For many of his theater contemporaries, Lee J. Cobb (1911-1976) was the greatest actor of his generation. In Hollywood he became the definitive embodiment of gangsters, psychiatrists, and roaring lunatics. From 1939 until his death, Cobb contributed riveting performances to a number of films, including Boomerang, On the Waterfront, The Brothers Karamazov, 12 Angry Men, and The Exorcist. But for all of his conspicuous achievements in motion pictures, Cobb's name is most identified with the character Willy Loman in the original stage production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1949). Directed by Elia Kazan, Cobb's Broadway performance proved to be a benchmark for American theater. In Lee J. Cobb: Characters of an Actor, Donald Dewey looks at the life and career of this versatile performer. From his Lower East Side roots in New York City-where he was born Leo Jacob-to multiple accolades on stage and the big and small screens, Cobb's life proved to be a tumultuous rollercoaster of highs and lows. As a leading man of the theater, he gave a number of compelling performances in such plays as Golden Boy and King Lear. For the Hollywood studios, Cobb fit the description of the "character actor." No one better epitomized the performer who suddenly appears on the screen and immediately grabs the audience's attention. During his forty-five-year career, there wasn't a significant star-from Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart to Paul Newman and Clint Eastwood-with whom he didn't work. Cobb was also followed by controversy: he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s and was a witness to a movie-set murder case in the 1970s. Through it all, he never lost his taste for fast cars and gin rummy. A bear of a man with a voice that equally accommodated growls and sibilant sympathies, Cobb was undeniably an actor to be reckoned with. In this fascinating book, Dewey captures all of the drama that surrounded Cobb, both on screen and off.

This book examines economic analysis relevant to monopoly policy and traces the growth of monopoly policy in the U.S. from its common-law origins to the present as it relates to cartels, market tactics, oligopoly, and labor unions.

Without Ray Arcel (1899-1994), the world of boxing during the 20th century would have been markedly different. Indeed, the credibility professional boxing as a sport would have been greatly lessened. Arcel's prominence is all the more interesting because he made his mark not as a fighter, promoter, or manager, but as a trainer. From Benny Leonard to Roberto Duran and Larry Holmes, Arcel stood in the corner for champions of every weight division that existed in his lifetime, a record that remains unprecedented. This biography chronicles Arcel's life inside the ring, and out--where he remained a highly secretive man and maintained ambiguous relationships with some of the chief mob figures of his day. Through a wealth of information from Arcel's unpublished memoir, this work offers an extraordinary portrait of one of boxing's most influential and enigmatic figures.

A man of many film firsts, James Stuart Blackton promoted motion pictures as a mass commercial medium by creating the first true movie studio, adopting the star system, pioneering film animation, and publishing Motion Picture Magazine, one of the first film periodicals. As much of a seminal figure to the film industry as Thomas Edison and D.W. Griffith, James Stuart Blackton nonetheless remains unknown to most film enthusiasts and even many cinema scholars. In Buccaneer: James Stuart Blackton and the Birth of American Movies Donald Dewey recounts the drama, intrigue, and romance of this motion picture trailblazer. A gifted director, producer, and founder of Vitagraph studios, Blackton's personal escapades were nearly as dramatic as his contributions to the medium he helped establish. Decades ahead of his time, Blackton also played a critical role in propagating war-time sentiment during both the Spanish-American War and World War I and was an influence on such key historical figures as Theodore Roosevelt. A fascinating look into the life of a truly distinguished filmmaker, Buccaneer narrates the volatile world of the early motion picture industry, as influenced by a man whose own story rivaled anything on screen. A must read for film lovers, this book will also prove to be invaluable to readers with an interest in American history.

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Winner of the 2008 AAUP Book, Jacket, and Journal Show in the Trade Illustrated Book Design category.

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"Not just a story of cartoons but a history of America through cartoons. Agreat gift book."
--"Brian Lehrer Live"

"An afternoon with The Art of Ill Will is time well spent, especially when followed by Funny Times, the cartoon monthly, and The Colbert Report."
--"New York Times Book Review"

"The true stars of this book are the cartoons themselves. During a period when an entire government seems drawn by a sartirist, its instructive to look back at a history of politics reduced to two dimensions. "
--"Village Voice"

"Dewey makes a strong case that the political cartoons has played a uniquely formative role in American history."--"Cartoon News"

"[A] handsome and bracingly irreverent history of the form."
--"New York Sun"

"This will make a nice coffee-table title for political junkies."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"This hybrid volume mixing history and sociology with political cartoons entertainingly brings the past to light. "
--"Library Journal"

"[Dewey's] well-researched text offers insight into the historical setting that allowed the form the burgeon in the late nineteenth century, as well as interesting anecdotal information that illuminates shadowed elements of political history."
--Popmatters.com

"Several previous titles have tackled this important subject, but none equals the depth, breadth, and value of this new title."
--"The Bloomsbury Review"

"More than 200 pungent examples, from the days of Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin to thepresent, with a smooth text that explains the special punch of editorial cartoonists."
--"The Philadelphia Inquirer"

"A striking panorama of the unruly history of the American cartoonists trade. "
--"Austin American Statesman"

"Covers many, widely unknown political battles and scandals as well as cartoons that steered and swayed mass opinion with a one panel drawing."--"Alarm"

"Provides hundreds of examples of . . . puncturing the myths and mendacities in the political arena."--"Copley News Service"

The Art of Ill Will is a comprehensive history of American political cartooning, featuring over two hundred illustrations. From the colonial period to contemporary cartoonists like Pat Oliphant and Jimmy Margulies, Donald Dewey highlights these artists uncanny ability to encapsulate the essence of a situation and to steer the public mood with a single drawing and caption. Taking advantage of unlimited access to The Granger Collection, which holds thousands of the most significant works of Thomas Nast and the other early American cartoonists, The Art of Ill Will provides a survey of American history writ large, capturing the voice of the peopleᾹhopeful, angry, patriotic, frustratedᾹin times of peace and war, prosperity and depression.

Dewey tracks the cartoonists role as a jester with a serious brief. Ulysses S. Grant credited cartoonists with helping him win his election and was not the only president to feel that way; political bosses and even state legislatures have sought to ban cartoons when they endangered entrenched interests; General George Patton once promised to throw beloved wartime cartoonist Bill Mauldin in jail if he continued to spread dissent.(Mauldin later won the Pulitzer Prize.)

Despite the increasing threats they face as daily newspapers merge or vanish, cartoonists have given us some of our most memorable images, from Theodore Roosevelt's pince-nez and mustache to Richard Nixon's Pinocchio nose to Jimmy Carters Chiclet teeth. At a time when domestic and foreign political developments have made these artists more necessary than ever, The Art of Ill Will is a rich collection of the wickedly clever images that puncture pomposity and personalize American history.

Cartoonists include: Benjamin Franklin (whose Join, or Die was the first modern American political cartoon), the astoundingly prolific Thomas Nast, "Puck" magazine founder Joseph Keppler, Adalbert Volck, suffragist Laura Foster, Uncle Sam creator James Montgomery Flagg, Theodore Geisel departing from his Dr. Seuss persona to tackle World War II, Herbert Herblock Block (who so enraged Richard Nixon that the president canceled his subscription to the Washington Post), Daniel Fitzpatrick, Jules Feiffer, Paul Conrad, Gary Trudeau, and the controversial Ted Rall.

This book follows the life of James Madison, our 4th president, who at the tender age of twenty-five was thrust into significant politics as an elected member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Even in his first venture into statesmanship, Madison took notes on constitutional deliberations, a practice that he would continue in the Federal Convention that proposed the United States Constitution and throughout much of his legislative career whether in Philadelphia, New York City, or Williamsburg, Virginia. Just as most of our knowledge of the framing of the U.S. Constitution is provided by Madison's painstaking notes of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, much of our knowledge of George Mason's many contributions to the Virginia Constitution of 1776 are also known through Madison's efforts.

This book follows the life of James Madison, our 4th president, who at the tender age of twenty-five was thrust into significant politics as an elected member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Even in his first venture into statesmanship. Madison took notes on constitutional deliberations, a practice that he would continue in the Federal Convention that proposed the United States Constitution and throughout much of his legislative career whether in Philadelphia, New York City, or Williamsburg, Virginia. Just as most of our knowledge of the framing of the U.S. Constitution is provided by Madison's painstaking notes of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, much of our knowledge of George Mason's many contributions to the Virginia Constitution of 1776 are also known through Madison's efforts. His major personal contribution to that seminal state constitution is a brief but key phrase in the Virginia Declaration of Rights that would in many respects become a pattern for the Bill of Rights that Madison was later largely responsible for addition to the United States Constitution. His addition of a simple clause converted Mason's proposed language from religious toleration, where an official church would permit citizens to attend other churches, to religious freedom with its clear implication that it was one of the Rights of Man that were so important to that revolutionary generation. Throughout his career he remained committed to religious freedom and he is still considered one of its greatest contributors. During the brief time between his terms in Congress he would prevail in battles against the re-establishment of the Episcopal Church in Virginia and would win legislative approval for the Statute for Religious Freedom that Jefferson wrote and in which he took enormous pride, but which required the legislative management of James Madison to become law. Madison is best and justifiably known as "Father of the Constitution" because of his heroic role in bringing together the Federal Convention in 1787, influencing its outcomes through the Virginia Plan, maintaining records of the debates, winning its ratification in the largest state and influencing several other states.