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Abraham Lincoln as a Man of Ideas
Allen C. Guelzo, with a Foreword by Michael Lind
Southern Illinois University Press, 2009

Despite the most meager of formal educations, Lincoln had a tremendous intellectual curiosity that drove him into the circle of Enlightenment philosophy and democratic political ideology. And from these, Lincoln developed a set of political convictions that guided him throughout his life and his presidency. This compilation of ten essays from Lincoln scholar Allen C. Guelzo uncovers the hidden sources of Lincoln’s ideas and examines the beliefs that directed his career and brought an end to slavery and the Civil War.

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Act Like a Man
Challenging Masculinities in American Drama
Robert Vorlicky
University of Michigan Press, 1995

In the first comprehensive study of plays written for male characters only, Robert Vorlicky offers a new theory that links cultural codes governing gender and the conventions determining dramatic form. Act Like a Manlooks at a range of plays, including those by O'Neill, Albee, Mamet, Baraka, and Rabe as well as new works by Philip Kan Gotanda, Alonzo Lamont, and Robin Swados, to examine how dialogue within these works reflects the social codes of male behavior and inhibits individualization among men.

Plays in which women are absent are often characterized by the location of a male "other"—a female presence who distances himself from the dominant, impersonal masculine ethos and thereby becomes a facilitator of personal communication. The potential authority of this figure is so powerful that its presence becomes the primary determinant of the quality of men's interaction and of the range of male subjectivities possible. This formulation becomes the basis of an alternative theory of American dramatic construction, one that challenges traditional dramaturgical notions of realism.

The book will appeal to scholars and students interested in drama, gender, race, sexuality, and American culture, as well as playwrights, teachers of playwrights, and artistic directors. It includes an extensive bibliography of more than four hundred male-cast plays and monodramas, the first such compilation and one that points to further research into a previously unexplored area.

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"Almost a Man of Genius"
Clémence Royer, Feminism, and Nineteenth-Century Science
Harvey, Joy
Rutgers University Press, 1997
Clemence Royer was a 19th-century Frenchwoman probably best known for producing the first French translation of Charles Darwin. However, her efforts went much further, encompassing anthropology, physics, philosophy, cosmology, and chemistry. In this full-scale biography, Harvey, a science historian and former associate editor of Cambridge University's Darwin Correspondence Project, traces Royer's remarkable life.

A feminist who made lifelong enemies almost as readily as she made friends, Royer was never able to undertake formal, advanced education and was a product of her own self-study efforts. Only in her last few years was she formally recognized by several professional societies and awarded the French Legion of Honor. Harvey includes an overview of earlier biographical treatments, the text of an 1874 communication on "Women, Science, and the Birth Rate," and extensive notes.
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Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man
Joseph Vogt
Harvard University Press, 1975

This collection of essays represents Vogt's personal contribution to the collective enterprise; the English edition is translated from the second German edition of 1972, which included three additional papers and a supplement bringing his earlier work up to date.

The distinctive features of Vogt's approach to ancient slavery are his social awareness and sympathetic commitment, and his refusal either to ignore or be dominated by the dogmas of the left and the structures of sociology. His systematic investigation of ancient slave wars, which is the centre of this collection, is a reasoned refutation of more extreme Marxist interpretations, and a brilliant demonstration that a pragmatic approach to the analysis of a general phenomenon can lead to conclusions as far-reaching as any a priori system. Other outstanding essays investigate with subtlety and insight the position of slaves in literature and in utopian theory, the concept of the slave of God in early Christian thought, and the extent to which rigid distinctions between slave and free were eroded by the daily contact between individuals in different social roles, and by their inability to forget that both masters and slaves were human beings, with personal loyalties and friendships. The volume ends with two essays on the interrelationship between ancient and modern attitudes to slavery since the Renaissance.

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Antonin Artaud
Man Of Vision
Bettina L. Knapp
Ohio University Press, 1980

The extraordinary actor–director–writer who developed his talent for self-torture into art to become one of the most vital creative forces of the century.

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Arthur Vandenberg
The Man in the Middle of the American Century
Hendrik Meijer
University of Chicago Press, 2017
The idea that a Senator—Republican or Democrat—would put the greater good of the country ahead of party seems nearly impossible to imagine in our current climate of gridlock and divisiveness. But this hasn’t always been the case. Arthur H. Vandenberg (1884–1951), Republican from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was the model of a consensus builder, and the coalitions he spearheaded continue to form the foundation of American foreign and domestic policy today. Edward R. Murrow called him “the central pivot of the entire era,” yet, despite his significance, Vandenberg has never received the full public attention he is due—until now. With this authoritative biography, Hendrik Meijer reveals how Vandenberg built and nurtured the bipartisan consensus that created the American Century.
           
Originally the editor and publisher of the Grand Rapids Herald, Vandenberg was appointed and later elected to the Senate in 1928, where he became an outspoken opponent of the New Deal and a leader among the isolationists who resisted FDR’s efforts to aid European allies at the onset of World War II. But Vandenberg soon recognized the need for unity at the dawn of a new world order; and as a Republican leader, he worked closely with Democratic administrations to build the strong bipartisan consensus that established the Marshall Plan, the United Nations, and NATO. Vandenberg, as Meijer reveals, was instrumental in organizing Congressional support for these monumental twentieth-century foreign policy decisions.

Vandenberg’s life and career offer powerful lessons for today, and Meijer has given us a story that suggests an antidote to our current democratic challenges. After reading this poignant biography, many will ask: Where is the Vandenberg of today?
 
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