books tagged “history”

Illustrated with full-page and double-page photographs, this volume includes entries on over 100 spectacular bikes (BMW, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Indian, Triumph) as well as essays on the motorcycle in film, fashion, lifestyle and history by such life-long rebels as Hunter S. Thompson and Dennis Hopper. It includes such gems as the 1894 Hildebrand & Wolfmuller 1500xx, the pivotal BMW R32, the 1950s Honda 50 Super Cub, the quintessentially American 1977 Harley-Davidson XLCR, and the Ducati 916. New to the paperback edition is a 16-page illustrated section featuring the motorcycles that were added to the exhibition it accompanied, when it travelled to the Guggenheim Las Vegas. [via]

This oversized atlas offers comprehensive information on every world region, with overviews, maps, flags, statistical details, and current events. Each region is described in physical, cultural and political terms in full color. An index gazetteer and locator globe icons enable researchers to find specific topics and locations with ease. [via]

Acclaimed military strategist and author Ralph Peters assembles 18 essays, some written before and others after the September 11 attacks, which show his writing at its best. Always one step ahead of other military strategists, Peters evaluates the status quo of world affairs and brings his years of experience as an Army-insider to bear on the state of terrorism in the world today, and his vision for how the United States should be fighting the war against terrorists and terrorism. Peters proposes an unorthodox view of intelligence analysis, attacks the lie that the American people will not accept casualties, and, in a tour de force, reveals the human side of Clausewitz. Drawing on the experiences of an unusual military career and travel to more than fifty countries, Peters portrays a world undergoing the most dramatic changes in history. Beyond Terror takes us far beyond the intellectual prison of traditional wisdom to offer the most original thinking available on the strategic challenges confronting the United States in the 21st century. [via]

More than 2.8 million people currently call Brooklyn home, and over the past few decades, the boom of art galleries, stores, and nightlife in this proud borough of New York has drawn visitors from near and far. Yet the fascinating mix of people, places, and institutions that define Brooklyn today existed long before the current cultural renaissance.
In this profusely illustrated book, writers Grace Glueck and Paul Gardner provide a historic tour of the borough, from the Brooklyn Bridge and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to Prospect Park and Coney Island. The reader is also introduced to the dynamic people of Brooklyn, from Hasidic Williamsburg to the African American community in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and some of its most celebrated natives, including Woody Allen, Spike Lee, Barbra Streisand, Mae West, and Truman Capote. [via]

Before the heroic stand of the 20th Maine at Little Round Top, the 2nd and 20th Georgia Infantries, led by Brigadier General Robert Toombs, held off a veritable Yankee juggernaut and triumphed at Burnside's Bridge on Antietam Creek in 1862. This detailed account profiles the troops whose last stand helped prevent the destruction of the Army of Northern Virginia, providing Robert E Lee with yet another chance for a northern invasion. [via]

In print for over forty years, this gem of lyric prose has enchanted both young and old and is now a modern classic.

The classic "little blue edition" with matching mailing envelope to send as a holiday gift. Dylan Thomas, one of the greatest poets and storytellers of the twentieth century, captures a child's-eye view, and an adult's fond remembrance, of a magical time of presents, aunts and uncles, the frozen sea, and, in the best of circumstances, newly fallen snowits wonder, silence, and snowball mischief.

This edition published by New Directions is the most popular format of A Child's Christmas in Walesa booklet size that can be mailed in an accompanying envelope. [via]

The most comprehensive survey of postwar comics, covering the period when some of our best-known cartoonists were at their creative peaks, The Comics Since 1945 is now available in a revised and updated paperback edition. Organized by decade, illustrated with exemplary selections of historic comic strips, and supplemented by biographical profiles of the artists, it is both comprehensive and graphically stunning, ideal for both devoted comics fans and serious students of popular culture. [via]

A year-by-year and region-by-region account of the battles and campaigns of the Civil War. [via]

One of the classics of modern Japanese fiction.

Salvador Dalí (1904-1988) was one of the most popular and most visible artists of the last century, known for his provocative works and his larger-than-life personality. He created an astoundingly diverse body of work, including paintings, drawings, prints, book illustration, films, and stage sets. Whatever the medium, his works were filled with dreamlike, fetishistic images rendered in a precise, hyperrealist style. In this fascinating account, art historian Jean-Louis Gaillemin focuses on the intimate details of Dalí's life, especially his intense relationship with his longtime partner Gala, and how his psychological views and state of mind influenced his work. [via]

Although he has been painting the War Between the States since 1980, Don Troiani's Civil War is the first book to collect this historical artist's work in one volume. Troiani is at his best in the battle paintings--his attention to detail and insistence on historical accuracy help him capture the valor and confusion of combat--but the book includes more bucolic depictions of camp life, as well. Brian Pohanka's accompanying text illuminates the stories behind the paintings. For example, he describes a famous episode from Second Manassas where Confederate soldiers ran out of bullets during a Union assault; the beleaguered Rebels resorted to throwing rocks at the Union lines. Troiani captures this desperate action magnificently. Because the narrative focuses on these small stories, it sometimes misses the big picture; so while the text and paintings are presented in chronological order from 1861 to 1865, it makes for only a so-so recounting of the war overall. But this is not a book you read so much as experience. --Thomas Prowell [via]

Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 1865-1890: Conquering the Southern Plains is the third in a planned five-volume series that will tell the saga of the military struggle for the American West in the words of the soldiers, noncombatants, and Native Americans who shaped it. Volume III: Conquering the Southern Plains offers as complete a selection of outstanding original accounts pertaining to the struggle for the Southern Plains and Texas as may be gathered under one cover. It contains accounts from such notable military participants as George Armstrong Custer, Nelson A. Miles, Wesley Merritt, and Frederick W. Benteen. [via]

Relates how a Philadelphia seamstress helped design and make the first flag to represent the United States of America. [via]

The monster was supposed to be man's benefactor, but, scorned for his ugliness, he swears revenge on his creator and the human race. [via]

In this book, Merton has selected the basic statements of principle and interpretation which make up Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence (AHIMSA) and non-violent action (SATYAGRAHA). The Gandhi text follows that established by the Navaijivan Trust with sections dealing with "Principles of non-violence", "Non-violence, true and false", "Spiritual dimensions of non-violence". "The political scope of non-violence", and "The purity of non-violence". [via]

Cocteau's novel Les Enfants Terribles, which was first published in 1929, holds an undisputed place among the classics of modern fiction.

In a comic masterpiece following the misadventures of a simple but hugely ambitious waiter in pre-World War II Prague, who rises to wealth only to lose everything with the onset of Communism, Bohumil Hrabal takes us on a tremendously funny and satirical trip through 20th-century Czechoslovakia.

A discussion of several UFO sightings including a description of the objects and speculations about their origins. [via]

By the summer of 1864, Abraham Lincoln had good reason to fear that he might not be re-elected. The continuing toll of three years of indecisive war had seriously weakened the resolve of the Northern people to continue the fight. Lincoln's Democratic Party opponent, General George B. McClellan, was formidable; he enjoyed tremendous popularity and commanded the votes of all those opposed to the war. With a McClellan victory, the war might end, the Confederate States of America might win independence, and slavery might be perpetuated indefinitely. This text, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, marks a milestone in Civil War and Lincoln history. It investigates deeply the events of 1864 that eventually produced Lincoln's re-election and, with it, the emancipation of the slaves. [via]

Japanese Studies, Literary Studies [via]

This is the fourth in a planned five-volume series that seeks to tell the saga of the military struggle for the American West, using the words of the soldiers, noncombatants, and Native Americans who shaped it. To paint as broad and colorful a picture as possible, riveting firsthand materials have been carefully selected from contemporaneous newspapers, magazines, and unpublished manuscripts. This volume offers as complete a selection of original accounts of the Northern Plains campaigns as can be assembled under one cover. Includes articles by such notable figures as George Custer, Philip Sheridan, Nelson A. Miles, and artist Frederic Remington. Covers the Powder River Expedition of 1865, the Yellowstone Expedition of 1873, Custer's Last Stand, Wounded Knee, and much more. [via]

Never before translated into English, the Manimekhalai is one of the great classics of Indian culture.

In our own time the "wilderness" has emerged as a source of spiritual renewal, both as idea and in actual practice. But Hsieh Ling-yün (385-433 C. E.) was there before us. 

Winner of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature. Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher, critic, novelist and dramatist, hold a position of singular eminence in the world of French letters. Among readers and critics familiar with the whole of Sartre's work, it is generally recognized that his earliest novel, Le Nausée (first published in 1938), is his finest and most significant. It is unquestionably a key novel of the Twentieth Century and a landmark in Existentialist fiction.

Nausea is the story of Antoine Roquentin, a French writer who is horrified at his own existence. In impressionistic, diary form he ruthlessly catalogues his every feeling and sensation about the world and people around him. His thoughts culminate in a pervasive, overpowering feeling of nausea which "spread at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of our timethe time of purple suspenders and broken chair seats; it is made of wide, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain." Roquentin's efforts to come to terms with his life, his philosophical and psychological struggles, give Sartre the opportunity to dramatize trhe tents of his Existentialist creed.

he introduction for this edition of Nausea by Hayden Carruth gives background on Sartre's life and major works, a summary of the principal themes of Existentialist philosophy, and a critical analysis of the novel itself. [via]

Written by the foremost scholars for a general audience, Abrams' Masters of Art series has proved its popularity over the years, becoming the industry's best-selling art history monograph series. In each book, forty full-page colorplates are accompanied by commentaries discussing each individual work. Other illustrations show the artist at varied points in his career, his contemporaries, and comparative works. The series is now being reissued in paperback, and will be redesigned to bring a contemporary feel to these classic Abrams titles. The individual artists selected for this first round of revisions - Van Gogh, Monet, Dali, Renoir, Bosch, and Leonardo da Vinci - were chosen because of their enduring popularity and their continued influence on the art of today. [via]