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Normal Women: Nine Hundred Years of Making History
Par Philippa Gregory. 2023
“Lively, timely and gloriously energetic. Each page bursts with life, and every chapter swirls with personalities left out of traditional…
narratives of Britain’s past. Philippa Gregory has produced something rare and wonderful: a genuinely new history of [Britain], with women at its beating heart.” —Dan Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Plantagenets“You’ve devoured her novels, but now Gregory shows off chops as a historian. . . . An amazing read.” —The Los Angeles Times The #1 New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her magnum opus—a landmark work of feminist nonfiction that radically redefines our understanding of the extraordinary roles ordinary women played throughout British history.Did you know that there are more penises than women in the Bayeux Tapestry? That the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was started and propelled by women who were protesting a tax on women? Or that celebrated naturalist Charles Darwin believed not just that women were naturally inferior to men, but that they’d evolve to become ever more inferior?These are just a few of the startling findings you will learn from reading Philippa Gregory’s Normal Women. In this ambitious and groundbreaking book, she tells the story of England over 900 years, for the very first time placing women—some fifty per cent of the population—center stage.Using research skills honed in her work as one of our foremost historical novelists, Gregory trawled through court records, newspapers, and journals to find highwaywomen and beggars, murderers and brides, housewives and pirates, female husbands and hermits. The “normal women” you will meet in these pages went to war, ploughed the fields, campaigned, wrote, and loved. They rode in jousts, flew Spitfires, issued their own currency, and built ships, corn mills and houses. They committed crimes or treason, worshipped many gods, cooked and nursed, invented things, and rioted. A lot.A landmark work of scholarship and storytelling, Normal Women chronicles centuries of social and cultural change—from 1066 to modern times—powered by the determination, persistence, and effectiveness of women.*INCLUDES ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT AND A FULL-COLOR INSERT*A Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan Poe
Par Mark Dawidziak. 2023
A Mystery of Mysteries is a brilliant biography of Edgar Allan Poe that examines the renowned author’s life through the…
prism of his mysterious death and its many possible causes.It is a moment shrouded in horror and mystery. Edgar Allan Poe died on October 7, 1849, at just forty, in a painful, utterly bizarre manner that would not have been out of place in one of his own tales of terror. What was the cause of his untimely death, and what happened to him during the three missing days before he was found, delirious and “in great distress” on the streets of Baltimore, wearing ill-fitting clothes that were not his own?Mystery and horror. Poe, who remains one of the most iconic of American writers, died under haunting circumstances that reflect the two literary genres he took to new heights. Over the years, there has been a staggering amount of speculation about the cause of death, from rabies and syphilis to suicide, alcoholism, and even murder. But many of these theories are formed on the basis of the caricature we have come to associate with Poe: the gloomy-eyed grandfather of Goth, hunched over a writing desk with a raven perched on one shoulder, drunkenly scribbling his chilling masterpieces. By debunking the myths of how he lived, we come closer to understanding the real Poe—and uncovering the truth behind his mysterious death, as a new theory emerges that could prove the cause of Poe’s death was haunting him all his life.In a compelling dual-timeline narrative alternating between Poe’s increasingly desperate last months and his brief but impactful life, Mark Dawidziak sheds new light on the enigmatic master of macabre.Inventing a Nation: Washington, Adams, Jefferson (Icons of America)
Par Gore Vidal. 2003
This New York Times bestseller offers &“an unblinking view of our national heroes by one who cherishes them, warts and…
all&” (New York Review of Books). In Inventing a Nation, National Book Award winner Gore Vidal transports the reader into the minds, the living rooms (and bedrooms), the convention halls, and the salons of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and others. We come to know these men, through Vidal&’s splendid prose, in ways we have not up to now—their opinions of each other, their worries about money, their concerns about creating a viable democracy. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation. He also illuminates the force and weight of the documents they wrote, the speeches they delivered, and the institutions of government by which we still live. More than two centuries later, America is still largely governed by the ideas championed by this triumvirate. The author of Burr and Lincoln, one of the master stylists of American literature and most acute observers of American life, turns his immense literary and historiographic talent to a portrait of these formidable menThe Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan
Par Robert Kanigel. 1991
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING JEREMY IRONS AND DEV PATEL!A moving and enlightening look at the unbelievable true story…
of how gifted prodigy Ramanujan stunned the scholars of Cambridge University and revolutionized mathematics.In 1913, a young unschooled Indian clerk wrote a letter to G H Hardy, begging the preeminent English mathematician's opinion on several ideas he had about numbers. Realizing the letter was the work of a genius, Hardy arranged for Srinivasa Ramanujan to come to England.Thus began one of the most improbable and productive collaborations ever chronicled. With a passion for rich and evocative detail, Robert Kanigel takes us from the temples and slums of Madras to the courts and chapels of Cambridge University, where the devout Hindu Ramanujan, "the Prince of Intuition," tested his brilliant theories alongside the sophisticated and eccentric Hardy, "the Apostle of Proof."In time, Ramanujan's creative intensity took its toll: he died at the age of thirty-two, but left behind a magical and inspired legacy that is still being plumbed for its secrets today.Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy
Par Carlos Eire. 2010
Continuing the personal saga begun in the National Book Award-winning Waiting for Snow in Havana, the inspiring, sad, funny, bafflingly…
beautiful story of a boy uprooted by the Cuban Revolution and transplanted to Miami during the years of the Kennedy administration.In his 2003 National Book Award–winning memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana, Carlos Eire narrated his coming of age in Cuba just before and during the Castro revolution. That book literally ends in midair as eleven-year-old Carlos and his older brother leave Havana on an airplane—along with thousands of other children—to begin their new life in Miami in 1962. It would be years before he would see his mother again. He would never again see his beloved father.Learning to Die in Miami opens as the plane lands and Carlos faces, with trepidation and excitement, his new life. He quickly realizes that in order for his new American self to emerge, his Cuban self must &“die.&” And so, with great enterprise and purpose, he begins his journey. We follow Carlos as he adjusts to life in his new home. Faced with learning English, attending American schools, and an uncertain future, young Carlos confronts the age-old immigrant&’s plight: being surrounded by American bounty, but not able to partake right away. The abundance America has to offer excites him and, regardless of how grim his living situation becomes, he eagerly forges ahead with his own personal assimilation program, shedding the vestiges of his old life almost immediately, even changing his name to Charles. Cuba becomes a remote and vague idea in the back of his mind, something he used to know well, but now it &“had ceased to be part of the world.&” But as Carlos comes to grips with his strange surroundings, he must also struggle with everyday issues of growing up. His constant movement between foster homes and the eventual realization that his parents are far away in Cuba bring on an acute awareness that his life has irrevocably changed. Flashing back and forth between past and future, we watch as Carlos balances the divide between his past and present homes and finds his way in this strange new world, one that seems to hold the exhilarating promise of infinite possibilities and one that he will eventually claim as his own. An exorcism and an ode, Learning to Die in Miami is a celebration of renewal—of those times when we&’re certain we have died and then are somehow, miraculously, reborn.The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the Battle over the Greatest Riches in the American West
Par Gregory Crouch. 1873
&“A monumentally researched biography of one of the nineteenth century&’s wealthiest self-made Americans…Well-written and worthwhile&” (The Wall Street Journal) it&’s…
the rags-to-riches frontier tale of an Irish immigrant who outwits, outworks, and outmaneuvers thousands of rivals to take control of Nevada&’s Comstock Lode.Born in 1831, John W. Mackay was a penniless Irish immigrant who came of age in New York City, went to California during the Gold Rush, and mined without much luck for eight years. When he heard of riches found on the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1859, Mackay abandoned his claim and walked a hundred miles to the Comstock Lode in Nevada.Over the course of the next dozen years, Mackay worked his way up from nothing, thwarting the pernicious &“Bank Ring&” monopoly to seize control of the most concentrated cache of precious metals ever found on earth, the legendary &“Big Bonanza,&” a stupendously rich body of gold and silver ore discovered 1,500 feet beneath the streets of Virginia City, the ultimate Old West boomtown. But for the ore to be worth anything it had to be found, claimed, and successfully extracted, each step requiring enormous risk and the creation of an entirely new industry.Now Gregory Crouch tells Mackay&’s amazing story—how he extracted the ore from deep underground and used his vast mining fortune to crush the transatlantic telegraph monopoly of the notorious Jay Gould. &“No one does a better job than Crouch when he explores the subject of mining, and no one does a better job than he when he describes the hardscrabble lives of miners&” (San Francisco Chronicle). Featuring great period photographs and maps, The Bonanza King is a dazzling tour de force, a riveting history of Virginia City, Nevada, the Comstock Lode, and America itself.G E O R G E H OW E C O L T ’ S The Big House is, as…
the New Yorker said, “full of surprises and contains more than seems possible: a family memoir, a brief history of the Cape, an investigation of nostalgia, a study of class, and a meditation on the privileges and burdens of the past.” Colt’s new book, Brothers, is an equally idiosyncratic and masterful blend of memoir and history featuring both the author’s three brothers and iconic brothers in history—the Booths, the Van Goghs, the Kelloggs, the Marx Brothers, and the Thoreaus. Colt believes he would be a different man had he not grown up in a family of four brothers. He movingly recounts the adoration, envy, affection, resentment, and compassion in their shifting relationships from childhood through middle age, also rendering a volatile decade in American life: the 1960s. Some of the Colt men now have children; all have found their own paths; all now consider their brothers to be their closest friends. In alternate chapters, Colt parallels his quest to understand how his own brothers shaped his life with an examination of the rich and complex relationships between iconic brothers in history. He explores how Edwin Booth grew up to become the greatest actor on the nineteenth-century American stage while his younger brother John grew up to assassinate a president. How Will Kellogg worked for his overbearing older brother John Harvey as a subservient yes-man for two decades until he finally broke free and launched the cereal empire that outlasted all his brother’s enterprises. How Vincent van Gogh would never have survived without the financial and emotional support of his younger brother, Theo, in a claustrophobic relationship that both defined and confined them. How Henry David Thoreau’s life was shadowed by the early death of his older brother, John, who haunted and inspired his writing. And how the Marx Brothers collaborated on the screen but competed offstage for women, money, and fame. Illuminating and affecting, this book will be revelatory for any parent of sons, any sibling, anyone curious about how a man’s life can be molded by his brothers. Colt’s magnificent book is a testament to the abiding power of fraternal love.Hitler's Father: Hidden Letters: Why the Son Became a Dictator
Par Roman Sandgruber. 2022
The bundle of 31 letters, the pages of which had long yellowed with age, had lain hidden in the attic…
where they were found for over a century. Only when the razor-sharp script was examined further did historians discover just who had written them – and that person, Alois, was Adolf Hitler’s father. Born Alois Schicklgruber on 7 June 1837, the identity of his biological father still undisclosed, Alois eventually became a civil servant in the Austrian customs service. At around the age of 40, Alois changed his family name from Schicklgruber to Hitler – his infamous son being born some eleven years later. The contents of the re-discovered letters have allowed the renowned historian and author Roman Sandgruber to reassess the image that we have of Alois, offering the world a completely new and authentic impression of the man. In Hitler’s Father, Sandgruber re-examines Alois’ personality and how he significantly shaped the young Adolf. The letters also shed further light onto the everyday life of the Hitler family as whole, a story which is often characterized by myths, inventions and assumptions. They have given the author the opportunity to recount the childhood and youth of the future dictator, painting a dramatic picture of the ‘Führer’ growing up. These letters also help answer the question that is so often asked: How could a child from an Upper Austrian province, seemingly a failure and self-taught, rise to a position of such power? Indeed, Adolf Hitler’s father and ‘the province’ seemingly lay heavily on him until his suicide in the Führerbunker in 1945. The author examines how the young Hitler’s lowly upbringing may have affected him in the years that followed – years which shaped the history of the whole world.Pioneer Women: Voices from the Kansas Frontier
Par Joanna L. Stratton. 1981
From a rediscovered collection of autobiographical accounts written by hundreds of Kansas pioneer women in the early twentieth century, Joanna…
Stratton has created a collection hailed by Newsweek as “uncommonly interesting” and “a remarkable distillation of primary sources.”Never before has there been such a detailed record of women’s courage, such a living portrait of the women who civilized the American frontier. Here are their stories: wilderness mothers, schoolmarms, Indian squaws, immigrants, homesteaders, and circuit riders. Their personal recollections of prairie fires, locust plagues, cowboy shootouts, Indian raids, and blizzards on the plains vividly reveal the drama, danger and excitement of the pioneer experience. These were women of relentless determination, whose tenacity helped them to conquer loneliness and privation. Their work was the work of survival, it demanded as much from them as from their men—and at last that partnership has been recognized. “These voices are haunting” (The New York Times Book Review), and they reveal the special heroism and industriousness of pioneer women as never before.The True History of Merlin the Magician
Par Anne Lawrence-Mathers. 2012
A medieval historian examines what we really know about the man who was &“Merlin the Magician&” and his impact on…
Britain. Merlin has remained an enthralling and curious individual since he was first introduced in the twelfth century in Geoffrey of Monmouth&’s Historia Regum Britanniae. But although the Merlin of literature and Arthurian myth is well known, his &“historical&” figure and his relation to medieval magic are less familiar. In this book Anne Lawrence-Mathers explores just who he was and what he has meant to Britain.The historical Merlin was no rough magician: he was a learned figure from the cutting edge of medieval science and adept in astrology, cosmology, prophecy, and natural magic, as well as being a seer and a proto-alchemist. His powers were convincingly real—and useful, for they helped to add credibility to the &“long-lost&” history of Britain which first revealed them to a European public. Merlin&’s prophecies reassuringly foretold Britain&’s path, establishing an ancient ancestral line and linking biblical prophecy with more recent times. Merlin helped to put British history into world history.Lawrence-Mathers also explores the meaning of Merlin&’s magic across the centuries, arguing that he embodied ancient Christian and pagan magical traditions, recreated for a medieval court and shaped to fit a new moral framework. Linking Merlin&’s reality and power with the culture of the Middle Ages, this remarkable book reveals the true impact of the most famous magician of all time.&“The story of how the image of Merlin as political prophet, magician and half-demon evolved in the Middle Ages is as fascinating as any romance.&”—Euan CameronKick: The True Story of JFK's Sister and the Heir to Chatsworth
Par Paula Byrne. 2016
The acclaimed biography of the unconventional, nearly forgotten Kennedy sister who charmed the world and broke with her family for love.Rose…
and Joe Kennedy’s children were the embodiment of ambitious, wholesome Americanism. Yet even within this group of overachievers, the irrepressible Kathleen stood out. Lively, charismatic, and blessed with graceful athleticism, the alluring socialite known as Kick effortlessly made friends and stole hearts.When her father became ambassador to Great Britain in 1938, Kick charmed the nation with her unconventional attitude and easygoing humor. She would also shock and alienate her devout family by marrying the scion of a virulently anti-Catholic family— William Cavendish, the heir apparent of the Duke of Devonshire and Chatsworth. But the marriage would last only a few months; Billy was killed in combat in 1944, just four years before Kick’s own unexpected death in an airplane crash at twenty-eight.Paula Byrne recounts this remarkable young woman’s life as never before, from her work at the Washington Times-Herald to her volunteering with the Red Cross in wartime England; and from her deep love of politics to her decision to renounce her faith for the man she loved. Sympathetic and compelling, Kick shines a spotlight on this feisty and unique Kennedy long relegated to the shadows of her legendary family’s history.Hannibal
Par Patrick N Hunt. 2017
Hannibal is &“an exciting biography of one of history&’s greatest commanders…a thrilling page-turner&” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) about the brilliant…
general who successfully crossed the Alps with his war elephants and brought Rome to its knees, and who is still regarded today as one of the greatest military strategists in history.Hannibal Barca of Carthage, born 247 BC, was one of the great generals of the ancient world. His father, Hamilcar, imposed Carthaginian rule over much of present-day Spain. After Hamilcar led the Carthaginian forces against Rome in the First Punic War, Hannibal followed in his father&’s footsteps. From the time he was a teenager, Hannibal fought against Rome. He is famed for leading Carthage&’s army across North Africa, into Spain, along the Mediterranean coast, and then crossing the Alps with his army and war elephants. Hannibal won victories in northern Italy by outmaneuvering his Roman adversaries and defeated a larger Roman army at the battle of Cannae in 216 BC. Unable to force Rome to capitulate, however, he was eventually forced to leave Italy and return to Carthage when a savvy Roman general named Scipio invaded North Africa. Hannibal and Scipio fought an epic battle at Zama, which Hannibal lost. Many Carthaginians blamed Hannibal, who was exiled until his death. Hannibal is still regarded as a military genius. Napoleon, George Patton, and Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. are only some of the generals who studied and admired him. His strategy and tactics are still taught in military academies. &“With wonderful energy…archeologist and historian Patrick Hunt distills his survey of literature about the Second Punic War into a brightly dramatic story that covers virtually every anecdote connected with Hannibal&” (The Christian Science Monitor). &“Hunt&’s story of the doomed general, whose exploits are more celebrated than those of his vanquishers, will appeal to any reader interested in military history or strategy&” (Publishers Weekly).When Pride Still Mattered: A Life of Vince Lombardi (Biography Ser.)
Par David Maraniss. 2010
In this groundbreaking biography, David Maraniss captures all of football great Vince Lombardi: the myth, the man, his game, and…
his God.More than any other sports figure, Vince Lombardi transformed football into a metaphor of the American experience. The son of an Italian immigrant butcher, Lombardi toiled for twenty frustrating years as a high school coach and then as an assistant at Fordham, West Point, and the New York Giants before his big break came at age forty-six with the chance to coach a struggling team in snowbound Wisconsin. His leadership of the Green Bay Packers to five world championships in nine seasons is the most storied period in NFL history. Lombardi became a living legend, a symbol to many of leadership, discipline, perseverance, and teamwork, and to others of an obsession with winning.Bolívar: American Liberator
Par Marie Arana. 2013
This biography of the great Latin American revolutionary reveals the man behind the legend—“magisterial in scope . . . a monumental achievement” (The…
Washington Post Book World).Simón Bolívar freed six countries from Spanish rule, traveled more than 75,000 miles on horseback to do so, and became the greatest figure in Latin American history. He fought battle after battle in punishing terrain, forged uncertain coalitions of competing forces and races, lost his beautiful wife soon after they married, and died young, uncertain whether his achievements would endure.Drawing on a wealth of primary documents, novelist and journalist Marie Arana brilliantly captures early nineteenth-century South America and the explosive tensions that helped revolutionize Bolívar. From his battlefield victories to his ill-fated marriage and legendary love affairs, Bolívar emerges as a man of many facets: fearless general, brilliant strategist, consummate diplomat, passionate abolitionist, gifted writer, and flawed politician. A major work of history, Bolívar colorfully portrays a dramatic life even as it explains the rivalries and complications that bedeviled Bolívar’s tragic last days. It is also a stirring declaration of what it means to be a South American.Butch Cassidy: The True Story of an American Outlaw
Par Charles Leerhsen. 2020
Charles Leerhsen brings the notorious Butch Cassidy to vivid life in this &“lyrical and deeply researched&” (Publishers Weekly) biography that…
goes beyond the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to reveal a more fascinating and complicated man than legend provides.For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cassidy, really? Charles Leerhsen, bestselling author of Ty Cobb, sorts out the facts from folklore and paints a &“compelling portrait of the charming, debonair, ranch hand-turned-outlaw&” (Ron Hansen, author of The Kid) of the American West.Born into a Mormon family in Utah, Robert Leroy Parker grew up dirt poor and soon discovered that stealing horses and cattle was a fact of life in a world where small ranchers were being squeezed by banks, railroads, and cattle barons. A charismatic and more than capable cowboy—even ranch owners who knew he was a rustler said they would hire him again—he adopted the alias &“Butch Cassidy,&” and moved on to a new moneymaking endeavor: bank robbery. By all accounts a smart and considerate thief, Butch and his "Wid Bunch" gang eventually graduated to more lucrative train robberies. But the railroad owners hired the Pinkerton Agency, whose detectives pursued Butch and his gang relentlessly, until he and his then partner Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid) fled to South America, where they replicated the cycle of ranching, rustling, and robbery until they met their end in Bolivia.In Butch Cassidy, Leerhsen &“refuses to buy into the Hollywood hype and instead offers the true tale of Butch Cassidy, which turns out to be more fascinating and fun than the myths&” (Tom Clavin, bestselling author of Tombstone). In this &“entertaining…definitive account&” (Kirkus Reviews), he shares his fascination with how criminals such as Butch deftly maneuvered between honest work and thievery, battling the corporate interests that were exploiting the settlers, and showing us in vibrant prose the Old West as it really was, in all its promise and heartbreak.The Vagabonds: The Story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison's Ten-Year Road Trip
Par Jeff Guinn. 2019
A &“fascinating slice of rarely considered American history&” (Booklist)—the story of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison—whose annual summer sojourns introduced…
the road trip to our culture and made the automobile an essential part of modern life.In 1914 Henry Ford and naturalist John Burroughs visited Thomas Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades. The following year Ford, Edison, and tire maker Harvey Firestone joined together on a summer camping trip and decided to call themselves the Vagabonds. They would continue their summer road trips until 1925, when they announced that their fame made it too difficult for them to carry on.Although the Vagabonds traveled with an entourage of chefs, butlers, and others, this elite fraternity also had a serious purpose: to examine the conditions of America&’s roadways and improve the practicality of automobile travel. Cars were unreliable and the roads were even worse. But newspaper coverage of these trips was extensive, and as cars and roads improved, the summer trip by automobile soon became a desired element of American life.The Vagabonds is &“a portrait of America&’s burgeoning love affair with the automobile&” (NPR) but it also sheds light on the important relationship between the older Edison and the younger Ford, who once worked for the famous inventor. The road trips made the automobile ubiquitous and magnified Ford&’s reputation, even as Edison&’s diminished. The automobile would transform the American landscape, the American economy, and the American way of life and Guinn brings this seminal moment in history to vivid life.Leadership in Turbulent Times: In Turbulent Times
Par Doris Kearns Goodwin. 2018
From a Pulitzer Prize–winning presidential historian, “Leadership should help us raise our expectations of our national leaders, our country and…
ourselves” (The Washington Post).Doris Kearns Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson—to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope.Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged ready to confront the dilemmas of their times. At their best, all four were guided by a sense of moral purpose. At moments of great challenge, they were able to summon their talents to enlarge the opportunities and lives of others. Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader?“Doris Kearns Goodwin leads the league of presidential historians” —USA Today“Inspiring.” —Christian Science Monitor“Insightful, readable, compelling.” —The Boston Globe.“Written in the companionable prose that makes Goodwin’s books surefire best sellers.” —The New York Times Book Review“A bravura performance.” —Washington Independent Review of Books“If ever our nation needed a short course on presidential leadership, it is now.” —Seattle Times“Doris Kearns Goodwin has prepared a marvelous banquet with four leaders whose lives provide lessons for all of us. Pull up a chair.” —Warren BuffettGeneral James Longstreet: The Confederacy's Most Controversial Soldier
Par Jeffry D. Wert. 1993
General James Longstreet fought in nearly every campaign of the Civil War, from Manassas (the first battle of Bull Run)…
to Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chickamauga, Gettysburg, and was present at the surrender at Appomattox. Yet, he was largely held to blame for the Confederacy's defeat at Gettysburg. General James Longstreet sheds new light on the controversial commander and the man Robert E. Lee called “my old war horse.”The first in a sweeping, multi-volume history of Abraham Lincoln—from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, death, and the overthrow…
of his post-Civil War plan of reconciliation—&“engaging and informative and…thought-provoking&” (The Christian Science Monitor).From his youth as a voracious newspaper reader, Abraham Lincoln became a free thinker, reading Tom Paine, as well as Shakespeare and the Bible. In the “fascinating” (Booklist, starred review) A Self-Made Man, Sidney Blumenthal reveals how Lincoln’s antislavery thinking began in his childhood in backwoods Kentucky and Indiana. Intensely ambitious, he held political aspirations from his earliest years. Yet he was a socially awkward suitor who had a nervous breakdown over his inability to deal with the opposite sex. His marriage to the upper class Mary Todd was crucial to his social aspirations and his political career. “The Lincoln of Blumenthal’s pen is…a brave progressive facing racist assaults on his religion, ethnicity, and very legitimacy that echo the anti-Obama birther movement….Blumenthal takes the wily pol of Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals and goes deeper, finding a Vulcan logic and House of Cards ruthlessness” (The Washingtonian).Based on prodigious research of Lincoln’s record, and of the period and its main players, Blumenthal’s robust biography reflects both Lincoln’s time and the struggle that consumes our own political debate. This first volume traces Lincoln from his birth in 1809 through his education in the political arts, rise to the Congress, and fall into the wilderness from which he emerged as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln. “Splendid…no one can come away from reading A Self-Made Man…without eagerly anticipating the ensuing volumes.” (Washington Monthly).The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini
Par Joe Posnanski. 2019
Joe Posnanski enters the colorful world of Harry Houdini and his legions of devoted fans to explore the illusionist&’s impact…
on global culture—and why his legacy endures to this day. Nearly a century after Harry Houdini died on Halloween in 1926, he feels as modern and alive as ever. The name Houdini still leaps to mind whenever we witness a daring escape. The baby who frees herself from her crib? Houdini. The dog who vanishes and reappears in the neighbor&’s garden? Houdini. Every generation produces new disciples of the magician, from household names in magic like David Copperfield and David Blaine to countless other followers whose lives have been transformed by the power of Houdini.In rural Pennsylvania, a thirteen-year-old girl finds the courage to leave a violent home after learning that Houdini ran away to join the circus; she eventually becomes the first female magician to saw a man in half on television. In Australia, an eight-year-old boy with a learning impediment feels worthless until he sees an old poster of Houdini advertising &“Nothing on earth can hold Houdini prisoner,&” and begins his path to becoming that nation&’s most popular magician. In California, an actor and Vietnam War veteran finds purpose in his life by uncovering the secrets of his hero.But the unique phenomenon of Houdini was always more than his death-defying stunts or his ability to escape handcuffs and straitjackets. It is also about the power of imagination and self-invention. His incredible transformation from Ehrich Weiss, humble Hungarian immigrant and rabbi&’s son, into the self-named Harry Houdini has won him a slice of immortality. No one has withstood the test of time quite like Houdini. Fueled by Posnanski&’s personal obsession with the magician—and magic itself—The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini is a poignant odyssey of discovery, blending biography, memoir, and first-person reporting to trace Houdini&’s metamorphosis into an iconic figure who has inspired millions.