Best of
History

1850

Narrative of Sojourner Truth


Sojourner Truth - 1850
    history, Sojourner Truth sang, preached, and debated at camp meetings across the country, led by her devotion to the antislavery movement and her ardent pursuit of women's rights. Born into slavery in 1797, Truth fled from bondage some 30 years later to become a powerful figure in the progressive movements reshaping American society.This remarkable narrative, first published in 1850, offers a rare glimpse into the little-documented world of Northern slavery. Truth recounts her life as a slave in rural New York, her separation from her family, her religious conversion, and her life as a traveling preacher during the 1840s. She also describes her work as a social reformer, counselor of former slaves, and sponsor of a black migration to the West.A spellbinding orator and implacable prophet, Truth mesmerized audiences with her tales of life in bondage and with her moving renditions of Methodist hymns and her own songs. Frederick Douglass described her message as a "strange compound of wit and wisdom, of wild enthusiasm, and flint-like common sense." This inspiring account of a black woman's struggles for racial and sexual equality is essential reading for students of American history, as well as for those interested in the continuing quest for equality of opportunity.

The Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850


Karl Marx - 1850
    It is, as Frederick Engels says, "Marx's first attempt, with the aid of his materialist conception, to explain a section of contemporary history from the given economic situation." The work has long been considered a class in historical materialism as applied to current events, having withstood the test of later and fuller analyses. This edition includes in full Engels' famous Preface of 1895, in which he assessed Socialist strategy and tactics for the previous fifty years.Cover: From a lithograph by H. Daumier symbolizing the reactionaries of the period.

My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue


Samuel E. Chamberlain - 1850
    Perhaps the best written account of a soldier's adventures and misadventures in the Mexican War and its aftermath, this unexpurgated edition is now available for the first time, complete with over 150 of Chamberlain's wonderful textual illustrations reproduced in full color. If you enjoyed the Chamberlain paintings assembled in Sam Chamberlain's Mexican War:The San Jacinto Museum of History Paintings, you will be fascinated by the tale in My Confession that goes with it and beyond it into Chamberlain's adventures with the scalp-hunting Glanton Gang (the story that Cormac McCarthy used as the basis for his celebrated novel Blood Meridian).My Confession is the story of Samuel Chamberlain, a Boston boy who hoped to be a theological student but could not control his amorous and pugilistic inclinations and so left for the West. According to his "Confession," he seduced countless women in the U.S. and Mexico, never missed a fandango, fought gallantly against Mexican guerrillas, and rode with the First Dragoons into the Battle of Buena Vista. His remarkable story is pure melodrama, but Goetzmann has proven by his painstaking research that much of it is true.The editor's annotations are a valuable contribution to an account that virtually every historian of the Mexican War has used.

Peasant War in Germany (New World)


Friedrich Engels - 1850
    Engels analyzes the social and economic forces which brought about the peasant revolt of 1525 and its role in the Reformation. He portrays vividly the contrasting figures of Thomas Muenzer and Martin Luther, in relation to the revolutionary peasants and to the princes. The book has an enduring theoretical interest, as one of the earliest discussions of the revolutionary potential of the peasantry. Illustrated with drawings and woodcuts of the time.

Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire


Bayard Taylor - 1850
    Taylor, thoughtful, and at the same time fully engaged in the madness, offered his readers detailed, finely crafted descriptions of the remarkable wealth and the harsh conditions produced by the gold rush.

George Washington: A Biography


Washington Irving - 1850
    Christened with the name of the great general, Irving was blessed by Washington while still a boy of seven, and later came to know many of the prominent figures of the Revolution. In these pages he describes them using firsthand source material and observation. The result is a book which is fascinating not only for its subject (the American Revolution), but also for how it reveals in illuminating detail the personality and humanity of a now remote, towering icon. Here is an intimate portrait of Washington the man, from Virginia youth to colonial commander to commander-in-chief of the patriot army to first president and great guiding force of the American federation. But one cannot read Irving’s Life without marveling at the supreme art behind it, for his biography is foremost a work of literature. Charles Neider’s abridgment and editing of Irving’s long out-of-print classic has created a literary work comparable in importance and elegance to the original. George Washington, A Biography, Neider’s title for his edition of Irving’s Life, makes the work accessible to modern audiences. The extensive introduction provides a detailed analysis of Irving’s life and times, and the difficulties he faced as he worked against his own failing health to finish what he felt was his masterpiece. This new edition of the superb biography of America’s first citizen by America’s first literary artist remains as fresh and unique today as when it was penned.

The Code of Handsome Lake, the Seneca Prophet


Arthur Caswell Parker - 1850
    His 'Code', presented in this book in full, attempted to simplify the spiritual practices of the Iroquois, preaching temperance, a strict moral code, and self-determination. It also contains some startling prophecies: Handsome Lake believed the world would end (by fire) in the year 2100; he predicted the destruction of the environment, famines, and war; and one of his visions (see section 93) appears to describe the destruction of the ozone layer. This book also contains invaluable descriptions of Iroquois religious rituals and myths at the turn of the twentieth Century.Arthur Parker (1881-1955) was an anthropologist who at the beginning of the 20th Century studied the Iroquois, gaining full access to their culture and language. Highly respected both by academics and the Iroquois, he wrote numerous works on their material culture, linguistics, folklore, archeology and ethnology.

Memoirs of the Notorious Stephen Burroughs of New Hampshire


Stephen Burroughs - 1850
    

Journal of voyages: containing an account of the author's being twice captured by the English and once by Gibbs the pirate; his narrow escape when chase by an English was schooner; as well as his being cast away and residing with Indians


Jacob Dunham - 1850
    This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's preservation reformatting program.