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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Local history
"Winter in Taos" starkly contrasts Luhan's memoirs, published in
four volumes and inspired by Marcel Proust's "Remembrances of
Things Past." They follow her life through three failed marriages,
numerous affairs, and ultimately a feeling of "being nobody in
myself," despite years of psychoanalysis and a luxurious lifestyle
on two continents among the leading literary, art and intellectual
personalities of the day. "Winter in Taos" unfolds in an entirely
different pattern, uncluttered with noteworthy names and ornate
details. With no chapters dividing the narrative, Luhan describes
her simple life in Taos, New Mexico, this "new world" she called
it, from season to season, following a thread that spools out from
her consciousness as if she's recording her thoughts in a journal.
"My pleasure is in being very still and sensing things," she
writes, sharing that pleasure with the reader by describing the
joys of adobe rooms warmed in winter by aromatic cedar fires;
fragrant in spring with flowers; and scented with homegrown fruits
and vegetables being preserved and pickled in summer. Having
wandered the world, Luhan found her home at last in Taos. "Winter
in Taos" celebrates the spiritual connection she established with
the "deep living earth" as well as the bonds she forged with Tony
Luhan, her "mountain." This moving tribute to a land and the people
who eked a life from it reminds readers that in northern New
Mexico, where the seasons can be harshly beautiful, one can bathe
in the sunshine until "'untied are the knots in the heart, ' for
there is nothing like the sun for smoothing out all difficulties."
Born in 1879 to a wealthy Buffalo family, Mabel Dodge Luhan earned
fame for her friendships with American and European artists,
writers and intellectuals and for her influential salons held in
her Italian villa and Greenwich Village apartments. In 1917, weary
of society and wary of a world steeped in war, she set down roots
in remote Taos, New Mexico, then publicized the tiny town's
inspirational beauty to the world, drawing a steady stream of
significant guests to her adobe estate, including artist Georgia
O'Keeffe, poet Robinson Jeffers, and authors D.H. Lawrence and
Willa Cather. Luhan could be difficult, complex and often cruel,
yet she was also generous and supportive, establishing a solid
reputation as a patron of the arts and as an author of widely read
autobiographies. She died in Taos in 1962.
The township of Wem lies on the North Shropshire Plain, about nine
miles north of Shrewsbury. The centre of a much larger medieval
manor and parish, the township consists of the small medieval
market town and its immediate rural hinterland. Anglo-Saxon
settlements existed in the area but the town developed from a
Norman foundation, with a castle, parish church, market and water
mill. The urban area of the township, `within the bars', was
distinguished from the rural, `without the bars'. Burgages were
laid out, with a customary borough-hold tenure, but the borough
never attained corporate status. Isolated from the main regional
transport routes, Wem developed as a local centre of government and
trade in agricultural produce, especially cheese. It was thrust
onto the national stage in 1642 when Parliamentarians defeated a
Royalist attack and held the town for the duration of the Civil
War. The `great fire' of 1677 then destroyed most of the medieval
buildings in the town centre, leading to its predominantly Georgian
and Victorian appearance today. The decline in agricultural
employment and the withdrawal of services and industries from small
market towns like Wem in recent decades is a challenge, met by the
advantage of the railway station to residents who work elsewhere
but choose the town as a place to live.
Few cities have been so celebrated in print as Bath - from Smollett
to Jane Austen, from Dickens to Fanny Burney, and from Sheridan to
Georgette Heyer. Many other famous writers have passed through as
well - Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in a house in the Abbey
Church Yard, Coleridge met his wife in the city, and in the
twentieth century John Betjeman championed its architectural
heritage. Even Shakespeare - or so it is believed - turned up to
take a dip in the hot springs. These eleven walks look at Bath
through their eyes, creating a vivid social history of the city
over the last 300 years and bringing the past alive with
unparalleled immediacy. Fully illustrated, and including in-depth
accounts of the writers and works featured, they can either be
followed on foot or - with the aid of historic maps of the city -
read as a series of essays.
The emergence of a master artist alongside his first major
collection, created during a golden age of art in the nation's
capital Renowned for his innovative work with silkscreen printing,
Lou Stovall's works are part of numerous collections, including the
National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and
Phillips Collection. Washington Post art critic Paul Richard once
wrote, "As a printer of his own art, and of the art of many others,
as a framer and installer and shepherd of collections, Stovall has
inserted more art into Washington than almost anyone in town." Of
the Land: The Art and Poetry of Lou Stovall presents a series of
prints and accompanying poems that showcase the artist's work
during the 1970s, when he was developing his unique silkscreen
technique and exploring both natural and abstract elements. An
introduction by the book's editor and artist's son, Will Stovall,
along with an autobiography from the artist anchor the Of the Land
series in its time and place-a period of jazz, protest, and
prolific art production in Washington, DC, that birthed the
Washington Color School. Stovall's contributions, as well as his
collaborations with well-known artists like Jacob Lawrence, Sam
Gilliam, Elizabeth Catlett, and Robert Mangold, have cemented him
as one of the most significant American artists of our age. Part of
a tradition of African American artists and thinkers who met at
Howard University, Lou Stovall created the Workshop in 1968, a
small, active silkscreen studio printing posters for arts and
DC-focused events. His deep influence on the silkscreen medium, the
art community, and DC will be part of his lasting legacy.
Across the decades, photographers from the Bristol EVening Post and
its predecessors have been faithfully recording life in the city to
produce a precious archive of Bristol and its suburbs as they used
to be. Narrow roadways have become dual carriageways, horse-drawn
vehicles have disappeared from the streets, the trams have come and
gone, and whole areas have been redeveloped as green fields became
new estates. Areas like Brislington and Clifton, once separate
villages, have been encompassed by the spreading city. And
throughout these momentous changes, photographers have been on hand
to capture the ever-changing story. Now this wonderful record is
available in a new paperback format to entrance a new generation of
readers. The quality of the photographs and the reproduction will
make this most enthralling pictorial view of bygone Bristol a
delight for readers across the city.
Laurel Cemetery was incorporated in 1852 as a nondenominational
cemetery for African Americans of Baltimore, Maryland. It was the
final resting place for thousands of Baltimoreans and many
prominent members of the community, including religious leaders,
educators, political organizers, and civil rights activists. During
its existence, the privately owned cemetery changed hands several
times, and by the 1930s, the site was overgrown, and garbage strewn
from years of improper maintenance and neglect. In the 1950s,
legislation was adopted permitting the demolition and sale of the
property for commercial purposes. Despite controversy over the new
legislation, local opposition to the demolition, numerous lawsuits,
and NAACP supported court appeals, the cemetery was demolished in
1958 to make room for the development of a shopping center. Prior
to the bulldozing of the cemetery, a few hundred gravestones and an
unknown number of burials (fewer than 200) were exhumed and
relocated to a new site in Carroll County. Ongoing archival
research has thus far documented over 18,000 (projected to be over
40,000) original burials, most of which still remain interred
beneath the Belair-Edison Crossing shopping center property, which
occupies the footprint of the old cemetery. This book highlights
and historicizes underexplored and forgotten people and events
associated with the cemetery, stressing the importance of their
work in laying the social, economic, and political foundation for
Baltimore's African American community. Additionally, this text
details the unsuccessful fight to prevent the cemetery's
destruction and the more recent grassroots formation of the Laurel
Cemetery Memorial Project to research and commemorate the site and
the people buried there.
B-Day, as it came to be known, finally arrived. It was a Friday.
A school day. I identified with Cinderella as I watched Dad get
ready for work. Holster, check. Gun, check. Billy club, check.
Handcuffs, check. . . . Saturday morning I got up early. Dad was
already gone. Back to work. Ushering the Beatles out of town. On
the table . . . there were two small bars of soap, slightly used,
the words "Coach House Inn" still legible. One book of matches with
four missing. And a note from Dad, "From their room." . . . No one
else's dad comes home from work with something that might, just
might, have been intimate with a Beatle.
Growing up, Mel Miskimen thought that a gun and handcuffs on the
kitchen table were as normal as a gallon of milk and a loaf of Mrs.
Karl's bread. Her father, a Milwaukee cop for almost forty years
was part Super Hero (He simply held up his hand and three lanes of
traffic came to a screeching halt) and part Supreme Being (He could
be anywhere at anytime. I never knew when or where he would pop
up.) Miskimen's memoir, told in humorous vignettes, tells what it
was like for a girl growing up with a dad who packed a lunch and
packed heat.
Original tales by remarkable writers Hometown Tales is a series of
books pairing exciting new voices with some of the most talented
and important writers at work today. Some of the tales are fiction
and some are narrative non-fiction - they are all powerful,
fascinating and moving, and aim to celebrate regional diversity and
explore the meaning of home. In these pages on Wales, you'll find
two unique short stories. 'Last Seen Leaving' is a gripping account
of the days following the disappearance of a local man by
award-winning writer Tyler Keevil. 'The Lion and the Star' by
Eluned Gramich is a vivid retelling of the Welsh language protests
that electrified Cardiganshire in the 1970s and the impact of the
protests on ordinary lives.
A vivid portrait of the lives and deaths of the great gunfighters
of the Old West offers gritty, colorful, and accurate renderings of
such confrontations as Bat Masterson and the Battle of the Plaza,
Doc Holliday's Last Gunfight, the Last Dalton Raid, Wild Bill's
Tragic Mistake, and many more. Origi
1364: The plague has returned and fear fills the air as the
pestilence claims its first victims in Chesterfield. When the local
priest vanishes, John the Carpenter believes the man is simply
scared - until he discovers a body left in an empty house. Charged
with finding the murderer by the coroner, John must dig deep into
the past to discover who in the present has enough hatred to kill.
But as the roll of the dead grows longer, can he keep his family
safe from malign forces outside of his control? The third title in
a gripping series following the best-selling titles The Crooked
Spire and The Saltergate Psalter.
"NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER
If you think the wildest, wackiest stories that Carl Hiaasen can
tell have all made it into his hilarious, bestselling novels, think
again. "Dance of the Reptiles" collects the best of Hiaasen's
"Miami Herald" columns, which lay bare the stories--large and
small--that demonstrate anew that truth is far stranger than
fiction.
Hiaasen offers his commentary--indignant, disbelieving, sometimes
righteously angry, and frequently hilarious--on burning issues like
animal welfare, polluted rivers, and the broken criminal justice
system as well as the "Deepwater Horizon" oil spill, Bernie
Madoff's trial, and the shenanigans of the recent presidential
elections. Whether or not you have read Carl Hiaasen before, you
are in for a wild ride.
Ideal for courses in American history, this book gathers
first-person accounts of the trauma of the Thirties in the
Heartland and assesses these accounts from the distance of several
decades.
The Glasgow Enlightenment is widely regarded as the first book to
explore the nature and accomplishments of the Enlightenment in
eighteenth-century Glasgow in a comprehensive manner. In addition
to a general introduction by the editors, there are seven chapters
devoted to Glasgow University professors, such as Adam Smith,
Francis Hutcheson, Thomas Reid, John Millar, William Leechman, and
John Anderson. At a time when the Glasgow economy was booming in
the strength of its trade with America, these and other Glasgow men
of science and learning were making major contributions to the
European world of philosophy, law, political economy, natural
philosophy, medicine, and religious toleration. There are also five
chapters on other individuals and topics, including the physician
and author John Moore, James Boswell during his student days,
images of Glasgow in popular poetry, and Popular party clergymen
who challenged the dominant views of the academic Enlightenment
with an alternative vision of liberty and piety. This edition
features a new bibliographical preface by Richard B. Sher that
discusses the substantial secondary literature on
eighteenth-century Glasgow and the Glasgow Enlightenment since the
original publication of this book more than a quarter of a century
ago.
The Crowley Millers were the talk of minor league baseball in the
1950s, with crowds totaling nearly 10 times Crowley's population
and earning Crowley the nickname of "The Best Little Baseball Town
in the World." The Best Little Baseball Town in the World: The
Crowley Millers and Minor League Baseball in the 1950s tells the
fun, quirky story of Crowley, Louisiana, in the fifties, a story
that reads more like fiction than nonfiction. The Crowley Millers'
biggest star was Conklyn Meriwether, a slugger who became infamous
after he retired when he killed his in-laws with an axe. Their
former manager turned out to be a con man, dying in jail while
awaiting trial on embezzlement charges. The 1951 team was torn to
pieces after their young centerfielder was struck and killed by
lightning during a game. But aside from the tragedy and turmoil,
the Crowley Millers also played some great baseball and were the
springboard to stardom for George Brunet and Dan Pfister, two
Crowley pitchers who made it to the majors. Interviews with players
from the team bring to light never-before-heard stories and inside
perspectives on minor league baseball in the fifties, including
insight into the social and racial climate of the era, and the
inability of baseball in the fifties to help players deal with
off-the-field problems. Written by respected minor-league baseball
historian Gaylon H. White, The Best Little Baseball Town in the
World is a fascinating tale for baseball fans and historians alike.
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Pittsburgh was built on
steel-and almost destroyed by it. Pittsburgh's vertically
integrated steel industry was foundational in the growth of
America, and it returned economic prosperity to the region for over
a century. But when a myriad of domestic and global factors
unsettled the local industry's competitiveness, the city suffered
through economic turmoil. The city of Pittsburgh found unlikely
heroes in their traditionally also-ran professional football team,
the Pittsburgh Steelers. Reflecting the city's tough, hard-nosed,
working class citizens, the Steelers rose to prominence and
galvanized the community to persevere against the challenges of its
deindustrialization transformation. Built of steel, then crippled
by steel, Pittsburgh was eventually saved by the Steelers.
Immaculate: How the Steelers Saved Pittsburgh weaves together the
historical stories of Pittsburgh and its beloved professional
football team like the linear strands of DNA-antiparallel, twisting
throughout, and irrevocably connected together. Beginning with the
history of the region, Immaculate weaves together the area's early
history with the Steelers' origins, tracing the rise of the
Steelers against the contextual backdrop of the steel industry's
collapse and the city's unfolding crisis. The Steelers provided the
foundational inflection point for Pittsburgh's "New Economy" to
emerge and prosper. Immaculate brings to life the colorful stories
and people that shaped a city and a team over the rich tapestry of
profoundly different eras.
Wales' history is packed with peculiar customs and curious
characters. Here you will discover alien landscapes, ancient druids
and a Victorian ghost hunter. Find out why revellers would carry a
decorated horse's skull on a pole door to door at Christmastime,
how an eccentric inventor hoped to defeat Hitler with his
futuristic ray gun, and why a cursed wall is protected by a global
corporation for fear it might destroy a town. From the folklore
surrounding the red dragon on the flag, to the evolution of the
song 'Sosban Fach', this compendium of weird and wonderful facts
will surprise and delight even the most knowledgeable resident or
visitor.
`We made Kinder Scout, not just metaphorically, or metaphysically,
not just with our stories and our battles, but literally changed
its shape, from the peat washing off its summit, to the drystone
walls that turn the hillside into a harmonious grid, the trees that
are and more often aren't there, to the creatures that we've
allowed to remain and those we've done away with. It's our
mountain.' In 1951 the Peak District was designated the UK's first
national park: a commitment to protect and preserve our countryside
and wild places. Sandwiched between Manchester and Sheffield, and
sitting at the base of the Pennines, it is home to Kinder Scout,
Britain's most popular `mountain', a beautiful yet featureless and
disorientating plateau which barely scrapes the 600-metre contour,
whose lower slopes bore witness in 1932 to a movement of feet, a
pedestrian rebellion, which helped shape modern access legislation:
the Kinder Mass Trespass. But Kinder Scout's story is about much
more than the working class taking on the elite. Marked by the
passage of millions of feet and centuries of farming, a graveyard
for lost souls and doomed aircraft, this much-loved mountain is a
sacred canvas on which mankind has scratched and scraped its
likeness for millennia. It is a record of our social and political
history, of conflict and community. Writer Ed Douglas and
photographer John Beatty are close friends and have a shared
history with Kinder going back decades. In this unique
collaboration they reveal the social, political, cultural and
ecological developments that have shaped the physical and human
landscape of this enigmatic and treasured hill. Kinder Scout: The
People's Mountain is a celebration of a northern English mountain
and our role in its creation.
Popular local historian and broadcaster Ken Pye has collected a
further fifty tales to take you on another entertaining journey
across the centuries, and around Liverpool and the towns and
villages of Merseyside. His stories are a celebration of just how
remarkable and endlessly interesting this community is. The weird
and wonderful tales in this book are more intriguing than ever, and
include Spiders and Other Giants; 'Roast Beef' - The Crosby Hermit;
The Horrors of Crank Caverns; The Iron Men of Crosby; The Monster
and the Ghost Ship; The Countess and the Murderous Footman; Cavern
Club - Where Merseybeat was Born; The Black Rock Mermaid of old
Wallasey; The Thugs of Willalloo; Bidston Hill and The Holy Grail;
The Pyramid Tomb of Rodney Street; Everton Beacon ~ Fires and
Flags; The Iron Duke's Column; Glastonbury Thorn of Allerton; Run
Over by The Rocket; True Inventor of Radio; and the Nude Bathers of
the Pier Head.
This book contains hundreds of 'strange but true' stories about
Scottish history. Arranged into a miniature history of Scotland,
and with bizarre and hilarious true tales for every era, it will
delight anyone with an interest in Scotland's past.
As an archaeologist, Steven Mithen has worked on the Hebridean
island of Islay over a period of many years. In this book he
introduces the sites and monuments and tells the story of the
island's people from the earliest stone age hunter-gatherers to
those who lived in townships and in the grandeur of Islay House. He
visits the tombs of Neolithic farmers, forts of Iron Age chiefs and
castles of medieval warlords, discovers where Bronze Age gold was
found, treacherous plots were made against the Scottish crown, and
explores the island of today, which was forged more recently by
those who mined for lead, grew flax, fished for herring and
distilled whisky - the industry for which the island is best known
today. Although an island history, this is far from an insular
story: Islay has always been at a cultural crossroads, receiving a
constant influx of new people and new ideas, making it a microcosm
for the story of Scotland, Britain and beyond.
'Deeply touching.' - Daily Mail 'A personal, sometimes harrowing
history of partition... a writer well worth reading.' - The Times
'A deeply personal story of identity and a highly relatable journey
for many in the diaspora... Wheeler taps a rich vein of personal
history... Evocative... Gripping.' - Financial Times 'A timely read
given the current reassessment of colonialism . . . a charming
memoir that weaves the story of India independence and the tragedy
of the partition with that of her mother's own escape from an
unhappy marriage.' - Christina Lamb, Sunday Times 'A personal,
sometimes harrowing history of partition . . . by narrating
partition with a focus on her mother's family, the Singhs, she has
made the abstractions of history suddenly more real: they are given
names, faces and feelings . . . offers valuable insights,
especially since Gandhi and Jinnah were also products of London's
inns of court . . . [Marina Wheeler is] a writer well worth
reading.' - Tanjil Rashid, The Times 'Wheeler has made the
abstractions of history suddenly more real; they are given names,
faces and feelings.' - The Times 'A family journey, a political
drama, a historical legacy - magnificently portrayed with courage,
humanity and a gentle power.' - Philippe Sands, author of East West
Street and The Ratline 'A wonderful memoir, gripping, elegant, warm
and insightful - a triumph. An intimate and inspiring portrayal of
how a woman made her own world as nations and empire were made and
unmade.' - Dr Shruti Kapila, Lecturer in Modern History, University
of Cambridge 'This book is more than a family memoir - it is an
insightful glimpse into the way small worlds are forever changed by
the impersonal currents of history.' Shashi Tharoor, author of
Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India *** On 3 June
1947, as British India descended into chaos, its division into two
states was announced. For months the violence and civil unrest
escalated. With millions of others, Marina Wheeler's mother Dip
Singh and her Sikh family were forced to flee their home in the
Punjab, never to return. As an Anglo-Indian with roots in what is
now Pakistan, Marina Wheeler weave's her mother's story of loss and
new beginnings, personal and political freedom into the broader,
still highly contested, history of the region. We follow Dip when
she marries Marina's English father and leaves India for good, to
Berlin, then a divided city, and to Washington DC where the fight
for civil rights embraced the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. The Lost
Homestead touches on global themes that strongly resonate today:
political change, religious extremism, migration, minorities,
nationhood, identity and belonging. But above all it is about
coming to terms with the past, and about the stories we choose to
tell about ourselves.
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