Best of
United-States

1991

Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West


William Cronon - 1991
    By exploring the ecological and economic changes that made Chicago America's most dynamic city and the Great West its hinterland, Mr. Cronon opens a new window onto our national past. This is the story of city and country becoming ever more tightly bound in a system so powerful that it reshaped the American landscape and transformed American culture. The world that emerged is our own.Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize

The Light the Dead See: Selected Poems


Frank Stanford - 1991
    Within a year of his death, two posthumous collections were published. At the time of this death, as Leon Stokesbury asserts in his introduction, “Stanford was the best poet in America under the age of thirty-five.”The Light the Dead See collects the best work from those nine volumes and six previously unpublished poems. In the earlier poems, Stanford creates a world where he could keep childhood alive, deny time and mutability, and place a version of himself at the center of great myth and drama.Later, the denial of time and mutability gives way to an obsessive and familiar confrontation with death. Although Stanford paid an enormous price for his growing familiarity with Death as a presence, the direct address to that presence is a source of much of the striking originality and stunning power in the poetry.

The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America


Nicholas Lemann - 1991
    A definitive book on American history, The Promised Land is also essential reading for educators and policymakers at both national and local levels.

The Gold Bug Variations


Richard Powers - 1991
    A national bestseller, voted by Time as the #1 novel of 1991, selected as one of the "Best Books of 1991" by Publishers Weekly, and nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award--a magnificent story that probes the meaning of love, science, music, and art, by the brilliant author of Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance.

The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650 - 1815


Richard White - 1991
    It is, instead, about a search for accommodation and common meaning. It tells how Europeans and Indians met, regarding each other as alien, as other, as virtually nonhuman, and how between 1650 and 1815 they constructed a common, mutually comprehensible world in the region around the Great Lakes that the French called pays d'en haut. Here the older worlds of the Algonquians and of various Europeans overlapped, and their mixture created new systems of meaning and of exchange. Finally, the book tells of the breakdown of accommodation and common meanings and the re-creation of the Indians as alien and exotic

The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader


Amiri Baraka - 1991
    The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader provides the most comprehensive selection of Baraka's work to date, spanning almost 40 years of a brilliant, prolific, and controversial career, in which he has produced more than 12 books of poetry, 26 plays, eight collections of essays and speeches, and two books of fiction. This updated edition contains over 50 pages of previously unpublished work, as well as a chronology and full bibliography.

Complete Short Poetry


Louis Zukofsky - 1991
    Now in paperback, "Complete Short Poetry" gathers all of Zukofsky's poetry outside his 800-page magnum opus entitled" "A""--including work that appeared in "All: The Collected Short Poems, 1923-1964," the experimental transliteration (with Celia Zukofsky) of Catullus, the limited edition "80 Flowers," as well as several fugitive pieces never before collected."Zukofsky is the American Mallarm," writes Hugh Kenner, "and given the peculiar intentness of the American preoccupation with language--obsessive, despite what you may read in the newspapers--his work is more disorienting by far than his exemplar's ever was. Mallarm had a long poetic tradition from which to deviate into philology. Zukofsky received a philological tradition, which he raised to a higher power."

Deterring Democracy


Noam Chomsky - 1991
    The major shifts in global politics that came about with the dismantling of the Eastern bloc have left the United States unchallenged as the preeminent military power, but American economic might has declined drastically in the face of competition, first from Germany and Japan ad more recently from newly prosperous countries elsewhere. In Deterring Democracy, the impassioned dissident intellectual Noam Chomsky points to the potentially catastrophic consequences of this new imbalance. Chomsky reveals a world in which the United States exploits its advantage ruthlessly to enforce its national interests--and in the process destroys weaker nations. The new world order (in which the New World give the orders) has arrived.

Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union


Robert V. Remini - 1991
    As orator and as Speaker of the House for longer than any man in the century, he wielded great power, a compelling presence in Congress who helped preserve the Union in the antebellum period. Remini portrays both the statesman and the private man, a man whose family life was painfully torn and who burned with ambition for the office he could not reach, the presidency.

Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954


Piero Gleijeses - 1991
    In no other Central American country was U.S. intervention so decisive and so ruinous, charges Piero Gleijeses. Yet he shows that the intervention can be blamed on no single "convenient villain." "Extensively researched and written with conviction and passion, this study analyzes the history and downfall of what seems in retrospect to have been Guatemala's best government, the short-lived regime of Jacobo Arbenz, overthrown in 1954, by a CIA-orchestrated coup."--Foreign Affairs "Piero Gleijeses offers a historical road map that may serve as a guide for future generations. . . . [Readers] will come away with an understanding of the foundation of a great historical tragedy."--Saul Landau, The Progressive "[Gleijeses's] academic rigor does not prevent him from creating an accessible, lucid, almost journalistic account of an episode whose tragic consequences still reverberate."--Paul Kantz, Commonweal

The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class


David R. Roediger - 1991
    The author surveys criticisms of his work, accepting many such criticisms while challenging others, especially the view that the study of working-class racism implies a rejection of Marxism and radical politics.

The Man to See


Evan Thomas - 1991
    Now, for the first time, best-selling author Evan Thomas takes us into the courtrooms of William's greatest performances as he defends "Godfather" Frank Costello, Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Sinatra, The Washington Post, and others, as well as behind the scenes where the witnesses are coached, the traps set, and the deals cut.In addition to being a lawyer of unprecedented influence, Williams was also an important Washington insider, privy to the secrets of America's most powerful men. Thomas tells the truth behind the stories that made Williams one of the most talked about public figures of his time, including Williams' role in the publication of the Pentagon Papers and the possibility that Williams may have been Watergate's Deep Throat. Based on Thomas's exclusive access to Williams's papers, "The Man to See" is an unprecedented look at the strategies and influence of this exceptional man.

A Low Life in High Heels: The Holly Woodlawn Story


Holly Woodlawn - 1991
    At the age of 16, Harold became Holly Woodlawn and skyrocketed to fame as a superstar in Warhol's movie Trash. "This is must reading".--Harvey Fierstein. Photographs.

They Were White & They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America


Michael A. Hoffman II - 1991
    Historian Michael A. Hoffman II makes a compelling case for the fact that millions of American whites alive today are also descendants of slaves, the white slaves. "...a new and startling perspective on the slavery issue." --Instauration magazine. "...an excellent book..." Revilo Oliver, PhD., University of Illinois

Living with the Enemy


Donna Ferrato - 1991
    This critically acclaimed, graphic report on family violence reveals the lives of ordinary women-and the men who batter them.

Powerful Days: Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore


Andrew Young - 1991
    Powerful Days is powerful stuff. The freedom marchers look as heroic as Iwo Jima Marines fighting their way up a mountain--which just about what they had to do.--Newsweek Mr. Moore's stark, crisp photos of freedom marchers beset by police dogs and fire hoses . . . helped to shape the nation's conscience. . . . [This book] contains many images that will be wrenchingly familiar to those who lived through the proud moral turning point in American history, and that might serve to inspire younger generations.--New York Times Book Review Every once in a while we receive a well-documented treasure of American history. This collection is such a treasure. . . . [Moore's] black-and-white photos of that era are classics of photojournalism, and as Powerful Days documents, those classics have lost none of their force and energy.--Southern Living

Pathki Nana: Kootenai Girl Solves a Mystery


Kenneth Thomasma - 1991
    Pathki Nana's story is full of high adventure, Indian lore, survival skills, and a special love a grand-mother has for her granddaughter.

Chicago Days/Hoboken Nights


Daniel Pinkwater - 1991
    The story of a young man who finds himself somewhat unexpectedly a fine arts major in college, a fledgling sculptor in Chicago, a gadabout painter in Hoboken, and who eventually winds up a writer sometimes called "a born storyteller".The author of more than fifty books, Pinkwater now chronicles his own early life.

The New England Primer


Wallbuilders Press - 1991
    In fact, many of the Founders and their children learned to read from the Primer. This pocket-size edition is an historical reprint of the 1777 version used in many schools during the Founding Era.

Listening Book


William Allaudin Mathieu - 1991
    By exploring our capacity for listening to sounds and for making music, we can awaken and release our full creative powers. Mathieu offers suggestions and encouragement on many aspects of music-making, and provides playful exercises to help readers appreciate the connection between sound, music, and everyday life.

Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture


David B. Brownlee - 1991
    Photographs and descriptive analysis are followed by a biographical chronology of the architect's life and a complete list of his buildings and projects from 1925 to 1974. The primary texts critically address different dimensions and periods of Kahn's production.

Pride Against Prejudice: A Personal Politics of Disability


Jenny Morris - 1991
    Among the topics she covers are: current and historical debates on the quality of disabled peoples lives; the way disability is represented within Western culture; institutionalization and independence; feminist research and community care; and the politics of the disability movement. She asserts that, for too long, non-disabled people have not only defined the experience of disability but have had control over disabled peoples lives. This important book has grown out of an emerging organization of disabled people who are part of a powerful new culture. Jenny Morris is the author of Encounters with Strangers: Feminism and Disability, Able Lives: Womens Experience of Paralysis, and Alone Together: Voices of Single Mothers.

Swoosh: The Unauthorized Story of Nike and the Men Who Played There


J.B. Strasser - 1991
    The unauthorized national-bestselling sensation revealing the absorbing story of the rise, fall, and recovery of Nike, by a former employee and a Los Angeles Times reporter.

Letters from the Lost Generation: Gerald and Sara Murphy and Friends


Linda Patterson Miller - 1991
    This is a fine, and unusual, collection of literary Americana."--Atlantic"Fine comic moments of truth."--New York Times Book Review"An invaluable source of literary history."--Publishers Weekly This is the story of one of the most famous literary "sets" of the twentieth century. Gerald and Sara Murphy were at the center of a group including Ernest Hemingway and his wives, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Archibald MacLeish, Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Robert Benchley, Phillip Barry, and many others.  They personified the jazz age and the lost generation. The Murphys have been viewed primarily as cult/pop figures. In this book Miller shows, through a sequential interweaving of letters from several correspondents, that they actually were the nucleus without which the group as we know it would not have stayed together. Miller allows the individual correspondents to tell their own stories, providing  new insights into their lives and this era.  It is the best sort of eavesdropping. Gerald and Sara Murphy married on December 30, 1915.  Both families were moneyed and cosmopolitan.  Their attraction to each other was in part based on their desire to escape the routine and predictable social rounds in which their families were immersed.  Against their families' wishes, they and their three children left for Europe in 1921.  They remained in France for over a decade, and quite naturally socialized with the expatriate set.  They were, in part, models for Dick and Nicole Diver in Tender Is the Night. MacLeish wrote poems about them, their friends paid tribute to them and relied on them day to day and in correspondence, and their own letters are worth reading for their liveliness and because they so well preserve a record of the twenties and thirties.Miller provides nearly every extant letter between the Murphys and their friends during those decades.  Most of them have not been published previously, and of course, they have never been presented collectively.  Together, they constitute an epistolary "novel" of peculiar power and authenticity about a remarkable era.

Who is Black?: One Nation's Definition


F. James Davis - 1991
    Reprinted many times since its first publication in 1991, Who Is Black? has become a staple in college classrooms throughout the United States, helping students understand this nation's history of miscegenation and the role that the "one-drop rule" has played in it. In this special anniversary edition, the author brings the story up to date in an epilogue. There he highlights some revealing responses to Who Is Black? and examines recent challenges to the one-drop rule, including the multiracial identity movement and a significant change in the census classification of racial and ethnic groups.

Benedict Arnold: Patriot and Traitor


Willard Sterne Randall - 1991
    Citing documents long believed lost, Randall explores the full story of Arnold's brilliant but agonized career as patriot and soldier and his ultimate treasonous decision. 24 pages of photographs and maps.

Hazardous Duty


John K. Singlaub - 1991
    Singlaub recounts 40 years in the military.Mixing personal anecdotes with well-researched history and previously classified documents, John Singlaub's Hazardous Duty provides a unique look at the military, including the early days of the CIA.

Goatwalking: a Guide to Wildland Living


Jim Corbett - 1991
    Corbett has spent much of his life as a cowboy, goat herder, range analyst, and teacher of wildland symbiotics. Now he offers a wealth of backcountry knowledge, illuminated by his strongly felt philosophy.

Sages and Dreamers


Elie Wiesel - 1991
    Twenty-five portraits of figures from the Jewish tradition explore the mysteries of Jewish existence and themes of humility, silence, loyalty, and truth.

Nothing to Do but Stay: My Pioneer Mother


Carrie Young - 1991
    Photos.

Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse


Mary Ann Glendon - 1991
    Glendon's acclaimed book traces the evolution of the strident language of rights in America and shows how it has captured the nation's devotion to individualism and liberty, but omitted the American traditions of hospitality and care for the community.

The Films of Merchant Ivory


Robert Emmet Long - 1991
    A revised edition which includes the most recent films of the cultural phenomenon known as Merchant Ivory: Howard's End, The Remains of the Day, Jefferson in Paris, Surviving Picasso and The Proprietor, as well as a discussion of their future projects.

Life Of Harriet Beecher Stowe


Harriet Beecher Stowe - 1991
    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Until Justice Rolls Down: The Birmingham Church Bombing Case


Frank Sikora - 1991
    and other leaders rallied black youth and adults to march for their civil rights, a time when the Ku Klux Klan was active in cities and throughout the countryside of the Deep South, employing 19th-century tactics to intimidate blacks to stay “in their place.” It was also the year that the worst act of terrorism in the entire civil rights movement occurred just as Birmingham, Alabama, was coming under close national scrutiny.This book tells the story of one grim Sunday in September 1963 when an intentionally planted cache of dynamite ripped through the walls of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and ended the dreams and the lives of four young black girls. Their deaths spurred the Kennedy administration to send an army of FBI agents to Alabama and led directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Act. When the Justice Department was unable to bring anyone to trial for this heinous crime, a young Alabama attorney general named Bill Baxley began his own investigation to find the perpetrators. In 1977, 14 years after the bombing, Baxley brought one Klansman to trial and, in a courtroom only blocks from the bombed church (now a memorial to the victims), persuaded a jury to return a guilty verdict. More than 20 years later two other perpetrators were tried for the bombing, found guilty, and remanded to prison.Frank Sikora has used the court records, FBI reports, oral interviews, and newspaper accounts to weave a story of spellbinding proportions. A reporter by profession, Sikora tells this story compellingly, explaining why the civil rights movement had to be successful and how Birmingham had to change.

Boleros


Jay Wright - 1991
    As always, the linguistic surface changes rapidly as Wright's geographic journeys become explicit explorations of poetic form. Boleros is more than a conventional collection of poems. Each part of the book connects to, engages with, and changes the others, so the book itself becomes a text in motion. These poems perform the creative process itself and succeed exquisitely in making the reader part of that process and its excitement.

The Heritage Of Giotto's Geometry: Art And Science On The Eve Of The Scientific Revolution


Samuel Y. Edgerton Jr. - 1991
    Marraro Prize from the American Historical Association "Edgerton's interdisciplinary study is a bold attempt to show how the perception of the world, as slowly refined by the Renaissance artists, provided the impetus behind the scientific revolution. . . . An ambitious and largely persuasive book." --Nature"Edgerton's book is learned and richly illustrated with paintings and drawings from the Middle Ages, the Italian Renaissance, and contemporaneous Chinese dynasties. . . . [His] argument is intricate and flawless." --American Historical Review

Fire at the Triangle Factory


Holly Littlefield - 1991
    By focusing on a single important episode that describes a historical event, these books engage readers' interests and imaginations. Written in a story format, each account relates events that really happened, often followed by a brief summary of the historical event to further explain the significance it had on history.

Mama, Let's Dance


Patricia Hermes - 1991
    Abandoned by their mother after the death of their father, three youngsters are determined to keep their situation a secret so that the authorities will not split them up and send them to foster homes.

Thinking Through Cultures


Richard A. Shweder - 1991
    In this book Richard Shweder presents its manifesto. Its central theme is that we have to understand the way persons, cultures, and natures make each other up. Its goal is to seek the mind indissociably embedded in the meanings and resonances that are both its product and its components.Over the past thirty years the person as a category has disappeared from ethnography. Shweder aims to reverse this trend, focusing on the search for meaning and the creation of intentional worlds. He examines the prospect for a reconciliation of rationality and relativism and defines an intellectual agenda for cultural psychology.What Shweder calls for is an exploration of the human mind, and of one's own mind, by thinking through the ideas and practices of other peoples and their cultures. He examines evidence of cross-cultural similarities and differences in mind, self, emotion, and morality with special reference to the cultural psychology of a traditional Hindu temple town in India, where he has done considerable work in comparative anthropology. And he critiques the concept of the "person" implicit in Western social science, as well as psychiatric theories of the "subject." He maintains that it will come as no surprise to cultural psychology if it should turn out that there are different psychological generalizations or "nomological networks"--a Hindu psychology, a Protestant psychology--appropriate for the different semiotic regions of the world. Shweder brings the news that God is alive not dead, but that there are many gods.

What Happened When: A Chronology of Life & Events in America


Gordon Carruth - 1991
    

The Ferocious Engine of Democracy: A History of the American Presidency : Theodore Roosevelt Through George Bush (Ferocious Engine of Democracy)


Michael P. Riccards - 1991
    Volume Two takes readers to the White House during the time of Theodore Roosevelt and travels through each administration through that of George Bush.