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› Find signed collectible books: 'The African Dream: The Diaries of the Revolutionary War in the Congo'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Agent of Chaos'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The American Revolution: A History'
Gordon S. Wood's The American Revolution, part of the Modern Library Chronicles series, is an erudite, concise summary of the events and circumstances surrounding the seminal conflict, both physical and philosophical, in American history. The Modern Library Chronicles are accessible-but-serious works of scholarship, meant to serve as introductions (or refresher courses) on large subjects for interested readers. The American Revolution is an excellent case in point. Wood deftly describes seeds of the Revolution, most notably disgruntlement on the colonists' part brought about by increasingly maladroit and fiscally punishing British policies. He then follows the course of actual warfare and its aftermath, most interestingly the fraught, bitter battle to draw a governing blueprint for the new country.
Wood breaks little new interpretive ground himself, here, but as a synthesizer (and amiable, skillful narrator/guide) he stands on high ground. --H. O'Billovitch [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anarchism, and Other Essays'
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ...and exercise his rights as a man at the same time, the military authorities punished him severely. True, he had served his country fifteen years, during which time his record was unimpeachable. According to Gen. Funston, who reduced Buwalda's sentence to three years, "the first duty of an officer or an enlisted man is unquestioned obedience and loyalty to the government, and it makes no difference whether he approves of that government or not." Thus Funston stamps the true character of allegiance. According to him, entrance into the army abrogates the principles of the Declaration of Independence. What a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being into a loyal machine! In justification of this most outrageous sentence of Buwalda, Gen. Funston tells the American people that the soldier's action was "a serious crime equal to treason." Now, what did this "terrible crime" really consist of? Simply in this: William Buwalda was one of fifteen hundred people who attended a public meeting in San Francisco; and, oh, horrors, he shook hands with the speaker, Emma Goldman. A terrible crime, indeed, which the General calls "a great military offense, infinitely worse than desertion." Can there be a greater indictment against patriotism than that it will thus brand a man a criminal, throw him into prison, and rob him of the results of fifteen years of faithful service? Buwalda gave to his country the best years of his life and his very manhood. But all that was as nothing. Patriotism is inexorable and, like all insatiable monsters, demands all or nothing. It does not admit that a soldier is also a human being, who has a right to his own feelings and opinions, his own inclinations and ideas. No, patriotism can not admit of that. That is the... [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Anarcho-Syndicalism'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'And Quiet Flows the Don'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Bahama Crisis'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Berlin'
Set in the twilight years of Germany's Weimar Republic, City of Stones covers eight months in Berlin, from September 1928 to May Day, 1929. Kurt Severing, a journalist, and Marthe Muller, an art student, are the central figures in a broad cast of characters who embody the hopes and struggles of Berlin's inhabitants as their future is darkened by a growing shadow. Fascinating. -Publishers Weekly. [Berlin] will be the longest, most sophisticated work of historical fiction in the medium...[T]his book has the density of the best novels. --Time. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Common Sense and Other Writings'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Confessions'
When it was first published in 1781, The Confessions scandalised Europe with its emotional honesty and frank treatment of the author's sexual and intellectual development. Since then, it has had a more profound impact on European thought. Rousseau left posterity a model of the reflective life - the solitary, uncompromising individual, the enemy of servitude and habit and the selfish egoist who dedicates his life to a particular ideal. The Confessions recreates the world in which he progressed from incompetent engraver to grand success; his enthusiasm for experience, his love of nature, and his uncompromising character make him an ideal guide to eighteenth-century Europe, and he was the author of some of the most profound work ever written on the relation between the individual and the state. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Count of Monte Cristo'
Dashing young Edmond Dantès has everything. He is engaged to a beautiful woman, is about to become the captain of a ship, and is well liked by almost everyone. But his perfect life is shattered when he is framed by a jealous rival and thrown into a dark prison cell for 14 years.
The greatest tale of betrayal, adventure, and revenge ever written, The Count of Monte Cristo continues to dazzle readers with its thrilling and memorable scenes, including Dantèss miraculous escape from prison, his amazing discovery of a vast hidden treasure, and his transformation into the mysterious and wealthy Count of Monte Cristoa man whose astonishing thirst for vengeance is as cruel as it is just.
Luc Sante is the author of Low Life, Evidence, and The Factory of Facts. He teaches writing and the history of photography at Bard College.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cultures of Darkness: Night Travels in the Histories of Transgression'
Peasants, religious heretics, witches, pirates, runaway slaves, prostitutes and pornographers, frequenters of taverns and fraternal society lodge rooms, revolutionaries, blues and jazz musicians, beats, and contemporary youth gangs--those who defied authority, choosing to live outside the defining cultural dominions of early insurgent and, later, dominant capitalism are what Bryan D. Palmer calls people of the night. These lives of opposition, or otherness, were seen by the powerful as deviant, rejecting authority, and consequently threatening to the established order.
Constructing a rich historical tapestry of example and experience spanning eight centuries, Palmer details lives of exclusion and challenge, as the "night travels" of the transgressors clash repeatedly with the powerful conventions of their times. Nights of liberation and exhilarating desire--sexual and social--are at the heart of this study. But so too are the dangers of darkness, as marginality is coerced into corners of pressured confinement, or the night is used as a cover for brutalizing terror, as was the case in Nazi Germany or the lynching of African Americans.
Making extensive use of the interdisciplinary literature of marginality found in scholarly work in history, sociology, cultural studies, literature, anthropology, and politics, Palmer takes an unflinching look at the rise and transformation of capitalism as it was lived by the dispossessed and those stamped with the mark of otherness.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Don Flows Home to the Sea'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Emile: Or Treatise on Education'
In his pioneering treatise on education the great French philosopher presented concepts that had a significant influence on the development of pedagogy, and yet many of his ideas still sound radical today. Written in reaction to the stultifying system of rote learning and memorization prevalent throughout Europe in Rousseau's time, Émile is a utopian vision of child-centered education, full of the sentiments of Romanticism, which Rousseau himself inspired.
Imagining a typical boy named Émile, Rousseau creates an ideal model of one-on-one tutelage from infancy to manhood with himself as the child's mentor. "Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Author of Nature; but everything degenerates in the hands of man." This is the first of many provocative statements that characterize this work and are a hallmark of Rousseau's arresting rhetoric. As in so many of his other famous works, here too Rousseau asserts his main thesis that human beings by nature are good; it is only the distorting influences of civilization that have corrupted them.
If this is true, then in educating children one must do nothing to interfere with human nature in its natural course. Far from being the chief means by which society inculcates its rules and principles, education should be the method of helping youths discover the inherent truths of their own human nature. From infancy to young adulthood learning should come purely from personal experience. Rather than imparting facts, teachers should foster self-discovery, so that knowledge is acquired through following innate curiosity, not vicariously through the statements of others.
Educators as well as students of philosophy will find much to admire in Rousseau's original and still radical ideas. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Empire of Reason : How Europe Imagined and America Realized the Enlightenment'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fathers and Children'
Examines the conflict of attitudes in mid-19th-century Russia, as distant pre-echoes of the Revolution continue to rumble through the remote rural landscape. The story follows the Kirsanov family, representatives of the old regime, and the violent character of the anti-hero Bazarov. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fathers and Sons'
FATHERS AND SONS was the most closely studied of Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's works in the Soviet high school curriculum. An inadvertent political agenda favorite, juxtaposing two generations, "the fathers," or the fading aristocracy, and "the sons," or the new fresh blood of the middle class and the nihilists, the novel seemed a perfect vehicle for portraying the brewing unrest of the pre-revolutionary era, and introduced the character of Bazarov -- the spirited nihilist who was seen as a brilliant idealistic rebel, the new kind of perfect man who rejected the old notions of class and came to disrupt nobility's status quo. Growing up, Turgenev witnessed much class injustice in Russia, and his themes reflect his overwhelming concern with the suffering of the poor and the voiceless serfs. But FATHERS AND SONS is not merely a convenient socio-political piece; Turgenev is a lyrical romantic. At the novel's heart lies the ultimately tragic human story of Bazarov's flippant kiss of a servant girl and the bizarre tension it causes in a cozy country gentry household where he is a guest. An important period classic. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fathers and Sons'
Fathers and Sons is one of the greatest nineteenth century Russian novels, and has long been acclaimed as Turgenev's finest work. It is a political novel set in a domestic context, with a universal theme, the generational divide between fathers and sons. Set in 1859 at the moment when the Russian autocratic state began to move hesitantly towards social and political reform, the novel explores the conflict between the liberal-minded fathers of Russian reformist sympathies and their free-thinking intellectual sons whose revolutionary ideology threatened the stability of the state. At its centre is Evgeny Bazorov, a strong-willed antagonist of all forms of social orthodoxy who proclaims himself a nihilist and believes in the need to overthrow all the institutions of the state. As the novel develops Bazarov's political ambitions become fatally meshed with emotional and private concerns, and his end is a tragic failure. The novel caused a bitter furore on its publication in 1862, and this, a year later, drove Turgenev from Russia. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Fencing Master'
In The Club Dumas, Arturo Pérez-Reverte explored the labyrinthine world of antiquarian book dealers, spicing his tale of mystery and murder with characters straight out of Paradise Lost and The Three Musketeers. Next came The Flanders Panel, a brilliant puzzle comprised of art, chess, and untimely death whose resolution lies in a painting by a Flemish master. In The Seville Communion, Pérez-Reverte turned his sights on the tangled politics of the Roman Catholic Church as an appropriate backdrop--for murder. In his fourth novel translated into English, the Spanish writer changes centuries (if not his focus on homicide), returning to the mid-1800s to follow the exploits of Don Jaime Astarloa, the eponymous fencing master.
The year is 1866 and revolution is brewing in Spain. The corrupt Bourbon queen, Isabella II, is slowly losing her grip on power as equally corrupt exiled politicians vie to be her successor in a new republic. Against this background of political upheaval, Don Jaime goes about his business, teaching a dying art to a dwindling number of students. This is a man who resists changing times; to a friend he explains, "I have spent my whole life trying to preserve a certain idea of myself, and that is all. You have to cling to a set of values that do not depreciate with time. Everything else is the fashion of the moment, fleeting, mutable. In a word, nonsense." But then Adela de Otero--a woman with a mysterious past and an amazing talent for swordplay--comes into his life, and Don Jaime's world is turned upside down. As always, Pérez-Reverte offers literary excellence, a thumping good mystery, and fascinating insight into an arcane practice, in this case, fencing. Though the 19th-century politics in the book may resonate more with a Spanish audience than with English readers, the moral at the heart of The Fencing Master is universal: "to be honest, or at least honorable--anything, indeed, that has its roots in the word honor." In this, Don Jaime and Arturo Pérez-Reverte both succeed. --Alix Wilber [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'From Civil Rights To Amralites: Derry And The Birth Of The Irish Troubles'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change in the Age of Globalization'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Garibaldi's Defence of the Roman Republic 1848-9'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gradisil'
"Gradisil" is an epic space opera of family revenge and the birth of a nation. Not very long from now, if you are wealthy, space can be yours, space to grow. New technology has seeded a rebirth of the pioneer spirit. A new breed of adventurer has slipped the bonds of gravity and begun a fresh life in orbit, free from interference by government, free from the petty concerns of earth. Who wouldn't want such freedom? Who wouldn't want to escape from society's tangles - from the claws of the corporations, from the stifling love of family? But tradition, fear, and revenge carry a murderous weight, a gravity that is not so easy to escape. The death of Gradisil's grandfather, floating high in the uplands above earth, was only the beginning. And now the US government is looking up at the new nation above our heads with jealous eyes. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Gramsci's Prison Letters: Lettere Dal Carcere'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Greek War of Independence: The Struggle for Freedom from the Ottoman Oppression and the Birth of the Modern Greek Nation'
At the beginning of the 19th century, the Ottoman empire extended far into Central Europe, occupying nearly all of the Balkan Peninsula. Three decades later, it would lie fragmented, thanks to the efforts of Greek patriots who, after a bloody struggle, forced their Turkish rulers to acknowledge Greece's independence. Classics scholar David Brewer tells that story in this comprehensive account, the first on the subject to appear in many years.
The Turkish empire, Brewer writes, was "one of the most impressive that the world has ever seen," the product of generations of conquest and control. By 1800, however, it had declined in power and influence, and, lacking wealthy client states to feed its treasury, the Ottoman government inaugurated a severe program of taxation on such essential Mediterranean goods as sheep, olives, honey, and grapes, compounding the injury by drafting young Greeks to serve in the imperial army. Resistance grew, especially as Ottoman functionaries such as the Ali Pasha (whom Lord Byron, the British poet and champion of Greek freedom, called "a remorseless tyrant, guilty of the most horrible cruelties") carved out bits and pieces of Greece as private fiefdoms. Inspired by the American and French revolutions, the Greeks finally revolted, touching off a terrible war that would cost hundreds of thousands of lives, involve the major European powers (which, as in later troubles in the Balkans, proved ineffectual), and hasten the downfall of the Ottoman empire.
Brewer takes an evenhanded view of the struggle, noting acts of heroism, cruelty, and treachery on both sides. Students of modern European history will find his study of a largely forgotten conflict to be of much interest, especially given recent events in the region. --Gregory McNamee [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'High Citadel'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Homage to Chiapas : The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet'
Thirty years after Frances Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet changed eating habits around the world, she and her daughter Anna bring us a new round of iconoclastic recommendations that break overwhelming issues down to a simple matter of personal choice. Hope's Edge presents many of the same issues of the original title, but it also provides a wealth of new discoveries and possibilities in this era of genetically engineered foods, worldwide famine, and growing rates of obesity-related health issues.
Beyond discussing a wide range of reasons to become a vegetarian (and that means no fish or chicken either, folks), the authors introduce you to a number of individual reasons for hope--Bob, the Wisconsin cheese maker; Jean-Yves, the farmer from Brittany who created the Sustainable Agriculture Network; and Muhammad Yunas, who has changed the lives of countless living in poverty with his remarkable microcredit programs. Along with these stories and the theories they're based on, you'll also find luscious recipes calling for grains, fruits, vegetables, and a handful of dairy products that will delight your taste buds and your conscience.
The Lappes firmly believe that the choices of low-level consumers have the potential to make positive changes, both in the world economy and in our physical health. By eating a vegetarian diet, shopping with care, and cooking with love, we might all brighten our future tremendously. --Jill Lightner [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'John Jay: Founding Father'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution: War And Revolution'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lament Of The Lamb 7'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lenin: A Study in the Unity of His Thought'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Les Miserables'
With an Introduction and Notes by Roger Clark, University of Kent at Canterbury One of the great Classics of Western Literature, Les Miserables is a magisterial work which is rich in both character portrayal and meticulous historical description. Characters such as the absurdly criminalised Valjean, the street urchin Gavroche, the rascal Thenardier, the implacable detective Javert, and the pitiful figure of the prostitute Fantine and her daughter Cosette, have entered the pantheon of literary dramatis personae. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America And American in Iran'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man Who Was Thursday'
In an article published the day before his death, G.K. Chesterton called The Man Who Was Thursday "a very melodramatic sort of moonshine." Set in a phantasmagoric London where policemen are poets and anarchists camouflage themselves as, well, anarchists, his 1907 novel offers up one highly colored enigma after another. If that weren't enough, the author also throws in an elephant chase and a hot-air-balloon pursuit in which the pursuers suffer from "the persistent refusal of the balloon to follow the roads, and the still more persistent refusal of the cabmen to follow the balloon."
But Chesterton is also concerned with more serious questions of honor and truth (and less serious ones, perhaps, of duels and dualism). Our hero is Gabriel Syme, a policeman who cannot reveal that his fellow poet Lucian Gregory is an anarchist. In Chesterton's agile, antic hands, Syme is the virtual embodiment of paradox:
He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and self-realization; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of absinthe and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy dislike.... Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left--sanity.Elected undercover into the Central European Council of anarchists, Syme must avoid discovery and save the world from any bombings in the offing. As Thursday (each anarchist takes the name of a weekday--the only quotidian thing about this fantasia) does his best to undo his new colleagues, the masks multiply. The question then becomes: Do they reveal or conceal? And who, not to mention what, can be believed? As The Man Who Was Thursday proceeds, it becomes a hilarious numbers game with a more serious undertone--what happens if most members of the council actually turn out to be on the side of right? Chesterton's tour de force is a thriller that is best read slowly, so as to savor his highly anarchic take on anarchy. --Kerry Fried [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare'
In an article published the day before his death, G.K. Chesterton called The Man Who Was Thursday "a very melodramatic sort of moonshine." Set in a phantasmagoric London where policemen are poets and anarchists camouflage themselves as, well, anarchists, his 1907 novel offers up one highly colored enigma after another. If that weren't enough, the author also throws in an elephant chase and a hot-air-balloon pursuit in which the pursuers suffer from "the persistent refusal of the balloon to follow the roads, and the still more persistent refusal of the cabmen to follow the balloon."
But Chesterton is also concerned with more serious questions of honor and truth (and less serious ones, perhaps, of duels and dualism). Our hero is Gabriel Syme, a policeman who cannot reveal that his fellow poet Lucian Gregory is an anarchist. In Chesterton's agile, antic hands, Syme is the virtual embodiment of paradox:
He came of a family of cranks, in which all the oldest people had all the newest notions. One of his uncles always walked about without a hat, and another had made an unsuccessful attempt to walk about with a hat and nothing else. His father cultivated art and self-realization; his mother went in for simplicity and hygiene. Hence the child, during his tenderer years, was wholly unacquainted with any drink between the extremes of absinthe and cocoa, of both of which he had a healthy dislike.... Being surrounded with every conceivable kind of revolt from infancy, Gabriel had to revolt into something, so he revolted into the only thing left--sanity.Elected undercover into the Central European Council of anarchists, Syme must avoid discovery and save the world from any bombings in the offing. As Thursday (each anarchist takes the name of a weekday--the only quotidian thing about this fantasia) does his best to undo his new colleagues, the masks multiply. The question then becomes: Do they reveal or conceal? And who, not to mention what, can be believed? As The Man Who Was Thursday proceeds, it becomes a hilarious numbers game with a more serious undertone--what happens if most members of the council actually turn out to be on the side of right? Chesterton's tour de force is a thriller that is best read slowly, so as to savor his highly anarchic take on anarchy. --Kerry Fried [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Mantle of the Prophet: Religion and Politics in Iran'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Memoirs of a Revolutionist'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mexican Revolution: A People's History'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Michael Collins and Troubles: The Struggle for Irish Freedom 1912-1922'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Old Men at the Zoo'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Origin of Inequality'
If we look at human society with a calm and disinterested eye, it seems, at first, to show us only the violence of the powerful and the oppression of the weak. The mind is shocked at the cruelty of the one, or is induced to lament the blindness of the other... -from the Preface Are such concepts of race, class, and wealth inherent to the human condition, or are they results of the development of "civilization"? One of the most important thinkers of the Enlightenment, which laid the groundwork for the modern mind-set, argues that it is only with the creation of agriculture and urban society that inequalities formed. Controversy swirls around the text-some of today's thinkers continue to consider it profound; others contend that it relies on an unsupportable "noble savage" foundation. In either case, this 1752 is one of the greatest works of 18th-century philosophy. Swiss philosopher JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU (1712-1778) was a dramatic influence on the French revolution, 19th-century communism, and much modern political thought. His works include Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750), Discourse on Political Economy (1755), and The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right (1762). [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Orthodoxy'
If G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy: The Romance of Faith is, as he called it, a "slovenly autobiography," then we need more slobs in the world. This quirky, slender book describes how Chesterton came to view orthodox Catholic Christianity as the way to satisfy his personal emotional needs, in a way that would also allow him to live happily in society. Chesterton argues that people in western society need a life of "practical romance, the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome." Drawing on such figures as Fra Angelico, George Bernard Shaw, and St. Paul to make his points, Chesterton argues that submission to ecclesiastical authority is the way to achieve a good and balanced life. The whole book is written in a style that is as majestic and down-to-earth as C.S. Lewis at his best. The final chapter, called "Authority and the Adventurer," is especially persuasive. It's hard to imagine a reader who will not close the book believing, at least for the moment, that the Church will make you free. --Michael Joseph Gross [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky 1929-1940'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky 1921-1929'
This second volume of the trilogy is a self-contained account of the great struggle between Stalin and Trotsky that followed the end of the civil war in Russia in 1921 and the death of Lenin.
Few political figures of the twentieth century have aroused as much controversy as the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Trotskys extraordinary life and extensive writings have left an indelible mark on revolutionary conscience, yet there was a danger that his name would disappear from history. Originally published in 1954, Deutschers magisterial three-volume biography was the first major publication to counter the powerful Stalinist propaganda machine. In this definitive biography Trotsky emerges in his real stature, as the most heroic, and ultimately tragic, character of the Russian Revolution.
This second volume of the trilogy, first published in 1959, is a self-contained account of the great struggle between Stalin and Trotsky that followed the end of the civil war in Russia in 1921 and the death of Lenin. From the narrative of Trostsky's uncompromising opposition to Stalin's policies emerge character studies of the important Soviet leaders; a brilliant portrait of Trotsky the man of ideas, the Marxist philosopher and literary critic; and a new assessment of the causes of defeat which led to his expulsion from the party, his exile, and his banishment from Russia.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Revolution at the Gates: A Selection of Writings from February to October 1917'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Revolution at the Gates: A Selection of Writings from February to October 1917'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in 19th Century Russia'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime 1919-1924'
Continuing and concluding "The Russian Revolution", and completing the trilogy begun with "Russia under the Old Regime", this book however, stand on its own. It deals with the attempts of the Bolsheviks to defend and expand their authority from the Great Russian base which they had conquered in the winter of 1917-18 to the borderlands of the defunct Russian Empire and beyond, to the rest of the world. By the autumn of 1920 it became apparent that these efforts would not succeed, and that the new regime had to concentrate on building a communist state at home. The closing part of the book deal with the crises this unexpected development caused Russia's new rulers. In addition, the author discusses Communist cultural and religious policies. By treating these and other topics usually ignored by historians, the author seeks to fulfill the promise given in the introduction to "The Russian Revolution" to look beyond the struggle for power which is commonly seen as the quintessence of the Revolution, to its makers' designs and to their uses of that power. The book concludes with the death of Lenin in January 1924, by which time all the institutions and nearly all the practices of the future Stalinism were in place. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Russian Civil War'

› Find signed collectible books: 'Scaramouche'
When the aristocratic Lord of La Tour d?Azyr murders Andre-Louis?s best friend ? a young man who is politically active during the French Revolution ? Andre-Louis vows to take up his friend?s cause and avenge his death. He takes refuge as an actor in a traveling troupe, performing under the name Scaramouche. His adventures are pulse-pounding, his heroism is the stuff of legend ? but it is his destiny that we remember. Scaramouche?s fate is the destiny of a nation, the crusade of an age: this is the story of the events that made France a modern nation. The fate of Scaramouche is the fate we all still share. (Jacketless library hardcover.) [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate. The hour, some little time before sunset, and the place, the West Barricade, at the very spot where, a decade later, a proud tyrant raised an undying monument to the nation's glory and his own vanity. During the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that France had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity. The carnage had only ceased at this late hour of the day because there were other more interesting sights for the people to witness, a little while before the final closing of the barricades for the night. [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Selected Poems'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Shifting Tides: Cuban Photography After the Revolution'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Social Contract'
In The Social Contract Rousseau (1712-1778) argues for the preservation of individual freedom in political society. An individual can only be free under the law, he says, by voluntarily embracing that law as his own. Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate our desires to the interests of all, the general will. Some have seen in this the promise of a free and equal relationship between society and the individual, while others have seen it as nothing less than a blueprint for totalitarianism. The Social Contract is not only one of the great defences of civil society, it is also unflinching in its study of the darker side of political systems. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Stalin As Revolutionary, 1879-1929: A Study in History and Personality'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar'
There have been many biographies of Stalin, but the court that surrounded him is untravelled ground. Simon Sebag-Montefiore, acclaimed biographer of Catherine the Great's lover, prime minister and general, Potemkin, has unearthed the vast underpinning that sustained Stalin. Not only ministers such as Molotov or secret service chiefs such as Beria, but men and women whose loyalty he trusted only until the next purge. Here is the Stalin story from the inside, full of revelations. How the death of Stalin's wife was hushed up - was it suicide? How the Soviet leaders and their families lived and partied inside the Kremlin walls. What happened on the first day of war with Germany in 1941. The fullest account of the meeting between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill that settled the fate of the axis powers. And how the Great Terror in which 10 million died actually happened. Robert Service (St Antony's, Oxford), former head of Russian history at the School of Slavonic Studies, U. of London: 'Simon Sebag Montefiore has pulled it off. His book succeeds in giving us an intimate picture of daily life in the Kremlin under Stalin. The arrests and killings are not ignored; indeed Montefiore supplies extra chapters and verses on the process by which the Soviet dictator moved against his enemies real and potential. An abundance of the sources are wholly new. The result is a gripping account. Stalin was a vengeful conspirator and a murderous leader. But he was also 'normal' in many ways. He was convivial, solicitous and even flirtatious. When he wanted, he could be quite a charmer. This duality has long been under-appreciated, but it helps to explain why Stalin was admired as well as feared by his associates - and indeed why his power endured. This is a fundamental theme and it is one of Montefiore's that he handles it with excitement and cogency.' [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Ten Years Later'
D'Artagnan Romance III-B In March 1844 the French magazine _Le Siècle,_ printed the first installment of a story by Alexandre Dumas. It was based, Dumas claimed, on some manuscripts he had found a year earlier in the Bibliotheque Nationale while researching a history he planned to write on Louis XIV. The serial chronicled the adventures of D'Artagnan -- a young swordsman intent on joining the king's musketeers. Young D'Artagnan becomes embroiled in court intrigues, international politics, and ill-fated affairs between royal lovers. The book at hand is the second volume of the third serial. Louis XIV is well past the age where he should rule, but the ailing Cardinal Mazarin refuses to relinquish the reins of power. Meanwhile, Charles II, a king without a country, travels Europe seeking aid from his fellow monarchs. Athos still resides at La Fère while his son, Raoul de Bragelonne, has entered into the service in the household of M. le Prince. As for Raoul, he has his eyes on an entirely different object than his father -- his childhood companion, Louise de la Valliere, with whom he is hopelessly in love. Porthos, now a baron, is off on some mysterious mission along with Aramis, who is now the Bishop of Vannes. (Jacketless library hardcover.) [via]

› Find signed collectible books: 'Terrible Beauty: A Life of Constance Markievicz, 1868-1927'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Tragedy of Julius Caesar'
Edited, introduced and annotated by Cedric Watts, research Professor of English, University of Sussex Julius Caesar is among the best of Shakespeare's historical and political plays. Dealing with events surrounding the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., the drama vividly illustrates the ways in which power and corruption are linked. The cry 'Peace, freedom and liberty!' is used to exculpate brutal realities, while personal ambitions taint public actions. Rich in characterisation and replete with eloquent rhetoric, Julius Caesar remains engrossing and topical: a play for today. [via]
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'
Nearly every young author dreams of writing a book that will literally change the world. A few have succeeded, and Harriet Beecher Stowe is such a marvel. Although the American anti-slavery movement had existed at least as long as the nation itself, Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin (1852) galvanized public opinion as nothing had before. The book sold 10,000 copies in its first week and 300,000 in its first year. Its vivid dramatization of slaverys cruelties so aroused readers that it is said Abraham Lincoln told Stowe her work had been a catalyst for the Civil War.
Today the novel is often labeled condescending, but its charactersTom, Topsy, Little Eva, Eliza, and the evil Simon Legreestill have the power to move our hearts. Though Uncle Tom has become a synonym for a fawning black yes-man, Stowes Tom is actually American literatures first black hero, a man who suffers for refusing to obey his white oppressors. Uncle Toms Cabin is a living, relevant story, passionate in its vivid depiction of the cruelest forms of injustice and inhumanityand the courage it takes to fight against them.
Amanda Claybaugh is Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Uniforms of 1798-1803'
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Vicomte De Bragelonne'
D'Artagnan Romance III-A DAR-IIIA In March 1844 the French magazine _Le Siecle,_ printed the first installemnt of a story by Alexandre Dumas. It was based, Dumas claimed, on some manuscripts he had found a year earlier in the Bibliotheque Nationale while researching a history he planned to write on Louis XIV. The serial chronicled the adventures of D'Artagnan -- a young swordsman intent on joining the king's musketeers. Young D'Artagnan becomes embroiled in court intrigues, international politics, and ill-fated affairs between royal lovers. As this third serial begins, it is now 1660, and although promised the captaincy of the musketeers at the close of _Twenty Years After,_ D'Artagnan is still trailing his sword in the Louvre as a lowly lieutenant. Louis XIV is well past the age where he should rule, but the ailing Cardinal Mazarin refuses to relinquish the reins of power. Meanwhile, Charles II, a king without a country, travels Europe seeking aid from his fellow monarchs. Athos still resides at La Fère while his son, Raoul de Bragelonne, has entered into the service in the household of M. le Prince. As for Raoul, he has his eyes on an entirely different object than his father -- his childhood companion, Louise de la Vallière, with whom he is hopelessly in love. Porthos, now a baron, is off on some mysterious mission along with Aramis, who is now the Bishop of Vannes. (Jacketless library hardcover.) [via]
› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden; Or, Life in the Woods'
In July 1845, Henry David Thoreau built a small cottage in the woods near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. During the two years and two months he spent there, he began to write Walden, his most important work, a chronicle of his communion with nature that became one of the most influential and compelling books in American literature. Since its first publication on August 9, 1854, by Ticknor and Fields, the work has become a classic, beloved for its message of living simply and in harmony with nature.
This special 150th anniversary edition of Walden features exquisite wood engravings by Michael McCurdy, one of America's leading engravers and woodblock artists. McCurdy's engravings bring the text to lifeand illuminate the spirit of Thoreau's prose. Also included is a foreword by noted author, environmentalist, and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams, who reflects upon Thoreau's message that as we explore our world and ourselves, we draw ever closer to the truth of our connectedness. [via]
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