"Plain Style" is an amusing and instructive guide to written English by the late Christopher Lasch, author of "The Culture of Narcissism," "The True and Only Heaven," and many other memorable works of American history and social criticism. Written for the benefit of the students at the University of Rochester, where Lasch taught from 1970 until his death in 1994, it quickly established itself in typescript as a local classic--a lively, witty, and historically minded alternative to the famous volume by William Strunk and E. B. White, "The Elements of Style." Now available for the first time in published form, "Plain Style" is fundamentally a clear, readable, practical guide to the timeless principles of effective composition. At the same time, however, in ways that Stewart Weaver explains in his critical introduction, it is a distinctive and revealing addition to the published work of an eminent American thinker. No mere primer, "Plain Style" is an essay in cultural criticism, a political treatise even, by one for whom directness, clarity, and honesty of expression were essential to the living spirit of democracy. As the teachers and students who have for years benefited from its succinct wisdom will testify, "Plain Style" is an indispensable guide to writing and, indeed, Christopher Lasch's least-expected but perhaps most serviceable work.

The story of the world's highest peaks and the remarkable people who have sought to climb them The first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa teammate Tenzing Norgay is a familiar saga, but less well known are the tales of many other adventurers who also came to test their skills and courage against the world's highest and most dangerous mountains. In this lively and generously illustrated book, historians Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver present the first comprehensive history of Himalayan mountaineering in fifty years. They offer detailed, original accounts of the most significant climbs since the 1890s, and they compellingly evoke the social and cultural worlds that gave rise to those expeditions. The book recounts the adventures of such figures as Martin Conway, who led the first authentic Himalayan climbing expedition in 1892; Fanny Bullock Workman, the pioneer explorer of the Karakoram range; George Mallory, the romantic martyr of Mount Everest fame; Charlie Houston, who led American expeditions to K2 in the 1930s and 1950s; Ang Tharkay, the legendary Sherpa, and many others. Throughout, the authors discuss the effects of political and social change on the world of mountaineering, and they offer a penetrating analysis of a culture that once emphasized teamwork and fellowship among climbers, but now has been eclipsed by a scramble for individual fame and glory.

This is the first biographical study of John Fielden, industrial magnate and radical MP for Oldham in Lancashire from 1832 to 1847. Best known as a leading advocate of factory reform - he was the parliamentary sponsor of the momentous Ten Hours Act of 1847 - Fielden also took a conspicuous part in the Owenite, Chartist, and anti-Poor Law movements. Drawing on a little-used collection of Fielden family papers, the book offers an assessment of each of the movements in which Fielden's relationship with them, and discusses the influences which went into the making of a radical industrialist who occupied a unique place in Parliament as the people's representative. This long overdue account of his personal, business, and political life offers new insights into the turbulent politics of mid-nineteenth century England.