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Bebop: The Music and Its Players

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:10:06 GMT

"When bebop was new," writes Thomas Owens, "many jazz musicians and most of the jazz audience heard it as radical, chaotic, bewildering music." For a nation swinging to the smoothly orchestrated sounds of the big bands, this revolutionary movement of the 1940s must have seemed destined for a short life on the musical fringe. But today, Owens writes, bebop is nothing less than "the lingua franca of jazz, serving as the principal musical language of thousands of jazz musicians."

Back To Africa: Benjamin Coates And The Colonization Movement In America

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:07:40 GMT

Benjamin Coates was one of the best-known white supporters of African colonization in nineteenth-century America. A Quaker businessman from Philadelphia and a sometime officer of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, he was committed to helping black Americans relocate to West Africa. This put him at the center of a discourse with abolitionists at home and abroad, including such leading thinkers as Joseph Jenkins Roberts, Mary Ann Shadd Cary...

Embattled Dreams: California in War and Peace

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:05:12 GMT

A narrative tour de force that combines wide-ranging scholarship with captivating prose, Kevin Starr's acclaimed multi-volume Americans and the California Dream is an unparalleled work of cultural history. Now, in Embattled Dreams, the sixth volume in this monumental work, Starr looks at 1940s California, the war years and their aftermath. California in the years surrounding World War II was a time of sweeping change, drama and intrigue, heroism and tragedy, a decade that saw the emergence of a new, more powerful role for California in the nation. Starr captures this exciting era with his unique vision and masterful prose. He describes the vast expansion of the war industry and California's role as "arsenal of democracy" (especially the significant part women played in the aviation industry). He examines the politics of the state: Earl Warren as the dominant political figure...

Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:02:37 GMT

The relationship between the United States and Japan is torn by contrary impulses. We face each other across the Pacific as friends and allies, as the two most powerful economies in the world--and as suspicious rivals. Americans admire the industry of the Japanese, but we resent the huge trade deficit that has developed between us, due to what we consider to be unfair trade practices and "unlevel playing fields." Now, in Altered States, historian Michael Schaller strips away the stereotypes and misinformation clouding American perceptions of Japan, providing the historical background that helps us make sense of this important relationship.

After Columbus: Essays in the Ethnohistory of Colonial North America

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:58:07 GMT

This volume comprises a new collection of essays--four previously unpublished--by James Axtell, author of the acclaimed The European and the Indian and The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America, and the foremost contemporary authority on Indian-European relations in Colonial North America. Arguing that moral judgements have a legitimate place in the writing of history, Axtell scrutinizes the actions of various European invaders--missionaries...

Seeing the Elephant: The Many Voices of the Oregon Trail

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:55:28 GMT

'The target audience for this book is middle and high school students. However, its information will appeals to a far broader audience...A useful introduction to trail travel and associated incidents' - "Journal of the West". 'A little gem of a book' - "Overland Journal". Theirs has been called America's single largest voluntary, historical migration. From the late 1830's to the mid - 1870's a span of just over forty years nearly half a million ordinary folk left farms and families, friends, and all that was familiar and turned their faces west to Oregon, to California, to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, and to the gold fields of Montana.

The Mobius Strip: A Spatial History of Colonial Society in Guerrero

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:52:31 GMT

"The Mobius Strip" explores the history, political economy, and culture of space in central Guerrero, Mexico, during the colonial period. This study is significant for two reasons. First, space comprises a sphere of contention that affects all levels of society, from the individual and his or her household to the nation-state and its mechanisms for control and coercion. Second, colonialism offers a unique situation, for it invariably involves a determined effort on the part of an invading society to redefine politico-administrative units, to redirect the flow of commodities and cash, and, ultimately, to foster and construct new patterns of allegiance and identity to communities...

The Fabric of Gender: Working-Class Culture in Third Republic France

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:49:40 GMT

The years of the Third Republic (1870-1940) in France were ones of intense social and economic transformation as workers struggled to defend their rights in the face of growing industrial capitalism. In The Fabric of Gender, Helen Chenut paints a vivid picture of working life during these years by following four generations of laboring women and men in one community, the textile town of Troyes in the Champagne region.

The Word in Black and White: Reading "Race" in American Literature

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:46:44 GMT

Nelson provides a study of the ways in which Anglo-American authors constructed "race" in their works from the time of the first British colonists through the period of the Civil War. She focuses on some eleven texts, ranging from widely-known to little-considered, that deal with the relations among Native, African, and Anglo-Americans, and places her readings in the historical, social, and material contexts of an evolving U.S. colonialism and internal imperialism.

The Colloquy of Montbeliard: Religion and Politics in the Sixteenth Century

NSL123 — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:43:13 GMT

Focusing on the Colloquy of Montbeliard, a theological debate in 1586 between Lutherans and Calvinists, Raitt explores the complex array of shifting political alliances and religious tensions which characterized the Holy Roman Empire after the Peace of Augsburg. When the Wars of Religion broke out in France, both sides courted allies. Often these alliances involved confessional tests--most often concerning the Eucharist. Modern readers might expect that such complex theological questions belong in seminaries.....

Berkeley at War: The 1960s

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:30:23 GMT

Berkeley, California stood at the center of the political, social, and cultural upheaval that made the 1960s a unique period in American history. In Berkeley at War, W.J. Rorabaugh, who attended the graduate school of the University of California at Berkeley in the 1970s, presents a lively, informative account of the events that changed forever what had once been a quiet, conservative white suburb.

Colonial Women: Race and Culture in Stuart Drama

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:28:03 GMT

Colonial Women examines the women-as-land metaphor in English colonial dramatic literature of the seventeenth century, and looks closely at the myths of two historical native female figures--Pocahontas of Virginia and Malinche of Mexico--to demonstrate how these two stories are crucial to constructions of gender, race, and English nationhood in the drama and culture of the period.

The Spring Will Be Ours: Poland and the Poles from Occupation to Freedom

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:25:27 GMT

"Writing in elegant prose, Paczkowski makes persuasive comments and judgments about this half century of Poland’s history. The Spring Will Be Ours is a masterly work." —John J. Kulczycki, University of Illinois at Chicago"A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Polish history, or the development of the historical profession in Poland since 1989." —Michael Bernhard, Penn State UniversityOne can think of countries that traversed the twentieth century free from war, revolution, or social upheaval. Such countries, however, are far outnumbered by those that struggled, often constantly, with severe internal conflicts, fought in bloody wars, or were attacked by their neighbors and deprived of their sovereignty. Poland is one of the more startling examples of a country subjected to a steady stream of trials and tribulations from Hitler’s Nazi Germany through decades of Soviet repression. The Spring Will Be Ours, by one of Poland’s leading historians, is the first book written after the collapse of state socialism in 1989 to tell this dramatic story based on research in newly declassified records.

Pogue's War: Diaries of a WWII Combat Historian

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:21:57 GMT

Forrest Pogue (1912-1996) was undoubtedly one of the greatest World War II combat historians. Born and educated in Kentucky, he is perhaps best known for his definitive four-volume biography of General George C. Marshall. But, as Pogue’s War makes clear, he was also a pioneer in the development of oral history in the twentieth century, as well as an impressive interviewer with an ability to relate to people at all levels, from the private in the trenches to the general carrying four stars.

Mary's Mother: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Europe

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:16:40 GMT

Saint Anne, the mother of Mary, is not a biblical figure. She first appears in a second-century apocryphal infancy gospel as part of the story of the savior's birth and maternal ancestry. Over the ensuing centuries, Anne's story circulated throughout eastern and western Christendom, but it was not until the late Middle Ages that a cult of Saint Anne gained a firm footing in Europe. Mary's Mother is about the remarkable rise of Anne as a figure of devotion among medieval Christians who found solace in her closeness to Jesus and Mary.

Ellis Island to Ebbets Field: Sport and the American Jewish Experience

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:13:11 GMT

In Ellis Island to Ebbets Field, Peter Levine vividly recounts the stories of Red Auerbach, Hank Greenberg, Moe Berg, Sid Luckman, Nat Holman, Benny Leonard, Barney Ross, Marty Glickman, and a host of others who became Jewish heroes and symbols of the difficult struggle for American success. From settlement houses and street corners, to Madison Square and Fenway Park, their experiences recall a time when Jewish males dominated sports like boxing and basketball, helping to smash stereotypes about Jewish weakness while instilling American Jews with a fierce pride in their strength and ability in the face of Nazi aggression...

From Sugar Camps to Star Barns: Rural Life and Landscape in a Western Pennsylvania Community

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:10:15 GMT

Rural Pennsylvania's landscapes are evocative, richly textured testimonjes to the lives and skills of generations of builders, architects, and craft workers. Farmhouses, barns silos, fences, and even field patterns attest to how residents over the years developed a sense of place that was not only functional but also comfortable and aestheticully appropriate for the time. From Sugar Camps to Star Borns tells the story of one such place, a landscape that evolved in southwestern Pennsylvania's Somersat County. Sally McMurry traces the rural life and landscape of Somerset County as it evolved from the earliest settlement days. Eighteenth-century residents were a forest people, living on sparsely built farmsteads and making free use of the heavily forested landscape (a use typified by the sugar camp).

John Marshall Harlan: Great Dissenter of the Warren Court

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:05:48 GMT

When David Souter was nominated by President Bush to the Supreme Court, he cited John Marshall Harlan as his model. It was an interesting choice. Admired by conservatives and deeply respected by his liberal brethren, Harlan was a man, as Justice William Brennan lamented, whose "massive scholarship" has never been fully recognized. In addition, he was the second Harlan to sit on the Court, following his grandfather--also named John Marshall Harlan. But while his grandfather was an outspoken supporter of reconstruction on a conservative court, the younger Harlan emerged as a critic of the Warren Court's liberal expansion of civil liberties.

A New Science: The Breakdown of Connections and the Birth of Sociology.

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:02:15 GMT

This book by Bruce Mazlish is, to my mind, an unrecognized classic in the genre of social science. Every scholar can benefit from becoming familiar with this book. Mazlish is one of the clearest writers on the history of social ideas, and this book makes a particular point about the moral message in social commentary that applies to anyone's writing. This particular book has been the most important lesson I have had in why one should strive to be concrete in defining research themes, and practical in explaining the implications of research findings.

Glidermen of Neptune: The American D-Day Glider Attack

NSL123 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:59:18 GMT

Although the word gliderman does not appear in the dictionary, a brave group of World War II soldiers known as glidermen flew into combat inside unarmed and unarmored canvas-covered gliders known as "flying coffins."Charles J. Masters points out that because World War II was the first truly mechanized and armored global conflict, the role of the glidermen and their combat gliders was at best anachronistic. Fighter planes exceeded speeds of 400 miles per hour and were heavily armed with multiple machine guns. Dogfights had taken on new dimensions...