Search results for ""Author James S. Olson""
Johns Hopkins University Press Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer, and History
"Breast cancer may very well be history's oldest malaise, known as well to the ancients as it is to us. The women who have endured it share a unique sisterhood. Queen Atossa and Dr. Jerri Nielsen-separated by era and geography, by culture, religion, politics, economics, and world view-could hardly have been more different. Born 2,500 years apart, they stand as opposite bookends on the shelf of human history. One was the most powerful woman in the ancient world, the daughter of an emperor, the mother of a god; the other is a twenty-first-century physician with a streak of adventure coursing through her veins. From the imperial throne in ancient Babylon, Atossa could not have imagined the modern world, and only in the driest pages of classical literature could Antarctica-based Jerri Nielsen even have begun to fathom the Near East five centuries before the birth of Christ. For all their differences, however, they shared a common fear that transcends time and space." -from Bathsheba's Breast In 1967, an Italian surgeon touring Amsterdam's Rijks museum stopped in front of Rembrandt's Bathsheba at Her Bath, on loan from the Louvre, and noticed an asymmetry to Bathsheba's left breast; it seemed distended, swollen near the armpit, discolored, and marked with a distinctive pitting. With a little research, the physician learned that Rembrandt's model, his mistress Hendrickje Stoffels, later died after a long illness, and he conjectured in a celebrated article for an Italian medical journal that the cause of her death was almost certainly breast cancer. A horror known to every culture in every age, breast cancer has been responsible for the deaths of 25 million women throughout history. An Egyptian physician writing 3,500 years ago concluded that there was no treatment for the disease. Later surgeons recommended excising the tumor or, in extreme cases, the entire breast. This was the treatment advocated by the court physician to sixth-century Byzantine empress Theodora, the wife of Justinian, though she chose to die in pain rather than lose her breast. Only in the past few decades has treatment advanced beyond disfiguring surgery. In Bathsheba's Breast, historian James S. Olson-who lost his left hand and forearm to cancer while writing this book-provides an absorbing and often frightening narrative history of breast cancer told through the heroic stories of women who have confronted the disease, from Theodora to Anne of Austria, Louis XIV's mother, who confronted "nun's disease" by perfecting the art of dying well, to Dr. Jerri Nielson, who was dramatically evacuated from the South Pole in 1999 after performing a biopsy on her own breast and self-administering chemotherapy. Olson explores every facet of the disease: medicine's evolving understanding of its pathology and treatment options; its cultural significance; the political and economic logic that has dictated the terms of a war on a "woman's disease"; and the rise of patient activism. Olson concludes that, although it has not yet been conquered, breast cancer is no longer the story of individual women struggling alone against a mysterious and deadly foe.
£21.00
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Where the Domino Fell: America and Vietnam 1945 - 2010
This updated, expanded edition of Where the Domino Fell recounts the history of American involvement in Vietnam from the end of World War II, clarifying the political aims, military strategy, and social and economic factors that contributed to the participants' actions. Revised and updated to include an examination of Vietnam through the point of view of the soldiers themselves, and brings the story up to the present day through a look at how the war has been memorialized A final chapter examines Vietnam through the lens of Oliver Stone's films and opens up a discussion of the War in popular culture Written with brevity and clarity, this concise narrative history of the Vietnam conflict is an ideal student text A chronology, glossary, and a bibliography all serve as helpful reference points for students An important contribution not only to the study of the Vietnam War but to an understanding of the larger workings of American foreign policy
£37.00
University of Nebraska Press John Wayne: American
"John Wayne remains a constant in American popular culture. Middle America grew up with him in the late 1920s and 1930s, went to war with him in the 1940s, matured with him in the 1950s, and kept the faith with him in the 1960s and 1970s. . . . In his person and in the persona he so carefully constructed, middle America saw itself, its past, and its future. John Wayne was his country’s alter ego." Thus begins John Wayne: American, a biography bursting with vitality and revealing the changing scene in Hollywood and America from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War. During a long movie career, John Wayne defined the role of the cowboy and soldier, the gruff man of decency, the hero who prevailed when the chips were down. But who was he, really? Here is the first substantive, serious view of a contradictory private and public figure.
£30.60
John Wiley and Sons Ltd Honest Graft: The World of George Washington Plunkitt (Plunkitt of Tammany Hall)
William L. Riordon's compiling and embroidering of Boss Plunkitt's boastful comments on machine politics constitutes a minor classic in American social history. in an introduction to this edition of the political boss's remarks, James S. Olson, chairman of the history department at Sam Houston State University, and James W. Mooney of American University engage in a provocative exchange over how the boss mentality as Plunkitt expressed it is to be judged. Thereby they complicate and enrich a reader's perception of the practical devices and ethical ambiguities of popular politics. "Tammany Hall was far more than a disinterested detached city government for several million poor, working-class New Yorkers. It was also a successful city government delivering municipal services, a social welfare agency assisting the immigrant poor and their children in adjusting to the new country, a political interest group giving working-class people at least a modest voice in an economic world increasingly dominated by rich corporations." --James S. Olson "In essence: the machine politicos, for all their genuine resonance with their constituencies, saw the average voter as a creature of appetite; the scientific progressives, for all their hauteur, expected something better of the public and were prepared to work for it." --James W. Mooney
£23.95
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Ethnic Dimension in American History
The Ethnic Dimension in American History is a thorough survey of the role that ethnicity has played in shaping the history of the United States. Considering ethnicity in terms of race, language, religion and national origin, this important text examines its effects on social relations, public policy and economic development. A thorough survey of the role that ethnicity has played in shaping the history of the United States, including the effects of ethnicity on social relations, public policy and economic development Includes histories of a wide range of ethnic groups including African Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Chinese, Europeans, Japanese, Muslims, Koreans, and Latinos Examines the interaction of ethnic groups with one another and the dynamic processes of acculturation, modernization, and assimilation; as well as the history of immigration Revised and updated material in the fourth edition reflects current thinking and recent history, bringing the story up to the present and including the impact of 9/11
£34.95
