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Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word Nigger: it is arguably the most consequential social insult in American history, though, at the same time, a word that reminds us of "the ironies and dilemmas, tragedies and glories of the American experience." In this tour de force, distinguished Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy "puts a tracer on nigger," to identify how it has been used and by whom while analyzing the controversies to which it has given rise. With unprecedented candor and insight Kennedy explores such questions as : How should nigger be defined? Is it, as some have declared, necessarily more hurtful than other racial epithets? Do blacks have a right to use nigger even as others do not? To be ignorant of the meanings and effects of nigger, says Kennedy, is to render oneself vulnerable to all manner of peril. This book brilliantly and sensitively addresses that concern.
A Woman's Education The acclaimed author of the best-selling The Road from Coorain and True North now gives us the third book in her remarkable continuing memoir, describing the pleasures, the challenges, and the constant surprises (good and bad) of her years as the first woman president of Smith College. The story opens in 1973 as Conway, unbeknownst to her, is first "looked over" as a prospective candidate by members of the Smith community, and continues as she assesses her passions and possibilities and agrees to the new challenge of heading the college in 1975. Through it all we see Jill Ker Conway coping with her husband's illness, and learning to protect and sustain her inner self.
Mark Twain: His Words, Wit, and Wisdom Arguably the most comprehensive collection of Mark Twain quotations assembled, this volume, compiled by noted Twain scholar, R. Kent Rasmussen, reveals the remarkable talent of this American great. Over 1,800 quotations have been painstakingly culled from Twain's writings, each of them referenced to volume, page number, and year written. A chronology of Twain's life, a full bibliography, and a thorough subject index make this an outstanding reference guide, and the entries themselves, as well as charming line illustrations from early Twain editions, add to the enjoyment.
Jane Addams: And the Dream of American Democracy Jane Addams is synonymous in the American imagination with Hull-House, the legendary Chicago institution she founded, and from which she helped a generation of poor immigrants carve new lives for themselves in the midst of a desolate urban landscape. Yet as Jean Bethke Elshtain argues in this anticipated new interpretation of Addams' life and work, Addams' influence on American life and politics was far more profound than previous biographers have recognized. In addition to her pioneering work with Chicago's needy, Addams was a fascinating intellectual figure, whose voluminous writings on nearly every major issue of her day continue to speak to the complexities of politics and moral duty in American public life.
Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon Few figure in US history have had the broad and enduring influence of Ralph Nader. Both Time and Life magazines listed him among the 100 most important figures of the twentieth century, and his presidential run in 2000 found him embroiled in a fresh controversy in a new century. As a public figure, Nader is virtually without parallel, with a lead role on the national stage for nearly four decades. But the private man is shrouded in mystery and secrecy. This riveting biography, the first since 1975, is full of fascinating episodes that have never been told before. Author Justin Martin spoke with more than 300 people, including Nader, his close associates, adversaries, old friends and family. The result is a sweeping portrait, covering Nader's small-town Connecticut boyhood, days at Harvard Law, and the spy scandal with GM that launched him into the spotlight. The climax of this extraordinary story is a rigourously reported, astonishingly revealing insider's account of the controversial 2000 election and his bitter feud with Al Gore.
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay If F. Scott Fitzgerald was the hero of the Jazz Age, Edna St. Vincent Millay, as audacious in her love affairs as she was in her art, was its heroine. She embodied, in her reckless fancy, the spirit of the New Woman, and gave America its voice. The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Millay was dazzling in the performance of her self. Her voice was an instrument of seduction, and her impact on crowds, and on men, was legendary. Millay's public affairs make for compulsive reading, but what this book reveals for the first time is her extraordinary private life. Written with the riveting intensity of an intimate drama, Savage Beauty is the first book to explore the dark side of Millay's life, her self-destructive passion and harrowing descent into morphine addiction Nancy Milford was given exclusive access to Millay's papers, and what she found was an unimaginable treasure. Hundreds of letters flew back and forth between Millay, her sisters, and their mother, and Millay kept the most intimate diary, one whose ruthless honesty brings to mind the journals of Sylvia Plath. |
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The Gilded Age The Gilded Age, by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, is a political roman a clef, a direct and caustic attack on government, politicians, and big business in post Civil War America. It is the book that gave an era its name. Published in 1873, the first year of the second scandal-ridden Grant administration, it is the first novel of consequence about Washington in all of American writing, as Ward Just notes in his introduction, The Gilded Age "gives Washington the aspect of a clumsy frontier town of ludicrous aspirations, populated mainly by fools, racketeers, opportunists, and parvenus, most of them members of the United States Congress."
Stephen Hawking's Universe: The Cosmos Explained The ultimate nature of the universe is a question that has intrigued some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century. Here, in easy prose and simple explanations, we get a firsthand glimpse of what Stephen Hawking's universe is all about, the incredibly huge and powerful black holes at the centers of galaxies; the reasons astronomers think the universe is filled with a mysterious kind of matter no one has seen; the bizarre events that occurred in the first microsecond of time; and why the universe may have not just three of four dimensions, but eleven. The companion to the popular PBS series, Steven Hawking's Universe is a voyage of discovery that takes us to the very frontiers of scientific knowledge about the basis of our existence and of everything around us.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire The pivotal fourth novel in the seven-part tale of Harry Potter's training as a wizard and his coming of age. Harry wants to get away from the pernicious Dursleys and go to the International Quidditch Cup with Hermione, Ron, and the Weasleys. He wants to dream about Cho Chang, his crush (and maybe do more than dream). He wants to find out about the mysterious event that's supposed to take place at Hogwarts this year, an event involving two other rival schools of magic, and a competition that hasn't happened for a hundred years. He wants to be a normal, fourteen-year-old wizard. Unfortunately for Harry Potter, he's not normal, even by wizarding standards. And in his case, different can be deadly.
The Buffalo Soldier In northern Vermont, a raging river overflows its banks and sweeps the nine-year-old twin daughters of Terry and Laura Sheldon to their deaths. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the highway patrolman and his wife, unable to have more children, take in a foster child: a ten-year-old African-American boy who has been shuttled for years between foster families and group homes. Young Alfred cautiously enters the Sheldon family circle, barely willing to hope that he might find a permanent home among these kind people still distracted by grief. Before life has a chance to settle down, however, Terry, who has never been unfaithful to Laura, finds himself attracted to the solace offered by another woman. Their encounter, brief as it is, leaves her pregnant with his baby, a child Terry suddenly realizes he urgently wants.
The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired In a brilliant, wry, and provocative new book, National Book Award finalist Francine Prose explores the complex relationship between the artist and his muse. In so doing, she illuminates with great sensitivity and intelligence the elusive emotional wellsprings of the creative process. There is no ideal muse, but rather as many variations on the theme as there are individual women who have had the luck, or misfortune, to find their destiny conjoined with that of a particular artist. For these artists, the love of, or for, their muses provided an essential element required for the melding of talent and technique necessary to create art.
Wittgenstein's Poker On October 25, 1946, in a crowded room in Cambridge, England, the great twentieth-century philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper came face to face for the first and only time. The meeting, which lasted ten minutes, did not go well. Their loud and aggressive confrontation became the stuff of instant legend, but precisely what happened during that brief confrontation remained for decades the subject of intense disagreement. An engaging mix of philosophy, history, biography, and literary detection, Wittgenstein's Poker explores, through the Popper/Wittgenstein confrontation, the history of philosophy in the twentieth century. |
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