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7 books match the query 'Their Own Words'

cover of Arguing the World: The New York Intellectuals in their Own Words

Arguing the World

The New York Intellectuals in their Own Words

Joseph Dorman

University of Chicago Press, 2001

Joseph Dorman's film Arguing the World won New York Magazine's Best New York Documentary award in 1999 as well as the Peabody Award in 1999. His work has also appeared on The Discovery Channel, CBS, and CNN, and has been nominated for two Emmy Awards.

Joseph Dorman's acclaimed documentary, Arguing the World, included stunning interviews with Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, Irving Kristol, and Nathan Glazer. Now with a new preface, Dorman converted the film into this book that includes an overview of the New York Intellectuals and a chapter on the future of the public intellectual. Expertly spliced together from the film and new material, this book gives the sense that these men are still engaged in their fiery debates that targeted everything from the Depression to McCarthyism to the rise of the New Left through the Age of Reagan.


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cover of Dialogue with Europe, Dialogue with the Past: Colonial Nahua and Quechua Elites in Their Own Words

Dialogue with Europe, Dialogue with the Past

Colonial Nahua and Quechua Elites in Their Own Words

Justyna Olko

University Press of Colorado, 2018

Dialogue with Europe, Dialogue with the Past is a critical, annotated anthology of indigenous-authored texts, including the Nahua, Quechua, and Spanish originals, through which native peoples and Spaniards were able to convey their own perspectives on Spanish colonial order. It is the first volume to bring together native testimonies from two different areas of Spanish expansion in the Americas to examine comparatively these geographically and culturally distant realities of indigenous elites in the colonial period.
 
In each chapter a particular document is transcribed exactly as it appears in the original manuscript or colonial printed document, with the editor placing it in historical context and considering the degree of European influence. These texts show the nobility through documents they themselves produced or caused to be produced—such as wills, land deeds, and petitions—and prioritize indigenous ways of expression, perspectives, and concepts. Together, the chapters demonstrate that native elites were independent actors as well as agents of social change and indigenous sustainability in colonial society. Additionally, the volume diversifies the commonly homogenous term “cacique” and recognizes the differences in elites throughout Mesoamerica and the Andes.
 
Showcasing important and varied colonial genres of indigenous writing, Dialogue with Europe, Dialogue with the Past reveals some of the realities, needs, strategies, behaviors, and attitudes associated with the lives of the elites. Each document and its accompanying commentary provide additional insight into how the nobility negotiated everyday life. The book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Mesoamerican and Andean history, as well as those interested in indigenous colonial societies in the Spanish Empire.
 
Contributors: Agnieszka Brylak, Maria Castañeda de la Paz, Katarzyna Granicka, Gregory Haimovich, Anastasia Kalyuta, Julia Madajczak, Patrycja Prządka-Giersz
 
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cover of From Galileo to Gell-Mann: The Wonder that Inspired the Greatest Scientists of All Time: In Their Own Words

From Galileo to Gell-Mann

The Wonder that Inspired the Greatest Scientists of All Time: In Their Own Words

Marco Bersanelli

Templeton Press, 2009

From time to time, the diligent science student huddled over dense volumes of research findings and highly technical data will stumble upon a truly rare treasure: the author’s answer to the question of, “Why?” Why did the authors of these volumes commit themselves so ardently to life in the laboratory? What was it that motivated them to keep their eye to microscope for years on end? Why did the world’s greatest scientists devote their lives to research—an endeavor where failure is the exponentially more likely outcome than success? In their new anthology, From Galileo to Gell-Mann, Marco Bersanelli and Mario Gargantini have gathered the answers to these fascinating questions from over one hundred of the brightest scientific minds from our past and our present. It is a goldmine of insight that previously could only to be found hidden deep within thousands of scattershot pages of footnotes from out-of-print journals, rare books, and unpublished papers. Throughout the work, Bersanelli and Gargantini also offer insightful commentary and discussion on the readings. Among the most remarkable similarities that emerge when one considers together these writings from the likes of Albert Einstein, Gregor Mendel, Marie Curie, and others, is the sense of wonder and outright awe at what the study of the natural world can reveal. From Galileo to Gell-Mann makes it clear that science and all parallel attempts to understand our human existence—including fields like philosophy to theology—are viewed as nothing less than grand adventures to those that are probing the limits of what we know.
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cover of In Their Own Words: Letters from Norwegian Immigrants

In Their Own Words

Letters from Norwegian Immigrants

Solveig. Zempel

University of Minnesota Press, 1991

For most Norwegians in the nineteenth century, America was a remote and exotic place until the first immigrants began to write home. Their letters were among the most valuable, accessible, and reliable sources of information about the new world and the journey to it. For many immigrants, writing letters home was their most cherished opportunity to communicate their thoughts and feelings in their native language.

Through vivid translations of letters written to family and friends between 1870 and 1945, In Their Own Words traces the stories of nine Norwegian immigrants: farmer, fisherman, gold miner, politician, unmarried mother, housewife, businessman, railroad worker, contractor. Their common bond was the experience of immigration and acculturation, but their individual experiences were manifested in a wide variety of forms.

Solveig Zempel has thoughtfully selected and translated letters rich in personal description and observation to present each writer’s subjective view of historical events. Often focusing on the minutiae of daily life and the feelings of the individual immigrant, the letters form a complex, intimate, and colorful mosaic of the immigrant world.

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cover of In Their Own Words: Stewart Indian School Writings and Reflections

In Their Own Words

Stewart Indian School Writings and Reflections

Samantha M. Williams

University of Nevada Press, 2027

In Their Own Words: Stewart Indian School Writings and Reflections examines Stewart Indian School through writings produced by its students. Stewart was established in 1890 in Carson City, Nevada, to educate and assimilate Native American children. Students from across the West attended the school, which evolved from a militaristic institution into one that, by the late 1960s and 1970s, emphasized academics and athletics. The U.S. government closed Stewart in 1980, citing financial and structural concerns.

In the book, student writings document daily lessons and activities, thoughts about academic and vocational training, and responses to life within the institution. The school’s publications also gave students a platform for expression, serving as a window into what it meant to be Native in a government-run boarding school system. 

The book includes original interviews with Stewart alumni covering the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. These firsthand accounts provide new information about student life, including positive and negative perspectives, and offer context for the varied experiences of those who attended.

Together, the writings and interviews offer a fuller understanding of student life at Stewart.

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cover of Roots and Resilience: California Ranchers in Their Own Words

Roots and Resilience

California Ranchers in Their Own Words

Susan Edinger Marshall

University of Nevada Press, 2024

In Roots and Resilience, the authors invite readers to consider an intimate relationship with the California landscape and its history. Ranching in the region goes back centuries, and many of these essayists have long family lineages in the area, while other contributors are newer to the region. Through their authentic voices, these writers provide a lens through which we can better understand the language of this landscape.

The editors have drawn together these stories, poems, and musings from ranchers across the state, calling upon real people to share their experiences, and beckoning readers to find a shared understanding concerning often divisive land-use topics. Many perspectives are considered, including those of transplanted suburbanites to seventh-generation heirs. Notably, many women’s writings are including in the book, offering unique and valuable perspectives on ranching culture.

Roots and Resilience gives voice to California’s Indigenous, Mexican American, Basque and other European American ranchers, asking the reader to find common ground in the name of land stewardship and conservation.
 
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cover of Straight A's: Asian American College Students in Their Own Words

Straight A's

Asian American College Students in Their Own Words

Christine R. Yano and Neal K. Adolph Akatsuka, editors

Duke University Press, 2018

The American Dream of success for many Asian Americans includes the highest levels of education. But what does it mean to live that success? In Straight A’s Asian American students at Harvard reflect on their common experiences with discrimination, immigrant communities, their relationships to their Asian heritage, and their place in the university. They also explore the difficulties of living up to family expectations and the real-world effects of the "model minority" stereotype. While many of the issues they face are familiar to a wide swath of college students, their examinations of race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and culture directly speak to the Asian American experience in U.S. higher education. Unique and revealing, intimate and unreserved, Straight A’s furthers the conversation about immigrant histories, racial and ethnic stereotypes, and multiculturalism in contemporary American society.
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