Editor Robert Garth Scott has sifted through what is arguably the largest collection of Civil War-related material to surface in fifty years. From his childhood in Detroit through his cadetship at West Point, his service in the Mexican, Seminole, and Civil Wars, and his post-Civil War experiences in the West, Willcox’s story is published here for the first time.
A master artist and teacher of metalwork presents a bold new approach to creative expression in metal. Believing that the time has come for the artist to free himself from the functional forms that have dominated the metal smith’s craft—the cup, the box, the pitcher, etc.—Heikki Seppa urges the craftsman to create in terms of pure form, and in this book he shows him how. Two Things are essential. The first is a thorough understanding of the special properties of metal as an artistic medium and an intimate knowledge of techniques for working it. Only when he has mastered the physical means of working with metal can the artist free his imagination for unimpeded creation. Though not addressed to the beginner, Seppa discusses the fundamental techniques of planishing, soldering, and hinging—all the basic means by which metal is shaped. The second is to free the artist from thinking in terms of function, since this limits his concepts of what can be created.
The brief history of Fort Laurens is a story of courage mixed with confusion, of bravery and hardship, of a little Valley Forge on the western side of the struggling nation. The long winter in which an ill-equipped handful of men scrounged for food and withstood attack to maintain their outpost in the wilderness is an undeservedly neglected part of the Revolutionary War story and a thrilling beginning to the Ohio story. This book is the first complete account of the episode, drawing on all the documentary evidence available and placing it in the context of the larger struggle for independence.
The San Francisco 49ers are among the most dynamic franchises, not only in the National Football League but in all of professional sports. They have won five Super Bowl titles and have produced some of football’s most dynamic players in Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, and Ronnie Lott, all of whom were coached by Bill Walsh, one of the game’s most innovative thinkers.
“Counterfactual questions, if kept within the parameters of what was possible at the time and place, can often help us better understand events of the past. In so doing, they can sometimes bring about a ‘paradigm shift’—a new way of thinking about history and hence of grasping its meaning… While the events described in the opening sections are fanciful, the underlying points, I believe are valid. The counterfactual events, I hope, can help us see the points with greater clarity.”—From the Preface
Literary historians have been giving increased attention to texts that have hitherto been largely ignored. The works of women, the disenfranchised, and “commoners” have all benefited from such critical analysis. Similarly, letters, memoirs, popular poetry, and serialized fiction have become the subject of scholarly inquiry. Elizabethan fiction has also profited from the newer odes of critical inquiry. This collection of original essays draws on a wide range of critical and theoretical approaches, especially those influenced by various elements of feminism, Marxism, and cultural studies. They illuminate the richness of canonical examples of Elizabethan fiction (Sidney’s Arcadia) and less widely read works (Henry Chettle’s Piers Plainess).
Fraternal Light: On Painting While Black is a lyric evocation of the life and work of the great African American artist Beauford Delaney. These poems pay homage to Delaney’s resilience and ingenuity in the face of profound adversity. Although his work never garnered the acclaim it deserves—but is finally receiving—Delaney was well known and highly respected in African American cultural circles, among bohemian writers and artists based in Greenwich Village from the 1930s to the early 1950s, and in Parisian avant-garde and expatriate enclaves from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s.
Built by Daniel R. Hanna as a tribute to his theater-loving father, Marcus Hanna, the Hanna Theatre opened its doors on March 28, 1921, with an adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper starring William Faversham. Billed as a “Broadway-style theater,” the Hanna was located not on Euclid Avenue but around the corner on the side street of East 14th. Its interior decor was opulent, finished in what was described as a combination of Italian Renaissance and Pompeian style, and the stage was described as “large enough . . . to present the best plays offered; but intimate enough to present the quietest comedy or drama to the best advantage.”
In 1880, James Garfield decided to try something new: rather than run the typical passive campaign for president, he would welcome voters to his farm. By the end of the campaign, thousands of people—including naturalized voters, African Americans, women, men from various occupations, and young voters—traveled to Garfield’s home, listened to him speak, shook hands, met his family, and were invited inside. The press reported the interactions across the country. Not only did Garfield win, but he started a new campaign technique that then carried three other Republicans to the presidency.
The best essays by one of the leading experts on the Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War, a military rebellion supported by Hitler and Mussolini, attracted the greatest writers of the age. Among them were Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, André Malraux, Arthur Koestler, Langston Hughes, and Martha Gellhorn. They returned to their homelands to warn the world about a war of fascist aggression looming on the horizon.
