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A sophisticated ecological analysis of ranching in northern Nevada featuring a new chapter and new epilogue by the authors.First published in 1985, Cattle in the Cold Desert has become a classic in the environmental history of the Great Basin, brilliantly combining a lively account of the development of the Great Basin grazing industry with a detailed scientific discussion of the ecology of its sagebrush/grassland plant communities. The volume traces the history of white settlement in the Great Basin from about 1860, along with the arrival of herds of cattle and sheep to exploit the forage resources of a pristine environment and, through the history of John Sparks, a pioneer cattleman, illustrates how the herdsmen interacted with the sagebrush/grasslands of the cold desert West. As the story unfolds on two levels—that of the herdsmen adapting their livelihood to the challenging conditions of the Great Basin's scanty forage, aridity, and fierce winters, and that of the fragile ecology of the desert plant communities responding to the presence of huge herds of livestock—we see the results of a grand experiment initiated by men willing to venture beyond the limits of accepted environmental potential to settle the Great Basin, as well as the often ruinous consequences of the introduction of domestic livestock into the plant communities of the region. The result is a remarkably balanced and insightful discussion of the grazing industry in the Intermountain West. This new paperback edition includes an additional chapter that addresses the impact of wild mustangs on the Great Basin rangelands, and an epilogue that discusses changes in rangeland management and in rangeland conditions, especially the impact of recent wildfires. As concern over the future of the Great Basin's unique rangeland environment and its principal agricultural industry grows, Cattle in the Cold Desert remains essential reading for everyone who cares about this underappreciated region of the American West.

Within days of Charlie “Bird” Parker’s death at the age of thirty-four, a scrawled legend began appearing on walls around New York City: Bird Lives. Gone was one of the most outstanding jazz musicians of any era, the troubled genius who brought modernism to jazz and became a defining cultural force for musicians, writers, and artists of every stripe. Arguably the most significant musician in the country at the time of his death, Parker set the standard many musicians strove to reach—though he never enjoyed the same popular success that greeted many of his imitators. Today, the power of Parker’s inventions resonates undiminished; and his influence continues to expand.

Celebrating Bird is the groundbreaking and award-winning account of the life and legend of Charlie Parker from renowned biographer and critic Gary Giddins, whom Esquire called “the best jazz writer in America today.” Richly illustrated and drawing primarily from original sources, Giddins overturns many of the myths that have grown up around Parker. He cuts a fascinating portrait of the period, from Parker’s apprentice days in the 1930s in his hometown of Kansas City to the often difficult years playing clubs in New York and Los Angeles, and reveals how Parker came to embody not only musical innovation and brilliance but the rage and exhilaration of an entire generation.

Fully revised and with a new introduction by the author, Celebrating Bird is a classic of jazz writing that the Village Voice heralded as “a celebration of the highest order”—a portrayal of a jazz virtuoso whose gargantuan talent was haunted by his excesses and a view into the ravishing art of one of jazz’s most commanding and remarkable figures.

One demanding New Jersey chef once tied his cooks to the stove by their apron strings. Another was such a finicky eater as a child, he refused to allow his cereal to touch his milk. One was kissed by Fidel Castro, another played onstage with Todd Rundgren. Celebrity Chefs of New Jersey peeks into the kitchens and the lives of some of the most famous chefs in the Garden State, where foodies and other gourmands will discover passions, kitchen secrets, life lessons, and signature recipes.

Not so long ago, perhaps even just at the turn of this century, it was easy to lament the lack of sophisticated food in New Jersey. Oh sure, a few restaurants always sparkled, but, for the most part, New Jerseyans looked across at the bright lights of the big city, wistfully yearning for a table in glamorous Manhattan. Now, however, the most sought- after tables are right here and we have the best seats in the house, made even sweeter perhaps because they're our own little secret. We can dine frequently and dine well, with a smug sense that if only New Yorkers knew, they'd be looking across the river wishing they were us.

In Celebrity Chefs of New Jersey, Teresa Politano profiles Craig Shelton, the chef who crystallized New Jersey's place in culinary history with his legendary Ryland Inn, along with other chefs, telling their personal stories of both creativity and survival. Some of these men and women rose from humble or difficult childhoods to fame in the food world. Others were not only talented but lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. Their stories are arranged into three categories: legends, stars, and chefs to watch, and then topped off with a sweet surprise finish. Politano includes photographs, cooking secrets, and some of their sought-after signature recipes that are sophisticated but manageable for the skilled home chef.

 Not so long ago, the Rock Island Railroad was a household name, the Great Depression was a recent memory, and family farms dotted the landscape. Today, the great railroads have nearly disappeared, the Depression is a chapter in history books, and family farms are hard to come by. Yet this time is not forgotten.

In Central Standard: A Time, a Place, a Family, Patrick Irelan vividly recaptures a remarkable era in midwestern history in twenty-four beautifully crafted and often witty essays. Beginning with his parents’ marriage in 1932 and continuing into the present, Irelan relates the many wonderful stories and experiences of his Davis County, Iowa, family. In “Country Living,” he describes his parents’ disheartening life as farmers during the worst years of the Depression. “The CB&Q” then relates the happiest years of his family’s life when his parents lived and worked in the Burlington Railroad depots of rural Nebraska.

Irelan’s tales of hard times and harder work, family meals and talkative relatives, depots and farmsteads paint a brilliant yet deceptively simple portrait of one rural, working-class family. At its heart, Central Standard carries a greater message: it reminds us of the enduring strength of the American family.

Historians have traditionally neglected relationships between slave men and women during the antebellum period. In Chains of Love, historian Emily West remedies this situation by investigating the social and cultural history of slave relationships in the very heart of the South. 
 
Focusing on South Carolina, West deals directly with the most intimate areas of the slave experience including courtship, love and affection between spouses, the abuse of slave women by white men, and the devastating consequences of forced separations. Slaves fought these separations through cross-gender bonding and cross-plantation marriages, illustrating West's thesis about slave marriage as a fierce source of resistance to the oppression of slavery in general.
 
Making expert use of sources such as the Works Progress Administration narratives, slave autobiographies, slave owner records, and church records, this book-length study is the first to focus on the primacy of spousal support as a means for facing oppression. Chains of Love provides telling insights into the nature of the slave family that emerged from these tensions, celebrates its strength, and reveals new dimensions to the slaves' struggle for freedom.
 

Carl A. Gerstacker was born in 1916 in Cleveland, Ohio. At an early age his father, Rollin, instilled in him an interest in finance and the stock market. In 1930, when Carl turned fourteen, Rollin advised his son to withdraw his paper-route and odd-job money from a local bank and invest it all in The Dow Chemical Company. It was the beginning of a relationship that would last a lifetime. After high school, Carl landed an hourly position with Dow Chemical as a lab assistant and, at the same time, pursued an engineering degree at the University of Michigan as part of the company’s student training course. After graduating in 1938, Gerstacker continued to work for Dow Chemical until the outbreak of World War II when he joined the U.S. Army. Returning to civilian life in 1946, he was rehired by Dow and quickly moved up the corporate ladder, becoming Treasurer in 1949, Vice-President in 1955, and Chairman of the Board in 1960, a position he retained until 1976. He retired five years later in 1981. 
     Carl Gerstacker was a business leader who believed that every company had a special personality and that the Dow personality was largely shaped by its employees. “For Dow Chemical, people are the most important asset, not the patents, the plants, nor the products.” Gerstacker’s personal financial acumen was rivaled only by his own contributions to the sound corporate growth of Dow Chemical, a business he loved and to which he devoted his life. Gerstacker died in 1995, leaving a legacy that lives on in the form of numerous philanthropic endeavors he began during his lifetime and on whose boards he once served. Carl A. Gerstacker was one of the towering figures of twentieth-century American industry.

Winner, 2006 Illinois State Historical Society Book Award
Winner, 2007 The Hyde Park Historical Society Paul Cornell Award

Political war stories from a thorn in the side of Chicago's famous Boss

In 1955, south-sider Leon Despres was elected to the Chicago City Council-the same year that Paddy Bauler famously uttered that "Chicago ain't ready for reform." Ready or not, Chicago got twenty years of reform efforts from Despres, one of the few independents in the council and the most liberal alderman in the city. His demand to cut out the corrupt sale of city driveway permits made him enemies from the very beginning. Over the years his crusades to ban discrimination, preserve Chicago landmark buildings, and gain equality for African-Americans-when Daley-beholden African-American council members refused to help-threw wrench after wrench into the Machine. And, not incidentally, changed the city.

But Challenging the Daley Machine is more than a memoir. It's a historical portrait of the way things were done under the Boss, when changing times and a changing city forced the Machine to confront the problems Despres championed. His battles against the seemingly monolithic Machine are also an inspiration to anyone who is facing long odds, but is convinced he/she is on the side of right.

Former British Prime Minister who will always be remembered for his appeasement policy towards Hitler.

Sébastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort (1740-1794), whom Nietzsche called the "wittiest of all moralists," is now known for little more than brillian aphorisms that captivated a long line of thinkers, from Stendhal to Cioran, Schopenhauer to Camus. Yet the fascination of Chamfort's life is barely suggested by the fragments of writing that have survived him. In Claude Arnaud's captivating biography, Chamfort the libertine, playwright, journalist, and revolutionary stands revealed as the most telling emblem of his times.

Chandra is an intimate portrait of a highly private and brilliant man, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, a Nobel laureate in physics who has been a major contributor to the theories of white dwarfs and black holes.

"Wali has given us a magnificent portrait of Chandra, full of life and color, with a deep understanding of the three cultures—Indian, British, and American—in which Chandra was successively immersed. . . . I wish I had the job of reviewing this book for the New York Times rather than for Physics Today. If the book is only read by physicists, then Wali's devoted labors were in vain."—Freeman Dyson, Physics Today

"An enthralling human document."—William McCrea, Times Higher Education Supplement

"A dramatic, exuberant biography of one of the century's great scientists."—Publishers Weekly

In her autobiography, the remarkable feminist and social worker Alice Salomon recounts her transition in the 1890s from privileged idleness to energetic engagement in solving social problems. Salomon took the lead in establishing the profession of social work, and built a career as a social reformer, activist, and educator. A prolific author, Salomon also played a key role in the transatlantic dialogue between German and American feminists in the early twentieth century. Her narrative concludes with the account of her expulsion from Germany by the Nazis in 1937.

Salomon's formative influence on the field of social work makes her story crucial for the history of the discipline. This work will also appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of the feminist and socialist movements or the political and social history of twentieth-century Germany. The volume also includes several of Salomon's essays on social work and women's issues, along with photographs of Salomon, her students, and her colleagues.

Andrew Lees is Professor and Chair of the History Department at Rutgers University, Camden.

Throughout his life, Lindbergh’s value structure, interests, and activities shifted and moved, yielding a conflict between instinct and intellect. Both its presence in his life and his readjustment of values in accordance with it are representative of his time and culture. He moved, with the twentieth century itself, from a faith in technology to a disenchantment with it and finally to a balanced resolution that synthesized the seeming oppositions of technology and the human spirit. This emphasis on a balance between technology and humanity, and Lindbergh’s belief that maintained the complementarity rather than the opposition of the two forces, finally culminated in a post-technological mysticism, a teleological worldview of science and nature as aspects of the same physical and spiritual environment.

Sir Charles Bell (1774–1842) was a medical reformer in a great age of reform—an occasional and reluctant vivisectionist, a theistic popularizer of natural science, a Fellow of the Royal Society, a surgeon, an artist, and a teacher. He was among the last of a generation of medical men who strove to fashion a particularly British science of medicine; who formed their careers, their research, and their publications through the private classrooms of nineteenth-century London; and whose politics were shaped by the exigencies of developing a living through patronage in a time when careers in medical science simply did not exist. A decade after Bell’s death, that world was gone, replaced by professionalism, standardized education, and regular career paths.
           
In Charles Bell and the Anatomy of Reform, Carin Berkowitz takes readers into Bell’s world, helping us understand the life of medicine before the modern separation of classroom, laboratory, and clinic. Through Bell’s story, we witness the age when modern medical science, with its practical universities, set curricula, and medical professionals, was born.

Introduced at the 1876 Centennial Exposition and powered by an historic advertising campaign, Hires Root Beer—launched 10 years before Coca-Cola—blazed the trail for development of the American soft drink industry. Its inventor, Charles Elmer Hires, has been described as “a tycoon with the soul of a chemist.” In addition to creating root beer, Hires, a devoted family man and a pillar of the Quaker community, became a leading importer of botanical commodities, an authority on the vanilla bean. Starting from scratch, he also built one of the world’s largest condensed milk companies.

Charles E. Hires and the Drink that Wowed a Nation chronicles the humble origin and meteoric business success of this extraordinary entrepreneur. Author Bill Double uses published interviews, correspondence, newspaper reports, magazine articles, financial data, and a small family archive to tell this story of native ingenuity. Here, the rough-hewn capitalism of the gilded age, the evolution of the neighborhood drugstore, the rise of advertising in creating mass markets, and the emerging temperance movement all come together in a biography that, well, fizzes with entrepreneurial spirit.

Charles Gates Dawes: A Life is the first comprehensive biography of an American in whose fascinating story contemporary readers can follow the struggles and triumphs of early twentieth-century America and Europe.

Dawes is most known today as vice president of the United States under Calvin Coolidge, but he also distinguished himself and his hometown of Evanston, Illinois, on the world stage with the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize. This engrossing biography traces how, when the punitive armistice that ended the First World War resulted in a disabled, restive Germany, Dawes’s diplomatic legerdemain averted war through a renegotiation of Germany’s debt repayments.

Dawes’s diplomatic and political achievements, however, were only the illustrious capstones to a multifaceted career that included military service, law, finance, and business on the local, state, national, and global stages. In every arena of his life, he combined the social graces of the Gilded Age with the spirit of service of the Progressive Era.

Despite his life of disciplined service, Dawes was an ebullient and irrepressible figure. Dawes’s salty language was often colorful fodder for tabloid and magazine writers of his era. In this captivating biography, Annette B. Dunlap recounts the story of an original American who enlightened and enlivened his world.

This book was published in cooperation with the Evanston History Center and with generous support from the Tawani Foundation.
 

Ten years in the making, taken largely fron primary materials, some lent by descendents, this biography is a balanced portrait of an extraordinary Arkansas leader, progressive governor of the state from 1917 to 1921.

Charles K. McClatchy was twenty-five when he inherited The Sacramento Bee from his father, and his ensuing career as the paper’s editor extended well beyond the newsroom. Until his death in 1936, McClatchy was a consistent advocate for Progressive politics, a crusader for urban reform, a staunch isolationist, and a voice for Northern California. This biography explores his career as the long-time editor of the Bee in a work that weaves the history of Northern California with that of American newspapers.

Received an Honorable Mention for the American Revolution Round Table of Richmond's 2014 Book Award

Dominick Mazzagetti presents an engaging account of the life of Charles Lee, the forgotten man of the American Revolution. History has not been kind to Lee—for good reason. In this compelling biography, Mazzagetti compares Lee’s life and attributes to those of George Washington and offers significant observations omitted from previous Lee biographies, including extensive correspondence with British officers in 1777 that reflects Lee’s abandonment of the Patriots’ cause.

Lee, a British officer, a veteran of the French and Indian War, and a critic of King George III, arrived in New York City in 1773 with an ego that knew no bounds and tolerated no rivals.  A highly visible and newsworthy personality, he quickly took up the American cause and encouraged rebellion. As a result of this advocacy and his military skills, Lee was granted a commission as a major general in the Continental Army and soon became second-in-command to George Washington. He helped organize the defense of Boston, designed defenses for New York City, and commanded the force that repelled the British attack on Charleston.

Upon his return to New York in 1776, Lee was considered by some leaders of the Revolution to be an alternative to George Washington, who was in full retreat from British forces. Lee’s capture by the British in December 1776 put an end to that possibility. Lee’s subsequent release in a prisoner exchange in 1778 and return to an American command led to a dramatic confrontation with Washington on the battlefield at Monmouth, New Jersey, in June 1778. Washington chastised Lee publicly for ordering an unnecessary retreat. Lee suffered the ignominy of a court-martial conviction for this blunder and spent the remaining years to his death in 1782 attacking Washington. Although few doubted Lee’s loyalty at the time, his actions at Monmouth fueled speculation that he switched sides during his imprisonment.

A discovery years after his death completed Lee’s tale. In 1862, a researcher discovered “Mr. Lee’s Plan,” a detailed strategy for the defeat of the American rebels delivered to British General William Howe while Lee was held in captivity. This discovery sealed Lee’s historical record and ended all further discussion of his contributions to the American Revolution. Today, few people even realize that Fort Lee, on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, was named in his honor.

Riley propelled entomology from a collector’s parlor hobby of the nineteenth century to the serious study of insects in the Modern Age
 
This definitive biography is the first full account of a fascinating American scientist whose leadership created the modern science of entomology that recognizes both the essential role of insects in natural systems and their challenge to the agricultural food supply that sustains humankind. Charles Valentine Riley: Founder of Modern Entomology tells the story of how Riley (1843–1895), a young British immigrant to America—with classical schooling, only a smattering of natural history knowledge, and with talent in art and writing but no formal training in science—came to play a key role in the reorientation of entomology from the collection and arrangement of specimens to a scientific approach to insect evolution, diversity, ecology, and applied management of insect pests.
 
Drawing on Riley’s personal diaries, family records, correspondence, and publications, the authors trace Riley’s career as farm laborer, Chicago journalist, Missouri State Entomologist, chief federal entomologist, founder of the National Insect Collection, and initiator of the professional organization that became the Entomological Society of America. Also examined in detail are his spectacular campaigns against the Rocky Mountain Locust that stalled western migration in the 1870s, the Grape Phylloxera that threatened French vineyards in the 1870s and 80s, the Cotton Worm that devastated southern cotton fields after the Civil War, and the Cottony Cushion Scale that threatened the California citrus industry in the 1880s. The latter was defeated through importation of the Vedalia Beetle from Australia, the spectacular first example of biological control of an invasive insect pest by its introduced natural enemy.

A striking figure in appearance and deed, Riley combined scientific, literary, artistic, and managerial skills that enabled him to influence every aspect of entomology. A correspondent of Darwin and one of his most vocal American advocates, he discovered the famous example of mimicry of the Monarch butterfly by the Viceroy, and described the intricate coevolution of yucca moths and yuccas, a complex system that fascinates evolutionary scientists to this day. Whether applying evolutionary theory to pest control, promoting an American silk industry, developing improved spray technologies, or promoting applied entomology in state and federal government and to the public, Riley was the central figure in the formative years of the entomology profession. In addition to showcasing his own renderings of the insects he investigated, this comprehensive account provides fresh insight into the personal and public life of an ingenious, colorful, and controversial scientist, who aimed to discover, understand, and outsmart the insects.

In 1943, Charlotte Delbo and 229 other women were deported to a station with no name, which they later learned was Auschwitz. Arrested for resisting the Nazi occupation of Paris, Delbo was sent to the camps, enduring both Auschwitz and Ravensbrück for twenty-seven months. There, she, her fellow deportees, and millions of others were subjected to slave labor and nearly succumbed to typhus, dysentery, and hunger. She sustained herself by reciting Molière and resolved to someday write a book about herself and her fellow deportees, a stunning work called None of Us Will Return. After the camps, Delbo devoted her life to the art of writing and the duty of witnessing, fiercely advocating for the power of the arts to testify against despotism and tyranny.

Ghislaine Dunant's unforgettable biography of Delbo, La vie retrouvée (2016), captivated French readers and was awarded the Prix Femina. Now translated into English for the first time, Charlotte Delbo: A Life Reclaimed depicts Delbo's lifelong battles as a working-class woman, as a survivor, as a leftist who broke from the Communist Party, and most of all, as a writer whose words compelled others to see.

In this creative memoir, Homer McCarty adopts the voice of seven-year-old Buck to recollect his own life growing up in rugged southern Utah Territory in the late 1800s. Although Buck’s reflections are necessarily imprecise—gathered from fragments of memory and then embellished freely—the stories he tells are an honest look at life on the frontier.  

In the spirit of Huck Finn, Buck embarks on adventures and mischief with his loyal friend, Earl. Naïve, eager, and inquisitive, he seeks to make sense of his world. McCarty’s portrayal of the period is often humorous, capturing the intimacy of place and family through a young boy’s eyes.

McCarty completed this work in 1948. Had it not been for a series of fortuitous events and the dedication of his granddaughters, including Coralie Beyers, these pages would have been lost. Thanks to her efforts, her grandfather’s lively, entertaining book is now available for readers to relish and enjoy.

Che on My Mind is an impressionistic look at the life, death, and legacy of Che Guevara by the renowned feminist poet and activist Margaret Randall. Recalling an era and this figure, she writes, "I am old enough to remember the world in which [Che] lived. I was part of that world, and it remains a part of me." Randall participated in the Mexican student movement of 1968 and eventually was forced to leave the country. She arrived in Cuba in 1969, less than two years after Che's death, and lived there until 1980. She became friends with several of Che's family members, friends, and compatriots. In Che on My Mind she reflects on his relationships with his family and fellow insurgents, including Fidel Castro. She is deeply admiring of Che's integrity and charisma and frank about what she sees as his strategic errors. Randall concludes by reflecting on the inspiration and lessons that Che's struggles might offer early twenty-first-century social justice activists and freedom fighters.

A young man arrives in England in the 1930s, knowing few words of the English language. Yet, two years later he writes a successful English book on Chinese art, and within the following decade publishes more than a dozen others. This is the true story of Chiang Yee, a renowned writer, artist, and worldwide traveler, best known for the Silent Traveller series--stories of England, the United States, Ireland, France, Japan, and Australia--all written in his humorous, delightfully refreshing, and enlightening literary style.

This biography is more than a recounting of extraordinary accomplishments. It also embraces the transatlantic life experience of Yee who traveled from China to England and then on to the United States, where he taught at Columbia University, to his return to China in 1975, after a forty-two year absence. Interwoven is the history of the communist revolution in China; the battle to save England during World War II; the United States during the McCarthy red scare era; and, eventually, thawing Sino-American relations in the 1970s. Da Zheng uncovers Yee's encounters with racial exclusion and immigration laws, displacement, exile, and the pain and losses he endured hidden behind a popular public image.

Winner, ISHS Best of Illinois History Award, 2019

In this riveting true story of coming of age in the Chicago Mob, Charles “Charley” Hager is plucked from his rural West Virginia home by an uncle in the 1960s and thrown into an underworld of money, cars, crime, and murder on the streets of Chicago Heights.
 
Street-smart and good with his hands, Hager is accepted into the working life of a chauffeur and “street tax” collector, earning the moniker “Little Joe College” by notorious mob boss Albert Tocco. But when his childhood friend is gunned down by a hit man, Hager finds himself a bit player in the events surrounding the mysterious, and yet unsolved, murder of mafia chief Sam Giancana.
 
Chicago Heights is part rags-to-riches story, part murder mystery, and part redemption tale. Hager, with author David T. Miller, juxtaposes his early years in West Virginia with his life in crime, intricately weaving his own experiences into the fabric of mob life, its many characters, and the murder of Giancana.
 
Fueled by vivid recollections of turf wars and chop shops, of fix-ridden harness racing and the turbulent politics of the 1960s, Chicago Heights reveals similarities between high-level organized crime in the city and the corrupt lawlessness of Appalachia. Hager candidly reveals how he got caught up in a criminal life, what it cost him, and how he rebuilt his life back in West Virginia with a prison record.
 
Based on interviews with Hager and supplemented by additional interviews and extensive research by Miller, the book also adds Hager’s unique voice to the volumes of speculation about Giancana’s murder, offering a plausible theory of what happened on that June night in 1975. 
 

The famous, the infamous, and the unjustly forgotten—all receive their due in this biographical dictionary of the people who have made Chicago one of the world’s great cities. Here are the life stories—provided in short, entertaining capsules—of Chicago’s cultural giants as well as the industrialists, architects, and politicians who literally gave shape to the city. Jane Addams, Al Capone, Willie Dixon, Harriet Monroe, Louis Sullivan, Bill Veeck, Harold Washington, and new additions Saul Bellow, Harry Caray, Del Close, Ann Landers, Walter Payton, Koko Taylor, and Studs Terkel—Chicago Portraits tells you why their names are inseparable from the city they called home.

First published in 1960, Neil R. Johnson's The Chickasaw Rancher, Revised Edition, tells the story of Montford T. Johnson and the first white settlement of Oklahoma. Abandoned by his father after his mother's death and then left on his own following his grandmother's passing in 1868, Johnson became the owner of a piece of land in the northern part of the Chickasaw Nation in what is now Oklahoma.

The Chickasaw Rancher follows Montford T. Johnson's family and friends for the next thirty-two years. Neil R. Johnson describes the work, the ranch parties, cattle rustling, gun fights, tornadoes, the run of 1889, the hard deaths of many along the way, and the rise, fall, and revival of the Chickasaw Nation.

This revised edition of The Chickasaw Rancher, edited by C. Neil Kingsley, Neil R. Johnson's grandson, is the perfect addition to any reader's collection of the history of the American West.

Victor Erlich was born in 1914, at the threshold of what the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova called "the real twentieth century," in Petrograd, a place indelibly marked by that century's violent dislocations and upheavals. His story, begun on the eve of the First World War and taking him through Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Germany, and the U. S. Army, is in many ways a memoir of that "real twentieth century," reflecting its lethal nature and shaped by the "fearful symmetry" of the age of totalitarianism. Erlich's grandfather, the legendary Jewish historian Simon Dubnov, was felled in December 1941 by a Nazi bullet; his father, Henryk Erlich, a leader of the Jewish Bund and a prominent figure in Russian and Polish socialism, took his life in Stalin's prison in May 1942. To read about Erlich's life growing up at the intersection of the century's darkest currents is to experience history firsthand from the Russian Revolution to the end of the Second World War-and to know what it truly is to be a child of the century.

Erlich conjures up what it was like to be a Bundist, the intensity of Socialist life at the time, the thinking after the Nazi invasion of Poland-before the pact between Hitler and Stalin became apparent. Figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Wendel Wilkie, Marc and Bella Chagall make appearances, as well as the famous logician Tarski, flunking Erlich in math. Throughout, despite the darkness, even the horror, of much of what he describes, the author maintains the beguiling tone and the warm manner of one who has reached the new millennium with rare and hard-won insight into the human comedy of his time.

In Childhood Years, originally published serially in a literary magazine between 1955 and 1956, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō (1886–1965) takes a meandering look back on his early life in Tokyo. He reflects on his upbringing, family, and the capital city with a conversational—and not necessarily honest—eye, offering insights into his later life and his writing. 
 

In Children of Hope, Sandra Rowoldt Shell traces the lives of sixty-four Oromo children who were enslaved in Ethiopia in the late-nineteenth century, liberated by the British navy, and ultimately sent to Lovedale Institution, a Free Church of Scotland mission in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, for their safety. Because Scottish missionaries in Yemen interviewed each of the Oromo children shortly after their liberation, we have sixty-four structured life histories told by the children themselves.

In the historiography of slavery and the slave trade, first passage narratives are rare, groups of such narratives even more so. In this analytical group biography (or prosopography), Shell renders the experiences of the captives in detail and context that are all the more affecting for their dispassionate presentation. Comparing the children by gender, age, place of origin, method of capture, identity, and other characteristics, Shell enables new insights unlike anything in the existing literature for this region and period.

Children of Hope is supplemented by graphs, maps, and illustrations that carefully detail the demographic and geographic layers of the children’s origins and lives after capture. In this way, Shell honors the individual stories of each child while also placing them into invaluable and multifaceted contexts.