Best of
Microhistory

2012

The Dirtiest Race in History: Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis and the Olympic 100m Final


Richard Moore - 2012
    This book is a groundbreaking investigative account into the story of Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis, and how one of the oldest of Olympic sports became a complex high-stakes game of cheating, cover-up, and fallen heroes.The book follows the remarkable buildup to the showdown of the two rival track superstars and chronicles Johnson’s gold medal win, a title he retained only briefly before he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and Lewis was awarded the gold. In 1999, however, after being named Sportsman of the Century by the IOC, Lewis his credibility damaged by revelations that he, too, used performance-enhancing drugs and tested positive prior to the Seoul Olympics.Containing stunning new revelations, this book features candid witness interviews, including with Johnson and Lewis, to reconstruct the race, the hype, the drugs, and the deception, and it examines how the fallout continues to impact sports today, as every new record is met with widespread skepticism.

The Making of Karateka


Jordan Mechner - 2012
    This first volume is a candid account of the personal, creative and technical struggles that led to his breakthrough success with Karateka, which topped bestseller charts in 1985, and planted the seeds of his next game, Prince of Persia.

Mapping Mormonism: An Atlas of Latter-day Saint History


Brandon S. Plewe - 2012
    In this state-of-the-art atlas, readers can take in the epic sweep of the Mormon movement in a new, immersive way. Never has so much geographical data about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints been presented in one volume so attractively and informatively.

Fasting: An Exceptional Human Experience


Randi Fredricks - 2012
    As a spiritual practice, it is the oldest and most common form of asceticism and is found in virtually every religion and spiritual tradition. In psychology, studies have suggested that fasting can alleviate the symptoms of some psychiatric conditions, including depression and schizophrenia. In medicine, fasting is one of the most promising therapies, with research suggesting that fasting can cause certain drugs, such as chemotherapy, to work better while reducing drug side-effects. Hunger striking, sometimes called political fasting, may be the most powerful application of fasting. Proof of this occurred in 1948 when Gandhi's hunger strike caused millions of Hindus and Muslims in India to cease their fighting. As a practical guide, Randi Fredricks, Ph.D. provides detailed information on the different types of fasting, where people fast, the physiological process of fasting, and the contraindications and criticisms of fasting. Using existing literature and original research, Dr. Fredricks focuses on the transformative characteristics of fasting in the contexts of psychology, medicine, and spirituality. The relationship between fasting and transpersonal psychology is examined, with a focus on peak experiences, self-realization, and other exceptional human experiences. Dr. Fredricks demonstrates how fasting can be profoundly therapeutic, create global paradigm shifts, and provide personal mystical phenomena.

The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing


Rachel Poliquin - 2012
    But why would anyone want to preserve an animal, and what is this animal-thing now? Rachel Poliquin suggests that taxidermy is entwined with the enduring human longing to find meaning with and within the natural world. Her study draws out the longings at the heart of taxidermy--the longing for wonder, beauty, spectacle, order, narrative, allegory, and remembrance. In so doing, The Breathless Zoo explores the animal spectacles desired by particular communities, human assumptions of superiority, the yearnings for hidden truths within animal form, and the loneliness and longing that haunt our strange human existence, being both within and apart from nature.

New York Times Story of the Yankees: 382 Articles, Profiles and Essays from 1903 to Present


The New York Times - 2012
    They consistently draw the largest home and away crowds of any team, command the largest broadcast audiences in baseball, draw the greatest number of on-line followers, and routinely sell more copies of books and magazines than any other professional sports team. The New York Times Story of the Yankees includes more than 350 articles chronicling the team's most famous milestones-as well as the best writing about the ball club. Each article is hand-selected from The Times by the peerless sportswriter Dave Anderson, creating the most complete and compelling history to date about the Yankees. Organized by era, the book covers the biggest stories and events in Yankee history, such as the purchase of Babe Ruth, Roger Maris's 61st home run, and David Cone's perfect game. It chronicles the team's 27 World Series championships and 40 American League pennants; its rivalries with the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Red Sox; controversial owners, players, and managers; and more. The articles span the years from 1903-when the team was known as the New York Highlanders-to the present, and include stories from well-known and beloved Times reporters such as Arthur Daley, John Kieran, Leonard Koppett, Red Smith, Tyler Kepner, Ira Berkow, Richard Sandomir, Jim Roach, and George Vecsey. This up-to-date, paperback edition, which includes Derek Jeter's last season and Yogi Berra's obituary, is illustrated with hundreds of black-and-white photographs that capture every era. A foreword by die-hard Yankees fan, Alec Baldwin, completes the celebration of baseball's greatest team.

Fandom at the Crossroads: Celebration, Shame and Fan/Producer Relationships


Lynn S. Zubernis - 2012
    For the past six years the authors have inhabited the close-knit fan communities of the television show Supernatural, engaging in criticism and celebration, reading and writing fanfiction, and attending fan conventions. Their close relationships within the community allow an intimate behind-the-scenes examination of fan psychology, passion, motivation, and shame. The authors also speak directly to the creative side in order to understand what fuels the passionate reciprocal relationship Supernatural has with its fans. As they go behind the scenes and onto the sets to talk with Supernatural's showrunners, writers, and actors, the authors struggle to negotiate a hybrid identity as 'aca-fans'. Fangirls one moment, 'legitimate' researchers the next, the boundaries often blur. Their repeated breaking of the fan/creative side boundary is mirrored in Supernatural's reputation for fourth wall breaking, which has attracted journalistic coverage everywhere from Entertainment Weekly to the New York Times. Written with humor and irreverence, Fandom at the Crossroads combines an innovative theorizing of fandom and popular culture, with a behind-the-scenes story that anyone who has ever been a fan or wondered why others are fans will find fascinating.

Instant: The Story of Polaroid


Christopher Bonanos - 2012
    Like Apple, it was an innovation machine that cranked out one must-have product after another. Led by its own visionary genius founder, Edwin Land, Polaroid grew from a 1937 garage start-up into a billion-dollar pop-culture phenomenon. Instant tells the remarkable tale of Land's one-of-a-kind invention-from Polaroid's first instant camera to hit the market in 1948, to its meteoric rise in popularity and adoption by artists such as Ansel Adams, Andy Warhol, and Chuck Close, to the company's dramatic decline into bankruptcy in the late '90s and its unlikely resurrection in the digital age. Instant is both an inspiring tale of American ingenuity and a cautionary business tale about the perils of companies that lose their creative edge.

Mahogany: The Costs of Luxury in Early America


Jennifer L. Anderson - 2012
    This exotic wood, imported from the West Indies and Central America, quickly displaced local furniture woods as the height of fashion. Over the next century, consumer demand for mahogany set in motion elaborate schemes to secure the trees and transform their rough-hewn logs into exquisite objects. But beneath the polished gleam of this furniture lies a darker, hidden story of human and environmental exploitation."Mahogany" traces the path of this wood through many hands, from source to sale: from the enslaved African woodcutters, including skilled "huntsmen" who located the elusive trees amidst dense rainforest, to the ship captains, merchants, and timber dealers who scrambled after the best logs, to the skilled cabinetmakers who crafted the wood, and with it the tastes and aspirations of their diverse clientele. As the trees became scarce, however, the search for new sources led to expanded slave labor, vicious competition, and intense international conflicts over this diminishing natural resource. When nineteenth-century American furniture makers turned to other materials, surviving mahogany objects were revalued as antiques evocative of the nation's past.Jennifer Anderson offers a dynamic portrait of the many players, locales, and motivations that drove the voracious quest for mahogany to adorn American parlors and dining rooms. This complex story reveals the cultural, economic, and environmental costs of America's growing self-confidence and prosperity, and how desire shaped not just people's lives but the natural world.

Concrete and Culture: A Material History


Adrian Forty - 2012
    Today, it is everywhere—in our roads, bridges, sidewalks, walls, and architecture. For each person on the planet, nearly three tons of concrete are produced every year. Used almost universally in modern construction, concrete has become a polarizing material that provokes intense loathing in some and fervent passion in others.             Focusing on concrete’s effects on culture rather than its technical properties, Concrete and Culture examines the ways concrete has changed our understanding of nature, of time, and even of material. Adrian Forty concentrates not only on architects’ responses to concrete, but also takes into account the role concrete has played in politics, literature, cinema, labor-relations, and arguments about sustainability. Covering Europe, North and South America, and the Far East, Forty examines the degree that concrete has been responsible for modernist uniformity and the debates engendered by it. The first book to reflect on the global consequences of concrete, Concrete and Culture offers a new way to look at our environment over the past century.

Opium: Reality's Dark Dream


Thomas Dormandy - 2012
    Opium and its derivatives morphine and heroin have destroyed, corrupted, and killed individuals, families, communities, and even whole nations. And yet, for most of its long history, opium has also been humanity's most effective means of alleviating physical and mental pain. This extraordinary book encompasses the entire history of the world's most fascinating drug, from the first evidence of poppy cultivation by stone-age man to the present-day opium trade in Afghanistan. Dr. Thomas Dormandy tells the story with verve and insight, uncovering the strange power of opiates to motivate major conflicts yet also inspire great art and medical breakthroughs, to trigger the rise of global criminal networks yet also revolutionize attitudes toward well-being.Opium: Reality's Dark Dream traverses the globe and the centuries, exploring opium's role in colonialism, the Chinese Opium Wars, laudanum-inspired sublime Romantic poetry, American "Yellow Peril" fears, the rise of the Mafia and the black market, 1960s counterculture, and more. Dr. Dormandy also recounts exotic or sad stories of individual addiction. Throughout the book the author emphasizes opium's complex, valuable relationship with developments in medicine, health, and disease, highlighting the perplexing dual nature of the drug as both the cause and relief of great suffering in widely diverse civilizations.

Spirits of New Orleans: Voodoo Curses, Vampire Legends and Cities of the Dead


Kala Ambrose - 2012
    During this journey as your travel guide, Kala explores the history of the city and those who decided to make it their eternal home.Explore New Orleans with Kala Ambrose and prepare to embark on a unique and enticing journey into the haunted history and magical ceremonies of New Orleans. Prepare to be introduced to supernatural rituals and practices in order to fully understand and embrace the cultural significance of the variety of beliefs, superstitions, legends and lore.

The Mutilation of the Herms: Unpacking an Ancient Mystery


Debra Hamel - 2012
    the Athenians woke to find that during the night most of the herms in Athens (priapic statues of the Greek god Hermes) had been vandalized. The damage was too widespread for the act to be dismissed as a youthful prank. What was it, then: a conspiracy brewing against the democracy? Or merely a bad omen for their upcoming expedition to Sicily? The so-called "mutilation of the herms" is an important episode in Athenian history. Nearly 2500 years later, basic questions about the crime continue to exercise scholars-who done it and why they done it. In "The Mutilation of the Herms: Unpacking an Ancient Mystery," Debra Hamel provides a comprehensible account of the vandalism and its aftermath. This booklet is written for an audience of general readers and students. No previous knowledge of the period is assumed. The text could profitably be assigned for undergraduate classes in Greek history. Topics discussed include the Eleusinian Mysteries, the role of drinking groups in the vandalism, Alcibiades' involvement in the affair, and Eva Keuls' feminist take on the episode.

Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and the War of 1812


Kathryn E. Holland BraundRobert G. Thrower - 2012
    The fabric of that network stretched and frayed as the Creek Civil War of 1813−14 pitted a faction of the Creek nation known as Red Sticks against those Creeks who supported the Creek National Council.  The war began in July 1813, when Red Stick rebels were attacked near Burnt Corn Creek by Mississippi militia and settlers from the Tensaw area in a vain attempt to keep the Red Sticks’ ammunition from reaching the main body of disaffected warriors. A retaliatory strike against a fortified settlement owned by Samuel Mims, now called Fort Mims, was a Red Stick victory.  The brutality of the assault, in which 250 people were killed, outraged the American public and “Remember Fort Mims” became a national rallying cry. During the American-British War of 1812, Americans quickly joined the war against the Red Sticks, turning the civil war into a military campaign designed to destroy Creek power. The battles of the Red Sticks have become part of Alabama and American legend and include the famous Canoe Fight, the Battle of Holy Ground, and most significantly, the Battle of Tohopeka (also known as Horseshoe Bend)—the final great battle of the war. There, an American army crushed Creek resistance and made a national hero of Andrew Jackson.New attention to material culture and documentary and archaeological records fills in details, adds new information, and helps disabuse the reader of outdated interpretations. Contributors Susan M. Abram / Kathryn E. Holland Braund/ Robert P. Collins / Gregory Evans Dowd /John E. Grenier / David S. Heidler / Jeanne T. Heidler / Ted Isham / Ove Jensen / Jay Lamar /Tom Kanon / Marianne Mills / James W. Parker / Craig T. Sheldon Jr. / Robert G. Thrower / Gregory A. Waselkov

Gateway to Heaven


Clare Summerskill - 2012
    With contributions from forty-six individuals, this lively and moving book casts light on a neglected area of history.Clare Summerskill first gathered these life stories while producing verbatim plays and films. They address central issues in British social and political history from the 1940s to the 1990s. This is a dramatic period for the lesbian and gay community. It begins in closets of fear – arrests and hidden basement bars – and emerges in courage with the first Pride marches and the repeal of anti-gay legislation.As the contributors aged, their candid memories and hard-won wisdom were at risk of going unrecorded, but in Gateway to Heaven they are captured for everyone, from students of social and oral history or queer studies to the general reader.

Opposing Jim Crow: African Americans and the Soviet Indictment of U.S. Racism, 1928-1937


Meredith L. Roman - 2012
    Photographs, children’s stories, films, newspaper articles, political education campaigns, and court proceedings exposed the hypocrisy of America’s racial democracy. In contrast, the Soviets represented the USSR itself as a superior society where racism was absent and identified African Americans as valued allies in resisting an imminent imperialist war against the first workers’ state.Meredith L. Roman’s Opposing Jim Crow examines the period between 1928 and 1937, when the promotion of antiracism by party and trade union officials in Moscow became a priority policy. Soviet leaders stood to gain considerable propagandistic value at home and abroad by drawing attention to U.S. racism, their actions simultaneously directed attention to the routine violation of human rights that African Americans suffered as citizens of the United States. Soviet policy also challenged the prevailing white supremacist notion that blacks were biologically inferior and thus unworthy of equality with whites. African Americans of various political and socioeconomic backgrounds became indispensable contributors to Soviet antiracism and helped officials in Moscow challenge the United States’ claim to be the world’s beacon of democracy and freedom.

Secrets of the Civil War


U.S. News and World Report - 2012
    U.S. News & World Report’s latest special collector’s issue, Secrets of the Civil War, brings you the inside story of the bitter struggle to save the union on the occasion of the war’s sesquicentennial. Inside, historians reveal the real Lincoln behind the myths; offer fresh insights into the pivotal battles of Antietam, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg; and examine the complex, often conflicted personalities of Lee and Grant. Also, •Bearing Witness: Celebrated Americans who lived through the war poignantly capture its terrible cost in words and pictures •A Nation in Shock: Lincoln’s assassination and the aftermath •Losses Beyond Measure: New evidence suggests previous casualty counts were much too low. •Escape from Libby—Union soldiers carry out a notorious prison break •A tourist’s guide to must-see Civil War sites

Misadventures of a Civil War Submarine: Iron, Guns, and Pearls


James P. Delgado - 2012
    Delgado came upon the hulk of a mysterious iron vessel, revealed by the ebbing tides in a small cove at Isla San Telmo. Local inquiries proved inconclusive: the wreck was described as everything from a sunken Japanese "suicide" submarine from World War II to a poison-laden "craft of death" that was responsible for the ruin of the pearl beds, decades before. His professional interest fully aroused, Delgado would go on to learn that the wreck was the remains of one of the first successful deep-diving submersibles, built in 1864 by Julius H. Kroehl, an innovator and entrepreneur who initially sought to develop his invention for military use during the Civil War. The craft’s completion coming too late for that conflict, Kroehl subsequently convinced investors that it could be used to harvest pearls from the Pacific beds off Panama, in waters too deep for native pearl divers to reach. In Misadventures of a Civil War Submarine, Delgado chronicles the confluence of technological advancement, entrepreneurial aspiration, American capitalist ambition, and ignorance of the physiological effects of deep diving. As he details the layers of knowledge uncovered by his work both in archival sources and in the field excavation of Kroehl’s ill-fated vessel, Delgado weaves the tangled threads of history into a compelling narrative. This finely crafted saga will fascinate and inform professional archaeologists and researchers, naval historians, students and aficionados of maritime exploration, and interested general readers.

Understanding Fandom: An Introduction to the Study of Media Fan Culture


Mark Duffett - 2012
    In the last few decades, shifts in media technology and production have instead made fandom a central mode of consumption. A range of ideas has emerged to explore different facets of this growing phenomenon. With a foreword by Matt Hills, Understanding Fandom introduces the whole field of fan research by looking at the history of debate, key paradigms and methodological issues. The book discusses insights from scholars working with fans of different texts, genres and media forms, including television and popular music. Mark Duffett shows that fan research is an emergent interdisciplinary field with its own key thinkers: a tradition that is distinct from both textual analysis and reception studies. Drawing on a range of debates from media studies, cultural studies and psychology, Duffett argues that fandom is a particular kind of engagement with the power relations of media culture.

The Ten Commandments: The Hidden History of the Truths We Live By


David Bodanis - 2012
    David Bodanis reveals how our attitudes towards sex, authority, obligations toward the widowed and elderly, conscription, taxes, killing, and much else have depended on those seemingly simple directives. In mediaeval times, the ninth commandment about false witness led to the notion of "innocent until proven guilty." The fifth commandment was used by John Locke to refute kingly authority, leading to conclusions about personal freedom which Thomas Jefferson immortalized in the Declaration of Independence. The commandments inspired literary masterpieces, such as King Lear, and social upheavals such as the union movement. Their ideas were central in the spread of Islam, in the scientific ambitions of Isaac Newton, and the activism of Martin Luther King Jr. David Bodanis brilliantly uses archaeology, linguistics, social history and above all vivid human stories to show how the Commandments have been and remain an enduring tenet of Western civilization.From the Hardcover edition.

Horseshoe Crab: Biography of a Survivor


Anthony D. Fredericks - 2012
    With ten eyes, five pairs of walking legs, a heart half the length of their bodies, and blood that can save a person’s life, horseshoe crabs have been on this planet for 445 million years—since long before the dinosaurs arrived. This book explores their unique biology and sex life, explains their importance to medical science and migratory shorebirds, and introduces readers to the people who are working to study and protect them.

Typography, Referenced: A Comprehensive Visual Guide to the Language, History, and Practice of Typography


Jason Tselentis - 2012
    Typography, Referenced was named to the 2013 Outstanding Reference Sources List, an annual handpicked list from the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA, a division of the American Library Association) of the most noteworthy reference titles published in 2012.Typography, Referenced is the single most comprehensive volume covering every aspect of typography that any design student, professional designer, or design aficionado needs to know today.In these pages, you'll find:—Thousands of illustrated examples of contemporary usage in design—Historical developments from Greek lapidary letters to the movie Helvetica—Landmark designs turning single letters into typefaces—Definitions of essential type-specific language, terms, ideas, principles, and processes—Ways technology has influenced and advanced type—The future of type on the web, mobile devices, tablets, and beyondIn short, Typography, Referenced is the ultimate source of typographic information and inspiration, documenting and chronicling the full scope of essential typographic knowledge and design from the beginnings of moveable type to the present "golden age" of typography.