| Search | About | Preferences | Interact | Help | |
| 150 million books. 1 search engine. | ||
books tagged “sociology”
books tagged “sociology”
›› Find signed collectible books by ''
English
-
The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Mythby Laurel Thatcher UlrichISBN 0679766448 (0-679-76644-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth'Book summary:They began their existence as everyday objects, but in the hands of Bancroft Award-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, fourteen domestic items from preindustrial Americaranging from a linen tablecloth to an unfinished sockrelinquish their stories and offer profound insights into our history.
In an age when even meals are rarely made from scratch, homespun easily acquires the glow of nostalgia. The objects Ulrich investigates unravel those simplified illusions, revealing important clues to the culture and people who made them. Ulrich uses an Indian basket to explore the uneasy coexistence of native and colonial Americans. A piece of silk embroidery reveals racial and class distinctions, and two old spinning wheels illuminate the connections between colonial cloth-making and war. Pulling these divergent threads together, Ulrich demonstrates how early Americans made, used, sold, and saved textiles in order to assert their identities, shape relationships, and create history. [via]More editions of The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of an American Myth:
-
The Age of Revolutionby Eric HobsbawmISBN 0679772537 (0-679-77253-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Age of Revolution'Book summary:This magisterial volume follows the death of ancient traditions, the triumph of new classes, and the emergence of new technologies, sciences, and ideologies, with vast intellectual daring and aphoristic elegance. Part of Eric Hobsbawm's epic four-volume history of the modern world, along with The Age of Capitalism, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes. [via]
More editions of The Age of Revolution:
-
American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Churchby Charles MorrisISBN 0679742212 (0-679-74221-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church'Book summary:"A cracking good story with a wonderful cast of rogues, ruffians and some remarkably holy and sensible people." --Los Angeles Times Book Review
Before the potato famine ravaged Ireland in the 1840s, the Roman Catholic Church was barely a thread in the American cloth. Twenty years later, New York City was home to more Irish Catholics than Dublin. Today, the United States boasts some sixty million members of the Catholic Church, which has become one of this country's most influential cultural forces.
In American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church, Charles R. Morris recounts the rich story of the rise of the Catholic Church in America, bringing to life the personalities that transformed an urban Irish subculture into a dominant presence nationwide. Here are the stories of rogues and ruffians, heroes and martyrs--from Dorothy Day, a convert from Greenwich Village Marxism who opened shelters for thousands, to Cardinal William O'Connell, who ran the Church in Boston from a Renaissance palazzo, complete with golf course. Morris also reveals the Church's continuing struggle to come to terms with secular, pluralist America and the theological, sexual, authority, and gender issues that keep tearing it apart. As comprehensive as it is provocative, American Catholic is a tour de force, a fascinating cultural history that will engage and inform both Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
"The best one-volume history of the last hundred years of American Catholicism that it has ever been my pleasure to read. What's appealing in this remarkable book is its delicate sense of balance and its soundly grounded judgments." --Andrew Greeley [via]More editions of American Catholic: The Saints and Sinners Who Built America's Most Powerful Church:
-
Bad Landby Jonathan RabanISBN 0679759069 (0-679-75906-9)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Bad Land'Book summary:A New York Times Editors' Choice for Book of the Year
Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award
Winner of the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award
"No one has evoked with greater power the marriage of land and sky that gives this country both its beauty and its terror. "
--Washington Post Book World
In 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert. But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders--many of them immigrants--went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.
In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories. Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West.
"Exceptional. . . . A beautifully told historical meditation. "
--Time
"Championship prose. . . . In fifty years don't be surprised if Bad Land is a landmark."
--Los Angeles Times [via]More editions of Bad Land:
Birth of a Nation'Hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Caseby Toni Morrison, Claudia Brodsky LacourISBN 0679758933 (0-679-75893-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Birth of a Nation'Hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case'More editions of Birth of a Nation'Hood: Gaze, Script, and Spectacle in the O.J. Simpson Case:
-
The Birth of Pleasure: A New Map of Loveby Carol GilliganISBN 0679759433 (0-679-75943-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Birth of Pleasure: A New Map of Love'Book summary:A psychologist's fine-tuned ear and a scholar's penchant for illuminating key ideas with precise literary citations enable Carol Gilligan to trace love's path in The Birth of Pleasure. Her extensive research on children's communications and couples in crisis has revealed a rather disturbing truism: a child's inborn ability to love freely and live authentically gets thoroughly squelched by patriarchal structures. She shows how daughters' voices are systematically quieted, sons are shamed into masculinity, and those who pursue "inappropriate" knowledge or rapacious expressions are punished.
At the core of her study lies the timeless myth of Psyche and Cupid, a richly allegorical tale of passion and resistance to patriarchal norms. By meticulously interpreting this triumph, Gilligan challenges the standard "foundational stories" embraced by Western civilization (including the Book of Genesis, Oedipus Tyrannus, and The Orestia). Satisfying excerpts from dozens of authors flow easily alongside Gilligan's dialogues with couples, adolescent girls, and preschool boys. Clearly, her analysis of Anne Frank's diary--all three editions--provides Gilligan's best illustration of one's initiation into patriarchal tunnel vision. She credits many colleagues, students, and seminar and symposium attendees for fleshing out all parts of this lovingly crafted text; but her own ear for truth makes its message resonate. --Liane Thomas [via]
More editions of The Birth of Pleasure: A New Map of Love:
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolutionby C. L. R. JamesISBN 0679724672 (0-679-72467-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution'More editions of The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution:
-
Black Women in White America: A Documentary Historyby Gerda LernerISBN 0679743146 (0-679-74314-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Black Women in White America: A Documentary History'More editions of Black Women in White America: A Documentary History:
-
Born Badby Andrew H. VachssISBN 0679753362 (0-679-75336-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Born Bad'Book summary:From a writer whose novels have been acclaimed for their unflinching exploration of evil comes a brilliant collection of short storiessome never before publishedthat distill dread back down to its essenceand inject it straight into the reader's back brain. Andrew Vachss might have scissored his characters from today's headlines: a stalker prowling around an anonymous high-rise; a serial killer whose transgressions reflect a childhood of hideous abuse; an inner-city gunman who is willing to take out a blockful of victims in order to win a moment of acceptance.
Tautly written and endowed with murderous ironic spin, Born Bad plunges us into the hell that lies just outside our bedroom windows. [via]More editions of Born Bad:
China Menby Maxine KingstonISBN 0679723285 (0-679-72328-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'China Men'More editions of China Men:
China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Powerby Nicholas D. Kristof, Sheryl Wudunn, Luann WaltherISBN 0679763937 (0-679-76393-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power'More editions of China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power:
Choices We Made: Twenty-Five Women and Men Speak Out about Abortionby Angela BonavogliaISBN 0679742476 (0-679-74247-6)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Choices We Made: Twenty-Five Women and Men Speak Out about Abortion'More editions of Choices We Made: Twenty-Five Women and Men Speak Out about Abortion:
-
Cider House Rulesby John IrvingISBN 0679603352 (0-679-60335-2)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Cider House Rules'Book summary:First published in 1985, The Cider House Rules is John Irving's sixth novel. Set in rural Maine in the first half of this century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--saint and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Cloud's, ether addict and abortionist. It is also the story of Dr. Larch's favorite orphan, Homer Wells, who is never adopted. [via]
More editions of Cider House Rules:
-
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolutionby Simon SchamaISBN 0679726101 (0-679-72610-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution'Book summary:Instead of the dying Old Regime, Schama presents an ebullient country, vital and inventive, infatuated with novelty and technology--a strikingly fresh view of Louis XVI's France. A New York Times bestseller in hardcover. 200 illustrations. [via]
More editions of Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution:
-
A Civil Actionby Jonathan Harr, Marty AsherISBN 0679772677 (0-679-77267-7)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'A Civil Action'Book summary:In America, when somebody does you wrong, you take 'em to court. W. R. Grace and Beatrice Foods had been dumping a cancer-causing industrial solvent into the water table of Woburn, Massachusetts, for years; in 1981, the families of eight leukemia victims sued. However, A Civil Action demonstrates powerfully that--even with the families' hotshot lawyers and the evidence on their side--justice is elusive, particularly when it involves malfeasance by megacorporations. Much of the legal infighting can cause the eyes to glaze. But the story is saved by great characters: the flawed, flamboyant Jan Schlichtmann and his group of bulldogs for the prosecution; Jerome Facher, the enigmatic lawyer for Beatrice, who proves to be more than a match; John J. Riley, the duplicitous, porcine tannery owner; and a host of others. It's impossible not to feel the drama of this methodical book, impossible not to grieve for the parents who lost children, and impossible not to share Schlichtmann's desperation as he runs out of money. A Civil Action reads like one long advertisement for a few well-placed Molotov cocktails. (But that wouldn't make for a very long book, now would it?) [via]
More editions of A Civil Action:
-
Colored People: A Memoirby Henry Louis Gates, Louis GatesISBN 067973919X (0-679-73919-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Colored People: A Memoir'Book summary:From an American Book Award-winning author comes a pungent and poignant masterpiece of recollection that ushers readers into a now-vanished "colored" world and extends and deepens our sense of African-American history, even as it entrances us with its bravura storytelling. [via]
More editions of Colored People: A Memoir:
Coming Out : An Anthology of International Gay and Lesbian Writingsby Stephan LikoskyISBN 0679740546 (0-679-74054-6)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Coming Out : An Anthology of International Gay and Lesbian Writings'More editions of Coming Out : An Anthology of International Gay and Lesbian Writings:
-
Crazy Saladby Nora Ephron, Steve MartinISBN 0679640355 (0-679-64035-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Crazy Salad'Book summary:The classic Crazy Salad, by screenwriting legend and novelist Nora Ephron, is an extremely funny, deceptively light look at a generation of women (and men) who helped shape the way we live now. In this distinctive, engaging, and simply hilarious view of a period of great upheaval in America, Ephron turns her keen eye and wonderful sense of humor to the media, politics, beauty products, and women's bodies. In the famous "A Few Words About Breasts," for example, she tells us: "If I had had them, I would have been a completely different person. I honestly believe that." Ephron brings her sharp pen to bear on the notable women of the time, and to a series of events ranging from Watergate to the Pillsbury Bake-Off. When it first appeared in 1975, Crazy Salad helped to illuminate a new American era--and helped us to laugh at our times and ourselves. This new edition will delight a fresh generation of readers. [via]
More editions of Crazy Salad:
The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Valuesby Gertrude HimmelfarbISBN 0679764909 (0-679-76490-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values'More editions of The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values:
-
Dead Man Walkingby Helen PrejeanISBN 0679751319 (0-679-75131-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Dead Man Walking'Book summary:In 1982, sister helen prejean became the spiritual advisor to patrick sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of louisiana's angola state prison. In the months before sonnier's death, the roman catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. At the same time, she came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute him--men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing.out of that dreadful intimacy comes a profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment. Confronting both the plight of the condemned and the rage of the bereaved, the needs of a crime-ridden society and the christian imperative of love, dead man walking is an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty, a book that is both enlightening and devastating [via]
More editions of Dead Man Walking:
-
The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executionsby Helen PrejeanISBN 0679759484 (0-679-75948-4)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions'Book summary:Since the 1993 publication of her memoir Dead Man Walking and the 1995 film it inspired, Sister Helen Prejean has become a powerful and articulate presence in the fight against the death penalty in America. In The Death of Innocents, Prejean focuses her argument on the ways in which an unjust system may be killing innocent people. She tells the story of two inmates she came to know as a spiritual adviser. Dobie Williams, a poor black man with an IQ of 65 from rural Louisiana, was executed after being represented by incompetent counsel and found guilty by an all-white jury based mostly on conjecture and speculation. Joseph O'Dell was convicted of murder after the court heard from an inmate who later admitted to giving false testimony for his own benefit. O'Dell received neither an evidentiary hearing nor potentially exculpatory DNA testing and was executed, insisting on his innocence the whole while. Besides exploring the shaky cases against them, Prejean describes in vivid detail the thoughts and feelings of Williams and O'Dell as their bids for clemency fail and they are put to death. The second part of the book details "the machinery of death," the legal process that Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, dismayed at the inequities of the death penalty, cited as his reason for resigning and that current justice Antonin Scalia has boasted of being a part of. Prejean is impassioned as she describes what she sees as an arrogant attitude by both Scalia and the contemporary judicial system. Her chance confrontation with Scalia at an airport is a gripping collision of disparate worlds. In recent years, DNA testing has overturned the convictions of scores of prisoners, including many on death row. As the death penalty is increasingly called into question, Sister Helen Prejean will surely be a force in that debate. --John Moe [via]
More editions of The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions:
Democracyby Joan DidionISBN 0679754857 (0-679-75485-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Democracy'More editions of Democracy:
Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submissionby Gloria G. Brame, William D. Brame, Jon JacobsISBN 0679769560 (0-679-76956-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission'More editions of Different Loving: The World of Sexual Dominance and Submission:
-
Dispatchesby Michael HerrISBN 0679735259 (0-679-73525-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Dispatches'Book summary:Michael Herr, who wrote about the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine, gathered his years of notes from his front-line reporting and turned them into what many people consider the best account of the war to date, when published in 1977. He captured the feel of the war and how it differed from any theater of combat ever fought, as well as the flavor of the time and the essence of the people who were there. Since Dispatches was published, other excellent books have appeared on the war--may we suggest The Things They Carried, The Sorrow of War, We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young--but Herr's book was the first to hit the target head-on and remains a classic. [via]
More editions of Dispatches:
The Divorce Culture: Rethinking Our Commitments to Marriage and Familyby Barbara Dafoe WhiteheadISBN 0679751688 (0-679-75168-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Divorce Culture: Rethinking Our Commitments to Marriage and Family'More editions of The Divorce Culture: Rethinking Our Commitments to Marriage and Family:
-
Down in the Zeroby Andrew H. VachssISBN 0679760660 (0-679-76066-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Down in the Zero'Book summary:Andrew Vachss has reinvented detective fiction for an age in which guilty secrets are obsolete and murder isn't even worth a news headline. And in the person of his haunted, hell-ridden private eye Burke, Vachss has given us a new kind of hero: a man inured to every evil except the kind that preys on children.
[via]
Now Burke is back, investigating an epidemic of apparent suicides among teenagers of a wealthy Connecticut suburb. There he discovers a sinister connection between the anguish of the young and the activities of an elite sadomasochistic underground, for whom pan and its accompanying rituals are a source of pleasureand powerMore editions of Down in the Zero:
The Drowned and the Savedby Primo LeviISBN 067972186X (0-679-72186-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Drowned and the Saved'More editions of The Drowned and the Saved:
-
Eminent Victoriansby Lytton StracheyISBN 0679640126 (0-679-64012-6)
Softcover, Random House Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Eminent Victorians'Book summary:The four biographical essays that make up Eminent Victorians created something of a stir when they were first published in the spring of 1918, bringing their author instant fame. In his flamboyant collection, Lytton Strachey chose to stray far from the traditional mode of biography: "Those two fat volumes, with which it is our custom to commemorate the dead--who does not know them, with their ill-digested masses of material, their slipshod style, their tone of tedious panegyric, their lamentable lack of selection, of detachment, of design?" Instead he provided impressionistic but acute (and, some said, skewed) portraits. Rarely does Strachey explore the details of a subject's daily or family life unless they point directly to an issue of character. In short, he pioneered a deeply sardonic and often scathingly funny biographical style.
None of Strachey's Victorians emerge unscathed. In his hands, Florence Nightingale is not a gentle archangel descended from heaven to minister sweetly to wounded soldiers, but rather an exacting, dictatorial, and judgmental crusader. Her "pen, in the virulence of its volubility, would rush ... to the denunciation of an incompetent surgeon or the ridicule of a self-sufficient nurse. Her sarcasm searched the ranks of the officials with the deadly and unsparing precision of a machine-gun. Her nicknames were terrible. She respected no one." Dr. Thomas Arnold, the man appointed to revamp the very private British public school system, fares little better: in Strachey's acid ink, he became "the founder of the worship of athletics and the worship of good form." In this same vain, military hero General Gordon is portrayed as a temperamental, irascible hermit, occasionally drunk and often found in the company of young boys--a man who tended to forget and forgo the tenets found in the Bible he kept with him always. And the powerful and popular Cardinal Manning, who came within a hair's breadth of succeeding Pope Pius IX, belonged, Strachey writes, "to that class of eminent ecclesiastics ... who have been distinguished less for saintliness and learning than for practical ability."
As he offered up indelible sketches of his less-than-fab four, Strachey was intent on critiquing established mores. This effortlessly superior wit knew full well that deep convictions and good deeds often go hand in hand with hypocrisy, arrogance, and egomania. His task was to pique those who pretended they did not. --Jordana Moskowitz [via]
More editions of Eminent Victorians:
-
False Allegationsby Andrew H. VachssISBN 0679772936 (0-679-77293-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'False Allegations'Book summary:Vachss and his quasi-hero Burke are definitely not for the squeamish, dealing largely with stories about abused children. But he is a strong and angry writer who has carved himself out a unique territory in the dark landscape of the thriller. In his 11th Burke novel, Vachss uses the work of the real Dr. Bruce Perry, the Houston psychologist and pioneer researcher into recovered memory, to center the story about a shady lawyer who specializes in getting such cases thrown out of court. [via]
More editions of False Allegations:
The Farther Shore: A Natural History of Perceptionby Don GiffordISBN 0679733329 (0-679-73332-9)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Farther Shore: A Natural History of Perception'More editions of The Farther Shore: A Natural History of Perception:
-
The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United Statesby John Fay, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, Robert SciglianoISBN 0679603255 (0-679-60325-5)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States'Book summary:The series of essays that comprise The Federalist constitutes one of the key texts of the American Revolution and the democratic system created in the wake of independence. Written in 1787 and 1788 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to promote the ratification of the proposed Constitution, these papers stand as perhaps the most eloquent testimonial to democracy that exists. They describe the ideas behind the American system of government: the separation of powers; the organization of Congress; the respective positions of the executive, legislative, and judiciary; and much more. The Federalist remains essential reading for anyone interested in politics and government, and indeed for anyone seeking a foundational statement about democracy and America.
This new edition of The Federalist is edited by Robert Scigliano, a professor in the political science department at Boston College. His substantive Introduction sheds clarifying new light on the historical context and meaning of The Federalist. Scigliano also provides a fresh and definitive analysis of the disputed authorship of several sections of this crucial work. [via]More editions of The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States:
Feminism: The Essential Historical Writingsby Miriam SchneirISBN 0679753818 (0-679-75381-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings'More editions of Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings:
-
Fine Balanceby Rohinton MistryISBN 0679776451 (0-679-77645-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Fine Balance'Book summary:With a compassionate realism and narrative sweep that recall the work of Charles Dickens, this magnificent novel captures all the cruelty and corruption, dignity and heroism, of India. The time is 1975. The place is an unnamed city by the sea. The government has just declared a State of Emergency, in whose upheavals four strangers--a spirited widow, a young student uprooted from his idyllic hill station, and two tailors who have fled the caste violence of their native village--will be thrust together, forced to share one cramped apartment and an uncertain future. As the characters move from distrust to friendship and from friendship to love, A Fine Balance creates an enduring panorama of the human spirit in an inhuman state [via]
More editions of Fine Balance:
-
The Fire Next Timeby James BaldwinISBN 067974472X (0-679-74472-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Fire Next Time'Book summary:It's shocking how little has changed between the races in this country since 1963, when James Baldwin published this coolly impassioned plea to "end the racial nightmare." The Fire Next Time--even the title is beautiful, resonant, and incendiary. "Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?" Baldwin demands, flicking aside the central race issue of his day and calling instead for full and shared acceptance of the fact that America is and always has been a multiracial society. Without this acceptance, he argues, the nation dooms itself to "sterility and decay" and to eventual destruction at the hands of the oppressed: "The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise to power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and ring down the curtain on the American dream."
Baldwin's seething insights and directives, so disturbing to the white liberals and black moderates of his day, have become the starting point for discussions of American race relations: that debasement and oppression of one people by another is "a recipe for murder"; that "color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality"; that whites can only truly liberate themselves when they liberate blacks, indeed when they "become black" symbolically and spiritually; that blacks and whites "deeply need each other here" in order for America to realize its identity as a nation.
Yet despite its edgy tone and the strong undercurrent of violence, The Fire Next Time is ultimately a hopeful and healing essay. Baldwin ranges far in these hundred pages--from a memoir of his abortive teenage religious awakening in Harlem (an interesting commentary on his first novel Go Tell It on the Mountain) to a disturbing encounter with Nation of Islam founder Elijah Muhammad. But what binds it all together is the eloquence, intimacy, and controlled urgency of the voice. Baldwin clearly paid in sweat and shame for every word in this text. What's incredible is that he managed to keep his cool. --David Laskin [via]
More editions of The Fire Next Time:
Free Speech in an Open Societyby Rodney A. SmollaISBN 0679742131 (0-679-74213-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Free Speech in an Open Society'More editions of Free Speech in an Open Society:
-
The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its Historyby Leo BraudyISBN 0679776303 (0-679-77630-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History'Book summary:"Remarkably ambitious . . . an impressive tour de force."
--Washington Post Book World
For Alexander the Great, fame meant accomplishing what no mortal had ever accomplished before. For Julius Caesar, personal glory was indistinguishable from that of Rome. The early Christians devalued public recognition, believing that the only true audience was God. And Marilyn Monroe owed much of her fame to the fragility that led to self-destruction. These are only some of the dozens of figures that populate Leo Braudy's panoramic history of fame, a book that tells us as much about vast cultural changes as it does about the men and women who at different times captured their societies' regard.
Spanning thousands of years and fields ranging from politics to literature and mass media, The Frenzy of Renown explores the unfolding relationship between the famous and their audiences, between fame and the representations that make it possible. Hailed as a landmark at its original publication and now reissued with a new Afterword covering the last tumultuous decade, here is a major work that provides our celebrity-obsessed, post-historical society with a usable past.
"Expansive . . . Braudy excels at rocketing a general point into the air with the fuel of drama. "
--Harper's [via]More editions of The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its History:
From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinityby Leo BraudyISBN 0679768300 (0-679-76830-0)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity'More editions of From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity:
The Future of the Raceby Cornel West, Henry Louis GatesISBN 0679763783 (0-679-76378-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Future of the Race'More editions of The Future of the Race:
Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Usby Kate BornsteinISBN 0679757015 (0-679-75701-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us'More editions of Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us:
-
God: A Biographyby Jack MilesISBN 0679743685 (0-679-74368-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'God: A Biography'Book summary:Is it possible to approach God not as an object of religious reverence, but as the protagonist of the world's greatest book -- as a character who possesses all the depths, contradictions, and ambiguities of a Hamlet? How does he depend on the other characters, and how does his relationship with them show his development? Miles provides a learned, original exegesis that will send readers back to the Bible in curious amazement. Winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for biography. [via]
More editions of God: A Biography:
-
Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750by Laurel Thatcher UlrichISBN 0679732578 (0-679-73257-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750'Book summary:This enthralling work of scholarship strips away those abstractions to reveal the hidden -- and not always stoic -- face of the "goodwives" of colonial America. In these pages we encounter the awesome burdens -- and the considerable power -- of a New England housewife's domestic life and witness her occasional forays into the world of men. We see her borrowing from her neighbors, loving her husband, raising -- and, all too often, mourning -- her children, and even attaining fame as a heroine of frontier conflicts or notoriety as a murderess. Painstakingly researched, lively with scandal and homely detail, Good Wives is history at its best. [via]
More editions of Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750:
Hard Candyby Andrew H. VachssISBN 0679761691 (0-679-76169-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Hard Candy'More editions of Hard Candy:
-
Hiroshimaby John HerseyISBN 0679721037 (0-679-72103-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Hiroshima'Book summary:When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, few could have anticipated its potential for devastation. Pulitzer prize-winning author John Hersey recorded the stories of Hiroshima residents shortly after the explosion and, in 1946, Hiroshima was published, giving the world first-hand accounts from people who had survived it. The words of Miss Sasaki, Dr. Fujii, Mrs. Nakamara, Father Kleinsorg, Dr. Sasaki, and the Reverend Tanimoto gave a face to the statistics that saturated the media and solicited an overwhelming public response. Whether you believe the bomb made the difference in the war or that it should never have been dropped, "Hiroshima" is a must read for all of us who live in the shadow of armed conflict. [via]
More editions of Hiroshima:
The House of Mirthby Edith Wharton, Mary Gordon, Tom WhartonISBN 0679725393 (0-679-72539-3)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The House of Mirth'More editions of The House of Mirth:
-
How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapterby Sherwin B. NulandISBN 0679742441 (0-679-74244-1)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter'Book summary:Attempting to demythologize the process of dying, Nuland explores how we shall die, each of us in a way that will be unique. Through particular stories of dying--of patients, and of his own family--he examines the seven most common roads to death: old age, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, accidents, heart disease, and strokes, revealing the facets of death's multiplicity.
"It's impossible to read How We Die without realizing how earnestly we have avoided this most unavoidable of subjects, how we have protected ourselves by building a cultural wall of myths and lies. I don't know of any writer or scientist who has shown us the face of death as clearly, honestly and compassionately as Sherwin Nuland does here."--James Gleick
From the Trade Paperback edition. [via]More editions of How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter:
-
Howards Endby E. M. ForsterISBN 0679722556 (0-679-72255-6)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Howards End'Book summary:Margaret Schlegel, engaged to the much older, widowed Henry Wilcox, meets her intended the morning after accepting his proposal and realizes that he is a man who has lived without introspection or true self-knowledge. As she contemplates the state of Wilcox's soul, her remedy for what ails him has become one of the most oft-quoted passages in literature:
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.
Like all of Forster's work, Howards End concerns itself with class, nationality, economic status, and how each of these affects personal relationships. It follows the intertwined fortunes of the Schlegel sisters, Margaret and Helen, and the Wilcox family over the course of several years. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes, on the other hand, can't be bothered with the life of the mind or the heart, leading, instead, outer lives of "telegrams and anger" that foster "such virtues as neatness, decision, and obedience, virtues of the second rank, no doubt, but they have formed our civilization." Helen, after a brief flirtation with one of the Wilcox sons, has developed an antipathy for the family; Margaret, however, forms a brief but intense friendship with Mrs. Wilcox, which is cut short by the older woman's death. When her family discovers a scrap of paper requesting that Henry give their home, Howards End, to Margaret, it precipitates a spiritual crisis among them that will take years to resolve.Forster's 1910 novel begins as a collection of seemingly unrelated events--Helen's impulsive engagement to Paul Wilcox; a chance meeting between the Schlegel sisters and an impoverished clerk named Leonard Bast at a concert; a casual conversation between the sisters and Henry Wilcox in London one night. But as it moves along, these disparate threads gradually knit into a tightly woven fabric of tragic misunderstandings, impulsive actions, and irreparable consequences, and, eventually, connection. Though set in the early years of the 20th century, Howards End seems even more suited to our own fragmented era of e-mails and anger. For readers living in such an age, the exhortation to "only connect" resonates ever more profoundly. --Alix Wilber [via]
More editions of Howards End:
-
The Idiotby Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Constance Black Garnett, Anna BrailovskyISBN 0679642420 (0-679-64242-0)
Softcover, Modern Library
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Idiot'Book summary:Returning to Russia from a sanitarium in Switzerland, the Christ-like epileptic Prince Myshkin finds himself enmeshed in a tangle of love, torn between two womenthe notorious kept woman Nastasya and the pure Aglaiaboth involved, in turn, with the corrupt, money-hungry Ganya. In the end, Myshkins honesty, goodness, and integrity are shown to be unequal to the moral emptiness of those around him. In her revision of the Garnett translation, Anna Brailovsky has corrected inaccuracies wrought by Garnetts drastic anglicization of the novel, restoring as much as possible the syntactical structure of the original. [via]
More editions of The Idiot:
In Full Flower : Aging Women, Power, and Sexualityby Lois W. BannerISBN 0679744746 (0-679-74474-6)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'In Full Flower : Aging Women, Power, and Sexuality'More editions of In Full Flower : Aging Women, Power, and Sexuality:
In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prisonby Jack Henry AbbottISBN 0679732373 (0-679-73237-3)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison'More editions of In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison:
Inventing Japan : 1853-1964by Ian BurumaISBN 0679640851 (0-679-64085-1)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Inventing Japan : 1853-1964'More editions of Inventing Japan : 1853-1964:
-
It Was on Fire When I Lay down on Itby Robert FulghumISBN 0679741178 (0-679-74117-8)
Hardcover, Random House Large Print
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'It Was on Fire When I Lay down on It'Book summary:The beloved author of All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten presents more memorable observations and commentary that range from an account of a disastrous Christmas pageant to travelogues. (Religion & Inspiration). [via]
More editions of It Was on Fire When I Lay down on It:
-
Jazz: A History of America's Musicby Geoffrey C. WardISBN 0679765395 (0-679-76539-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Jazz: A History of America's Music'Book summary:First off, let's get the kudos down: Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns deserve far more than simple gratitude for bringing jazz to the limelight with this lavishly illustrated volume. The book features among its 500-plus pictures many of the previously unseen shots of musicians and venues glimpsed in Burns's 10-part documentary, Jazz. (See our Ken Burns Jazz Store for the lowdown on the series.) Jazz: An Illustrated History follows the film episode by episode, and it's filled with rich historical detail in the early chapters. Like the series, however, the book trails off after a certain point in chronicling jazz's history. It gives background aplenty on early New Orleans music, the migration of jazz up the Mississippi to major urban centers, and the developments of swing and bebop. After bebop, the history gets a bit perfunctory. Dozens of major figures get mere sidebar coverage. Little is said of substance on Latin or Brazilian jazz, European contributions to the music, fusion, or umpteen smaller deviations from the mainstream. There are wonderful essays that highlight elements of jazz culture, particularly Gerald Early's consideration of race and white musicians in jazz and Gary Giddins's five-page essay on avant jazz. And there are fine sidebars as well. But developments during and after the 1960s are dealt with primarily in impressionistic guest essays rather than detail-oriented historical narrative. It is, of course, difficult to capture all jazz history in any single volume. So perhaps this ought to have been called Jazz: A Historical Appreciation, since the hundreds of images certainly create an intense sense of the music's milieu. --Andrew Bartlett [via]
More editions of Jazz: A History of America's Music:
-
The Journalist and the Murdererby Janet MalcolmISBN 0679731830 (0-679-73183-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Journalist and the Murderer'Book summary:The Journalist and the Murderer [Paperback] by Malcolm, Janet [via]
More editions of The Journalist and the Murderer:
-
Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic Eastby Gita MehtaISBN 0679754334 (0-679-75433-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East'Book summary:Beginning in the late '60s, hundreds of thousands of Westerners descended upon India, disciples of a cultural revolution that proclaimed that the magic and mystery missing from their lives was to be found in the East. An Indian writer who has also lived in England and the United States, Gita Mehta was ideally placed to observe the spectacle of European and American "pilgrims" interacting with their hosts. When she finally recorded her razor sharp observations in Karma Cola, the book became an instant classic for describing, in merciless detail, what happens when the traditions of an ancient and longlived society are turned into commodities and sold to those who don't understand them.
In the dazzling prose that has become her trademark, Mehta skewers the entire Spectrum of seekers: The Beatles, homeless students, Hollywood rich kids in detox, British guilt-trippers, and more. In doing so, she also reveals the devastating byproducts that the Westerners brought to the villages of rural lndia -- high anxiety and drug addiction among them.
Brilliantly irreverent, Karma Cola displays Gita Mehta's gift for weaving old and new, common and bizarre, history and current events into a seamless and colorful narrative that is at once witty, shocking, and poignant. [via]More editions of Karma Cola: Marketing the Mystic East:
-
Kiss of the Spider Womanby Manuel PuigISBN 0679724494 (0-679-72449-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Kiss of the Spider Woman'Book summary:Sometimes they talk all night long. In the still darkness of their cell, Molina re-weaves the glittering and fragile stories of the film he loves, and the cynical Valentin listens. Valentin believes in the just cause which makes all suffering bearable; Molina believes in the magic of love which makes all else endurable. Each has always been alone, and always - especially now - in danger of betrayal. But in cell 7 each surrenders to the other something of himself that he has never surrendered before. [via]
More editions of Kiss of the Spider Woman:
Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Cultureby William LeachISBN 0679754113 (0-679-75411-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture'More editions of Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture:
Lethal Passageby Erik LarsonISBN 0679759271 (0-679-75927-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Lethal Passage'More editions of Lethal Passage:
-
Life's Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedomby R. M. DworkinISBN 0679733191 (0-679-73319-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Life's Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom'Book summary:One of the country's most distinguished scholars presents a brilliantly original approach to the twin dilemmas of abortion and euthanasia, showing why they arouse such volcanic controversy and how we as a society can reconcile our values of life and individual liberty. [via]
More editions of Life's Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia, and Individual Freedom:
Losersby Michael LewisISBN 0679768092 (0-679-76809-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Losers'More editions of Losers:
Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of Warby Peter MaassISBN 0679763899 (0-679-76389-9)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War'More editions of Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War:
-
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Lifeby Sissela BokISBN 0679724702 (0-679-72470-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life'Book summary:A thoughtful addition to the growing debate over public and private morality. Looks at lying and deception in law, family, medicine, government. [via]
More editions of Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life:
-
Makes Me Wanna Hollerby Nathan McCallISBN 0679740708 (0-679-74070-8)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Makes Me Wanna Holler'Book summary:Examining the complexities of the problems of black youths from an insider's perspective, an African-American journalist recalls his own troubled childhood, his rehabilitation while in prison, and his successful Washington Post career. Reprint. 150,000 first printing. [via]
More editions of Makes Me Wanna Holler:
-
Marpingen : Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a Nineteenth-Century German Villageby David BlackbournISBN 0679757783 (0-679-75778-3)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Marpingen : Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a Nineteenth-Century German Village'Book summary:In a riveting work of historical research, David Blackbourn brings might the period surrounding the days in July 1876 when three young girls claimed to have sighted the Virgin Mary in the fields outside the German town of Marpingen.
As journalists, priests, and sellers of pious memorabilia descended on Marpingen, the sleepy town rapidly metamorphosed into a cause celebre, with supporters and opponents referring to it as "the German Lourdes," and even "the Bethlehem of Germany." "It is an undeniable fact that the whole world is talking about Marpingen," wrote one sympathetic commentator. "Marpingen has become the center of events that have shaken the world," suggested another.
Tens of thousands of pilgrims flocked to the town, prompting numerous claims of miraculous cures -- as well as military intervention, the dispatch of an undercover detective, parliamentary debate, and a dramatic trial.
Pondering what had happened from another perspective was a man on whom the drama placed a heavy burden. "The events are so tremendous," wrote a Marpingen parish priest, "that a true account of them would already fill a book."
Blackbourn, a leading historian of modem Germany, vividly portrays the Catholic world of the Bismarckian era through a detailed exploration of the changing social, economic, and community structures that formed its matrix, and provides a sensitive account of popular religious beliefs. Ranging widely across the fields of social, cultural, and political history, he powerfully evokes the crisis-laden atmosphere of the 1870s, revealing the subtle interplay between politics and religion, the changing nature of the family itself, and the ferment of ideas that fueled the great debate over "modernity." And in a final chapter, he looks ahead to the renewed apparitions of the Virgin in twentieth-century Marpingen against the background of war, Nazism, and the Cold War.A remarkable piece of historical detective work by an important scholar.
From the Hardcover edition. [via]More editions of Marpingen : Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a Nineteenth-Century German Village:
Matingby Norman RushISBN 067973709X (0-679-73709-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mating'More editions of Mating:
Mississippiby WaltonISBN 0679777415 (0-679-77741-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mississippi'More editions of Mississippi:
Mistress Ruby Ties It Together: A Dominatrix Take on Sex, Power, and the Secret Lives of Upstanding Citizensby Robin ShamburgISBN 067964704X (0-679-64704-X)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Mistress Ruby Ties It Together: A Dominatrix Take on Sex, Power, and the Secret Lives of Upstanding Citizens'More editions of Mistress Ruby Ties It Together: A Dominatrix Take on Sex, Power, and the Secret Lives of Upstanding Citizens:
-
The Nature of Economiesby Jane JacobsISBN 0679603409 (0-679-60340-9)
Hardcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Nature of Economies'Book summary:Nearly forty years after The Death and Life of Great American Cities forever changed the field of urban studies, Jane Jacobs--one of the few contemporary thinkers whose works will remain in print for generations--brings us a modern classic on economies and ecology. Original and eloquent, this new book looks at the connection between the economy and nature, arguing that the principles of development, common to both systems, are the proper subject of economic study.
The Nature of Economies is written in the form of a Platonic dialogue, a conversation over coffee among five contemporary New Yorkers. The question they discuss is: Does economic life obey the same rules as those governing the systems in nature? For example, can the way fields and forests maximize their intakes and uses of sunlight teach us something about how economies expand wealth and jobs and can do this in environmentally beneficial ways? The underlying question is both simple and profound, and the answers that emerge will shape the way people think about how economies really work.
The New York Times described Jane Jacobs's The Death and Life of Great American Cities as "first of all a work of literature." The accessibility of her prose--The New Criterion called it "majestic"--stands as Jacobs's hallmark. She is the rarest of analytic thinkers, both an economic visionary and an artist. Examining complex systems with the wit, style, and clear eye of the masterly essayist, in The Nature of Economies Jacobs once again accomplishes the near impossible: She fundamentally challenges some of the established principles of economics while writing in a style that enthralls the general reader. [via]More editions of The Nature of Economies:
The Nature of Generosityby William KittredgeISBN 0679756876 (0-679-75687-6)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Nature of Generosity'More editions of The Nature of Generosity:
Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Sonby James BaldwinISBN 0679744738 (0-679-74473-8)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son'More editions of Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son:
Of Two Mindsby T. M. LuhrmannISBN 0679744932 (0-679-74493-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Of Two Minds'More editions of Of Two Minds:
On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Wordby Simon Frith, Andrew GoodwinISBN 0679722882 (0-679-72288-2)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word'More editions of On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word:
-
On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homoby R. J. Hollingdale, Walter Arnold Kaufmann, Friedrich NietzscheISBN 0679724621 (0-679-72462-1)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo'Book summary:The great philosopher's major work on ethics, along with ECCE HOMO, Nietzche's remarkable review of his life and works. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. [via]
More editions of On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo:
-
The Origin of Species: Library Editionby Charles Robert DarwinISBN 0679749551 (0-679-74955-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Origin of Species: Library Edition'Book summary:Voyage with Darwin as he gathers the raw material that ushered in the greatest intellectual revolution in 2,000 years upon the publication of this very book! [via]
More editions of The Origin of Species: Library Edition:
Out in the World: Gay and Lesbian Life from Buenos Aires to Bangkokby Neil MillerISBN 0679745513 (0-679-74551-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Out in the World: Gay and Lesbian Life from Buenos Aires to Bangkok'More editions of Out in the World: Gay and Lesbian Life from Buenos Aires to Bangkok:
Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Presentby Neil MillerISBN 0679749888 (0-679-74988-8)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present'More editions of Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present:
The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed Americaby Nicholas LemannISBN 0679733477 (0-679-73347-7)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America'More editions of The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America:
The Pursuit of Wow!: Every Person's Guide to Topsy-Turvy Timesby Tom PetersISBN 0679755551 (0-679-75555-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Pursuit of Wow!: Every Person's Guide to Topsy-Turvy Times'More editions of The Pursuit of Wow!: Every Person's Guide to Topsy-Turvy Times:
-
Raisin in the Sunby Lorraine HansberryISBN 0679755330 (0-679-75533-0)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Raisin in the Sun'Book summary:This groundbreaking play starred Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeill, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands in the Broadway production which opened in 1959. Set on Chicago's South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis and matriarch Lena, called Mama. When her deceased husband's insurance money comes through, Mama dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans, however: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. Sacrifice, trust and love among the Younger family and their heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration. Winner of the NY Drama Critic's Award as Best Play of the Year, it has been hailed as a "pivotal play in the history of the American Black theatre." by Newsweek and "a milestone in the American Theatre." by Ebony. [via]
More editions of Raisin in the Sun:
Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminismby Katha PollittISBN 0679762787 (0-679-76278-7)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism'More editions of Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism:
-
The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Citiesby Richard L. BushmanISBN 0679744142 (0-679-74414-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities'Book summary:This lively and authoritative volume makes clear that the quest for taste and manners in America has been essential to the serious pursuit of a democratic culture. Spanning the material world from mansions and silverware to etiquette books, city planning, and sentimental novels, Richard L. Bushman shows how a set of values originating in aristocratic court culture gradually permeated almost every stratum of American society and served to prevent the hardening of class consciousness. A work of immense and richly nuanced learning, The Refinement of America newly illuminates every facet of both our artifacts and our values. [via]
More editions of The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities:
Remembering Satanby Lawrence WrightISBN 0679755829 (0-679-75582-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Remembering Satan'More editions of Remembering Satan:
Resistance, Rebellion, and Deathby Albert Camus, Justin O'BrienISBN 0679764011 (0-679-76401-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Resistance, Rebellion, and Death'More editions of Resistance, Rebellion, and Death:
-
Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicalsby Saul David AlinskyISBN 0679721134 (0-679-72113-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals'Book summary:First published in 1971, Rules for Radicals is Saul Alinsky's impassioned counsel to young radicals on how to effect constructive social change and know the difference between being a realistic radical and being a rhetorical one. Written in the midst of radical political developments whose direction Alinsky was one of the first to question, this volume exhibits his style at its best. Like Thomas Paine before him, Alinsky was able to combine, both in his person and his writing, the intensity of political engagement with an absolute insistence on rational political discourse and adherence to the American democratic tradition.
[via]More editions of Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals:
Sacrificeby Andrew H. VachssISBN 0679764100 (0-679-76410-0)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sacrifice'More editions of Sacrifice:
Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelationby Sissela BokISBN 0679724737 (0-679-72473-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation'More editions of Secrets: On the Ethics of Concealment and Revelation:
-
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essaysby Wendell BerryISBN 0679756515 (0-679-75651-5)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays'Book summary:In this new collection of essays, Wendell Berry continues his work as one of Americas most necessary social commentators. With wisdom and clear, ringing prose, he tackles head-on some of the most difficult problems which face us as we near the end of the twentieth century.
Berry begins the title essay with the Anita HillClarence Thomas hearings as an example of a process that has been well established and well respected for at least two hundred yearsthe process . . . of community disintegration. Community, a locally understood interdependence of local people, local culture, local economy, and local nature, bound by trust and affection, is being destroyed by the desires and ambitions of both private and public life which for want of the intervention of community interests, are also destroying one another.
He then moves on to elucidate connections between sexual brutality and economic brutality, and the role of art and free speech. Berry forcefully addresses Americas unabashed pursuit of self-liberation, which he says is still the strongest force now operating in our society. As individuals turn away from their community, they conform to a rootless and placeless monoculture of commercial expectations and products, buying into the very economic system which is destroying the earth, our communities, and all they represent.
Throughout the book Berry asks, What is appropriate? What is worth conserving from our past and preserving in our present? What is it to be human and truly connected to others? What does it mean to be free? [via]More editions of Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays:
-
Slouching Towards Bethlehem : Essaysby Joan Didion, Elizabeth HardwickISBN 0679640266 (0-679-64026-6)
Hardcover, Random House Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem : Essays'Book summary:Upon its publication in 1968, Slouching Towards Bethlehem confirmed Joan Didion as one of the most prominent writers on the literary scene. Her unblinking vision and deadpan tone have influenced subsequent generations of reporters and essayists, changing our expectations of style, voice, and the artistic possibilities of nonfiction.
"In her portraits of people," The New York Times Book Review wrote, "Didion is not out to expose but to understand, and she shows us actors and millionaires, doomed brides and naïve acid-trippers, left-wing ideologues and snobs of the Hawaiian aristocracy in a way that makes them neither villainous nor glamorous, but alive and botched and often mournfully beautiful. . . . A rare display of some of the best prose written today in this country."
In essay after essay, Didion captures the dislocation of the 1960s, the disorientation of a country shredding itself apart with social change. Her essays not only describe the subject at hand--the murderous housewife, the little girl trailing the rock group, the millionaire bunkered in his mansion--but also offer a broader vision of America, one that is both terrifying and tender, ominous and uniquely her own.
Joyce Carol Oates has written, "Joan Didion is one of the very few writers of our time who approaches her terrible subject with absolute seriousness, with fear and humility and awe. Her powerful irony is often sorrowful rather than clever. . . . She has been an articulate witness to the most stubborn and intractable truths of our time, a memorable voice, partly eulogistic, partly despairing; always in control." [via]More editions of Slouching Towards Bethlehem : Essays:
Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicantsby Wolfgang SchivelbuschISBN 067974438X (0-679-74438-X)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants'More editions of Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants:
To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Wordsby Lorraine Hansberry, Robert Nemiroff, Marty AsherISBN 0679764151 (0-679-76415-1)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words'More editions of To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words:
-
To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Designby Henry PetroskiISBN 0679734163 (0-679-73416-3)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design'Book summary:The moral of this book is that behind every great engineering success is a trail of often ignored (but frequently spectacular) engineering failures. Petroski covers many of the best known examples of well-intentioned but ultimately failed design in action -- the galloping Tacoma Narrows Bridge (which you've probably seen tossing cars willy-nilly in the famous black-and-white footage), the collapse of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways -- and many lesser known but equally informative examples. The line of reasoning Petroski develops in this book were later formalized into his quasi-Darwinian model of technological evolution in The Evolution of Useful Things, but this book is arguably the more illuminating -- and defintely the more enjoyable -- of these two titles. Highly recommended. [via]
More editions of To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design:
Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf Worldby Leah Hager CohenISBN 0679761659 (0-679-76165-9)
Softcover, Vintage Books
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World'More editions of Train Go Sorry: Inside a Deaf World:
The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in Americaby Jeffrey RosenISBN 0679765204 (0-679-76520-4)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America'More editions of The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America:
-
Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the Westby John Ralston SaulISBN 0679748199 (0-679-74819-9)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West'Book summary:Argues that the rationalist political and social experiments of the Enlightenment have degenerated into societies dominated by technology and a crude code of managerial efficiency. These are societies enslaved by manufactured fashions and artificial heroes, divorced from natural human instinct. [via]
More editions of Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West:
-
Waldenby Henry David ThoreauISBN 0679735747 (0-679-73574-7)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Walden'Book summary:In 1845 Henry David Thoreau left his pencil-manufacturing business and began building a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts. This lyrical yet practical-minded book is at once a record of the 26 months Thoreau spent in withdrawal from society -- an account of the daily minutiae of building, planting, hunting, cooking, and, always, observing nature -- and a declaration of independence from the oppressive mores of the world he left behind. Elegant, witty, and quietly searching, Walden remains the most persuasive American argument for simplicity of life clarity of conscience.
For the first time, the authoritative editions of works by major American novelists, poets, scholars, and essayists collected in the hardcover volumes of The Library of America are being published singly in a series of handsome paperback books. A distinguished writer has contributed an introduction for each volume, which also includes a chronology of the author's life and career, an essay on the text, and notes. [via]More editions of Walden:
-
William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republicby Alan Taylor, Peter DimockISBN 0679773002 (0-679-77300-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic'Book summary:In 1786 William Cooper, determined to become a self-made gentleman of substance in post-revolutionary America, founded Cooperstown, N.Y., through a dodgy land deal. His town rose to become county seat, and Cooper became a judge and then a congressman. He lost most of the prestige he earned later, when he overstretched himself, and his local patronage weakened when he backed the Federalists against the victorious Republicans. Nonetheless, his son, James Fenimore Cooper, the early 19th century's best-selling novelist, wrote essentially a justification of his father in his third novel, The Pioneers (1823). Taylor's book--a combination of biography, personal history, social history, literary exegesis and analysis of father-son dynamics--charts the interplay between the fact and the fiction of the days when upstate New York was the frontier. William Cooper's Town won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for history. [via]
More editions of William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic:
-
Word Play: What Happens When People Talkby Peter FarbISBN 0679734082 (0-679-73408-2)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Word Play: What Happens When People Talk'More editions of Word Play: What Happens When People Talk:
You Gotta Have Waby Robert WhitingISBN 067972947X (0-679-72947-X)
Softcover, Random House Inc
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'You Gotta Have Wa'More editions of You Gotta Have Wa:
Spanish
El Beso De La Mujer Arana / Kiss of the Spider Womanby Manuel PuigISBN 0679755454 (0-679-75545-4)
Softcover, Random House Espanol
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'El Beso De La Mujer Arana / Kiss of the Spider Woman'More editions of El Beso De La Mujer Arana / Kiss of the Spider Woman:
Chinese
Chinese Livesby Zhang Xin Xin, Sang Ye, William J. Jenner, Delia Davin, Studs TerkelISBN 0679720561 (0-679-72056-1)
Softcover, Knopf Publishing Group
Find This Book
› Find signed collectible books: 'Chinese Lives'More editions of Chinese Lives:
Results page: PREV 1-100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 NEXT
![[powered by Muze Inc.]](http://i.bookfinder.com/images/site/muze/powered_by_muze.gif){kind=small}