The Landscape of History provides a searching look at the historian's craft, as well as a strong argument for why a historical consciousness should matter to us today.Gaddis points out that while the historical method is more sophisticated than most historians realize, it doesn't require unintelligible prose to explain. Like cartographers mapping landscapes, historians represent what they can never replicate. In doing so, they combine the techniques of artists, geologists, paleontologists, and evolutionary biologists. Their approaches parallel, in intriguing ways, the new sciences of chaos, complexity, and criticality. They don't much resemble what happens in the social sciences, where the pursuit of independent variables functioning with static systems seems increasingly divorced from the world as we know it. So who's really being scientific and who isn't? This question too is one Gaddis explores, in ways that are certain to spark interdisciplinary controversy.Written in the tradition of Marc Bloch and E.H. Carr, The Landscape of History is at once an engaging introduction to the historical method for beginners, a powerful reaffirmation of it for practitioners, a startling challenge to social scientists, and an effective skewering of post-modernist claims that we can't know anything at all about the past. It will be essential reading for anyone who reads, writes, teaches, or cares about history.

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

    From Modernist/Postmodernist perspective, leading critics Richard Ruland (American) and Malcolm Bradbury (British) address questions of literary and cultural nationalism. They demonstrate that since the seventeenth century, American writing has reflected the political and historical climate of its time and helped define America's cultural and social parameters. Above all, they argue that American literature has always been essentially "modern," illustrating this with a broad range of texts: from Poe and Melville to Fitzgerald and Pound, to Wallace Stevens, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Thomas Pynchon.From Puritanism to Postmodernism pays homage to the luxuriance of American writing by tracing the creation of a national literature that retained its deep roots in European culture while striving to achieve cultural independence.

    It contains twenty-six lessons, exercises (with answers), a list of hieroglyphic signs, and a dictionary, as well as twenty-five essays on the most important aspects of ancient Egyptian history, society, religion and literature. It also offers scholars of linguistics a complete grammatical description of the classical language of ancient Egypt.

    Among those who served time at the maximum-security facility were the notorious gangster Al “Scarface” Capone (1899-1947) and murderer Robert “Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud (1890-1963). When prisoners boarded the boat for Alcatraz, they knew that they had reached the end of the line. Not only was this the toughest of all Federal penitentiaries, but it was also said to be virtually escape-proof. The island was a natural fortress, separated from the mainland by a narrow strait of freezing water and deadly currents. This prison was the U.S. government’s drastic answer to the lawlessness unleashed under Prohibition, which continued throughout the “Roaring Twenties” and into the teeth of the Great Depression. Alcatraz, with its damp cold and austere isolation, its rigid discipline and strict rule of silence, was as tough as the criminals that were sent there, and by the time the prison closed down in 1963, "the Rock" had indisputably done its job. The book includes narratives of Alcatraz's most notable inmates who include Robert Stroud (Birdman of Alcatraz), Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, Frank Morris, the Anglin Brothers, Doc Barker, Joe Cretzer, Bernard Coy, Miran Thompson, Sam Shockley, among others.Scroll to the top of the page and click Add To Cart to read more about this extraordinary chapter of history

    Unparalleled in scope and written for the traveler, student, and expert alike, the collection offers a comprehensive guide to the history and culture of Mexico—including its difficult, uneven modernization; the ways the country has been profoundly shaped not only by Mexicans but also by those outside its borders; and the extraordinary economic, political, and ideological power of the Roman Catholic Church. The book looks at what underlies the chronic instability, violence, and economic turmoil that have characterized periods of Mexico’s history while it also celebrates the country’s rich cultural heritage.A diverse collection of more than eighty selections, The Mexico Reader brings together poetry, folklore, fiction, polemics, photoessays, songs, political cartoons, memoirs, satire, and scholarly writing. Many pieces are by Mexicans, and a substantial number appear for the first time in English. Works by Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes are included along with pieces about such well-known figures as the larger-than-life revolutionary leaders Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata; there is also a comminiqué from a more recent rebel, Subcomandante Marcos. At the same time, the book highlights the perspectives of many others—indigenous peoples, women, politicians, patriots, artists, soldiers, rebels, priests, workers, peasants, foreign diplomats, and travelers.The Mexico Reader explores what it means to be Mexican, tracing the history of Mexico from pre-Columbian times through the country’s epic revolution (1910–17) to the present day. The materials relating to the latter half of the twentieth century focus on the contradictions and costs of postrevolutionary modernization, the rise of civil society, and the dynamic cross-cultural zone marked by the two thousand-mile Mexico-U.S. border. The editors have divided the book into several sections organized roughly in chronological order and have provided brief historical contexts for each section. They have also furnished a lengthy list of resources about Mexico, including websites and suggestions for further reading.Lively and insightful, The Mexico Reader will appeal to all interested in learning about Mexico—aficionados, travelers and scholars.

    Learn how to interpret questions and how to plan, structure and write your assignment or report. This free course, Essay and report writing skills, is designed to help you develop the skills you need to write effectively for academic purposes.

    More than forty years after its first publication this masterful survey remains the standard textbook on the central period of Roman history.

    The book includes built-in, perforated Practice Tests that students can use for self-study or hand in for a grade. Framing its content within a resonant politics matters theme and emphasizing public policy throughout, Government in America illustrates the impact that government has on the daily lives of each and every American, motivating students to become active participants in all aspects of our political system, and helping overcome the #1 challenge instructors face in this course -- student apathy toward American Government. The Brief Study Edition includes test questions for each chapter bound in at the end of the book.

    Ideal for anyone who wants to read a great work for the first time or revisit an old favorite, these new editions open the door to the stories and ideas that have shaped our world.

    In this infinitely citable book, the author of two bestselling treasuries of scandal recounts some of the greatest deceptions of all time. With what forged document did the Vatican lay claim to much of Europe? Who wrote Hitler's diaries? Why do millions still believe the vague doggerel that Nostradamus passed off as prophecy? Organizing his material by theme (con artists, the press, military trickery, scientific fraud, imposters, great escapes, and more), Michael Farquhar takes in everything from the hoodwinking of Hitler to Vincent "the Chin" Gigante's thirty-year crazy act. A Treasury of Deception is a zestful, gossipy expos'--and celebration--of mendacity.A Treasury of Deception also includes:Ten tricksters from scriptureTen great liars in literatureTen egregious examples of modern American doublespeakTen classic deceptions from Greek mythology

    It is that firsthand knowledge of the concerns of students, the complexities of the disorders, and the real struggles of people with psychological disorders that makes Comer's text, Abnormal Psychology, so compelling. This Sixth Edition's new content and features, coupled with new study and teaching tools, all serve to keep the book's portrait of contemporary abnormal psychology as fresh and insightful as ever.

    Half-naked, their bodies gleaming in the yellow light, the men tumbled out of their bunks. The narrow passageways were suddenly filled with men and then as suddenly cleared as each man fitted into his assigned position. The USS Seawolf was one of the greatest submarine raiders of all time. Having narrowly avoided the attack on Pearl Harbor the Seawolf set out for the seas of the Pacific to wreak havoc on Japanese shipping. Joseph Melvin Eckberg was on the Seawolf from her maiden voyage and remained with her until January 1943. As chief radioman he was instrumental in assisting Captain Frederick Warder to find and destroy enemy targets. From the claustrophobia of being trapped under water and the overwhelming fear of depth charges to the joys of aiding the war-effort and the camaraderie on the ship, Eckberg’s account, told to the authors Gerold Frank and James Horan, gives remarkable insight into submarine warfare of the Second World War. “It is a narrative straight as a sword, from which emerges the story of how that happy marriage of courage and skill was achieved which made our submarines more than any other group the fleet that won the war.” The Saturday Review, Fletcher Pratt. “The successes of the Seawolf bear testimony to the effectiveness of single-purposeness and teamwork.” Jonas H. Ingram, U. S. Navy Commander-in-Chief. Gerold Frank and James Horan were professional authors who wrote down Eckberg’s story after meeting him on a slow train between New York City and New London, Connecticut, in August 1943. U.S.S. Seawolf: Submarine Raider of the Pacific was first published in 1945. Frank went on to become a prominent ghostwriter and passed away in 1998. Horan, author of more than forty books, died in 1981. Eckberg died four years before him in 1977.

    Never before has the story been told with more vitality and immediacy. Fehrenbach re-creates the Texas saga from prehistory to the Spanish and French invasions to the heyday of the cotton and cattle empires. He dramatically describes the emergence of Texas as a republic, the vote for secession before the Civil War, and the state's readmission to the Union after the War. In the twentieth century oil would emerge as an important economic resource and social change would come. But Texas would remain unmistakably Texas, because Texans "have been made different by the crucible of history; they think and act in different ways, according to the history that shaped their hearts and minds."

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