for many years while endeavoring to make the family's fortunes. Although never ceasing to love her and longing to be with her, he offers to divorce her if she feels she can wait for him no longer. A decisive event in the life of the great Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, was the death of his brother David, who drowned in the Indian Ocean. Printed here is the last letter David wrote, describing his safe crossing of the desert and announcing his intention to go on to India, against his brother's instructions. Professor Goitein has provided an introduction and notes for each letter, and a general introduction describing the social and spiritual world of the writers, the organization of overseas trade in the Middle Ages, and the goods traded. The letters demonstrate that although it reached from Spain to India, the traders' world was a cohesive one through which these men could move freely and always feel at home. Originally published in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Read more less

In the sixteenth century, Spain's control over its vast New World empire depended on the sailors and officers who manned the galleons and merchant vessels of its Atlantic fleets. In Spain's Men of the Sea, Pablo E. Perez-Mallaina paints a stunning portrait of daily life aboard the ships of the Spanish Main. With a novelist's eye for both detail and drama, Perez-Mallaina evokes the golden age of seafaring in this thoroughly researched and generously illustrated account. Spain's Men of the Sea begins in Seville, the gateway to the New World. One of Europe's most cosmopolitan cities, Seville attracted people and goods from around the world. From Seville, Perez-Mallaina follows the Spanish fleets to the West Indies ports of San Juan de Ulda, Veracruz, Cartagena, Nombre de Dios, Portobelo, and Havana. He profiles the men and boys who went to sea-from the scions of seafaring dynasties and fugitives from justice to the orphans and destitute children apprenticed into service as cabin boys. Some signed on because of family tradition, more signed on because of the lure of New World treasure or simply to obtain free passage to the Americas. Most sailors were poorly paid, but the more enterprising among them supplemented their meager wages by small-scale trade or smuggling. Perez-Mallaina also describes relations among the ship owners, officers, and crews, and traces the intervention of the Spanish government in disputes over pay and cases of insubordination and mistreatment. Perez-Mallaina paints a bleak picture of life at sea and its physical and mental effect on seamen and passengers alike. The seafaring life was defined by cramped quarters, abominable food, seasickness, vermin infestation, and disease. More frightening still was the threat of shipwreck and assault by corsairs and pirates that accompanied all sea voyages. Not surprisingly, most sailors were highly superstitious, and Perez-Mallaina closes his vivid study with an exploration of their unorthodox religious beliefs, which combined Christian and pagan elements. A significant contribution to maritime history, Spain's Men of the Sea also succeeds as a compelling tale of everyday life and death in the maritime community. "Perez-Mallaina writes well and has an engaging sense of humor. The work is richly illustrated, and the illustrations, including many color plates, are well chosen...This book should appeal to all aficionados of the romance of the sea as well as to specialists in Spanish and Latin American colonial history."-Benjamin Keen, author of A History of Latin America

Read more less

Antitrust is a sledgehammer to the creation of European-wide markets. How does it really work though? Take the case of power contracting. Look at the smart and fresh view from a promising scholar: Adrien de Hauteclocque. A must read.'- Jean-Michel Glachant, European University Institute, Italy'Long-term energy contracts pose one of the greatest challenges for EU competition law. Focusing on electricity markets and contracts, this book provides interesting new approaches and guidance in this area of EU law. The book also examines a wider and even more difficult issue: what role can competition law have in creating markets. The book delivers. It is a remarkably lucid account of difficult issues. A must-have book for practitioners and policy makers alike.'- Kim Talus, University of Eastern FinlandMarket Building through Antitrust investigates the role of antitrust policy in the building of competitive energy markets in Europe.By looking at the specific problem of long-term supply and access contracts in the electricity sector, the book questions the suitability of antitrust policy as a market building tool. It shows that the institutional infrastructure that pre-dated competitive reform and the politics of liberalization have largely shaped the current dynamics at work in European energy regulatory practice. In particular, antitrust law has increasingly been used as a quasi-ex ante regulatory tool, thereby raising problems in terms of economic efficiency, legal certainty and political legitimacy.By mixing legal, political and economic perspectives, this book will appeal to a wide range of readers from academia in law, economics and political science, regulatory and competition authorities, as well as legal and consulting practices and business economists.Contents: Foreword General Introduction 1. The Problem of Long-term Contracts in Decentralized Electricity Markets: An Economic Perspective 2. Vertical De-integration and Single Market Integration in the European Union: An Incomplete Transition 3. The Antitrust Strategy of the European Commission on Long-term Contracts: Is the New Methodology truly 'More Economic'? 4. Long-term Contracts Across Member States: The Problem of Priority Access Rights to Interconnectors 5. The Strategy of the European Union for the Development of Interconnectors: Assessing the Role of Merchant Transmission Investment with Vincent Rious Bibliography Index

Read more less

This new book tells the story of the Ocean class of standard cargo ships, their design, building and careers, and the author places them firmly in the context of the battle of the Atlantic which was raging at the time of the first launchings. They entered the vanguard of the Allied shipping effort at a time when the German U-boat threat was at its most dangerous, and British shipping resources were stretched to the limit. They were deployed in the North Atlantic, on the long supply routes around Africa to the Middle East, in the Russian convoys, in operations in support of the invasions of North Africa and Italy and the land campaigns which followed, in the D-Day landings and later amphibious operations on the south coast of France. Finally, some of the class joined an invasion force making its way towards Malaya when Japan surrendered in August 1945\. The Oceans paid a heavy price for these accomplishments, one third of the class being lost to torpedoes, bombs or mines in places as far apart as the Florida coast, the Norwegian Sea, the Bay of Algiers and the Gulf of Oman. While these achievements alone would merit an important place in histories of the war at sea, the impact of the Oceans stretched far beyond the direct contribution of the ships themselves. The yards where they were built also served as models for a series of new American shipyards, designed to mass produce cargo vessels with such speed and in such volume as to completely reverse the mathematics of attrition, which had run so badly against the Allies into 1942\. Even more important, the Oceans' blueprints were used as the basis for the American Liberty ship, the 2,700-strong fleet which finally tilted the balance of the war at sea decisively in the Allies' favour and went on to underpin the post-war renewal of the world merchant fleet. This comprehensive new history, based on extensive archival research and lavishly illustrated with contemporary photographs, restores the Oceans to their rightful place in history. The ships' design antecedents are explained, and their ordering, financing and construction analysed in full. Wartime operations are covered in depth, by theatre and with full details of war losses and other casualties. The book concludes with an assessment of their subsequent peacetime careers and a comparison to other war-built designs. This is a model history of a highly significant class of ship.

Read more less

The Tang dynasty is often called China’s “golden age,” a period of commercial, religious, and cultural connections from Korea and Japan to the Persian Gulf, and a time of unsurpassed literary creativity. Mark Lewis captures a dynamic era in which the empire reached its greatest geographical extent under Chinese rule, painting and ceramic arts flourished, women played a major role both as rulers and in the economy, and China produced its finest lyric poets in Wang Wei, Li Bo, and Du Fu.The Chinese engaged in extensive trade on sea and land. Merchants from Inner Asia settled in the capital, while Chinese entrepreneurs set off for the wider world, the beginning of a global diaspora. The emergence of an economically and culturally dominant south that was controlled from a northern capital set a pattern for the rest of Chinese imperial history. Poems celebrated the glories of the capital, meditated on individual loneliness in its midst, and described heroic young men and beautiful women who filled city streets and bars.Despite the romantic aura attached to the Tang, it was not a time of unending peace. In 756, General An Lushan led a revolt that shook the country to its core, weakening the government to such a degree that by the early tenth century, regional warlordism gripped many areas, heralding the decline of the Great Tang.

Read more less

Today, states’ ability to borrow private capital depends on stringent evaluations of their creditworthiness. While many presume that this has long been the case, Quentin Bruneau argues that it is a surprisingly recent phenomenon—the outcome of a pivotal shift in the social composition of financial markets.Investigating the financiers involved in lending capital to sovereigns over the past two centuries, Bruneau identifies profound changes in their identities, goals, and forms of knowledge. He shows how an old world made up of merchant banking families pursuing both profit and status gradually gave way to a new one dominated by large companies, such as joint stock banks and credit rating agencies, exclusively pursuing profit. Lacking the web of personal ties to sovereigns across the world that their established rivals possessed, these financial institutions began relying on a different form of knowledge created to describe and compare states through quantifiable data: statistics. Over the course of this epochal shift, which only came to an end a few decades ago, financial markets thus reconceptualized states. Instead of a set of individuals to be known in person, they became numbers on a page. Raising new questions about the history of sovereign lending, this book illuminates the nature of the relationship between states and financial markets today—and suggests that it may be on the cusp of another major transformation.

Read more less

The foundations for a world-class public art collection in Berlin were laid in 1821: This was the year the Kingdom of Prussia acquired on behalf of the museum to be established in Berlin the painting collection of English merchant Edward Solly (1776-1844). Between 1815 and 1820 this cosmopolitan lover of the arts living in Berlin amassed thousands of paintings above all from Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. Many of the works were by artists little known at the time but who subsequently came to be greatly appreciated and are still renowned today. The exhibition and the accompanying catalogue showcase a representative selection of masterpieces, rediscoveries, and "historical peculiarities", and provide an insight into an age that on the one hand shaped our concepts of art and museums and on the other hand had an entirely different view of the works than we have today. Detailed insights into the history of the Berlin Gemäldegalerie Exhibition: Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, 2022 Artists i.e.: Wilhelm Hensel, Meister der Dossali Veneziani, Puccio di Simone, Giotto, Meister des San Niccolò-Altares, Domenico und Davide Ghirlandaio, Raffael, Girolamo Figino, Johannes Hispanus, Girolamo Romanino, Giovanni Battista Benvenuti, Goossen van der Weyden, Hans Holbein der Jüngere, Hans Maler, Ambrosius Benson, Jan Gossart, Rembrandt, Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem, Gian Domenico Cerrini

Read more less

Challenging the widely-held assumption that Slavoj Žižek's work is far more germane to film and cultural studies than to literary studies, this volume demonstrates the importance of Žižek to literary criticism and theory. The contributors show how Žižek's practice of reading theory and literature through one another allows him to critique, complicate, and advance the understanding of Lacanian psychoanalysis and German Idealism, thereby urging a rethinking of historicity and universality. His methodology has implications for analyzing literature across historical periods, nationalities, and genres and can enrich theoretical frameworks ranging from aesthetics, semiotics, and psychoanalysis to feminism, historicism, postcolonialism, and ecocriticism. The contributors also offer Žižekian interpretations of a wide variety of texts, including Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Samuel Beckett's Not I, and William Burroughs's Nova Trilogy. The collection includes an essay by Žižek on subjectivity in Shakespeare and Beckett. Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Literature but Were Afraid to Ask Žižek affirms Žižek's value to literary studies while offering a rigorous model of Žižekian criticism. Contributors. Shawn Alfrey, Daniel Beaumont, Geoff Boucher, Andrew Hageman, Jamil Khader, Anna Kornbluh, Todd McGowan, Paul Megna, Russell Sbriglia, Louis-Paul Willis, Slavoj Žižek

Read more less

From heart-stopping accounts of apparitions, poltergeists and related supernatural phenomena, to first-hand encounters with phantoms and spirits, this collection of stories contains both new and well-known spooky tales from around Stirling. A whole chapter is dedicated to the mysterious goings-on at Stirling Castle, where cleaners in the King's Old Building claimed to have heard footsteps coming from the third floor — which hasn't existed since a fire in the nineteenth-century; while a 1930s photograph purports to capture the shadow of a phantom guardsman — possibly the same 'Highland Soldier' often reportedly mistaken by tourists for a castle guide.The town itself has no shortage of fascinating tales, including the story of the Old Town's most famous phantom, seventeenth-century merchant John 'Auld Staney Breeks' Cowane, whose spirit is said to inhabit his statue each Hogmanay. A playful ghost supposedly throws pots and pans around the kitchens of the Darnley Coffee House, while frequent power failures and mishaps in the Tolbooth Theatre — originally the eighteenth-century Burgh jail — are blamed upon the malicious spirit of the last man hanged, Alan Mair. Drawing on historical and contemporary sources, Haunted Stirling is guaranteed to intrigue and chill both believers and sceptics alike.

Read more less

When a claimant to the title of Lord Darlymple comes to an unexpected sticky end, the cry goes up: 'Was it murder?'The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple is recruited by her cousin Edgar - the current Lord Dalrymple - to help him find the next heir to the viscountcy. With the involvement of the family lawyer, they come up with four claimants who, along with Daisy, are invited to Fairacres, the family estate, to celebrate Edgar's fiftieth birthday.And they're a mixed bunch. A hotelier from Scarborough, a diamond merchant from South Africa, a mixed-race boy from Trinidad and a sailor from Jamaica. But then the sailor goes missing... and so begins a series of inexplicable and troubling accidents, resulting in the death of one of the would-be heirs. Daisy and her husband, DCI Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard, are left wondering who might be behind all of this and, more importantly... who's next?Praise for the Daisy Dalrymple series:Cunning... appropriate historical detail and witty dialogue are the finishing touches on this engaging 1920s period piece. Publisher's WeeklyAs always, Dunn evokes the life and times of 1920s England while providing a plot that is a cut above the average British cosy. This will delight readers who love country-house mysteries. BooklistFor fans of Dorothy L. Sayers' novels. Library Journal

Read more less

HMS Turbulent was a Royal Navy T-class submarine. From its launch in May 1941 to when it was lost at sea, along with its entire crew, in March 1943, it was responsible for the sinking of nearly 100,000 tons of enemy shipping. Besides the number of enemy vessels it sunk, HMS Turbulent has gone down in history for the attack on the Italian merchant vessel the Nino Bixio, which at the time was carrying more than 3,000 Allied POWS who had been captured during the fighting in North Africa. Having left the Libyan port of Benghazi on 16 August 1942, accompanied by the Italian cargo vessel the Sestriere, the Nino Bixio was attacked the following day. A total of 336 Allied POWs, most of whom were either Australian or New Zealanders, were killed or died of their wounds in the explosion. Although badly damaged, the Nino Bixio stayed afloat and was towed to Navarino, in southern Greece, where the surviving POWs disembarked. The wounded were treated in hospital, while the rest were shipped on to POW camps in Bari, Italy. Although there have been different theories put forward as to how HMS Turbulent met its end off the Italian coast in 1943, there is still no absolute certainty as to where, when and how the boat and its crew were lost.

Read more less

“This stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States represents “a signal contribution to U.S. antebellum historiography.”—Library Journal, starred review “A remarkable piece of scholarship.”—Eric Herschthal, New Republic “Uncovers an important—and little known—aspect of both New York City history and the history of the illegal slave trade to Cuba.”—Erin Becker, Global Maritime History Long after the transatlantic slave trade was officially outlawed in the early nineteenth century by every major slave trading nation, merchants based in the United States were still sending hundreds of illegal slave ships from American ports to the African coast. The key instigators were slave traders who moved to New York City after the shuttering of the massive illegal slave trade to Brazil in 1850. These traffickers were determined to make Lower Manhattan a key hub in the illegal slave trade to Cuba. In conjunction with allies in Africa and Cuba, they ensnared around two hundred thousand African men, women, and children during the 1850s and 1860s. John Harris explores how the U.S. government went from ignoring, and even abetting, this illegal trade to helping to shut it down completely in 1867.

Read more less

A comprehensive survey and analysis of the Presbyterian community in its important formative period. The Presbyterian community in Ulster was created by waves of immigration, massively reinforced in the 1690s as Scots fled successive poor harvests and famine, and by 1700 Presbyterians formed the largest Protestant community in the north of Ireland. This book is a comprehensive survey and analysis of the Presbyterian community in this important formative period. It shows how the Presbyterians formed a highly organised, self-confident community which exercised a rigorous discipline over its members and had a well-developed intellectual life. It considers the various social groups within the community, demonstrating how the always small aristocratic and gentry component dwindled andwas virtually extinct by the 1730s, the Presbyterians deriving their strength from the middling sorts - clergy, doctors, lawyers, merchants, traders and, in particular, successful farmers and those active in the rapidly growing linen trades - and among the laborious poor. It discusses how Presbyterians were part of the economically dynamic element of Irish society; how they took the lead in the emigration movement to the American colonies; and how they maintained links with Scotland and related to other communities, in Ireland and elsewhere. Later in the eighteenth century, the Presbyterian community went on to form the backbone of the Republican, separatist movement. ROBERT WHAN obtained his Ph.D. in History from Queen's University, Belfast.

Read more less

The late sixteenth-century penal debt bond, which allowed an unsatisfied creditor to seize the body of his debtor, set in motion a series of precedents that would shape the legal, philosophical, and moral issue of property-in-person in England and America for centuries. Focusing on this historical juncture at which debt litigation was not merely an aspect of society but seemed to engulf it completely, Of Bondage examines a culture that understood money and the body of the borrower as comparable forms of property that impinged on one another at the moment of default. Amanda Bailey shows that the early modern theater, itself dependent on debt bonds, was well positioned to stage the complex ethical issues raised by a system of forfeiture that registered as a bodily event. While plays about debt like The Merchant of Venice and The Custom of the Country did not use the language of political philosophy, they were artistically and financially invested in exploring freedom as a function of possession. By revealing dramatic literature's heretofore unacknowledged contribution to the developing narrative of possessed persons, Amanda Bailey not only deepens our understanding of creditor-debtor relations in the period but also sheds new light on the conceptual conditions for the institutions of indentured servitude and African slavery. Of Bondage is vital not only for students and scholars of English literature but also for those interested in British and colonial legal history, the history of human rights, and the sociology of economics.

Read more less

'Outstanding, illuminating, compelling ... a riveting read' Peter Frankopan, Sunday Times Islamic civilization was once the envy of the world. From a succession of glittering, cosmopolitan capitals, Islamic empires lorded it over the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and swathes of the Indian subcontinent. For centuries the caliphate was both ascendant on the battlefield and triumphant in the battle of ideas, its cities unrivalled powerhouses of artistic grandeur, commercial power, spiritual sanctity and forward-looking thinking.Islamic Empires is a history of this rich and diverse civilization told through its greatest cities over fifteen centuries, from the beginnings of Islam in Mecca in the seventh century to the astonishing rise of Doha in the twenty-first.It dwells on the most remarkable dynasties ever to lead the Muslim world - the Abbasids of Baghdad, the Umayyads of Damascus and Cordoba, the Merinids of Fez, the Ottomans of Istanbul, the Mughals of India and the Safavids of Isfahan - and some of the most charismatic leaders in Muslim history, from Saladin in Cairo and mighty Tamerlane of Samarkand to the poet-prince Babur in his mountain kingdom of Kabul and the irrepressible Maktoum dynasty of Dubai. It focuses on these fifteen cities at some of the defining moments in Islamic history: from the Prophet Mohammed receiving his divine revelations in Mecca and the First Crusade of 1099 to the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the phenomenal creation of the merchant republic of Beirut in the nineteenth century.

Read more less

The Hermitage Musuem in St Petersburg is possibly the greatest museum in the world. It began as a showcase for the art treasures of the Tsars and reflects their legendary extravagance. Imperial romances, marriages and murders all had an impact on the collection, as did the byzantine bartering of international politics. Nationalised by the Bolsheviks in 1917, the museum expanded to fill the imperial family's Winter Palace and the three riverside pavilions that were built onto the palace in the late eighteenth century. Vast, confiscated collections came the way of the museum as a result of the Revolution - the finest treasures of the Russian nobility, as well as two great merchant collections of Gauguin, Matisse and modern masters. The courage and devotion to scholarship of its curators have helped the museum survive the terrible trials of the twentieth century: the exile, imprisonment and execution of many staff during Stalin's purges, and extremities of hunger during the siege of Leningrad - when 2,000 people lived in a makeshift bomb shelter in the museum cellars. With the 1990s has come a new battle, as the Hermitage struggles to survive amidst the economic chaos of post- Communist Russia. The Hermitage is the first full history of this great museum in any language. It highlights the human adventures involved in the creation and preservation of one of the finest art collections in the world, and reveals the hitherto unchronicled dramas of the Communist years. It provides an unusual perspective on Russia's troubled history.

Read more less

Trail of Footprints offers an intimate glimpse into the commission, circulation, and use of indigenous maps from colonial Mexico. A collection of sixty largely unpublished maps from the late sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries and made in the southern region of Oaxaca anchors an analysis of the way ethnically diverse societies produced knowledge in colonial settings. Mapmaking, proposes Hidalgo, formed part of an epistemological shift tied to the negotiation of land and natural resources between the region’s Spanish, Indian, and mixed-race communities. The craft of making maps drew from social memory, indigenous and European conceptions of space and ritual, and Spanish legal practices designed to adjust spatial boundaries in the New World. Indigenous mapmaking brought together a distinct coalition of social actors—Indian leaders, native towns, notaries, surveyors, judges, artisans, merchants, muleteers, collectors, and painters—who participated in the critical observation of the region’s geographic features. Demand for maps reconfigured technologies associated with the making of colorants, adhesives, and paper that drew from Indian botany and experimentation, trans-Atlantic commerce, and Iberian notarial culture. The maps in this study reflect a regional perspective associated with Oaxaca’s decentralized organization, its strategic position amidst a network of important trade routes that linked central Mexico to Central America, and the ruggedness and diversity of its physical landscape.

Read more less

The story of the inspiration for, establishment and evolution of the National Memorial Arboretum is a fascinating one. Sited at Alrewas, Staffordshire, the Arboretum has become the Nation's all year round focus for remembering and paying tribute to all who have served their country in both peace and war not only in the armed forces and merchant navy but in the emergency services as well.rnrnPlanting began in 1997 and was supported by hundreds of organisations both serving and retired. Among the early memorials was a life-size wooded polar bear, for 49th Division, a grove of Irish trees for the Royal Irish Regiment, an Avenue of Chestnuts for the Police and a Chapel of Peace and Forgiveness to mark the coming of the Millennium. Britain's war-widows had a rose-garden planted for them while the Far East Prisoners of War managed to fund a small museum to stand alongside a length of railway track brought back from the notorious Burma Railway. In October 2007 HM the Queen confirmed the importance of the site when she opened the Armed Forces Memorial to commemorate all service personnel lost on active service since the end of the Second World War; this is especially poignant given the on-going conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The importance of the National Memorial Arboretum is well demonstrated by the growing number of stands and the steady increase in visitor numbers.

Read more less

The threat of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's surprise invasion of Russia in June 1941, succeeding prompted Churchill to decide to send vital military supplies to Britain's new ally. The early sailings to Northern Russia via the Arctic Ocean between August 1941 and February 1942 were largely unopposed. But this changed dramatically during the course of 1942 when German naval and air operations inflicted heavy losses on both merchantmen and their escorts. Problems were exacerbated by the need to divert Royal Navy warships to support the North African landing. Strained Anglo-Soviet relations coupled with mounting losses and atrocious weather and sea conditions led to the near termination of the programme in early 1943. Again, competing operational priorities, namely the invasion of Sicily and preparations for D-Day, affected the convoy schedules. In the event, despite often crippling losses of lives, ships and supplies, the convoys continued until shortly before VE-Day. This thoroughly researched and comprehensive account examines both the political, maritime and logistic aspects of the Arctic convoy campaign. Controversially it reveals that the losses of merchant vessels were significantly greater than hitherto understood. While Churchill may not have described the convoys as the worst journey in the world', for the brave men who undertook he mission often at the cost of their lives, it most definitely was.

Read more less

An innovative collection of essays that foregrounds specific cargoes as a means to understand connectivity and mobility across the Indian Ocean world. Scholars have long appreciated the centrality of trade and commerce in understanding the connectivity and mobility that underpin human experience in the Indian Ocean region. But studies of merchant and commercial activities have paid little attention to the role that cargoes have played in connecting the disparate parts of this vast oceanic world. Drawing from the work of anthropologists, geographers, and historians, Cargoes in Motion tells the story of how material objects have informed and continue to shape processes of exchange across the Indian Ocean. By following selected cargoes through both space and time, this book makes an important and innovative contribution to Indian Ocean studies. The multidisciplinary approach deepens our understanding of the nature and dynamics of the Indian Ocean world by showing how transoceanic connectivity has been driven not only by economic, social, cultural, and political factors but also by the materiality of the objects themselves. Essays by: Edward A. Alpers Fahad Ahmad Bishara Eva-Maria Knoll Karl-Heinz Kohl Lisa Jenny Krieg Pedro Machado Rupert Neuhöfer Mareike Pampus Hannah Pilgrim Burkhard Schnepel Hanne Schönig Tansen Sen Steven Serels Julia Verne Kunbing Xiao

Read more less

Brilliant and bedraggled, the picaresque Jewish philosopher Solomon Maimon was one of the great thinkers of the eighteenth century. Now the definitive English version of Maimon's remarkable Autobiography, the 1888 translation by J. Clark Murray, is available for the first time in paperback, enhanced with a new introduction by Jewish studies scholar Michael Shapiro. Wry and spirited, shrewd and unrepentant, Maimon alternated between nomadic destitution and intellectual swordplay among the Jewish elite of Berlin. The son of a petty merchant in Polish Lithuania, Maimon was a child Talmud prodigy who became increasingly antagonistic toward the Jewish establishment and receptive toward the secular philosophies of Spinoza, Hume, Leibnitz, and Kant. A perpetual outsider, Maimon observed with an equally sharp eye the excesses of his time and the vicissitudes of his own life. Parallel to his own development as a thinker in the company of Moses Mendelssohn and others, Maimon conveys the physically wretched but spiritually vibrant Polish ghetto, the beginnings of Hasidism (which he denounces as antirationalist), and the world of the wealthy Berlin Jewry who enthusiastically embraced the ideas of the Enlightenment. Combining philosophical discourse with personal anecdotes that shift abruptly from the tragic to the hilarious and back, Maimon's Autobiography indelibly portrays one man's devotion to truth on his own terms regardless of the cost to himself or others.

Read more less

This book marks the centenary of Neil MacLeod's death in 1913 with the republication of some of his work. It also publishes for the first time all of the identifiable work of his brother, Iain Dubh (1847 - 1901), and of their father, Domhnall nan Oran (c.1787 - 1873). Their contrasting styles mark a fascinating period of transition in literary tastes between the 18th and early 20th centuries at a time of profound social upheaval. Neil Macleod left Glendale in Skye to become a tea-merchant in Edinburgh. His songs were prized by his fellow Gaels for their sweetness of sentiment and melody, which placed a balm on the recent wounds of emigration and clearance. They are still very widely known, and Neil's collection Clarsach an Doire was reprinted four times. Professor Derick Thomson rightly described him as 'the example par excellence of the popular poet in Gaelic'. However, many prefer the earthy quality of the work of his less famous brother, Iain Dubh. This book contains 58 poems in all (32 by Neil, 14 by Iain and 22 by Domhnall), with translations, background notes and the melodies where known. Biographies are given of the three poets, while the introduction reflects on the difference in style between them and places each in his literary context. An essay in Gaelic by Professor Norman MacDonald reflects on the social significance of the family in the general Gaelic diaspora.

Read more less

'Read this wonderfully entertaining book: a unique story of a unique life in the world of world cinema' Wes Anderson'Jim is as eloquent and elegant with words as with the camera . . . Read it and drink it in!' Helena Bonham CarterIn Solid Ivory, a carefully crafted mosaic of memories, portraits, and reflections, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Ivory tells stories from his remarkable life and career as one of the most influential directors of his time. He often touches on his love affairs, looking back coolly and with unexpected frankness.From first meeting his collaborator and life partner, Ismail Merchant, at the Indian Consulate in New York to winning an Academy Award at age eighty-nine for Call Me by Your Name, Ivory writes with invariable fluency, wit, and perception about what made him who he is and how he made the movies for which he is known and loved.Solid Ivory, edited by Peter Cameron, is an utterly winning portrait of an extraordinary life told by an unmatched storyteller.'Consistently entertaining' Guardian'James Ivory write[s] with perfect elegance...there's nothing starchy or uptight about these scenes from his fascinating life' Sunday Times

Read more less

Presented here are nine tales from the celebrated Ming dynasty Sanyan collection of vernacular stories compiled and edited by Feng Menglong (1574–1646), the most knowledgeable connoisseur of popular literature of his time in China. The stories he collected were pivotal to the development of Chinese vernacular fiction, and their importance in the Chinese literary canon and world literature has been compared to that of Boccaccio’s Decameron and the stories of One Thousand and One Nights. Peopled with scholars, emperors, ministers, generals, and a gallery of ordinary men and women in their everyday surroundings—merchants and artisans, prostitutes and courtesans, matchmakers and fortune-tellers, monks and nuns, servants and maids, thieves and imposters—the stories provide a vivid panorama of the bustling world of imperial China before the end of the Ming dynasty. The three volumes constituting the Sanyan set—Stories Old and New, Stories to Caution the World, and Stories to Awaken the World, each containing forty tales—have been translated in their entirety by Shuhui Yang and Yunqin Yang. The stories in this volume were selected for their popularity with American readers and their usefulness as texts in classes on Chinese and comparative literature. These unabridged translations include all the poetry that is scattered throughout the original stories, as well as Feng Menglong’s interlinear and marginal comments, which point out what seventeenth-century readers of the stories were being asked to appreciate.

Read more less

"Her life was a bridge from the nineteenth century to the twentieth, from the time-hallowed beauty and rigidity of a samurai household to the disorienting, forward-looking freedoms of the West." —Janice P. Nimura, from the foreword.This is the story of one woman's remarkable life successfully navigating two very different cultures—the first memoir of an Asian-American woman.Beautifully told, this immigrant's account of an unforgettable journey is the story of a headstrong and empowered woman—a loyal wife, a widowed mother and a bilingual breadwinner—finding her way and finding her voice in a strange new world.Follow in her footsteps and trace the remarkable trajectory of her life as she: Witnesses her father prepare and perform the ritual seppuku and her mother burn down the family home Bids an emotional farewell and sails across the ocean to marry a wealthy merchant in a new land Returns to Tokyo with her two daughters and mother-in-law, only to find her homeland just as alien as America, forcing her to reinvent herself again in order to provide for her family Returns to America with her children following the death of her mother-in-law An international bestseller when it was first published a century ago, A Daughter of the Samurai emerges as a rare testament to a singular woman's resolve, strength and endurance. This edition features a new foreword by 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist Janice P. Nimura.

Read more less

What do Bill Gates, Henry Ford, J. P. Morgan, Mary Kay Ash, and Walt Disney all have in common? Uncompromising vision, a willingness to take risks, and exceptional business acumen. Not only did these individuals amass great fortunes, they revolutionized the business world and helped shape society as we know it. Theirs are just a few of the stories collected in this anthology of commercial ingenuity. Drawing on a wealth of sources, this priceless collection brings to life extraordinary achievements, many of them forgotten or little known: how Robert Morris, the preeminent merchant of the eighteenth century, financed the American Revolution with his personal credit; how Ray Kroc used a shrewd real estate strategy to turn a faltering hamburger franchise operation into the McDonald's fast food empire; and how Mary Kay Ash built a billion-dollar direct sales cosmetics company by preaching a message of economic empowerment to women. Enlightening and fascinating, Forbes(r) Greatest Business Stories of All Time celebrates larger-than-life ambition, inspired leadership, wheeling and dealing, and hard work. Forbes is a registered trademark of Forbes Inc. Its use is pursuant to a license agreement with Forbes Inc.

Read more less

What do Bill Gates, Henry Ford, J. P. Morgan, Mary Kay Ash, and Walt Disney all have in common? Uncompromising vision, a willingness to take risks, and exceptional business acumen. Not only did these individuals amass great fortunes, they revolutionized the business world and helped shape society as we know it. Theirs are just a few of the stories collected in this anthology of commercial ingenuity. Drawing on a wealth of sources, this priceless collection brings to life extraordinary achievements, many of them forgotten or little known: how Robert Morris, the preeminent merchant of the eighteenth century, financed the American Revolution with his personal credit; how Ray Kroc used a shrewd real estate strategy to turn a faltering hamburger franchise operation into the McDonald's fast food empire; and how Mary Kay Ash built a billion-dollar direct sales cosmetics company by preaching a message of economic empowerment to women. Enlightening and fascinating, Forbes(r) Greatest Business Stories of All Time celebrates larger-than-life ambition, inspired leadership, wheeling and dealing, and hard work. Forbes is a registered trademark of Forbes Inc. Its use is pursuant to a license agreement with Forbes Inc.

Read more less

Contributions by Grace Elizabeth Hale, Katie Knowles, Ted Ownby, Jonathan Prude, William Sturkey, Susannah Walker, Becca Walton, and Sarah Jones WeickselFashion studies have long centered on the art and preservation of finely rendered garments of the upper class, and archival resources used in the study of southern history have gaps and silences. Yet, little study has been given to the approach of clothing as something made, worn, and intimately experienced by enslaved people, incarcerated people, and the poor and working class, and by subcultures perceived as transgressive. The essays in the volume, using clothing as a point of departure, encourage readers to imagine the South's centuries-long engagement with a global economy through garments, with cotton harvested by enslaved or poorly paid workers, milled in distant factories, designed with influence from cosmopolitan tastemakers, and sold back in the South, often by immigrant merchants. Contributors explore such topics as how free and enslaved women with few or no legal rights claimed to own clothing in the mid-1800s, how white women in the Confederacy claimed the making of clothing as a form of patriotism, how imprisoned men and women made and imagined their clothing, and clothing cooperatives in civil rights-era Mississippi. An introduction by editors Ted Ownby and Becca Walton asks how best to begin studying clothing and fashion in southern history, and an afterword by Jonathan Prude asks how best to conclude.

Read more less

In the late nineteenth century, as much of the world adopted some variant of the gold standard, China remained the most populous country still using silver. Yet China had no unified national currency; there was not one monetary standard but many. Silver coins circulated alongside chunks of silver and every transaction became an "encounter of wits." China and the End of Global Silver, 1873–1937 focuses on how officials, policy makers, bankers, merchants, academics, and journalists in China and around the world answered a simple question: how should China change its monetary system? Far from a narrow, technical issue, Chinese monetary reform is a dramatic story full of political revolutions, economic depressions, chance, and contingency. As different governments in China attempted to create a unified monetary standard in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the United States, England, and Japan tried to shape the direction of Chinese monetary reform for their own benefit. Austin Dean argues convincingly that the Silver Era in world history ended owing to the interaction of imperial competition in East Asia and the state-building projects of different governments in China. When the Nationalist government of China went off the silver standard in 1935, it marked a key moment not just in Chinese history but in world history.

Read more less

Full of colorful details and engrossing stories, Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles shows that the aspirations of individual Americans to be recognized as people worthy of others' respect was a driving force in the global extension of United States influence shortly after the nation's founding. Nancy Shoemaker contends that what she calls extraterritorial Americans constituted the vanguard of a vast, early US global expansion. Using as her site of historical investigation nineteenth-century Fiji, the "cannibal isles" of American popular culture, she uncovers stories of Americans looking for opportunities to rise in social status and enhance their sense of self. Prior to British colonization in 1874, extraterritorial Americans had, she argues, as much impact on Fiji as did the British. While the American economy invested in the extraction of sandalwood and sea slugs as resources to sell in China, individuals who went to Fiji had more complicated, personal objectives. Pursuing Respect in the Cannibal Isles considers these motivations through the lives of the three Americans who left the deepest imprint on Fiji: a runaway whaleman who settled in the islands, a sea captain's wife, and a merchant. Shoemaker's book shows how ordinary Americans living or working overseas found unusual venues where they could show themselves worthy of others' respect—others' approval, admiration, or deference.

Read more less

In 1868, Jacob Kaufmann, the nineteen-year-old son of a German farmer, stepped off a ship onto the shores of New York. His brother Isaac soon followed, and together they joined an immigrant community of German Jews selling sewing items to the coal miners and mill workers of western Pennsylvania. After opening merchant tailor shops in Pittsburgh’s North and South sides, the Kaufmann brothers caught the wave of a new type of merchandising - the department store - and launched what would become their retail dynasty with a downtown storefront at Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street. In just two decades, Jacob and his brothers had ascended Pittsburgh’s economic and social ladder, rising from hardscrabble salesmen into Gilded Age multimillionaires.Generous and powerful philanthropists, the Kaufmanns left an indelible mark on the city and western Pennsylvania. From Edgar and Liliane’s famous residence, the Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece called Fallingwater, to the Kaufmann clock, a historic landmark that inspired the expression “meet me under the clock,” to countless fond memories for residents and shoppers, the Kaufmann family made important contributions to art, architecture, and culture. Far less known are the personal tragedies and fateful ambitions that forever shaped this family, their business, and the place they called home. Kaufmann’s recounts the story of one of Pittsburgh’s most beloved department stores, pulling back the curtain to reveal the hardships, triumphs, and complicated legacy of the prominent family behind its success.

Read more less