books tagged “independence”

›
› Find signed collectible books by ''

English

ISBN 9781594131431 (1-59413-143-0, 1594131430)

via

1776

by David McCullough

ISBN 1594131430 (1-59413-143-0)
Softcover, Large Print Pr

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: '1776'

Book summary:

Esteemed historian David McCullough covers the military side of the momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight and a gripping narrative, adding new scholarship and a fresh perspective to the beginning of the American Revolution. It was a turbulent and confusing time. As British and American politicians struggled to reach a compromise, events on the ground escalated until war was inevitable. McCullough writes vividly about the dismal conditions that troops on both sides had to endure, including an unusually harsh winter, and the role that luck and the whims of the weather played in helping the colonial forces hold off the world's greatest army. He also effectively explores the importance of motivation and troop morale--a tie was as good as a win to the Americans, while anything short of overwhelming victory was disheartening to the British, who expected a swift end to the war. The redcoat retreat from Boston, for example, was particularly humiliating for the British, while the minor American victory at Trenton was magnified despite its limited strategic importance.

Some of the strongest passages in 1776 are the revealing and well-rounded portraits of the Georges on both sides of the Atlantic. King George III, so often portrayed as a bumbling, arrogant fool, is given a more thoughtful treatment by McCullough, who shows that the king considered the colonists to be petulant subjects without legitimate grievances--an attitude that led him to underestimate the will and capabilities of the Americans. At times he seems shocked that war was even necessary. The great Washington lives up to his considerable reputation in these pages, and McCullough relies on private correspondence to balance the man and the myth, revealing how deeply concerned Washington was about the Americans' chances for victory, despite his public optimism. Perhaps more than any other man, he realized how fortunate they were to merely survive the year, and he willingly lays the responsibility for their good fortune in the hands of God rather than his own. Enthralling and superbly written, 1776 is the work of a master historian. --Shawn Carkonen

The Other 1776

With his riveting, enlightening accounts of subjects from Johnstown Flood to John Adams, David McCullough has become the historian that Americans look to most to tell us our own story. In his Amazon.com interview, McCullough explains why he turned in his new book from the political battles of the Revolution to the battles on the ground, and he marvels at some of his favorite young citizen soldiers who fought alongside the remarkable General Washington.

The Essential David McCullough

John Adams	Truman	Mornings on Horseback
The Path Between the Seas	The Great Bridge	The Johnstown Flood

More Reading on the Revolution

The Great Improvisation by Stacy Schiff	Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer	His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
Washington's General by Terry Golway	Iron Tears by Stanley Weintraub	Victory at Yorktown by Richard M. Ketchum

[via]

More editions of 1776:

via
1949
by Morgan Llywelyn

ISBN 0812570804 (0-8125-7080-4)
Softcover, Tor Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: '1949'
Book summary:
1949 tells the story of Ireland's progress as seen through the eyes of one woman, from the bitter aftermath of civil war to the controversial dawn of a modern state. Ursula Halloran, the daughter of a famous revolutionary, comes of age in the turbulent 1920s. An education in Switzerland broadens her world view, but Ireland has become a repressive Catholic state where women are second-class citizens. Married women cannot hold jobs and divorce is illegal.

Fighting against the stifling constraints of church and state, Ursula forges an exciting career in the fledgling Irish radio service. Her life is torn apart when she finds herself caught between two men who love her in very different ways. Refusing to surrender her hard-won independence to marriage, or her illegitimate infant to an orphanage, she flees to Europe to bear her child. There she takes a job with the League of Nations and is caught up in the terrifying outbreak of World War II. Hard decisions and desperate situations stand between her and any hope of returning to the land she loves.
[via]
More editions of 1949:
- 1949: ISBN 0812570804 (0-8125-7080-4)
  Softcover, Tor Books
via
46 Pages: Tom Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to American Independence
by S. Liell

ISBN 0762418133 (0-7624-1813-3)
Softcover, Running Pr Book Pub

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: '46 Pages: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to American Independence'
Book summary:
Thomas Paine, a native of Thetford, England, arrived in America's coloines with little in the way of money, reputation, or prospects, though he did have a letter of recommendation in his pocket from Benjamin Franklin. Paine also had a passion for liberty in all its forms, and an abiding hatred of tyranny. His forceful, direct expression of those principles found voice in a pamphlet he wrote entitled Common Sense, which proved to be the most influential political work of the time. Ultimately, Paine's treatise provided inspiration to the second Continental Congress for the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. 46 Pages is a dramatic look at a pivotal moment in our country's formation, a scholar's meticulous recreation of the turbulent years leading up to the Revolutionary War, retold with excitement and new insight.
[via]
More editions of 46 Pages: Tom Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to American Independence:
- 46 Pages: Tom Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to American Independence: ISBN 076241507X (0-7624-1507-X)
  Hardcover, Running Pr Book Pub
- 46 Pages: Thomas Paine, Common Sense, and the Turning Point to American Independence: ISBN 0762418133 (0-7624-1813-3)
  Softcover, Running Pr Book Pub
All by Myself
by Mercer Mayer

ISBN 0808563947 (0-8085-6394-7)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'All by Myself'
More editions of All by Myself:
- All by Myself: ISBN 0808563947 (0-8085-6394-7)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre
by Harold Bloom

ISBN 0791040925 (0-7910-4092-5)
Softcover, Facts on File

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre'
More editions of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre:
- Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: ISBN 0791040925 (0-7910-4092-5)
  Softcover, Facts on File
via
Ella Enchanted
by Gail Carson Levine

ISBN 0613076915 (0-613-07691-5)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Ella Enchanted'
Book summary:
Every child longs for the day when he or she will be free from meddling parents and bossy grownups. For young Ella, the heroine of Gail Carson Levine's Newbury Honor-winning debut novel, this is more than a fanciful wish; it could be a matter of life or death. Placed under the spell of a blundering fairy, she has no choice but to go through life obeying each and every order--no matter what the consequences may be. "If you commanded me to cut off my own head, I'd have to do it."
Eden Riegel (As the World Turns, Les Miserables) uses her youthful, energetic voice to lead the listener into a familiar world of fairy godmothers, wicked stepsisters, and handsome princes. But this imaginative retelling of the Cinderella story comes with a welcome twist. Instead of a demure heroine patiently awaiting a prince who will carry her off, this Ella is a feisty ball of fire with the courage and ambition to take matters into her own hands.
Riegel narrates in a youthful, energetic tone that is perfectly suited to Ella's character. Her voice adds charm and immediacy to a wonderful story already rich with excitement, adventure, romance, and mystery. (Running time: 5.5 hours, 4 cassettes) --George Laney [via]
More editions of Ella Enchanted:
- Ella Enchanted: ISBN 0613076915 (0-613-07691-5)
  Hardcover, Bt Bound
via
India: From Midnight to the Millennium
by Shashi Tharoor

ISBN 1559703849 (1-55970-384-9)
Hardcover, Arcade Publishing, Incorporated

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'India: From Midnight to the Millennium'
Book summary:
Author Shashi Tharoor has spent half of his life outside of India, yet his position as a "NRI" (Non-resident Indian) has given him the distance and perspective necessary to produce India: From Midnight to the Millennium, an in-depth critique of the country's first fifty years of independence. Tharoor, currently executive assistant to the secretary general of the United Nations, is known for both his fiction (The Great Indian Novel, Show Business) and his journalism; in this effort, he blends fine prose with a reporter's talent for analysis, resulting in a skillful examination of some of the greatest challenges India has faced over the past five decades, as well as what lies ahead for the nation.
In chapters devoted to such diverse topics as caste, the free-for-all nature of Indian democracy, the troubled legacy of Indira Gandhi, and the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, Tharoor both explicates the history of India since independence and attempts to define what makes India one country and Indians of various ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds one nationality. He is forthright in his discussion of the sectarian violence that has ripped through the country, the corruption that is rife throughout the ranks of the Indian civil service, and the difficulties that face a nation in which 48 percent of the population remains illiterate. Yet Shashi Tharoor writes of these problems with a sense of optimism about the future, confident in the ability of his countrymen to find solutions within a democratic political system. [via]
More editions of India: From Midnight to the Millennium:
- India, from Midnight to the Millennium: ISBN 067087826X (0-670-87826-X)
  Hardcover, Viking
- India: From Midnight to the Millennium: ISBN 1559703849 (1-55970-384-9)
  Hardcover, Arcade Publishing, Incorporated
via
India: From Midnight To The Millennium and Beyond
by Shashi Tharoor

ISBN 1559708034 (1-55970-803-4)
Softcover, Arcade Pub

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'India: From Midnight To The Millennium and Beyond'
Book summary:
"One of the best in a generation of Indian authors" (New York Times Book Review) shows how the challenges facing the world's largest and most diverse democracy will also affect America and the West in the 21st century--now available in paperback, with a new preface by the author. [via]
More editions of India: From Midnight To The Millennium and Beyond:
- India: From Midnight To The Millennium and Beyond: ISBN 1559708034 (1-55970-803-4)
  Softcover, Arcade Pub
via
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte

ISBN 1416500243 (1-4165-0024-3)
Softcover, Pocket Classics

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'
Book summary:
"Jane Eyre" is the story of its title character, a poor orphaned girl who comes to live with her aunt where she endures poor treatment from her aunt and cousins. Jane subsequently ships off to Lowood, a Christian boarding school where she endures more horrible conditions. After some time, life becomes more bearable at Lowood for Jane and she eventually finishes her coursework and spends a period of time as a teacher at the school. After leaving Lowood she comes into the employment of Mr. Rochester as a governess at Thornfield Hall. "Jane Eyre" is the story of one woman's struggle to overcome adversity and a classic love story. [via]
More editions of Jane Eyre:
via
Jane Eyre
by Diana Stewart

ISBN 0817216618 (0-8172-1661-8)
Hardcover, Heinemann/Raintree

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'
Book summary:
In early nineteenth-century England, an orphaned young woman accepts employment as a governess at Thornfield Hall, a country estate owned by the mysteriously remote Mr. Rochester. [via]
More editions of Jane Eyre:
- Jane Eyre: ISBN 0817216618 (0-8172-1661-8)
  Hardcover, Heinemann/Raintree
via
Jane Eyre
by Margaret Smith, Charlotte Bronte

ISBN 0460875965 (0-460-87596-5)
Softcover, Tuttle Pub

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre'
Book summary:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, orphaned, penniless, victim to a harsh Aunt, and miserable years at Lowood institution finds love as Governess to the sickly Adele, illegitimate daughter of Mr Rocheste. With their wedding interrupted by the sudden intrusion of Rochester's mad Creole wife, inhabitant of the upper regions of Thornfield Hall for years, Jane flees. Nursed from near-death on the moors by the Revd St John Rivers and his 2 sisters, Jane learns both that they are her cousins and that she is the recipient of some money from her Uncle. On the verge of yielding to River's appeal that she marry him, Jane is prevented by a telepathic appeal from Rochester and returns to the Hall to find the building burned, his wife dead and Rochester blinded. Yet marriage seemsaid in the restoration of his sight. [via]
More editions of Jane Eyre:
- Jane Eyre: ISBN 0460875965 (0-460-87596-5)
  Softcover, Tuttle Pub
Jane Eyre : Oxford World Classics
by Outlet Book Company Staff, Random House Value Publishing Staff

ISBN 0517606100 (0-517-60610-0)
Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Jane Eyre : Oxford World Classics'
More editions of Jane Eyre : Oxford World Classics:
- Jane Eyre : Oxford World Classics: ISBN 0517606100 (0-517-60610-0)
  Hardcover, Random House Value Publishing
via
Midnight's Children
by Salman Rushdie

ISBN 0812976533 (0-8129-7653-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Midnight's Children'
Book summary:
Anyone who has spent time in the developing world will know that one of Bombay's claims to fame is the enormous film industry that churns out hundreds of musical fantasies each year. The other, of course, is native son Salman Rushdie--less prolific, perhaps than Bollywood, but in his own way just as fantastical. Though Rushdie's novels lack the requisite six musical numbers that punctuate every Bombay talkie, they often share basic plot points with their cinematic counterparts. Take, for example, his 1980 Booker Prize-winning Midnight's Children: two children born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947--the moment at which India became an independent nation--are switched in the hospital. The infant scion of a wealthy Muslim family is sent to be raised in a Hindu tenement, while the legitimate heir to such squalor ends up establishing squatters' rights to his unlucky hospital mate's luxurious bassinet. Switched babies are standard fare for a Hindi film, and one can't help but feel that Rushdie's world-view--and certainly his sense of the fantastical--has been shaped by the films of his childhood. But whereas the movies, while entertaining, are markedly mediocre, Midnight's Children is a masterpiece, brilliant written, wildly unpredictable, hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure.
Rushdie's narrator, Saleem Sinai, is the Hindu child raised by wealthy Muslims. Near the beginning of the novel, he informs us that he is falling apart--literally:
I mean quite simply that I have begun to crack all over like an old jug--that my poor body, singular, unlovely, buffeted by too much history, subjected to drainage above and drainage below, mutilated by doors, brained by spittoons, has started coming apart at the seams. In short, I am literally disintegrating, slowly for the moment, although there are signs of an acceleration.
In light of this unfortunate physical degeneration, Saleem has decided to write his life story, and, incidentally, that of India's, before he crumbles into "(approximately) six hundred and thirty million particles of anonymous, and necessarily oblivious, dust." It seems that within one hour of midnight on India's independence day, 1,001 children were born. All of those children were endowed with special powers: some can travel through time, for example; one can change gender. Saleem's gift is telepathy, and it is via this power that he discovers the truth of his birth: that he is, in fact, the product of the illicit coupling of an Indian mother and an English father, and has usurped another's place. His gift also reveals the identities of all the other children and the fact that it is in his power to gather them for a "midnight parliament" to save the nation. To do so, however, would lay him open to that other child, christened Shiva, who has grown up to be a brutish killer. Saleem's dilemma plays out against the backdrop of the first years of independence: the partition of India and Pakistan, the ascendancy of "The Widow" Indira Gandhi, war, and, eventually, the imposition of martial law.
We've seen this mix of magical thinking and political reality before in the works of Günter Grass and Gabriel García Márquez. What sets Rushdie apart is his mad prose pyrotechnics, the exuberant acrobatics of rhyme and alliteration, pun, wordplay, proper and "Babu" English chasing each other across the page in a dizzying, exhilarating cataract of words. Rushdie can be laugh-out-loud funny, but make no mistake--this is an angry book, and its author's outrage lends his language wings. Midnight's Children is Salman Rushdie's irate, affectionate love song to his native land--not so different from a Bombay talkie, after all. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Midnight's Children:
New Method Supplementary Readers
by D.K. Swan

ISBN 0582538432 (0-582-53843-2)
Softcover, Addison-Wesley

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'New Method Supplementary Readers'
More editions of New Method Supplementary Readers:
- New Method Supplementary Readers: ISBN 0582538432 (0-582-53843-2)
  Softcover, Addison-Wesley
via
Parvana's Journey
by Deborah Ellis

ISBN 0888995199 (0-88899-519-9)
Softcover, Groundwood Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Parvana's Journey'
Book summary:
Parvana's Journey continues the story begun in The Breadwinner, Deborah Ellis's phenomenally successful children's novel set in Afghanistan. Parvana, who disguised herself as a boy to feed her family in The Breadwinner, is now 13. She and her ailing father have been searching the war-torn Afghan countryside for her mother and three siblings, with whom they lost contact after the northern city of Mazar fell to the ruling Taliban. As this gripping sequel opens, Parvana's father has suddenly died and she is completely on her own for the first time. She can't even trust the kindness of strangers for fear that they will discover the secret of her gender.
Intended for mature middle readers, Parvana's Journey describes a courageous girl's efforts, in the face of bombs, land mines, and near starvation, to reunite with her remaining family members. On her long and frighteningly aimless walk across Afghanistan, Parvana picks up several strays--a baby left behind in a village raid, a one-legged boy hiding out in a cave, and Leila, the eccentric nature child whose innocent faith results in the novel's most tragic and disturbing moments. Parvana's evolving love for this substitute family forms the heart of a eloquently written and poignant tale about the children of war. Rich with literary allusions and deft characterization, Parvana's Journey is an even more accomplished novel than The Breadwinner, combining the emotional intensity of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl with flashes of dark humour worthy of Margaret Atwood. --Lisa Alward [via]
More editions of Parvana's Journey:
- Parvana's Journey: ISBN 0888995148 (0-88899-514-8)
  Hardcover, Groundwood Books
- Parvana's Journey: ISBN 0888995199 (0-88899-519-9)
  Softcover, Groundwood Books
via
Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver

ISBN 1417687703 (1-4176-8770-3)
Hardcover, Bt Bound

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Poisonwood Bible'
Book summary:
Oprah Book Club® Selection, June 2000: As any reader of The Mosquito Coast knows, men who drag their families to far-off climes in pursuit of an Idea seldom come to any good, while those familiar with At Play in the Fields of the Lord or Kalimantaan understand that the minute a missionary sets foot on the fictional stage, all hell is about to break loose. So when Barbara Kingsolver sends missionary Nathan Price along with his wife and four daughters off to Africa in The Poisonwood Bible, you can be sure that salvation is the one thing they're not likely to find. The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle," says Leah, one of Nathan's daughters. But of course it isn't long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable, and they've arrived in the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium. In addition to poisonous snakes, dangerous animals, and the hostility of the villagers to Nathan's fiery take-no-prisoners brand of Christianity, there are also rebels in the jungle and the threat of war in the air. Could things get any worse?
In fact they can and they do. The first part of The Poisonwood Bible revolves around Nathan's intransigent, bullying personality and his effect on both his family and the village they have come to. As political instability grows in the Congo, so does the local witch doctor's animus toward the Prices, and both seem to converge with tragic consequences about halfway through the novel. From that point on, the family is dispersed and the novel follows each member's fortune across a span of more than 30 years.
The Poisonwood Bible is arguably Barbara Kingsolver's most ambitious work, and it reveals both her great strengths and her weaknesses. As Nathan Price's wife and daughters tell their stories in alternating chapters, Kingsolver does a good job of differentiating the voices. But at times they can grate--teenage Rachel's tendency towards precious malapropisms is particularly annoying (students practice their "French congregations"; Nathan's refusal to take his family home is a "tapestry of justice"). More problematic is Kingsolver's tendency to wear her politics on her sleeve; this is particularly evident in the second half of the novel, in which she uses her characters as mouthpieces to explicate the complicated and tragic history of the Belgian Congo.
Despite these weaknesses, Kingsolver's fully realized, three-dimensional characters make The Poisonwood Bible compelling, especially in the first half, when Nathan Price is still at the center of the action. And in her treatment of Africa and the Africans she is at her best, exhibiting the acute perception, moral engagement, and lyrical prose that have made her previous novels so successful. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Poisonwood Bible:
via
A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas
by Virginia Woolf

ISBN 0701128291 (0-7011-2829-1)
Hardcover, Chatto & Windus

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas'
More editions of A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas:
- A Room of One's Own and Three Guineas: ISBN 0701128291 (0-7011-2829-1)
  Hardcover, Chatto & Windus
via
Room of Ones' Own
by Virginia Woolf

ISBN 1568493665 (1-56849-366-5)
Hardcover, Buccaneer Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Room of Ones' Own'
Book summary:
Surprisingly, this long essay about society and art and sexism is one of Woolf's most accessible works. Woolf, a major modernist writer and critic, takes us on an erudite yet conversational--and completely entertaining--walk around the history of women in writing, smoothly comparing the architecture of sentences by the likes of William Shakespeare and Jane Austen, all the while lampooning the chauvinistic state of university education in the England of her day. When she concluded that to achieve their full greatness as writers women will need a solid income and a privacy, Woolf pretty much invented modern feminist criticism. [via]
More editions of Room of Ones' Own:
Way Home
by Libby Hathorn, Gregory Rogers

ISBN 0517599090 (0-517-59909-0)
Hardcover, Random House Children's Books

Find This Book

› Find signed collectible books: 'Way Home'
More editions of Way Home:
- Way Home: ISBN 0517599090 (0-517-59909-0)
  Hardcover, Random House Children's Books
via
The World's Great Classics

ISBN 0717200019 (0-7172-0001-9)
Hardcover, Xs Books

Find This Book

Book summary:
Odyssey, The: The World's Great Classics, by Homer; tr. by S.H. Butcher and Andrew Lang [via]
More editions of The World's Great Classics:
- The World's Great Classics: ISBN 0717200019 (0-7172-0001-9)
  Hardcover, Xs Books