Book picks similar to
The Lost World of Italian-American Radicalism by Philip Cannistraro
italian-american
italian
radical-history
working-class-history
The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales
Maria Tatar - 1987
This updated and expanded second edition includes a new preface and an appendix containing new translations of six tales, along with commentary by Maria Tatar. Throughout the book, Tatar skillfully employs the tools not only of a psychoanalyst but also of a folklorist, literary critic, and historian to examine the harsher aspects of these stories. She presents new interpretations of the powerful stories in this worldwide best-selling book. Few studies have been written in English on these tales, and none has probed their allegedly happy endings so thoroughly.
Rangers and Pioneers of Texas
Andrew Jackson Sowell - 1991
Indian attacks, Mexican invasions, murderous bandits and the persistent threat of disease and famine plagued these early settlers. In the first third of the book A. J. Sowell gathers numerous first-hand accounts to construct a history of this area in the mid-nineteenth century, when life was tough and often short. Particularly focusing on the attacks by Native Americans, Sowell examines how early settlers defended themselves in ad hoc groups and volunteer companies. Then Sowell examines the advent of the Republic of Texas in the aftermath of the Texas Revolution. Many of Texas’ most famous events are covered in this section, drawn from eyewitness accounts and sometimes seen by Sowell himself, including the Battle of Concepcion, the Siege of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto. Part three of Sowell’s work covers his own fascinating involvement with the Texas Rangers, including the Wichita Campaign in northwest Texas where he endured a brutally cold winter and participated in a number of deadly fights with Native Americans. Andrew Jackson Sowell was first of his family to be born in Texas after his relations moved to the area in 1830. His grandfather was involved in the Texas Revolution, as was his uncle, who served in the Alamo garrison but departed to obtain supplies prior to its fall. From 1870 November until 1871 June, he was a Texas Ranger in Company F of the Frontier Battalion, serving under Capt. David P. Baker. Drawing on his own experiences as a Texas Ranger, events in his relatives’ lives, family history, and interviews, Sowell wrote numerous books and articles about the early history of Texas. His books include Rangers and Pioneers of Texas, Life of Big Foot Wallace, Early Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest Texas, and History of Fort Bend County. Rangers and Pioneers of Texas was published in 1884. Sowell died in 1921.
Escapism
Yi-Fu Tuan - 1998
Today, we flee urban dangers for the safer, reconfigured world of suburban lawns and parks. According to geographer Yi-Fu Tuan, people have always sought to escape in one way or another, sometimes foolishly, often creatively and ingeniously. Glass-tower cities, suburbs, shopping malls, Disneyland—all are among the most recent monuments in our efforts to escape the constraints and uncertainties of life—ultimately, those imposed by nature. "What cultural product," Tuan asks, "is not escape?" In his new book, the capstone of a celebrated career, Tuan shows that escapism is an inescapable component of human thought and culture.
Ram Chandra Series: Book 1 and Book 2
Amish Tripathi - 2019
As the suffering of the people intensifies so does the resentment against the ruling elite. As Raavan, the king of Lanka, grows increasingly powerful, the citizens of the Sapt Sindhu cry out for a leader to lead them out of this morass.The Malayaputras and the Vayuputras — two powerful tribes and the protectors of the divine land of India — decide that enough is enough. A saviour is needed. They begin their search.Who will fulfil the destiny of the Vishnu? Will a leader, who can restore the past glory of the Sapt Sindhu, emerge? Will Ram, the law abiding prince of Ayodhya rise above the taint that others heap on him? Will Sita, the warrior princess of Mithila, be able to prove her worth?Start on an epic journey with Amish’s Ram Chandra Series.
Clandestines: The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile
Ramor Ryan - 2006
I've never seen anything close to his work…”—Eddie Yuen, co-editor of Confronting Capitalism“From Belfast to the Bronx and Chiapas to Kurdistan, Ramor Ryan has shown a lifelong commitment to social justice, a questioning mind and an ability to incorporate historical currents into his work.”—Mick McCaughan, Latin American Correspondent to the Irish TimesAn epic debut, Ramor Ryan’s nonfiction tales read like Che Guevara’s The Motorcycle Diaries crossed with Hunter S. Thompson’s wit and flair for the impossible. A shrewd political thinker and philosopher with a knack for ingratiating himself into the thick of any social situation, Ryan has been there and lived to tell about it.As much an adventure story as an unofficial chronicle of modern global resistance movements, Clandestines spirits the reader across the globe, carefully weaving the narrative through illicit encounters and public bacchanals. From the teeming squats of mid-90’s East Berlin, to intrigue in the Zapatista Autonomous Zone, a Croatian Rainbow Gathering on the heels of the G8 protests in Genoa, mutiny on the high seas, the quixotic ambitions of a Kurdish guerilla camp, the contradictions of Cuba, and the neo-liberal nightmare of post-war(s) Central America we see everywhere a world in flux, struggling to be reborn.Ramor Ryan is a rebellious rover and Irish exile who makes his home between New York City and Chiapas.
The Southern Question
Antonio Gramsci - 2005
During ten years of political imprisonment under Mussolini's Fascist government, Gramsci produced The Prison Notebooks, a continued meditation on subjects and relationships first proposed within the pages of this essay. The purpose in re-introducing the essay is to emphasize how Gramsci's analysis of social stratification of Northern and Southern Italy in 1926 is relevant to current discussions about state formation, diasporas, and strategic alliances.
Crazy in America: The Hidden Tragedy of Our Criminalized Mentally Ill
Mary Beth Pfeiffer - 2007
Once behind bars, they are frequently punished again for behavior that is psychotic, not criminal. A compelling and important examination of a shocking human rights abuse in our midst, Crazy in America is an indictment of a society that incarcerates its weakest and most vulnerable citizens -- causing them to emerge sicker and more damaged.
Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
Benedict Anderson - 1983
In this widely acclaimed work, Benedict Anderson examines the creation and global spread of the 'imagined communities' of nationality.Anderson explores the processes that created these communities: the territorialization of religious faiths, the decline of antique kingship, the interaction between capitalism and print, the development of vernacular languages-of-state, and changing conceptions of time. He shows how an originary nationalism born in the Americas was modularly adopted by popular movements in Europe, by the imperialist powers, and by the anti-imperialist resistances in Asia and Africa.This revised edition includes two new chapters, one of which discusses the complex role of the colonialist state's mindset in the develpment of Third World nationalism, while the other analyses the processes by which, all over the world, nations came to imagine themselves as old.
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection
Julia Kristeva - 1980
. . Powers of Horror is an excellent introduction to an aspect of contemporary French literature which has been allowed to become somewhat neglected in the current emphasis on paraphilosophical modes of discourse. The sections on Céline, for example, are indispensable reading for those interested in this writer and place him within a context that is both illuminating and of general interest." -Paul de Man
The Future of Nostalgia
Svetlana Boym - 2001
She guides us through the ruins and construction sites of post-communist cities--St. Petersburg, Moscow, Berlin, and Prague--and the imagined homelands of exiles-Benjamin, Nabokov, Mandelstahm, and Brodsky. From Jurassic Park to the Totalitarian Sculpture Garden, Boym unravels the threads of this global epidemic of longing and its antidotes.
The Fall of Public Man
Richard Sennett - 1977
Richard Sennett’s insights into the danger of the cult of individualism remain thoroughly relevant to our world today. In a new epilogue, he extends his analysis to the new “public” realm of social media, questioning how public culture has fared since the digital revolution.
What They Did There: Profiles from the Battle of Gettysburg
Steve Hedgpeth - 2014
"What They Did There: Profiles From the Battle of Gettysburg" offers a unique view of its subject, telling the story of the battle not through convention narrative but via 170 mini-bios of not only combatants blue and gray, but of civilians, doctors, nurses, artists, photographers, Samaritans; saints, sinners and the moral terrain in-between.
Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress
Candacy A. Taylor - 2009
Includes interviews with fifty-nine waitresses in forty-three towns and cities.
Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life
Theodor W. Adorno - 1951
Built from aphorisms and reflections, he shifts in register from personal experience to the most general theoretical problems.
Landing Eagle: Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing
Michael Engle - 2019
It was a sea in name only. It was actually a bone dry, ancient dusty basin pockmarked with craters and littered with rocks and boulders. Somewhere in that 500 mile diameter basin, the astronauts would attempt to make Mankind’s first landing on the Moon. Neil Armstrong would pilot the Lunar Module “Eagle” during its twelve minute descent from orbit down to a landing. Col. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin would assist him. On the way down they would encounter a host of problems, any one of which could have potentially caused them to have to call off the landing, or, even worse, die making the attempt. The problems were all technical-communications problems, computer problems, guidance problems, sensor problems. Armstrong and Aldrin faced the very real risk of dying by the very same technical sword that they had to live by in order to accomplish the enormous task of landing on the Moon for the first time. Yet the human skills Armstrong and Aldrin employed would be more than equal to the task. Armstrong’s formidable skills as an aviator, honed from the time he was a young boy, would serve him well as he piloted Eagle down amidst a continuing series of systems problems that might have fatally distracted a lesser aviator. Armstrong’s brilliant piloting was complemented by Aldrin’s equally remarkable discipline and calmness as he stoically provided a running commentary on altitude and descent rate while handling systems problems that threatened the landing. Finally, after a harrowing twelve and a half minutes, Armstrong gently landed Eagle at “Tranquility Base”, a name he had personally chosen to denote the location of the first Moon landing. In “Landing Eagle-Inside the Cockpit During the First Moon Landing”, author Mike Engle gives a minute by minute account of the events that occurred throughout Eagle’s descent and landing on the Moon. Engle, a retired NASA engineer and Mission Control flight controller, uses NASA audio files of actual voice recordings made inside Eagle’s cockpit during landing to give the reader an “inside the cockpit” perspective on the first Moon landing. Engle’s transcripts of these recordings, along with background material on the history and technical details behind the enormous effort to accomplish the first Moon landing, give a new and fascinating insight into the events that occurred on that remarkable day fifty years ago.