History

MAKING A MASTERPIECE: THE STOR

MAKING A MASTERPIECE: THE STOR

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What makes a work of art a masterpiece? Discover the answers in the fascinating stories of how these artworks came to be and the circumstances of their long-lasting impact on the world.

Beginning with Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, we travel through time and a range of styles and stories - including theft, scandal, artistic reputation, politics and power - to Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans, challenging the idea of what a masterpiece can be, and arriving in the twenty-first century with Amy Sherald's portrait of Michelle Obama, a modern-day masterpiece still to be tested by time.

Each artwork has a tale that reveals making a masterpiece often involves much more than just a demonstration of artistic skill: their path to fame is only fully disclosed by looking beyond what the eye can see. Rather than trying to describe the elements of greatness, Making a Masterpiece takes account of the circumstances outside the frame that contribute to the perception of greatness and reveals that the journey from the easel to popular acclaim can be as compelling as the masterpiece itself.

Featuring:
Birth of Venus, Sandro Botticelli
Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci
Judith Beheading Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi
Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer
Under the Wave off Kanagawa, Katsushika Hokusai
Fifteen Sunflowers, Vincent van Gogh
Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I (Woman in Gold, Gustav Klimt
American Gothic, Grant Wood
Guernica, Pablo Picasso
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, Frida Kahlo
Campbell's Soup Cans, Andy Warhol
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, Amy Sherald

Discover the stories of how, why and what makes a masterpiece in this truly compelling and comprehensive work.

MAN WHO HATED WOMEN: SEX, CENS

MAN WHO HATED WOMEN: SEX, CENS

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Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Best History Books of 2021 - Fascinating . . . Purity is in the mind of the beholder, but beware the man who vows to protect yours." --Margaret Talbot, The New Yorker

Anthony Comstock, special agent to the U.S. Post Office, was one of the most important men in the lives of nineteenth-century women. His eponymous law, passed in 1873, penalized the mailing of contraception and obscenity with long sentences and steep fines. The word Comstockery came to connote repression and prudery.

Between 1873 and Comstock's death in 1915, eight remarkable women were charged with violating state and federal Comstock laws. These "sex radicals" supported contraception, sexual education, gender equality, and women's right to pleasure. They took on the fearsome censor in explicit, personal writing, seeking to redefine work, family, marriage, and love for a bold new era. In The Man Who Hated Women, Amy Sohn tells the overlooked story of their valiant attempts to fight Comstock in court and in the press. They were publishers, writers, and doctors, and they included the first woman presidential candidate, Victoria C. Woodhull; the virgin sexologist Ida C. Craddock; and the anarchist Emma Goldman. In their willingness to oppose a monomaniac who viewed reproductive rights as a threat to the American family, the sex radicals paved the way for second-wave feminism. Risking imprisonment and death, they redefined birth control access as a civil liberty.

The Man Who Hated Women brings these women's stories to vivid life, recounting their personal and romantic travails alongside their political battles. Without them, there would be no Pill, no Planned Parenthood, no Roe v. Wade. This is the forgotten history of the women who waged war to control their bodies.

MARRIAGE PORTRAIT

MARRIAGE PORTRAIT

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NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The author of Hamnet--New York Times best seller and National Book Critics Circle Award winner--brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de' Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.

O'Farrell pulls out little threads of historical detail to weave this story of a precocious girl sensitive to the contradictions of her station ... You may know the history, and you may think you know what's coming, but don't be so sure. --The Washington Post

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court's eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess's future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman's battle for her very survival.

MASTER SLAVE HUSBAND WIFE: AN

MASTER SLAVE HUSBAND WIFE: AN

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The remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled White man and William posing as "his" slave.

In 1848, a year of international democratic revolt, a young, enslaved couple, Ellen and William Craft, achieved one of the boldest feats of self-emancipation in American history. Posing as master and slave, while sustained by their love as husband and wife, they made their escape together across more than 1,000 miles, riding out in the open on steamboats, carriages, and trains that took them from bondage in Georgia to the free states of the North.

Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities, and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000 miles criss-crossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the day--among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown.

But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again--this time from the United States, their lives and thousands more on the line and the stakes never higher.

With three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom, Master Slave Husband Wife is an American love story--one that would challenge the nation's core precepts of life, liberty, and justice for all--one that challenges us even now.

MUSEUM OF OBJECTS BURNED BY TH

MUSEUM OF OBJECTS BURNED BY TH

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Titled after a small gallery of the same name found in Rome, the poems are devoted to meditations on religious relics and works of art. They explore the narrative power these objects carry--the way we imbue totemic figures with both meaning and story, and the potential they have to define the world.
My Bondage and My Freedom

My Bondage and My Freedom

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Ex-slave Frederick Douglass's second autobiography-written after ten years of reflection following his legal emancipation in 1846 and his break with his mentor William Lloyd Garrison-catapulted Douglass into the international spotlight as the foremost spokesman for American blacks, both freed and slave. Written during his celebrated career as a speaker and newspaper editor, My Bondage and My Freedom reveals the author of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) grown more mature, forceful, analytical, and complex with a deepened commitment to the fight for equal rights and liberties.

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by John David Smith"

NATION OF DESCENDANTS: POLITIC

NATION OF DESCENDANTS: POLITIC

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From family trees written in early American bibles to birther conspiracy theories, genealogy has always mattered in the United States, whether for taking stock of kin when organizing a family reunion or drawing on membership--by blood or other means--to claim rights to land, inheritances, and more. And since the advent of DNA kits that purportedly trace genealogical relations through genetics, millions of people have used them to learn about their medical histories, biological parentage, and ethnic background.

A Nation of Descendants traces Americans' fascination with tracking family lineage through three centuries. Francesca Morgan examines how specific groups throughout history grappled with finding and recording their forebears, focusing on Anglo-American white, Mormon, African American, Jewish, and Native American people. Morgan also describes how individuals and researchers use genealogy for personal and scholarly purposes, and she explores how local businesspeople, companies like Ancestry.com, and Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s Finding Your Roots series powered the commercialization and commodification of genealogy.



Negro Motorist Green Book Compendium

Negro Motorist Green Book Compendium

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You've heard the tales, you've watched the movie, but have you seen The Green Book? During the dangerous days of Jim Crow segregation, it was difficult to be an African-American traveler, as hotels that would take you or restaurants that would serve you were few and far between. This was addressed by The Negro Motorist Green Book, an annual listing of lodging, diners, gas stations, and other businesses that could handle the needs of the Black customer. Created in 1936 by Harlem-based postman Victor H. Green, the Green Book served the public until after the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s ended legal segregation. Original copies of the Green Book are now museum pieces, but in this book you can see all the articles, all the ads, and all the listings from four editions of the Green Book, one for each decade in which the series was published. The Negro Motorist Green Book of 1938 is an early example, covering only the states east of the Mississippi River, but also presenting articles on "The Automobile and What It Has Done for the American Negro" as well as driving tips. In 1947, the Negro Motorist Green Book had listings for 45 of the 48 states that then existed (there was nothing for Nevada, New Hampshire, or North Dakota), and that also included directories of the Negro colleges and newspapers of the day, as well as a look at the current models from Ford and GM, and some notes on automotive design of the future. By 1954, the title had changed to The Negro Travelers' Green Book, and the volume includes an article on the highlights of San Francisco (which was "fast becoming the focal point of the Negroes' future") and tourist guides to New York City and Bermuda. Finally, the Travelers' Green Book for 1963 through 1964 leads off with a state-by-state listings of rights against "jimcro" (Jim Crow segregation), plus it has "Guide Posts for a Pleasant Trip," a couple of cartoon-illustrated sidebars on Black history-makers, a listing of major league ballparks, and other useful items for the traveler. And all of it reproduced at about 50% larger than the original size, for easier reading. Reprints of the Green Book published by About Comics have gotten coverage by Newsweek, the Guardian, and BBC News, and more. They are carried by major museums, and have been used by TV and film. Now you can get four editions in one convenient volume, and see why the New York Times called the Green Book a "beacon for Black travelers."
NEW WORLD BEGINS: THE HISTORY

NEW WORLD BEGINS: THE HISTORY

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From an award-winning historian, a magisterial account of the revolution that created the modern world

The principles of the French Revolution remain the only possible basis for a just society -- even if, after more than two hundred years, they are more contested than ever before. In A New World Begins, Jeremy D. Popkin offers a riveting account of the revolution that puts the reader in the thick of the debates and the violence that led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a new society. We meet Mirabeau, Robespierre, and Danton, in all of their brilliance and vengefulness; we witness the failed escape and execution of Louis XVI; we see women demanding equal rights and black slaves wresting freedom from revolutionaries who hesitated to act on their own principles; and we follow the rise of Napoleon out of the ashes of the Reign of Terror.

Based on decades of scholarship, A New World Begins will stand as the definitive treatment of the French Revolution.

No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920

No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880-1920

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A new edition of a classic work of American history that eloquently examines the rise of antimodernism at the turn of the twentieth century.

First published in 1981, T. J. Jackson Lears's No Place of Grace is a landmark book in American studies and American history, acclaimed for both its rigorous research and the deft fluidity of its prose. A study of responses to the emergent culture of corporate capitalism at the turn of the twentieth century, No Place of Grace charts the development of contemporary consumer society through the embrace of antimodernism--the effort among middle- and upper-class Americans to recapture feelings of authentic experience. Rather than offer true resistance to the increasingly corporatized bureaucracy of the time, however, antimodernism helped accommodate Americans to the new order--it was therapeutic rather than oppositional, a striking forerunner to today's self-help culture. And yet antimodernism contributed a new dynamic as well, "an eloquent edge of protest," as Lears puts it, which is evident even today in anticonsumerism, sustainable living, and other practices. This new edition, with a lively and discerning foreword by Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, celebrates the fortieth anniversary of this singular work of history.

T. J. Jackson Lears draws on a wealth of primary sources — sermons, diaries, letters — as well as novels, poems, and essays to explore the origins of turn-of-the-century American antimodernism. He examines the retreat to the exotic, the pursuit of intense physical or spiritual experiences, and the search for cultural self-sufficiency through the Arts and Crafts movement. Lears argues that their antimodern impulse, more pervasive than historians have supposed, was not "simple escapism," but reveals some enduring and recurring tensions in American culture.