Best of
Cultural-Heritage

2009

Down by the Riverside: A South Carolina Slave Community


Charles Joyner - 2009
    In this slave community, and many others like it, the slaves created a new language, a new religion--indeed, a new culture--from African traditions and American circumstances.From the letters, diaries, and memoirs of the plantation whites and their guests, from quantitative analysis of census and probate records, and above all from slave folklore and oral history, Joyner has recovered an entire society and its way of life. His careful reconstruction of daily life in All Saints Parish is an inspiring testimony to the ingenuity and solidarity of a people who endured in the face of adversity.This anniversary edition of Joyner's landmark study includes a new introduction in which the author recounts his process of writing the book, reflects on its critical and popular reception, and surveys the path of scholarship in slave history in the decades since the book's first publication.

The Face in the Lens: Anonymous Photographs


Robert Flynn Johnson - 2009
    The intriguing images assembled here by collector and curator Robert Flynn Johnson are all mysterious, but their appeal is various. By turns poignant, humorous, erotic, and disturbing, their subject is the human condition. In ten stunning chapters every aspect of human experience—both public and private—is explored. Richly reproduced and with subtle tonalities marking their age, over 220 photographs showcase the work of photographers whose identities have been lost in time. The images are never anything less than mesmerizing and include previously unseen portraits of such stars as Cary Grant, Richard Burton, and Marlene Dietrich. Introduced by Alexander McCall Smith, this follow-up to Johnson's widely acclaimed Anonymous touches on birth, marriage, death, disease, hope, glory, and despair and a plethora of additional emotions, events, and human states, and will capture the imagination of any reader.Copub: Thames and Hudson