Results by title

Ramón Beteta was an important figure in Mexican life: politician, Cabinet member, diplomat, economist, professor, journalist. The manuscript of Jarano was found among his papers after his death in 1965 and was published in Mexico in 1966. "Jarano," the kind of broad sombrero worn by charros, was the secret nickname—partly disrespectful, partly amused, partly affectionate—which Ramón and his brother gave to their father. Except for part of the last chapter, the book is about Ramón's childhood and youth: sketches of family life, school experiences, a trip to Veracruz, and incidents of the Revolution.

Beteta brought to these reminiscences the skills of the short story writer, making superb use of dialogue, descriptive details, characterization, and mood. For a small book, the range of emotions is unusually wide, from the comedy of an evening meal to which Jarano has come home drunk to the tragedy of the indio and his wife in the chapter entitled "San Vicente Chicoloapan"—a chapter that gives more of the "feel" of the Revolution than do many longer works.

Jean-Paul Marat’s role in the French Revolution has long been a matter of controversy among historians. Often he has been portrayed as a violent, sociopathic demagogue. This biography challenges that interpretation and argues that without Marat’s contributions as an agitator, tactician, and strategist, the pivotal social transformation that the Revolution accomplished might well not have occurred.

Clifford D. Conner argues that what was unique about Marat - which set him apart from all other major figures of the Revolution, including Danton and Robespierre - was his total identification with the struggle of the propertyless classes for social equality.

This is an essential book for anyone interested in the history of the revolutionary period and the personalities that led it.

One of America's best short story writers and author of three fine novels, Boston Adventure (1944), The Mountain Lion (1947), and The Catherine Wheel (1952), Jean Stafford has been rediscovered by another generation of readers and scholars. Although her novels and her Pulitzer Prize–winning short stories were widely read in the 1940s and 1950s, her fiction has received less critical attention than that of other distinguished contemporary American women writers such as Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, and Eudora Welty. In this literary biography, Charlotte M. Goodman traces the life of the brilliant yet troubled Jean Stafford and reassesses her importance.

Drawing on a wealth of original material, Goodman describes the vital connections between Stafford's life and her fiction. She discusses Stafford's difficult family relationships, her tempestuous first marriage to the poet Robert Lowell, her unresolved conflicts about gender roles, her alcoholism and bouts with depression—and her amazing ability to transform the chaotic details of her life into elegant works of fiction. These wonderfully crafted works offer insightful portraits of alienated and isolated characters, most of whom exemplify not only human estrangement in the modern world, but also the special difficulties of girls and women who refuse to play traditional roles.

Goodman locates Jean Stafford within the literary world of the 1940s and 1950s. In her own right, and through her marriages to Robert Lowell, Life magazine editor Oliver Jensen, and journalist A. J. Liebling, Stafford associated with many of the major literary figures of her day, including the Southern Fugitives, the New York intellectual coterie, and writers for the New Yorker, to which she regularly contributed short stories. Goodman also describes Stafford's sustaining friendships with other women writers, such as Evelyn Scott and Caroline Gordon, and with her New Yorker editor, Katharine S. White.

This highly readable biography will appeal to a wide audience interested in twentieth-century literature and the writing of women's lives.

Films like The Eternal Daughter and the diptych The Souvenir and The Souvenir Part II have cemented Joanna Hogg’s reputation as an original voice in contemporary cinema. Her rigorous and quiet style draws on the histories of film and art to tell stories that weave autobiography with studies in human opacity.

Shonni Enelow analyzes Hogg’s six feature films around the concepts of turning away, the reality effect, and the impossible encounter. Throughout, Enelow explores the tension between absorption, in which characters are immersed in a diegetic fiction, and self-reflexivity, as the filmmaker comments on her techniques of representation. An in-depth interview with Hogg delves into the director’s process, approach to creating character, and use of artistic and literary references.

Sophisticated and innovative, Joanna Hogg illuminates the work of one of today’s most original filmmakers.

R. Barton Palmer argues that the Coen oeuvre forms a central element in what might be called postmodernist filmmaking. Mixing high and low cultural sources and blurring genres like noir and comedy, the use of pastiche and anti-realist elements in films such as The Hudsucker Proxy and Barton Fink clearly fit the postmodernist paradigm. Palmer argues that for a full understanding of the Coen brothers' unique position within film culture, it is important to see how they have developed a new type of text within general postmodernist practice that Palmer terms commercial/independent. Analyzing their substantial body of work from this "generic" framework is the central focus of this book.

Drawing on extensive research and previously untapped archival materials, Lynn Edwards Butler explores Scheibe's professional relationships and the full range of his projects. These assignments included the three-manual organ for St. Paul’s Church, renovations of the organs in the important churches of St. Thomas and St. Nicholas, and the lone surviving example of Scheibe's craft, a small organ in the nearby village of Zschortau. Viewing Scheibe within the context of the era, Butler illuminates the music scene of Bach's time as she follows the life of a gifted craftsman and his essential work on an instrument that anchored religious musical practice and community.

Not available.

Born in Norway, John A. Widtsoe (1872–1952), was renowned for his expertise in irrigation and dry farming. His pioneering work pushed the boundaries of and contributed significantly to advancements in agricultural practices. Moreover, his forays into the field of biochemistry exemplified his relentless pursuit of scientific understanding.

Widtsoe’s journey came with challenges especially after he was called as an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As president of both Utah State Agricultural College (1907–16) and the University of Utah (1916–21), he faced controversies and obstacles head-on. Additionally, he played a significant role in overseeing the expansion of the LDS gospel in both Europe and the United States. He was highly esteemed within his church due to his ability to provide thorough and insightful explanations of various aspects of church doctrine and reconcile them with scientific truths. Throughout the early-to-mid-twentieth century, he symbolized to many members the successful integration of religious faith with secular knowledge, inspiring countless individuals to embrace both realms in harmony.

The first full biography of the southern U.S. Supreme Court justice who championed both the U.S. Constitution and states’ rights.
 
The life of John Archibald Campbell reflects nearly every major development of 19th-century American history. He participated either directly or indirectly in events ranging from the Indian removal process of the 1830s, to sectionalism and the Civil War, to Reconstruction and redemption. Although not a defender of slavery, he feared that abrupt abolition would produce severe economic and social dislocation. He urged southerners to reform their labor system and to prepare for the eventual abolition of slavery. In the early 1850s he proposed a series of reforms to strengthen slave families and to educate the slaves to prepare them for assimilation into society as productive citizens. These views distinguished him from many southerners who steadfastly maintained the sanctity of the peculiar institution.
 
Born and schooled in Georgia, Campbell moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the early 1830s, where he joined a successful law practice. He served in the Alabama legislature for a brief period and then moved with his family to Mobile to establish a law practice. In 1853 Campbell was appointed an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. His concurring opinion in the Dred Scott case in 1857 derived not from the standpoint of protecting slavery but from an attempt to return political power to the states. As the sectional crisis gathered heat, Campbell counseled moderation. He became widely detested in the North because of his defense of states’ rights, and he was distrusted in the South because of his moderate views on slavery and secession. In May 1861 Campbell resigned from the Court and later became the Confederacy's assistant secretary of war. After the war, Campbell moved his law practice to New Orleans. Upon his death in 1889, memorial speakers in Washington, D.C., and New Orleans recognized him as one of the nation's most gifted lawyers and praised his vast learning and mastery of both the common law and the civil law.
 
In this first full biography of Campbell, Robert Saunders, Jr., reveals the prevalence of anti-secession views prior to the Civil War and covers both the judicial aspects and the political history of this crucial period in southern history.
 

John Aubrey (1626–97) was one of the best-connected scholars and antiquaries in the great decades of the British scientific revolution. He is remembered as a pioneer historian and the father of English life-writing, whose Brief Lives remains a lasting portrait of a generation of eminent thinkers and nobles. But Aubrey’s intellectual interests were much broader. He was one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society, and he was acquainted with leading scientists of the generation of Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton. Aubrey championed Hooke’s geological theories, radical for the time, that proposed the organic origin of fossils. In addition, Aubrey was a keen mathematician and an early donor to the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology and the Bodleian Library. Extensively illustrated, John Aubrey and the Advancement of Learning presents all of Aubrey’s varied interests and pursuits in their intellectual milieu. Published to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, this is the first accessible and illustrated guide to Aubrey’s many diverse achievements as a biographer, natural philosopher and scientist, and antiquary.

The man regarded as “the Father of the American Navy” returns to the quarterdeck in John Barry: An American Hero in the Age of Sail, the first comprehensive biography of this legendary officer in generations. Son of a hardscrabble Irish farmer from County Wexford, Barry was sent to sea as a child, arriving in Philadelphia during the restless decade before the American Revolution. Brave and ambitious, he ascended the ratlines to become a successful merchant captain at a young age, commanding the most prestigious ship in the colonies and recording the fastest known day of sail in the century.

Volunteering to fight for the Continental cause, Barry saw his star rise during the War for Independence. As captain of the Lexington, Raleigh, and Alliance, Barry faced down broadsides, mutinies, and even a fleet of icebergs. He captured the first enemy warship taken by a Continental vessel and fought the last battle of the American Revolution. His hard-won victory over two British warships simultaneously garnered him international notoriety, while his skill as a seafarer and cool temper established Barry as a worthy foe among British captains. Without a ship during the winter of 1776-77, the ever resourceful Barry lead a battery of naval artillery at the battle of Princeton. With peace came a historic voyage to China, where Barry helped open trade with that reclusive empire. In 1794, President Washington named Barry as the first commissioned officer in the new United States Navy. Given the title of commodore, Barry ended his career during America’s naval war with France, teaching the ropes to a new generation of officers, most notably Stephen Decatur.

Drawn from primary source documents from around the world, John Barry: An American Hero in the Age of Sail by Tim McGrath brings the story of this self-made American back to life in a major new biography.

One of the best primary accounts of the Civil War by a Confederate.

John Dooley was the youngest son of Irish immigrants to Richmond, Virginia, where his father prospered, and the family took a leading position among Richmond’s sizeable Irish community. Early in 1862, John left his studies at Georgetown University to serve in the First Virginia Infantry Regiment, in which his father John and brother James also served. John’s service took him to Second Manassas, South Mountain, Sharpsburg (Antietam), Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg; before that last battle, Dooley was elected a lieutenant. On the third day at Gettysburg, Dooley swept up the hill in Pickett’s charge, where he was shot through both legs and lay all night on the field, to be made a POW the next day. Held until February 27, 1865, Dooley made his way back south to arrive home very near the Confederacy’s final collapse.

Dooley’s account is valuable for the content of his service and because most of the material came from his diary, with some interpolations (which are indicated as such) that he made shortly after the war’s end when his memory was still fresh. Dooley’s health seems to have been permanently compromised by his wounds; he entered a Roman Catholic seminary after the war and died in 1873 several months before his ordination was to take place.