What really happened at the Battle of Midway, one of the greatest naval victories of the Second World War? This wrenching book, told by a survivor of the battle, provides the first accurate account and explanation of the devastating losses to America’s torpedo squadrons: only 7 of 51 planes returned, only 29 of 127 crewmen survived, and not a single torpedo hit its target.

This groundbreaking book tells the “upstairs-downstairs” story of plantation life in coastal Georgia from 1805 to 1869. Addressing not only the history of plantation owner Charles Colcock Jones and his family, historian Erskine Clarke also explores the experiences of the family slaves, offering deep insight into the nature of oppression and how African-American slaves struggled against it.

An eminent philosopher on the subject of war and ethics offers in this book his most provocative arguments about contemporary military conflicts and the ethical issues they raise. Michael Walzer examines particular recent wars, including that in Iraq, and argues persuasively for a moral perspective on the use of armed force.

Despite superior air and artillery power, British soldiers died in catastrophic numbers at the Battle of Somme in 1916. What went wrong, and who was responsible? This book meticulously reconstructs the battle, assigns responsibility to military and political leaders, and changes forever the way we understand this encounter and the history of the Western Front.

This engaging book reconstructs the role that Napoleon Bonaparte played in the British political, cultural, and religious imagination in the early nineteenth century. Stuart Semmel explores how the example of Napoleon—denounced by some and used by others—influenced the British to think about their own history, identity, and destiny.

The escape of ultra-orthodox Jewish leader Rebbe Schneersohn from Hitler’s Warsaw in 1939 has always been a subject of speculation. This book uncovers the true story of the rescue and the heroic role of the part-Jewish German soldier who led the operation. A harrowing story about identity and moral responsibility, it is also a riveting narrative of an extraordinary rescue mission.

From the renowned bestselling author of Five Days in London, this masterful history describes the unparalleled drama of the fateful days leading to Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. John Lukacs offers penetrating insights into the strange relationship between Stalin and Hitler and the miscalculations that changed the course of the war and world history.

The esteemed historian John Lukacs tells the story of American democracy’s media-driven and dangerous drift toward populism since World War II.

Democracy has changed substantially since the second World War, evolving into a dangerous and possibly irreversible populism, says John Lukacs in this intensely interesting—and troubling—book. The esteemed historian offers biting, timely, and controversial observations on the power of the media and the precarious state of America...

In this penetrating look at what has become of American democracy in the twentieth century, one of our most respected historians offers a major statement on the nature of our political system. John Lukacs focuses a critical eye on the underpinnings of our society and on the dramatic changes brought about by increasingly influential special groups.

 

 

This wide-ranging book is the first to survey the practice of arming slaves as soldiers throughout history. The book encompasses classical Greece, early Islamic cultures of the Near East, West, and East Africa, the British and French Caribbean, the United States, and Latin America, and shows why entrusting slaves with weapons, though surprising, often made sense.

It is impossible not to be drawn in to the provocative, and even contentious, discussion that Harvey Mansfield sets before us. He offers the first comprehensive study of manliness, a quality both bad and good, mostly male, and often irrational. Is manliness necessary? Is it obsolete? Is there a way for us to give it honest and honorable employment?

Preeminent classicist Mary Lefkowitz brings fresh insights to the mythology of ancient Greece, demonstrating that these stories are not only entertaining but also offer crucial lessons about human experience. They spoke to ancient audiences—and can speak to us—about the meaning of divinity, the nature of justice, and the limitations of human knowledge.

This book is the first comprehensive treatment in any language of the most consequential work of art ever executed in Russia—the equestrian monument to Peter the Great, unveiled in 1782. The author discusses the cultural setting of the monument that has become the icon of St. Petersburg and provides the life stories of those involved in the creation of The Bronze Horseman. 

This book tells for the first time the extraordinary story of Sergei Degaev, a political terrorist in tsarist Russia who disappeared after participating in the assassination of the chief of Russia’s security organization in 1883. Those who knew and admired Alexander Pell at the University of South Dakota never guessed that he was actually Degaev, a revolutionary who had reinvented himself as a quiet mathematics professor.

Why have Russians chosen unlimited autocracy since the Middle Ages? Why is democracy unable to flourish in Russia? In this brilliant analysis of Russia’s immemorial commitment to the theory and practice of autocracy, Richard Pipes demonstrates why the belief in autocracy remains the most formative and powerful idea in Russia’s political history.

Tried secretly on false charges of treason and espionage, fifteen Soviet Jews were convicted and then executed in a Moscow prison basement on August 12, 1952. Today remembered as the “Night of the Murdered Poets,” this horrifying injustice reflected Stalin’s growing paranoia toward Jews. This book presents the long-suppressed transcript of the trial of members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and sets aside the myths that have long surrounded their case.

Why did Stalin refuse to believe that Hitler would strike the Soviet Union when all the evidence—including intelligence from his own agencies—said otherwise? This extensively researched book illuminates many of the enigmas that have surrounded the Nazi invasion, offering keen insights into Stalin’s thinking and the reasons for his catastrophic blunder.

In this insightful book Howard Wiarda explores Latin American political culture and models of democracy and why they differ so greatly from those of the United States. Looking beyond the political history of the region, he considers social, economic, institutional, cultural, and religious influences on Iberian and Latin American civilizations from ancient times to the twentieth century.

Recorded in the massive archives of the great Oxford English Dictionary are previously untold tales of complex word battles fought by the OED creators. This delightful book charts the arguments and controversies over words, definitions, pronunciation, and more as lexicographers struggled to provide the definitive inventory of the English language. 

The murder of Viola Liuzzo, the only white woman killed during the Civil Rights Movement, shocked the nation. This compelling book documents the even more shocking story of FBI informant Tommy Rowe, who not only infiltrated the KKK but also became a violent participant. The Informant uncovers frightening details about FBI information-gathering gone awry.

Vividly narrated with tales from every age in the life of England’s great river, The Thames is a delight to any reader with an interest in British history. From the prehistoric era of wooly mammoths to the riverside negotiation of the Magna Carta in the thirteenth century to WWII when Nazi bombers used the Thames as a visual guide, the river has witnessed national triumph and tragedy.

The purchase of Louisiana in 1803 brought vast land holdings and a large new population of nonnaturalized Americans into the United States. This book chronicles the process by which the federal government learned to administer a distant territory and to incorporate heterogeneous peoples into the American nation—and, in the process, came to refine the meaning of American citizenship.

In every borough of New York, archaeologists have uncovered evidence of the city’s rich history—ancient Native American burial sites and trading routes, colonial farms, seventeenth-century villages, Revolutionary War battles, and more. This illustrated pocket guidebook offers eight unique walking tours that introduce a new way of exploring the city—through the artifacts that lie buried beneath it.

Based on an extraordinary array of diaries and letters, this engaging book explores the shifting experiences of adolescent girls in the late nineteenth century. Teenage girls increasingly attended schools where they competed with boys for grades and honors. These experiences foreshadowed not only the turn-of-the-century emergence of the independent “New Woman” but also the birth of adolescence itself.

An entertaining and handsomely illustrated discussion of three of Europe's Imperial capitals during their golden years. Donald J. Olsen takes a fresh look at the public buildings and private dwellings of nineteenth-century London, Paris, and Vienna and finds that their architecture and physical structure reveal much about the values of the societies that created them. His book is urban and architectural history at its most provocative and most enjoyable.

Why do spies have such cachet in the twentieth century? Why do they keep reinventing themselves? What do they mean in a political process? In this inventive look at a century of spy fiction, Allan Hepburn considers British, Irish, and American spy novels, underscoring the responsiveness of these works to particular historical contingencies.

This book presents the first full account of Prague’s Russian émigré community from their arrival in 1918 after the Russian Revolution, to 1939, when the Nazi invasion scattered them again. The story of this vibrant community not only illuminates aspects of Russian life and culture of the period but also offers insights into later diasporas.

In this insightful memoir a prominent Russian politician who served as prime minister, foreign minister, and head of foreign intelligence during the 1990s provides an insider’s account of post-perestroika Russian politics and a revealing look at Russia’s views on the Middle East, its relationship with America, NATO enlargement, spying, and more.

Rose Brady, Moscow bureau chief for Business Week magazine, here provides a compelling first-hand account of Russia’s transition from a socialist state to a market economy. Taking us into the factories, stores, banks, markets, homes, schools, and corridors of power in Russia, she explains how the country’s own brand of capitalism has evolved. ;

This engrossing book tells the story of the quarter-million Jews who sought refuge in Germany immediately after World War II, explaining why they found safety there and what became of them. It also describes what happened to the Jewish community in Germany after the fall of Communism, when the arrival of tens of thousands of former Soviet Jews created a dynamic new center of Jewish life.

Leading us through the long history of European warfare, preeminent military historian Michael Howard asks in this compelling book why war has become increasingly horrific and whether it can ever be abolished. He raises provocative questions about the barriers to peace and demonstrates that, given the political pressures specific to the modern world, our efforts to banish warfare are unlikely to succeed.

The greatest statesman of his age, Ben Franklin was also a pioneering scientist, a bestselling author, the first American postmaster general, a printer, a bon vivant. He was also a man of vast contradictions. This brilliant biography by one of our greatest historians offers a compact and provocative new portrait of America’s most extraordinary patriot.

 

This powerful and suspenseful memoir by one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising tells the moving story of the preparations for defense of the Ghetto, the battle with the Germans, the rescue of the few Jews still alive in the Ghetto after it was destroyed, and the organization's support of the surviving Jews in Warsaw. This book will help demolish the image of Jews as submissive victims in the Holocaust.

How did the protests and support of ordinary American citizens affect their country’s participation in the Vietnam War? This engrossing book focuses on four social groups—students, African Americans, women, and labor—and investigates the impact of each on American foreign policy during the war. 

The main architect of the concept of perestroika under Gorbachev, Alexander N. Yakovlev played a unique role in the transformation of the Soviet Union. Now, drawing on his own experiences and on his privileged access to state and Party archives, he reflects on the evils of the system that shaped the country he loves.

One of the master stylists of American literature, Gore Vidal now provides us with his uniquely irreverent take on America’s founding fathers. Vidal brings them to life at the key moments of decision in the birthing of our nation and considers the impact of their ideas and personalities on an America that he views with both pride and concern.

This is a day-by-day account of the eighty-day struggle in 1940 between Hitler—poised on the edge of absolute victory—and Churchill—threatened by imminent invasion and defeat.

This absorbing study of the first—and decisive—phase of World War II tells not only how events happened but why they happened as they did. Eminent historian John Lukacs presents an extraordinary narrative of these two years, followed by a detailed sequential analysis of the lives of the peoples and then of the political, military, and intellectual relations and events.

In this book, a prominent historian revises his comprehensive overview of Germany since 1945 to take into account the momentous events that swept away one of the German states and united the country under the constitution of the other.

This engrossing book presents the most interesting articles from Studies in Intelligence—a previously classified in-house Central Intelligence Agency journal that was for CIA eyes only—and provides insights into CIA strategies and into events in which the organization was involved.

This book is the first in-depth history of American strategic bombing. With impressive sweep and vigor, Michael S. Sherry explores the growing appear of air power in America before World War II, the ideas, techniques, personalities, and organizations that guided air attacks during the war, and the devastating effects of American and British "conventional" bombing. He also traces the origins of the dangerous illusion that the bombing of cities would be so horrific that nations would not dare let ...

Journalists not only report the news but also interpret it and shape our views. This engrossing book tells the stories of the print and broadcast journalists who have played major roles in twentieth-century events. They range from early newsmen during the Russian revolution to contemporary journalists such as Christopher Hitchens, from news proprietors such as Katherine Graham to television journalists such as Walter Cronkite.

In this third volume of his acclaimed series, D. W. Meinig offers a riveting account of the expanding country’s development from mid-nineteenth century to the onset of World War I. Beginning with the struggle over where to build the Pacific railway, the book details the settlement of the American West, the nation’s increasing consolidation, and America’s imperialist efforts in the Caribbean and Pacific. Forty superb new maps accompany the account.

This lively book traces the history of American secret intelligence from the founding of the nation through the present day. Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones argues that the intelligence community’s enormous and costly bureaucracy is the product of long-term hyperbolic claims and self-promotion. While it has had some successes, it has also ignored serious problems—such as the danger of terrorist attack—and its future role and financial support must be reevaluated.

In the 1930s, thousands of German writers, artists, and filmmakers arrived in the U.S. seeking refuge from Hitler’s Gestapo. But nearly all these intellectuals—among them Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, and Erich Remarque—became the subjects of intense suspicion and government surveillance. This riveting book, based on newly released FBI files, reveals the disturbing details and surprising extent of both legal and illegal government spying on German exiles during World War II and ...

This book gives voice to the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of ordinary Russian people—workers, peasants, soldiers—as expressed in their own words during the vast upheavals of 1917. The documents in the volume are selected from the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow and most have never been published before. They include letters from individuals to newspapers, institutions or leaders; collective resolutions and appeals; and even poetry written by self-taught, lowe...

Anticipating a new dawn of freedom and democracy after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russians instead find themselves in a country desperately impoverished and controlled at every level by criminals. This compelling book views the 1990s reform period through the experiences of individual citizens, revealing staggering changes in Russian life, society, and ways of thinking.

In this unique book, we hear the poignant voices of those who experienced firsthand the 1930s in the Soviet Union. The book’s 157 documents, selected from newly opened Soviet archives, include primarily letters from ordinary citizens to authorities but also various official reports and correspondence. The documents illuminate in new ways the complex social roots of Stalinism and the texture of daily life during a highly traumatic decade.

Completing the most comprehensive and authoritative study ever written of the Soviet-German war, John Erickson in this volume tells the vivid and compelling story of the Red Army’s epic struggle to drive the Germans from Russian soil. Beginning with the destruction of the German Army at Stalingrad, he describes a campaign of almost unimaginable hardship and fighting that led to the Soviet invasion of the Reich and the triumphant capture of Berlin.

In this book, a distinguished United States Army officer and scholar traces the rise and fall of the Soviet military, arguing that it had a far greater impact on Soviet politics and economic development than was perceived in the West. Drawing on interviews with key actors in the Soviet Union before, during, and after its collapse in 1991, General William E. Odom tells a riveting and important story.

Isolated islands in the northernmost reaches of Russia, Solovki has been the site of a beautiful medieval monastery, a religious rebellion and massacre, a prison, a major place of pilgrimage, and a Gulag camp. This riveting book tells the story of Solovki, in the process portraying the tragedies and triumphs of the Russian past.

In 1816, Italian artist Mauro Gandolfi made a visit to New York and Philadelphia. His vivid account of the people and customs he observed is published here for the first time, accompanied by an enlightening introduction and illustrations that include examples of Gandolfi’s own work and contemporary views of the sites he describes.

In a unique and richly informative addition to American educational, religious, and cultural history, Dan Oren examines the college life of Jews at Yale from the first Jewish graduate in 1809 to the present time, drawing comparisons to the Jewish experience at other elite colleges and universities and to the experiences of other minorities at Yale.

A brilliant lawyer and a key figure in the development of FDR’s New Deal, Benjamin V. Cohen was a major architect of public policy during the Roosevelt and Truman presidencies. In this fascinating biography William Lasser offers the first full account of Cohen’s life and varied career, which sheds light on the origins and growth of modern American liberalism.

A Century Foundation Book

A fascinating exploration of the private and public worlds of Molly Dewson, America's first female political boss. In the first biography ever written of Dewson, Susan Ware not only examines her political career as a trusted member of the Roosevelt team throughout the New Deal but also considers how Dewson's fifty-two year partnership with Polly Porter and her woman-centered existence strengthened her success as a politician.

How did we arrive at the current child care system in the United States, erratic, inadequate, and stigmatized? In this comprehensive history of American child care policy and practices from the colonial period to the present, Sonya Michel explains why child care has evolved as it has and compares U.S. policy to that of other democratic market societies.

By 1860, twelve years after the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, more than five thousand American blacks had made the difficult trek to California in search of quick wealth. The part that they played in this epic adventure has been too long ignored. Here for the first time Rudolph Lapp pieces together in a coherent and fascinating narrative this missing chapter of American history.

This provocative book takes a new look at the angry struggles between American conservationists and local hunters since the rise of wildlife conservation at the end of the 1800s.

How is the thinking of Native Americans different from Western ways of thinking? Drawing on his own experiences living with Navajo Indians and with the Yup’ik tribe in Alaska, Calvin Luther Martin offers deep insights into the stories and the mythic, circular thinking of these people. He shows how Native Americans understand the world and the way true human beings should conduct themselves in it.

This elegantly written book explores the history of ideas in Europe from the revolutions of 1848 to the beginning of the First World War. J. W. Burrow populates his book with the great thinkers of the age—among them Mill, Bakunin, Nietzsche, Proust, Flaubert, Wagner, and Wilde—and explores the impact on European intellectual life of such powerful scientific and social concepts as social Darwinism and the unconscious mind.

This extraordinary account of the development of aviation takes us from Charles Lindbergh’s dramatic New York-Paris flight to the horrifying bombing campaigns of World War II. Robert Wohl recaptures in words and illustrations an era when a wide-ranging cast of characters—among them millionaire Howard Hughes, Italian dictator Mussolini, and architect Le Corbusier—fell under aviation’s spell.

From the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries, Spain was regarded as a unique social and political community—the most exalted, the most feared, the most despised, and the most discussed since the Roman Empire. In this important book, Anthony Pagden offers an incisive analysis of the lasting influence of the Spanish Empire in the history of early modern Europe and of its place in the European and SpanishAmerican political imagination.

Gout has fascinated medical writers and cultural commentators from the time of ancient Greece. Historically seen as a disease afflicting upper-class males of superior wit, genius, and creativity, it has included among its sufferers Erasmus, the Medici, Edward Gibbon, Samuel Johnson, Immanuel Kant, and Robert Browning. Gout has also been the subject of powerful medical folklore, viewed as a disease that protects its sufferers and assures long life. This dazzlingly insightful and readable book inv...

Glyn Redworth here provides a definitive account of one of the most bizarre episodes in British history—the failed attempt in 1623 of the heir to the Stuart throne to win the Spanish Infanta as his bride. Redworth shows how efforts to secure a marriage between Europe’s leading Protestant and Catholic royal families led to diplomatic disaster, cultural misunderstanding, and religious confusion.

Based on a treasure trove of letters, this fascinating book tells the history of a seventeenth-century nun in a convent in Leuven and how her complaints—of sexual harassment, fears of demonic possession, alliances among the other sisters against her—led to her banishment from the convent on two occasions. Highly acclaimed when it was first published as a revealing look at female religious life in early modern Europe, the book is now available in an abridged paperbound version with a ...

This book—the first comprehensive and wide-ranging account of the historical atlas—explores the role, development, and nature of this important reference and discusses its impact on the presentation of the past.

At the turn of the century, women represented over half of the American foreign mission force and had settled in "heathen" China to preach the lessons of Christian domesticity. In this engrossing narrative, Jane Hunter uses diaries, reminiscences, and letters to recreate the backgrounds of the missionaries and the problems and satisfactions they found in China. Her book offers insights not only into the experiences of these women but also into the ways they mirrored the female culture of Victori...

In this important new work, the author of The Bonds of Womanhood offers a new interpretation of American feminism during the early decades of this century—a time traditionally viewed as one in which women won the right to vote and then lost interest in feminist issues. Nancy F. Cott argues instead that this was a time of crisis and transition from the nineteenth-century "woman movement" to the beginnings of modern feminism and that many of the issues that are central to women today were fi...

During the Spanish Civil War, women—long oppressed in Spain—were active both on the front and in the rear guard. Drawing on oral and written testimony from these women, this book is the first to focus on their contributions to the war effort and the social and psychological implications of this radical change in their traditional role.

This magisterial book provides an analysis of the course of Western intellectual history between A.D. 400 and 1400. The book is arranged in two parts: the first surveys the comparative modes of thought and varying success of Byzantine, Latin-Christian, and Muslim cultures, and the second takes the reader from the twelfth-century revival of learning to the high Middle Ages and beyond, the period in which the vibrancy of Western intellectual culture enabled it to stamp its imprint well beyond the ...

In this readable and thought-provoking history of bisexuality in the classical age, Eva Cantarella draws on the full range of sources—from legal texts, inscriptions, and medical documents to poetry and philosophical literature—to reconstruct and compare the bisexual cultures of Athens and Rome.

The Yale Babylonian Collection, one of the world's largest repositories of cuneiform inscriptions, includes many sizable groups of texts sharing a particular date, provenience, or genre. Its publications, designed to present these coherent groups in definitive editions, have set a standard in the field for over sixty years. This volume, continuing that tradition, is devoted entirely to archival texts dated to the reign of Samsu-iluna, king of Babylon.(ca. 1749-1712 B.C.) The texts assembled here...

For thirty-two years Coach Carm Cozza’s football program at Yale exemplified excellence. This engaging book is Cozza’s story, the reminiscences of a caring and principled teacher whose course material was athletic competition, whose classroom was a football field, and whose final exam was The Game against Harvard. Cozza brings us behind the scenes, recalls the outstanding men who played for him, and offers thoughts on football programs today.

Taking us inside the executive suite at Itek Corporation during the Cold War years, this book provides a fascinating case study of a collision between the world of venture capital and the world of espionage. Spy Capitalism tells the gripping story of Itek’s role as manufacturer of the world’s most sophisticated satellite spy cameras, its relationship with the CIA, and the vital role played by venture capitalist Laurance Rockefeller.

In this wide-ranging book, Lester D. Langley offers a fresh interpretation of the history of the Western hemisphere since the mid-nineteenth century, tracing the interactions and influences among the nations of South, Central, and North America. He offers new insights into the past and future of inter-American relations.

This book investigates for the first time the role of the assorted freebooters, local peasants, and bandits who joined the Spanish war against Napoleon. Popular legend notwithstanding, these guerrillas were neither armed civilians acting spontaneously nor individuals driven by high-minded motives, the author shows.

This lively book challenges many stereotypes about Victorian middle-class women and families. Women were not always cast in passive, subservient roles, the authors show, but often were heads of their families and wielded considerable influence in public life. The experiences of British women of the time were both richer and more complex than has been understood before.

In this original analysis of the debates in Germany over Jews, Judaism, and Jewish emancipation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Jonathan M. Hess reconstructs a crucial chapter in the history of secular anti-Semitism. By tracking the evolution of thinking among Germans and Jews, he uncovers the process by which Judaism came to play a central role in defining secular universalism and political modernism.

This second of three landmark volumes on the history of the family in Europe focuses on family life and the political and economic forces that shaped it from the French Revolution to the First World War. Eminent contributors reveal a fascinating diversity of family forms and family adaptations in different parts of Europe and different social classes.

This book analyzes how the profound and unprecedented political and social transformations that occurred between 1914 and 2000 affected European families. Leading scholars explore the influences of the economy, state, church, world wars, and other demographic forces during a period when the nuclear family was threatened as never before.

Respected journalist John Phillips has covered front-line fighting in Macedonia as well as behind-the-scenes diplomatic intrigue. In this enlightening and unbiased report, he chronicles the recent ethnic conflicts and the unchecked political corruption, warning that Macedonia remains a powder keg the West must resolve to defuse.

Focusing on the Tsarist and Soviet empires of Russia, Dominic Lieven in this wide-ranging book reveals much about the nature and meaning of all empires in history. He examines factors that mold the shape of empires—geography, population, ideology, culture, politics—and compares the Russian empires with their direct competitors and with other imperial states, from ancient China and Rome to the present-day United States.

This groundbreaking book is the first comprehensive, historically accurate account of the Soviet labor camp system from the late 1920s to the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Based on recently released documents, it uncovers the secrets of the Gulag and how it became a central component of Soviet ideology and social and economic policy. 

This compelling book focuses on the sea change in American politics from the 1960s to the present—from a time when liberals created bold government programs to solve important social problems, to contemporary distrust of government and rejection of liberal ideals. H. W. Brands delineates the intimate connection between the rise of postwar liberalism and the emergence of the Cold War. When the Cold War ended and Americans ceased to feel dependent on their government for protection, the fate...

With the publication of My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855, former slave Frederick Douglass became the first black person to join those very few American writers who ever published a second, entirely new autobiography. This outstanding edition of his milestone achievement offers a substantial introduction and extensive annotations.

The humiliation of Russia by separatist rebels in the Chechen War marked a key moment in Russian—and perhaps world—history. In this major new work, distinguished writer and political commentator Anatol Lieven offers a riveting eyewitness account of the war, the first in-depth portrait of the Chechen people in English, and a sophisticated and multifaceted explanation for the Russian defeat and the present weakness of the Russian state and nation.

With numerous portraits, images of costumes, theater models, manuscripts, and maps, this compelling book explores the connections between theatrical performance and Shakespeare's references in the visual arts.

This book accompanies the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary exhibition and is the first highly illustrated book ever published on this founding father. Displaying more than 260 color images--drawings, maps, paintings, manuscript pages, and photographs of Franklin’s own possessions--the book also offers an overview of his life, interests, and achievements through essays by ten prominent scholars. It is an essential volume for every Franklin enthusiast.

The greatest statesman of his age, Ben Franklin was also a pioneering scientist, a bestselling author, the first American postmaster general, a printer, a bon vivant. He was also a man of vast contradictions. This brilliant biography by one of our greatest historians offers a compact and provocative new portrait of America’s most extraordinary patriot.

 

This compelling biography of Richard Wagner goes back to primary sources—letters, diaries, and other documents—to reappraise the composer’s romantic and family relationships, the philosophical roots of his work, and his relationship with King Ludwig. This is a definitive study, aimed at both the seasoned Wagner aficionado and the new enthusiast.

A distinguished historian, Harvard professor, and White House adviser, Richard Pipes here describes the events of his remarkable life, offers brilliant sketches of notable people he has known (including Kissinger, Reagan, and Haig), and analyzes the unfolding of some of his century’s most extraordinary political events.

This vivid biography focuses on Proust’s troubled love life, from his adolescent sexual experiences to his great loves. With a gallery of photographs and many new details about the author’s lovers, flirtations, affairs, and fear of exposure as a homosexual, the book provides insights into his writings and an unprecedented view of Proust’s gay Paris.

The memoirs of Ernest A. Forssgren, the young Swede who served as Marcel Proust’s last valet, have never before been published in full. This annotated volume presents Forssgren’s complete text, which sheds new light on two key periods in Proust’s life and affords an intimate glimpse of French and American high-society life.

George S. Schuyler, a popular black journalist of the 1920s, was one of the most important intellectuals of the Harlem Renaissance. This book analyzes his life and early career and his use of satire to expose the foibles of blacks as well as whites. The book provides insights into the paradoxes of Schuyler’s ideas and into a formative period of African-American cultural history.

This landmark book—the first biography of a controversial and influential religious figure—describes the remarkable life of the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., the premier voice of northern religious liberalism from the 1960s through the 1980s and a supporter of civil rights, the anti-Vietnam War movement, disarmament, and gay rights.

Perhaps more than any other writer, Franz Kafka jolted twentieth-century consciousness. This compelling biography of the great Czech novelist, diarist, and short story writer chronicles Kafka’s entire life, offering new insights into the enigmatic genius and his unsettling works. The book is the first to address the importance of Kafka’s complex relationship with his father.

This lucid biography of Theodor Adorno, co-founder of the famous Frankfurt School and one of Germany’s most important twentieth-century thinkers, offers a fresh perspective on his life and writings. It examines the central sources of Adorno’s intellectual development and places his work in its essential political context.

Kenneth Tynan—brilliant writer, critic, and agent provocateur—was one of the most influential theater figures of the twentieth century. This first in-depth biography of Tynan looks behind the celebrity myth to show how his eloquence and fervor helped change the course of theater in Britain and America.

The marriage of William Michael Rossetti (brother of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti) and Lucy Madox Brown (daughter of Ford Madox Brown) united two of the most resonant Pre-Raphaelite family names. Their passionate and ultimately tragic relationship—described here for the first time—provides a fresh perspective on nineteenth-century marriage and Pre-Raphaelite history.

One of the most controversial religious figures of his time, John Henry Newman (1801-1890) split rancorously from the Church of England and converted to Roman Catholicism. In this provocative reappraisal of Newman and the Tractarian movement that he led, Frank Turner challenges previous understandings not only of the man but also of the religious and intellectual life in Victorian England. 

This powerful book presents a clear-eyed view of Winston Churchill, the workings of his historical imagination, and his successes and failures as a statesman. Written by the best-selling author of Five Days in London, May 1940, the book sets forth the essence of one of the towering figures of twentieth-century history. 

Legendary for his exploits in war and love, the perennially fascinating Admiral Horatio Nelson is captured in all his vigor on the pages of this new biography. The book presents a gripping account of Nelson’s climb to fame in the British navy, details of his personal and emotional life, and fresh insights into the complexities of the man who endures as England’s favorite hero. 

Best known as George Gershwin’s musical advisor and intimate friend, Kay Swift was in fact an accomplished musician herself, a pianist and composer whose Fine and Dandy (1930) was the first complete Broadway musical written by a woman. This fascinating book—the first biography of Swift—discusses her music and her extraordinary life.

This engrossing biography offers an intriguing reassessment of the third duke of Alba, an infamous sixteenth-century Spanish general known to history as “the butcher of Flanders.” Henry Kamen tells the duke’s personal history, explores his beliefs, and considers his infamous actions within the context of his time and of the monarchs whom he served.

This lively book examines the long and prolific career of composer Richard Rodgers, providing rich details about the creation, staging, and critical reception of some of his most popular musicals. Geoffrey Block offers insights into shows by Rodgers and Hart and by Rodgers and Hammerstein, as well as the five musicals that Rodgers composed after Hammerstein’s death.

This riveting biography chronicles the life of Vitus Jonassen Bering, a towering figure in the history of exploration. Bering led expeditions from St. Petersburg to Siberia and ultimately to the northwest coast of America, resulting in a greatly expanded Russian empire and the first steps toward Russian trade and settlement in the American West.

Willy Münzenberg, a tireless con-man and a friend of Lenin’s, became one of the most influential Communist operatives in Europe between the World Wars. This book tells his extraordinary story, arguing persuasively that his financial chicanery and cynical propaganda efforts weakened the non-Communist left, enraged the right, and helped feed a cycle that culminated in Nazism.

One of the most colorful and least well-known of the founding fathers, Gouverneur Morris was a plainspoken, racy patrician who became a leading figure of the Constitutional Convention, Washington’s first minister to Paris, and a successful international entrepreneur. This compelling biography tells his extraordinary story.

In this engrossing book, David Nice provides a new assessment of the life and work of Sergey Prokofiev. Drawing on a range of new sources, Nice follows the renowned composer’s personal and musical progression from his childhood on a Ukrainian country estate through his unexpectedly long years of travel in the West to his return to Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1936.

This new biography of Edward VI, the boy king who died at 16 after ruling England for only six years, reveals for the first time his significant personal impact on the history of his country. Jennifer Loach portrays Edward as healthy and vigorous (contrary to previous views), precocious, highly educated, and decisive, and she details the dramatic context in which his reign played out.

The reign of Queen Anne, the last Stuart monarch, was a period of significant progress for the country: Britain became a major military power on land, the union of England and Scotland created a united kingdom of Great Britain, and the economic and political basis for the Golden Age of the eighteenth century was established. However, the queen herself has received little credit for these achievements and has long been pictured as a weak and ineffectual monarch dominated by her advisers. This lan...

Ezra Pound’s loving and admiring companion for half a century, concert violinist Olga Rudge was the muse who inspired the poet to complete The Cantos and the mother of his only daughter, Mary. This book is the first biography of the strong-minded and unconventional Rudge. Drawing on a huge archive of unpublished letters and notebooks as well as on interviews with Rudge, her family, and friends, Anne Conover offers not only a vivid portrait of a woman who was fascinating in he...

For thirty-two years Coach Carm Cozza’s football program at Yale exemplified excellence. This engaging book is Cozza’s story, the reminiscences of a caring and principled teacher whose course material was athletic competition, whose classroom was a football field, and whose final exam was The Game against Harvard. Cozza brings us behind the scenes, recalls the outstanding men who played for him, and offers thoughts on football programs today.

This autobiography of Eugene Jolas, available for the first time nearly half a century after his death in 1952, tells the story of a man who, as the editor of the magazine transition, was the first publisher of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and other signal works of the modernist period. The book sheds new light on international modernism and the historical avant-garde.

In this vivid biography, here updated and reissued with a new preface, Frank Barlow reveals an unconventional, flamboyant William Rufus—a far more attractive and interesting monarch than previously believed. Weaving an intimate account of the life of the king into the wider history of Anglo-Norman government, Barlow shows how William confirmed royal power in England, restored the ducal rights in France, and consolidated the Norman conquest.

In the tumultuous and uncertain decades following the English civil war, the Duke and Duchess of Beaufort created a remarkable marriage and political partnership. This captivating book portrays Henry, a powerful regional magnate rebuilding his war-ravaged estates, his wife Mary, a distinguished patron of and participant in the new science of botany, and the transformation of their society as it entered the Enlightenment.

This insightful biography is the first to draw on the full range of Jaspers’ diaries and correspondence, and it illuminates not only the German philosopher’s life and relationships but also the ideas he developed in his works. The book describes how Jaspers’ Jewish wife, his relationships with celebrated colleagues, and his unshakeable sense of ethics all influenced his thinking and philosophy.

Daughter of a merchant family in nineteenth-century Japan and wife of a distinguished scholar-doctor of the samurai class, Shibue Io was a woman remarkable in her own right for her exceptionally keen mind and fearless spirit.  Edwin McClellan now draws on the biography of her husband, written by Mori Ogai, to tell the story of Shibue Io, her society, and her times. 

Eleanor Rathbone (1872–1946) lived a life of passionate political and social engagement, becoming one of the most important British women of the early twentieth century. This major new biography illuminates both the public and private sides of Rathbone’s life, offering a nuanced discussion of her extensive political activities and her contributions to feminist thinking.

This landmark book—the first biography of a controversial and influential religious figure—describes the remarkable life of the Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., the premier voice of northern religious liberalism from the 1960s through the 1980s and a supporter of civil rights, the anti-Vietnam War movement, disarmament, and gay rights.

In this groundbreaking and timely history, an eminent historian of religion chronicles America’s struggle to fulfill the promise of religious toleration enshrined in our Constitution. William Hutchison shows that as Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and adherents of other world religions have come forward to challenge the Protestant mainstream, Americans have expanded their understanding of what it means to accept and honor diversity.

With over 450 definitions and articles, this comprehensive dictionary encompasses all the important thinkers, topics, and technical terms associated with continental philosophy. The volume features extensive cross-referencing that will enable professionals, students, and general readers to pursue related subjects and examine ideas in depth.

This is the first translation of a powerful work in modern Italian philosophy and rhetoric, a work that develops Nietzschean themes and anticipates the conclusions of, among others, Martin Heidegger. Written in 1910, it is a deeply personal book, reflecting the young author’s struggle to make sense of modern life.

Examining data on Christian rescuers and nonrescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, Pearl Oliner illuminates questions of religion and altruism. She investigates, for example, whether religion encourages altruism on behalf of those who do not belong, and whether the very religious are more likely to be altruistic toward outsiders than those who are less religious.

This insightful biography is the first to draw on the full range of Jaspers’ diaries and correspondence, and it illuminates not only the German philosopher’s life and relationships but also the ideas he developed in his works. The book describes how Jaspers’ Jewish wife, his relationships with celebrated colleagues, and his unshakeable sense of ethics all influenced his thinking and philosophy.

Jaroslav Pelikan, world-renowned historian and author of the best-selling Jesus Through the Centuries and many other books, examines all of Christian history and culture to create the most complete portrait of the Virgin Mary ever written. Pelikan assesses the ways Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and Muslims, artists, musicians, and writers, and men and women everywhere have depicted, venerated, and been inspired by Mary, a symbol of hope and solace for all generations.  

This beautiful volume is adapted from Jaroslav Pelikan's classic work Jesus Through the Centuries. In this wise, informative, and sumptuously illustrated book, Pelikan discusses how each age created Jesus in its own image, discovering in his life and teachings the answers to fundamental questions of human existence and destiny.

The momentous encounter between Christian thought and Greek philosophy reached a high point in fourth-century Byzantium, and the principal actors were four Greek-speaking Christian thinkers whose collective influence on the Eastern Church was comparable to that of Augustine on Western Latin Christendom. In this erudite and informative book, a distinguished scholar provides the first coherent account of the lives and writings of these so-called Cappadocians, showing how they managed to be Greek a...

Do we live in a world that makes sense, not just now but forever? If the universe is going to end in collapse or decay, can it really be a divine creation? Is there a credible hope of a destiny beyond death? In this engaging book, a leading scientist-theologian draws on ideas from science, scripture, and theology to address these and other important questions.

Zionism regained for the Jewish people the capacity to deploy military force, arousing deep and painful misgivings among Jews worldwide. This thought-provoking book examines how the forging of a new moral stance on the use of force has affected Jewish identity and how the Jewish religious tradition has affected the way that political and cultural issues in Israel are resolved.

This book is an annotated translation of the pioneering Hebrew work of Azariah de’ Rossi, an outstanding figure in the history of Jewish scholarship. In this magnum opus, de’ Rossi establishes the foundation of critical Jewish historiography with innovative studies on a wide array of subjects and arguments drawn from sources as diverse as the texts of rabbinic tradition and the writings of Augustine and Pico della Mirandola. 

This wide-ranging anthology brings to English-language readers for the first time the riches of the Judeo-Persian literary tradition. The collection includes prayers, religious and secular poetry, historical chronicles, and other writings produced from the eighth through nineteenth centuries by the Jewish community of Iran, perhaps the oldest continuous Diaspora community in the world.

In this inspiring book, one of America's foremost Catholic theologians explains why we must apply biblical justice—and not merely ethical or legal justice—to matters concerning the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized. Pointing to the Christian tradition of profound social teaching, Father Walter Burghardt offers advice to other preachers about the ways to address today's most controversial social justice issues.

In this engrossing book, the author of the classic work The Pursuit of the Millennium investigates the origins of apocalyptic faith—the belief in a perfect future, when the forces of good are victorious over the forces of evil. Norman Cohn takes us back two thousand years to the world views of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India, the innovations of Iranian and Jewish prophets and sages, and the earliest Christian imaginings of heaven on earth, and he illuminates a major turning po...

Although Paul’s writings have been intensively studied by Christian theologians, they have been dismissed by Jewish scholars as the meditations of an antagonistic apostate who broke completely with his Jewish past. In this revisionist account of Paul’s work, Alan Segal argues that Paul’s life can be better understood by taking his Jewishness seriously, and that Jewish history can be illuminated greatly by examining Paul’s writings. By reading Paul from the viewpoint of th...

In this original analysis of the debates in Germany over Jews, Judaism, and Jewish emancipation in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Jonathan M. Hess reconstructs a crucial chapter in the history of secular anti-Semitism. By tracking the evolution of thinking among Germans and Jews, he uncovers the process by which Judaism came to play a central role in defining secular universalism and political modernism.

In this absorbing analysis of modern Irish writing, David Pierce examines the impact of the colonial encounter between Ireland and Britain. Considering themes of loss and struggle in works by Yeats and Joyce, Pierce also surveys contemporary Irish writing and the postmodern or postnationalist work of such crucial living writers as John Banville and Derek Mahon.

With an informative introduction, a critical essay by Harold Bloom, and on-page annotations, this new edition of Henry IV, Part One assists twenty-first century readers to appreciate fully the tale of Young Prince Hal, cavorting in London with Falstaff and his band of rogues even as England is threatened by the Earl of Northumberland.

A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions are regarded as two of Eugene O’Neill’s finest plays. Companion pieces, linked by characters and themes, they form part of a projected series of eleven interconnected plays in which the playwright intended to give a psychological and economic account of American life. Now these works, the only surviving plays in O’Neill’s “Cycle,” are brought together for the first time in a paperback volume. The vers...

Rebecca West’s never-before-published Survivors in Mexico brings to readers a daring and provocative work by a major twentieth-century author. This book is an exhilarating exploration of Mexican history, religion, art, and culture, exploring the inner lives of figures ranging from Cortés and Montezuma to Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and Leon Trotsky.

In this new translation of Voltaire’s best-known work, distinguished translator Burton Raffel captures the irreverent spirit of Candide and renders the novel in clear, vivacious English. Stylistically superior to all predecessors, Raffel’s version now stands as the translation of choice for twenty-first-century readers.

 

This lively chronicle of the rise and fall of the art of conversation takes us from ancient Greece to the world of eighteenth-century British coffeehouses and clubs to the United States today. Stephen Miller closely examines the golden Age of Conversation, explains why good conversation matters, and traces the causes of its continuing decline.

This rich anthology of contemporary Italian fiction in English presents short stories and excerpts from novels that were originally published in Italian between 1975 and 2001. Each selection is accompanied by a short introduction and biography of the writer, and there is also a comprehensive general introduction to recent Italian literary trends.

In this collection of insightful writings, one of America’s finest drama critics chronicles thirty years of American theater history. Richard Gilman illuminates a period of dynamic change in theater through wide-ranging and provocative essays, profiles, and book reviews that reveal not only his sense of cultural mission but also his love of good art.

Neat polar oppositions commonly used to define modern art and literature—high/low, old/new, poetry/rhetoric—confuse and mislead, says Robert Scholes in this lively book. Exploring the delights of both well-known and underappreciated modernist writings and art, he argues for a more complex view of modernism that employs such paradoxes as “durable fluff” and “formulaic creativity.”

One of America’s most acute cultural commentators, Terry Teachout here turns his sharp eye to every corner of the arts world—music, dance, literature, theater, film, TV, and the visual arts. In a thoughtful introduction to this selection of essays, Teachout considers popular culture of the twenty-first century and how it has been altered by the information age.

Recorded in the massive archives of the great Oxford English Dictionary are previously untold tales of complex word battles fought by the OED creators. This delightful book charts the arguments and controversies over words, definitions, pronunciation, and more as lexicographers struggled to provide the definitive inventory of the English language. 

This diary by the famed twentieth-century Russian writer—now available in English for the first time—recounts Babel’s experiences with the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-1920. The basis for Red Cavalry, Babel’s best-known work, it records the devastation of the war, the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red armies alike toward the Jewish population in the Ukraine and eastern Poland, and Babel’s own conflicted role as both Soviet revoluti...

A foremost critic of the English language here reflects on beauty and the language that it inspires. Denis Donoghue is an appreciative and wide-ranging reader, drawing into his discussion the work of authors from Kant to Keats, Hawthorne to Housman. With his customary lucidity, Donoghue shows us that beauty as a topic is once again interesting and even fashionable.

Distinguished critic Denis Donoghue here provides a sustained conversation about the nature and importance of literary interpretation, arguing that we must read texts closely and imaginatively, rather than merely theorizing about them. Discussing texts that range from Shakespeare’s plays to a novel by Cormac McCarthy, Donoghue demonstrates what serious and informed reading entails.

Among all the works of American literature, which deserve the designation “classic”? An eminent literary critic names five works—Moby-Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Walden, Leaves of Grass, and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—and offers contemporary readings of them, demonstrating why they are important and how very much they have to say.

This inviting book explores reading practices in the Romantic Age through the lens of the notations that readers jotted in their books. H. J. Jackson analyzes the marginalia of British readers both famous and obscure. She discovers fascinating details about literacy, the availability of books, and how people were reading during the years from 1790 to 1830.

With the publication of this paperback edition of Piotr Rawicz’s prizewinning Blood from the Sky, a classic of Holocaust literature emerges from many years out of print. A novel of richness and deep originality, it tells the story of Boris D., a Jewish resident of Lvov who poses as a non-Jew to evade the Nazis. Boris survives imprisonment in a death camp and moves to Paris following the war. Yet his account of his experiences is no celebration of survival; it is rather a commemorati...

In this boisterously inventive book, Alvin Kernan sends various descendants of the Joad family (of John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath) on a postmodern journey into twenty-first-century America. The Joads’ experiences are as hilarious as they are discomfiting: they encounter in Kernan’s America a world of democracy gone haywire, social institutions in perplexing disarray, and absurdity in no short supply.

Isaac Leybush Peretz (1852–1915) is one of the most influential figures of modern Jewish culture. Born in Poland and dedicated to Yiddish culture, he recognized that Jews needed to adapt to their times while preserving their cultural heritage, and his captivating and beautiful writings explore the complexities inherent in the struggle between tradition and the desire for progress. This book, which presents a memoir, poem, travelogue, and twenty-six stories by Peretz, also provides a detail...

First published in 1865, Sesame and Lilies stands as a classic nineteenth-century statement on the natures and duties of men and women. This volume returns the book to print and reunites both halves of the work—Ruskin’s critique of Victorian manhood and his counsel to women and parents of girls. Accompanying essays place the book within historical debates on men, women, culture, and the family.

Examining how different ages have appropriated and interpreted the Old Testament story of Judith and Holofernes, Margarita Stocker shows how the Judith myth has been used both to marginalize women and to liberate them from traditional notions of femininity. This provocative book amounts to an alternative history of Western attitudes to women and power.

Inspiring teachers, colliding ideas, great literature--such college experiences can stamp a young writer for life. This dazzling book contains the work of dozens of writers whose education at Yale over the last three centuries exerted a powerful force on their writing lives. The galaxy of authors ranges from Noah Webster to Gloria Naylor, and a bounty of their sermons, poems, essays, passages from novels, and short stories fills these bright pages.

A distinguished writer and scholar explores literature's "crisis of confidence." Writing in an anecdotal and witty style, Alvin Herman relates the death of literature to a variety of agents—among them television, computer technology, legal issues of copyright and plagiarism, faculty politics, and literary criticism itself—and ponders whether literature's vitality can be restored in the changing circumstances of late twentieth-century culture.

Seeking to control human thought as well as actions, Stalin and his followers developed words and images to legitimize the gulag. This is the first book in English to examine official Soviet concentration camp literature from the early 1920s through the mid-1960s. The book probes the evolution of this literature, the totalitarian thinking that inspired it, and the scandalous role played by Russian writers who collaborated in its creation.

This exceptional collection of writings offers for the first time a discussion among leading thinkers about the points at which rhetoric and religion illuminate and challenge each other. The contributors shed light on religion as a human quest and rhetoric as the origin and sustainer of that quest. They show how rhetorical approaches to religion can revitalize both language and experience.

A world authority on the decadent novel here offers an entertaining and wide-ranging commentary on thirty-two international works of literary decadence. George C. Schoolfield throws new light on the literary and cultural phenomenon of decadence and on the intellectual kinship of authors as diverse as August Strindberg, Bram Stoker, and Thomas Mann.

This book is a fresh account of liberal thought from its roots in seventeenth-century English thinking to the end of the eighteenth century. Annabel Patterson examines the careers of such prominent individuals as Edmund Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Thomas Erskine, arguing that while these and many other Whigs strayed from liberal principles on occasion, they were true progressives.

Finally, a collection of Spanish women writers of the Golden Age which includes Oliva Sabuco de Nantes, Maria de Zayas, Ana Caro, Lenor de la Cueva, and many others. Each text is accompanied by a biographical sketch that provides critical information for setting the context of the period. Notes in English clarify obscure words and complex structures.

In this pioneering volume, eminent translator Willis Barnstone explores the history and theory of literary translation as an art form. Arguing that literary translation goes beyond the transfer of linguistic information, Barnstone emphasizes that the translation contains as much imaginative originality as the source text. Using the Bible as a paradigm, he shows how authors can intentionally mistranslate for religious and political purposes. The book concludes with an aphoristic ABC of translatin...

Here Mark Roche examines literature in its function as teacher of virtue and moral excellence, arguing that the current crisis in the humanities may be traced to the separation of art and morality. As our sense of intrinsic value becomes lost in this technological age, says Roche, literature helps us grapple with ethical challenges.

This volume presents substantial selections from the writings of such key American Transcendentalists as Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, and Theodore Parker. Included are sermons and diary entries as well as essays on labor, religion, education, slavery, women’s rights, literature, and German metaphysics.

Surrealism was perhaps the most prominent avant-garde movement of the twentieth century, and its most famous arbiter, André Breton, wrote extensively about the history and nature of the movement. This volume examines the works and theories of an array of writers, artists, and thinkers who engage in dialogue with Breton’s surrealism.

This issue of Yale French Studies offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the French-speaking world during the “long” decade of the 1950s—from the Liberation (1944) to the Evian accords between France and the provisional government of Algeria (1962). The volume focuses broadly on the reshaping of national identities in these years. The unsettled landscape that emerges stands in dramatic contrast to the myth of stability that was actively constructed for the French 1950s̵...

This is the first business-Chinese textbook for advanced learners of Chinese in which current economic issues in China are addressed in depth. Carefully designed lessons help students develop language skills, understand economic trends and situations in modern China, and expand critical-thinking abilities.

This comprehensive and up-to-date dictionary contains some 30,000 entries, including contemporary technical terms, recently coined Hebrew words, and translations for common idioms. Designed in an easy-to-use format, it features meticulous pronunciation information and is the first dictionary to focus on the accurate translation of words with multiple meanings.

The most comprehensive Kurmanji-English volume ever composed, this dictionary focuses on modern use of the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish. Entries are extensive and include detailed information that will make the book an invaluable reference not only for linguists but also for historians, anthropologists, folklorists, and ethnologists.

This useful book presents new approaches to teaching reading in a foreign language. Asserting that reading is at the heart of learning a foreign language, the contributors—teachers of French, German, Greek, Japanese, and Spanish—document practical methods, including the use of computer technology, for enhancing language skills.

The Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) is a widely accepted instrument for assessing second and foreign language ability. This book examines the components of speaking ability, considers whether the OPI is a valid instrument for assessing them, and proposes a new model drawn from sociocultural theory to test language proficiency.

In this provocative book, Marysia Johnson proposes a new model of second language acquisition (SLA)—a model that shifts the focus from language competence (the ability to pass a language exam) to language performance (using language competently in real-life contexts).

This authoritative collection highlights some of the best work being done today in communicative language teaching. Documenting reform initiatives in Japan, the U.S., Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Europe, the book offers new perspectives on language teaching for communicative competence from the points of view of teachers and teacher educators. 

Winner of the 2003 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, The Cuckoo offers the reader poems of deep originality and astonishing power. Louise Glück, competition judge, praises the poetry for its “mesmerizing beauty” and “luminous high-mindedness.”

In this latest winning volume in the Yale Series of Younger Poets, poetry lovers encounter Loren Goodman’s alternate universe in which nothing remains sacred. Goodman disrupts our assumptions and explores frameworks as he takes us on a roller coaster ride through the absurdities of American pop culture.

These inventive poems about music, jazz, and historical events are the work of Sean Singer, latest winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. Playful and experimental, the poems approach the abstract pleasures of music and reveal the writer’s delight in sound.

In 1936 twenty-year-old Edward Weismiller became the youngest poet to win the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets prize. Today, more than sixty years later, he retains that distinction and adds another—he is now the oldest living Younger Poet. This latest volume of Weismiller’s poetry is honest and unflinching, revealing a poet who in his old age remains hopeful, open to possibility, and aware of beauty in the smallest places.

In these poems, written over a period of fifty years, Marie Borroff addresses such subjects as the celerity of time, old age, art, literary acquaintances, and her beloved New England landscape. The poems delight in sound and form, even as they unsettle and disturb.

Winner of this year’s Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, Davis McCombs has written “a book of exploration, of searching regard . . . a grave, attentive holding of a light,” says contest judge W. S. Merwin. McCombs explores the geography above and below Kentucky’s Cave Country and considers the slave who found Mammoth Cave, the meanings of the cave, and the thrill of crawling into a rarely visited passageway to see what lies beyond.

Every musically curious traveler or reader will find this guidebook indispensable. Distinguished musicologists Julie Anne and Stanley Sadie have traveled across Europe to compile an unparalleled directory of more than three hundred houses and museums where composers have lived and worked. Lively commentary on each location is included.

Music lovers will find this book a treasury abounding with information, walking tours, illustrations, maps, biographies, and more relating to the multitude of musical landmarks in London. From Handel’s house to George Gershwin’s recording studios, from cathedrals to graveyards, this unprecedented guide features an incredible array of fascinating musical sites.

This is the first book devoted to the letters of composer Aaron Copland, who corresponded engagingly and prolifically throughout his life. Arranged chronologically and annotated with care, the selected letters reveal much about Copland and his music while also providing glimpses into the lives of other significant figures in twentieth-century music.

 

In this engaging personal account of the jazz scene in Paris in the 1980s and 1990s, music critic Mike Zwerin writes lovingly—but unsparingly—about Miles Davis and other jazz legends he has known and interviewed. A world-class trombonist himself, Zwerin also tells about his own intriguing life and where his passion for music has taken him.

This book—a revised and expanded edition of the definitive biography of Bessie Smith, known as the “Empress of the Blues”—debunks many of the myths that circulated after her untimely death in 1937. Chris Albertson now provides more details of Bessie’s early years, new interview material, and a chapter devoted to events and responses that followed the original publication.

Cats, Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of the Opera, Evita—composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s phenomenal musicals are familiar to hundreds of millions of audience members. This book, the first comprehensive survey of Webber’s creative career, explores his impact, the vast range of influences on his works, and the reasons for the controversies that surround him.

How does the jazz of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker fit into the great tradition of modernist art? In this book, an eminent cultural historian provides the answer and offers a brilliant new way of understanding jazz.

In the 1960s, when so-called free jazz liberated American jazz from its historic ties to Western music, European musicians found their own distinctive voices and created an independent jazz culture. This book examines the pan-Eurasian musical revolution, its development, its contexts, and its implications for the histories of both Western music and jazz. 

In this outstanding collection of critical writings, award-winning theater critic Gordon Rogoff tells the story of live theater in America over the past forty years. Rogoff ranges widely across topics from acting and directing to Shakespeare productions and theater criticism. Along the way he offers discerning insights into the work of artists Samuel Beckett, Tennessee Williams, Tony Kushner, Laurence Olivier, Judi Dench, Lee J. Cobb, Vanessa Redgrave, and many others. 

This entertaining book offers new insights into North America’s love affair with The Nutcracker. It traces the ballet’s history, describes its many variegated productions, and explains its allure—as a way for Americans to tell a story about their communal values and themselves. 

Tim Scholl examines why Russian dance professionals denounced the historically accurate performance and along the way provides a fascinating history of twentieth-century Russian and Soviet ballet and culture.

One of America’s most acute cultural commentators, Terry Teachout here turns his sharp eye to every corner of the arts world—music, dance, literature, theater, film, TV, and the visual arts. In a thoughtful introduction to this selection of essays, Teachout considers popular culture of the twenty-first century and how it has been altered by the information age.

Edwin Denby was the most important and influential American dance critic of this century and was also a poet of distinction. This book presents a sampling of his reviews, essays, and poems, a collection that is an essential resource for students and lovers of dance.

Rich in musical, social, and cultural lore, this book is an engrossing history of the early male and female sopranos—the castrati and prima donnas—who graced and disgraced the operatic stage. It also tells the story of the singing tradition they founded and perfected, known as bel canto and still the background of operatic singing today.

In this stimulating book, Michael Broyles explores the centuries-old tradition of maverick composers in American music. He examines the lives of notably unconventional composers, among them Charles Ives, John Cage, and Frank Zappa, to reveal much about the role of music in American culture and about American attitudes toward the arts.

Internationally known as a concert pianist and highly respected as a piano teacher, Boris Berman here offers an entertaining and informative exploration of both piano technique and music interpretation. Berman combines explanations and practical advice with anecdotes about students, colleagues, and former teachers, along the way providing many insights into the psychological aspects of performing and teaching music. 

This authoritative book tells the story of the flute in the musical life of Europe and North America from the twelfth century to the present day. It discusses the evolution of the flute, the revolutions in playing style and repertoire, the lives of flute players and makers, and the uses of the instrument within various types of music. The volume will delight both those who play the flute and those who love its music.

In this engaging book George B. Stauffer explores the music and complex history of Bach’s last—and possibly greatest—masterpiece. Stauffer examines the individual sections of the B-Minor Mass in detail as well as the events that led to its writing, its place in Bach’s ouevre, issues of performance practice, and the qualities that give the work its universal appeal.