In January 2006, after the Republic of Liberia had been racked by fourteen years of brutal civil conflict, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf—Africa's "Iron Lady"—was sworn in as president, an event that marked a tremendous turning point in the history of the West African nation. In this stirring memoir, Sirleaf shares the inside story of her rise to power, including her early childhood; her experiences with abuse...

Thurgood Marshall stands as one of the great American heroes of the 20th century: He was the attorney who ended legal segregation in the United States with his victory in the Brown v. Board of Education case, and the U.S. Supreme Court justice who championed expanded rights for every individual American -- minorities, women, and immigrants, among many others.

We hope that the Smithsonian Folklife and Oral History Interviewing Guide inspires you to turn to members of your own family and community as key sources of history, culture, and tradition. But where does one start? This booklet presents some guidelines Smithsonian folklorists have developed over the years for collecting folklife and oral history from family and community members. It features a general guide to conducting an interview, as well as a sample list of questions that may be adapted to your own needs and circumstances. The booklet concludes with a few examples of ways to preserve and present your findings, a selection of further readings, a glossary of key terms, and sample information and release forms.

The year 2009 marks the bicentennial of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the nation’s 16th president, and the man often considered its greatest leader. As the United States endured its greatest crisis, this self-educated common man supplied the leadership and the moral force that bound Americans together and carried them to victory. His vision spanned diplomacy and military strategy, political thought and elemental justice for all Americans --- including the African-American slaves he emancipated. The essays gathered here introduce readers to this “best and most widely acclaimed of all Americans.

Axel ist ein verunsicherter, möchtegernbewegter Mann. Die Probleme mit seine Freundin Doro meint er mit einem wohlinszenierten Selbstmorddrama lösen zu können. Doro aber durchschaut dieses Spielchen und hat die Faxen dicke. In 'seiner Männergruppe' versucht Axel wieder Halt zu More...

This book is a revision of my PhD dissertation. I deeply appreciate the encouragement and advice of faculty and student colleagues at Yale University, especially my advisor, Professor Robert Wilson.

Hardly any biblical scholar can be unaware that the issue of the 'United Monarchy' has come under scrutiny.

This book demonstrates that Primary History, the historical work contained in the first nine books of...

The Beecher sisters-Catharine, Harriet, and Isabella-were three of the most prominent women in nineteenth-century America. Daughters of the famous evangelist Lyman Beecher, they could not follow their father and seven brothers into the ministry. Nonetheless, they carved out pathbreaking careers for themselves. Catharine Beecher founded the Hartford Female Seminary and devoted her life to improving women's education...

George Sand was the most famous—and most scandalous—woman in nineteenth-century France. As a writer, she was enormously prolific—she wrote more than ninety novels, thirty-five plays, and thousands of pages of autobiography. She inspired writers as diverse as Flaubert and Proust but is often remembered for her love affairs with such figures as Musset and Chopin...

A collection of jokes and riddles about all kinds of animals.

A collection of jokes about backyard animals.

A collection of jokes about monsters. Reading level: Ages 4-8

Perfect for beginning readers, this laugh-out-loud joke book about school will put a smile on your face!

Ever since the French Revolution, Madame de Pompadour's comment, "Après moi, le déluge" (after me, the deluge), has looked like a callous if accurate prophecy of the political cataclysms that began in 1789. But decades before the Bastille fell, French writers had used the phrase to describe a different kind of selfish recklessness--not toward the flood of revolution but, rather, toward the flood of public debt. In Before the Deluge, Michael Sonenscher examines these fears and the responses to them, and the result is nothing less than a new way of thinking about the intellectual origins of the French Revolution...