Best of
History

1899

Sailing Alone around the World


Joshua Slocum - 1899
    Setting off alone from Boston aboard the thirty-six-foot wooden sloop Spray in April 1895, Captain Slocum went on to join the ranks of the world’s great circumnavigators – Magellan, Drake, and Cook. But by circling the globe without crew or consorts, Slocum would outdo them all: his three-year solo voyage of more than 46,000 miles remains unmatched in maritime history for its courage, skill, and determination.Sailing Alone around the World recounts Slocum’s wonderful adventures: hair-raising encounters with pirates off Gibraltar and savage Indians in Tierra del Fuego; raging tempests and treacherous coral reefs; flying fish for breakfast in the Pacific; and a hilarious visit with fellow explorer Henry Stanley in South Africa. A century later, Slocum’s incomparable book endures as one of the greatest narratives of adventure ever written.

Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879: The Story of the Captivity and Life of a Texan Among the Indians


Herman Lehmann - 1899
    . . One of the values of Lehmann's book is its no-holds-barred, unapologetic tone." Rocky Mountain News As a young child, Herman Lehmann was captured by a band of plundering Apache Indians and remained with them for nine years. This is his dramatic and unique story. His memoir, fast-paced and compelling, tells of his arduous initial years with the Apache as he underwent a sometimes torturous initiation into Indian life. Peppered with various escape attempts, Lehmann’s recollections are fresh and exciting in spite of the years past. Lehmann provides us with a fascinating look at Apache, and later, Comanche culture. He tells of their rituals, medicinal practices and gives an insight into Native American manufacture of arrow-heads, saddles and shields. After a few years, Lehmann became completely integrated into the warrior life, joining in on raids throughout the South-West and Mexico. Nine Years with the Indians tells of violent clashes with white rangers and other Native American tribes, scalpings and the violence of life in nineteenth century western America. "A fascinating account of [Lehmann's] subsequent life among both the Apache and Comanche people. . . . this is an engaging read." - German Life "Lehmann's true-life story features suspense and excitement that surpass even the skill of the most imaginative fiction writer." - Books of the Southwest Herman Lehmann (June 5, 1859 – February 2, 1932) was captured as a child by Native Americans. He lived first among the Apache and then the Comanche but eventually returned to his family later on in his life. The phenomenon of a "white boy" raised by "Indians" made him a notable figure in the United States. He published his autobiography, Nine Years Among the Indians in 1927.

Memoirs of a Revolutionist


Pyotr Kropotkin - 1899
    This fascinating story of the dramatic conversion from prince to anarchist provides a study of the early anarchist movement and an extraordinary portrait of the Russia of Kropotkin's youth.

The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study


W.E.B. Du Bois - 1899
    The product of those studies was the first great empirical book on the Negro in American society.More than one hundred years after its original publication by the University of Pennsylvania Press, The Philadelphia Negro remains a classic work. It is the first, and perhaps still the finest, example of engaged sociological scholarship--the kind of work that, in contemplating social reality, helps to change it.In his introduction, Elijah Anderson examines how the neighborhood studied by Du Bois has changed over the years and compares the status of blacks today with their status when the book was initially published.

The Lincoln-Douglas Debates


Abraham Lincoln - 1899
    Douglas, Abraham Lincoln challenged the incumbent Democratic senator from Illinois to a series of debates. This volume contains their masterful arguments as well as two speeches, one by each candidate. Paving the way for modern debates between political candidates, the Lincoln-Douglas debates were more than formal discussions between opponents. Lincoln lost the election; but the speeches brought him to national attention and helped propel him to the Presidency in 1860.

The Gettysburg Address and Other Writings


Abraham Lincoln - 1899
    

That Devil Forrest: Life of General Nathan Bedford Forrest


John Allan Wyeth - 1899
     Yet, despite these humble origins he would go on to become one of the most innovative cavalry leaders America has ever seen.His enemies respected him and his Southern compatriots admired him. Both General Johnston and General Sherman agreed that he was “the most remarkable man our Civil War produced on either side.” While Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, in their postwar memoirs, stated that the tide of the war might have been changed had the Confederate high command better used Forrest’s talents.John A. Wyeth’s brilliant biography of Forrest fully captures this fascinating general and his actions throughout the war. From his brilliant campaigns at Fort Donelson, Shiloh and Brice’s Crossroads to his more controversial moments, for example at the Battle of Fort Pillow where many Union prisoners were slaughtered, Wyeth examines every part of Forrest’s career in precise detail.

Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine of the Christian Church During Its First 500 Years


John Wesley Hanson - 1899
    Hanson's classic work. Kindle enhanced edition.

The Future of the American Negro


Booker T. Washington - 1899
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

A Texas Ranger


N.A. Jennings - 1899
    McNelly. South Texas was overrun by thieves and outlaws, and over three thousand Mexican guerrillas raided settlers on both sides of the border. McNelly’s Rangers became famous for their often violent and murderous campaigns. Maintaining strict law in the anarchic area was not easy and they quickly gained a reputation as "fire-eating, quarrelsome daredevils”. During this period they made over eleven hundred arrests and killed many more. McNelly ordered them “to have fun, and to carry out a set policy of terrorizing the Mexicans at every opportunity," Jenning’s memoir includes many accounts of these clashes with Mexican guerrillas and records well-known incidents involving McNelly — his battles with the US government and the fight at Las Cuevas with Cortuna and his raiders. Jennings also provides first-hand accounts of scrapes with King Fisher’s outlaw band, John Wesley Hardin, and the families involved in the Taylor-Sutton feud. In an era of cattle thieving and terror, A Texas Ranger follows Jennings through the southern border of Texas and finds a vivid first-hand portrayal of life in the late 19th century in one of the most lawless and violent places in the United States. “If any time of the past was ever vivid and vital enough to live on through mere reporting… it was the time when McNelly’s rangers rode the bloody border of Texas. Hence it is exceedingly fortunate that a man who was to become a skilled reported rode with them and later saw reason for putting down some of the things he had been part of.” — J. Frank Dobie Napoleon Augustus Jennings was born in Philadelphia, the son of a wealthy merchant, on January 11, 1856, and graduated from St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. He moved to Texas in 1874 and became a ranger, that years chronicled in this book. When his father died in 1878 he returned to Philadelphia and attempted to run the family business, but was smothered by city life. He returned to the West in 1881 as a prospector, miner, stagecoach driver, and sign painter in Colorado. Jennings died in New York on December 15, 1919.

The River War


Winston S. Churchill - 1899
    Churchill—the same man who would go on to lead the free world through its darkest hours during the second world war—tells the tale of the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan. It isn't just an account of the battles and the politics; it's the story of the destiny of the people of the region: Churchill with his powerful insight tells how the war changed the fates of England, Egypt, and the Arabian peoples in northeast Africa. In vivid style the book describes the background to the war, the relationship of the Upper Nile to Egypt, the murder of General Charles George Gordon in the siege at Khartoum, the political reaction in England, and Kitchener's elaborate preparations for the war. While in the Sudan, Churchill participated in the Battle of Omdurman. Churchill comments at length on the mechanisation of war with use of the telegraph, railroad, and a new generation of weaponry.

The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century


Émile Mâle - 1899
    It looks at French religious art in the Middle Ages, its forms, and especially the Eastern sources of sculptural iconography used in the cathedrals of France. Fully illustrated with many footnotes it acts as a useful guide for the student of Western culture.

The Resourceful Fakirs: Three Muslim Brothers at the Sikh Court of Lahore


Aijazuddin F S - 1899
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Archaeology as Cultural History


Ian Morris - 1899
    This book shows the reader how much archaeologists can learn from recent developments in cultural history.

History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians


H.B. Cushman - 1899
    B. Cushman, the son of missionaries working at Mayhew, a Choctaw Indian station in Mississippi, observed the Indians’ heartbreaking removal from Mississippi between 1831 and 1833. Later in life he continued to be associated with them, when he lived in Texas just across the Red River from the Choctaws and Chickasaws.In 1884, in an attempt to criticize white exploitation of the Indians, Cushman embarked on writing his History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians from the Indians’ point of view. He spent six years renewing contacts, visiting cemeteries, observing Indian councils, and studying Indian records in the original languages. Published in 1899, his history is extremely valuable for his firsthand observations on the removal and later history of the Choctaws and Chickasaws as well as for its material on the Natchez Indians, about whom little is in print.

Peripheries and Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Polities of the British Empire and the United States, 1607-1788


Jack P. Greene - 1899
    An analysis of the development of the political relationship between Britain and her American colonies between 1607 and 1788.

Quonset Hut: Metal Living for a Modern Age


Chris Chiel - 1899
    The quonset hut, that sliced tube of corrugated metal, was the answer. Over a hundred thousand were produced as part of the war effort. In its aftermath, even more were built and existing huts were adapted to house the postwar population boom. Of course, it couldn't last: the American desire for permanence meant decay and neglect for many of these rough-and-ready shelters and quickie warehouses. But in the midst of its almost tragic tale of extinction, the quonset hut has emerged as an unexpected icon of Americana and an oasis of architectural imagination. Travel the back roads of America and you will find the quonset's distinctive shape enclosing everything from houses ofworship to houses of pancakes.Quonset Hut tells the story of this unique architectural phenomena, from its birth during WWII as a mass-production shelter to its new status as an icon of American pragmatism, ingenuity, perseverance, and individuality.

History of the English People, Volume II: The Charter 1216-1307; The Parliament 1307-140


John Richard Green - 1899
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

The Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective


Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr. - 1899
    With illustrations and chronological outline. This digital edition was derived from ACLS Humanities E-Book's (http://www.humanitiesebook.org) online version of the same title.

The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. II. (of II) With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England


Moncure Daniel Conway - 1899
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

`the Workers Themselves'. Syndicalism and International Labour: The Origins of the International Working Men's Association, 1913-1923


Wayne Thorpe - 1899
    

The Tasks of the Russian Social Democrats


Vladimir Lenin - 1899
    The man who returned to Russia in the spring of 1917 was of medium height, quite bald, except for the back of his head, with a reddish beard. The features of his face were strikingslanted eyes that looked piercingly at others, and high cheek-bones under a towering forehead. The rest of his appearance was deceptively ordinary.Fluent in many languages, Lenin spoke Russian with a slight speech defect but was a powerful public speaker in small groups as well as before large audiences. A tireless worker, he made others work tirelessly. He tried to push those who worked with him to devote every ounce of their energy to the revolutionary task at hand. He was impatient with any other activities, including small talk and discussions of political theories. Indeed, he was suspicious of intellectuals and felt most at home in the company of simple folk. Having been brought up in the tradition of the Russian nobility, Lenin loved hunting, hiking, horseback riding, boating, mushroom hunting, and the outdoor life in general.Once he had returned to Russia, Lenin worked constantly to use the revolutionary situation that had been created by the fall of the czar and convert it into a proletarian revolution that would bring his own party into power. As a result of his activities, opinions in Russia quickly became more and more sharply at odds. Moderate forces found themselves less and less able to maintain any control. In the end, by October 1917 power fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks. As a result of the so-called October Revolution, Lenin found himself not only the leader of his party but also the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (equivalent to prime minister) of the newly proclaimed Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (the basis for the future Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).

Office for Metropolitan Architecture: Seattle Public Library


Michael Kubo - 1899
    If the library exists today as a threatened sanctuary, it has been done in by its own stubborn reliance on one kind of literacy and its consequent blindness to other emerging forms that increasingly dominate our culture, especially the huge efficiencies and pleasures of visual intelligence. Rather than merely package this traditional institution in a new way, OMA has completely reinvented it, transforming it wholeheartedly into a site able to aggressively orchestrate the coexistence of all available technologies for collecting, condensing, distributing, reading, and manipulating information. The library will no longer be loyal to the book... In more architectural terms, the $156 million building has an angular, meshlike glass and metal skin that surrounds a series of floating public spaces: a kid's area at the bottom; a living room for browsing, public meeting areas, and a coffee shop; a mixing chamber where patrons can work intensively with librarians; and a reading room at the top with views of Mount Rainier and Puget Sound. In between these platforms are a series of programmatic boxes containing the more stable, or fixed, parts of the library program, including a continuous four-story book spiral where the entirety of the library's books will be stored. This third book in Actar's series of Verb monographs reveals how the Seattle Public Library works, and examines it in terms of new media technologies that have changed the status of the library in the contemporary city from a traditional repository for books to aniinformation store.i Also included is a comprehensive account of the design process, from initial concept through construction to ribbon cutting.

The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes Literally translated with notes


Demosthenes - 1899
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Tuscans and Their Families: A Study of the Florentine Catasto of 1427


David Herlihy - 1899
    This digital edition was derived from ACLS Humanities E-Book's (http://www.humanitiesebook.org) online version of the same title.

Tramping With Tramps; Studies And Sketches Of Vagabond Life


Josiah Flynt - 1899
    

A History of Physics in Its Elementary Branches, Including the Evolution of Physical Laboratories


Florian Cajori - 1899
    We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, Vol. 2


John Fiske - 1899
    The Shelf2Life Colonial America (1492-1763) Collection is an intriguing set of pre-1923 volumes chronicling the people and events that shaped the United States in its early years.

The American Revolution, Set


George Otto Trevelyan - 1899
    This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: know what the world outside Europe was like four generations ago, distance of time is less of an obstacle to us, in an age when all read, than was distance of space to our ancestors before the days of steam and telegraph. A man bound for New York, as he sent his luggage on board at Bristol, would willingly have compounded for a voyage lasting as many weeks as it now lasts days. When Franklin, still a youth, went to London to buy the press and types by which he hoped to found his fortune, he had to wait the best part of a twelvemonth for the one ship which then made an annual trip between Philadelphia and the Thames. When, in 1762, already a great man, he sailed for England in a convoy of merchantmen, he spent all September and October at sea, enjoying the calm weather, as he always enjoyed everything ; dining about on this vessel and the other; and travelling " as in a moving village, with all one's neighbours about one." Adams, during the height of the war, hurrying to France in the finest frigate which Congress could place at his disposal, — and with a captain who knew that, if he encountered a superior force, his distinguished guest did not intend to be carried alive under British hatches, — could make no better speed than five and forty days between Boston and Bordeaux. Lord Carlisle, carrying an olive-branch the prompt delivery of which seemed a matter of life and death to the Ministry that sent him out, was six weeks between port and port, tossed by gales which inflicted on his brother Commissioners agonies such as he forbore to make a matter of joke even to George Selwyn. General Ried- esel, conducting the Brunswick auxiliaries to fight in a quarrel which was none of theirs, counted three mortal months from the day when he stepped on deck at Stade in the Elbe to the day whe...