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IMPERIAL HISTORY, CRIMINAL HISTORIES-MEMOIRS

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A Little History of the World

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By E. H. Gombrich. Translated By Caroline Mustill

"A masterpiece of nonfiction writing for children. It is a wry and charming book, perfectly suited to the capacities of a 10-year-old, but also remarkably free of condescension. An adult can read it with pleasure. And, indeed, with instruction -Scott McLemee, Newsday

New Haven And London. Yale University Press. 2008. 308p.

The Civilization Of The Renaissance In Italy

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By Jacob Burckhardt. Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore With a new Introduction by Peter Burke and Notes by Peter Murray

FROM THE INTRODUCTION : “….Burckhardt's conception of history was a very different one from that of many of his contemporaries. He rejected both the positivism andthe Hegelianism which fascinated so many of his contemporaries all over Europe. As a student at the university of Berlin, he wrote regretfully that the philosophy of history was taught by followers of Hegel, 'whom I cannot understand'. As a professor at the university of Basel, he told his students that his lectures on the study of history would offer 'no philosophy of history. According to Burckhardt, there was no such thing; the idea of the philosophy of history was a contradiction in terms, 'for history co-ordinates, and hence is unphilosophical, while philosophy subordinates, and hence is unhistorical. In other words, history is unsystematic and systems are unhistorical.

This view is further from British historical empiricism than it may look. Unlike many practising historians, Burckhardt was not philoso- phically illiterate. Despite his claim to be unfit for speculation and abstract thought, he was well acquainted with the ideas of Hegel and Schopenhauer as well as with those of the young Nietzsche, with whom he used to go for walks discussing ideas. Although he was sceptical of the claims made for grand philosophical systems, his vision ofthe past was not completely free of philosophical presuppositions, as weshall see….”

London. Penguin 1990. 388p.

The Renaissance Medieval or Modern?

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Edited With An Introduction BY Karl H. Dannenfeldt.

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “In 1860 in the introduction to his work on The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Jacob Burckhardt predicted the present "Problem of the Renaissance” when he wrote "To each eye, perhaps, the out¬lines of a great civilization present a differ¬ent picture. ... In the wide ocean upon which we venture, the possible ways and directions are many; and the same studies which have served for this work might easily, in other hands, not only receive a wholly different treatment and application, but lead to essentially different conclusions.” To the writers of the Italian Renaissance itself, there was no serious problem. Their views of the age in which they were living furnished the basis for a long-held concept, namely, that after a period of about a thousand years of cultural darkness and igno-rance, there arose a new age with a great revival in classical literature, learning, and the arts. The humanists of the Northern Renaissance continued this concept. "Out of the thick Gothic night our eyes are opened to the glorious torch of the sun,” wrote Rabelais. Moreover, there was also now introduced a reforming religious element, further emphasizing the medieval barbarization of religion and culture. Protestant writers joined in this condemnation of the dark medieval period, an attack little circumscribed by the defense of the medieval Church by Catholic apologists…”

Boston. D. C. Heath. Problems In European Civilization. 1959. 129p.

Protestantism And Capitalism: The Weber Thesis and Its Critics

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Edited With An Introduction By Robert W. Green

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “Did the Protestant Reformation, and especially its Calvinist branch, have a decisive influence upon the development of modern capitalism? For more than half a century this question has been the focal point of a scholarly controversy which had its beginning in 1904-5 with the publication by the famous German sociologist, Max Weber, of two articles entitled “Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus” [The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism]. Together with a supplementary article, “Die protestantische Sekten und der Geist des Kapitalismus” [The Protestant Sects and the Spirit of Capitalism], which appeared in 1906, these articles, with some additional footnotes, now constitute the first studies in Max Weber's collected essays on the sociology of religion….Almost immediately following their first appearance, these articles attracted the interest of scholars in several different fields because, in its various aspects, the Weber hypothesis cut across the areas of a number of separate scholarly disciplines. Since Weber was himself a sociollogist, and in this instance he seemed to be attempting to apply a sociological method to an historical problem, both sociologists and historians became concerned. Because capitalism was involved, economic historians were aroused; and the role Weber assigned to Protestantism drew the attention of both Catholic and Protestant theologians. Some of these scholars attacked Weber’s position; some supported it; some seemed willing to accept a modified or cautiously qualified version of it. Beyond that, however, if one may judge by what they have written, the authors who commented upon Weber’s work, whether supporting or attacking it, seem frequently to have misunderstood or misinterpreted either Weber’s method or his conclusions or both…”

Boston. D. C. Heath And Company. Problems In European Civilization. 1959. 132p.

The Outbreak Of The First World War Who Was Responsible?

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Edited With An Introduction By Dwight E. Lee

FROM THTE INTRODUCTION: “The origins of the First World War have become a major historical prob¬lem not merely because the event seemed to be of great significance as a turning point in world history, but also, and perhaps more importantly, because the question of who was responsible, raised during the war and answered in the peace settle¬ment, became a vital and passionately argued issue in both domestic and international politics. By placing the blame for the war on Germany and its allies and thereby justifying reparations, the victorious powers supplied one of the major factors utilized by Hitler in his rise to power in Germany….”

Boston. D. C. Heath And Company. Problems of European Civilization. 1958. 88p.

The Origins Of The English Civil War: Conspiracy, Crusade, or Class Conflict?

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Edited With An Introduction BY Philip A. M. Taylor

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “…Most English people who are not professional students have had their view of the origins of the Civil War formed, directly or indirectly, by the first chapter of Macaulay’s History. This is partly because, from the vantage point of modem constitutional history, the Parlia¬mentarians in that conflict are seen to have been on the winning side. But the lasting popularity of Macaulay derives also from his forceful style and the sweeping confi¬dence of his interpretations. He points out that James I and Charles I were far more extreme and outspoken in their claims than Elizabeth had been; yet there was no crisis of national peril to inhibit opposition. The natural enemy of royal claims, he thinks, was Puritanism inside and outside Parlia¬ment. When, in 1640, Charles was forced by financial difficulties to summon Parliament once more, its leaders, "great statesmen" as Macaulay terms them, at once devoted their energies to limiting his power. Increasingly distrustful of the king's intentions. Parliament refused him control of the armed forces needed to suppress rebellion in Ireland. Charles’ retaliation, in attempting to arrest five members of the Commons, made inevitable a war to limit the royal preroga-tive. Macaulay is sure that it would have been better to depose the king, as was done in 1688; but he admits that no one in. 1642 could face such a drastic course.

This ‘Whig interpretation" has prevailed among those interested chiefly in the growth of constitutional liberty. But, from quite a different point of view, Marxists have ascribed great importance to the Civil War which, to them, is a “bourgeois revolu¬tion," the political act by which English capitalism overthrew “feudal" society and insured for itself favorable conditions for development….”

Boston. D. C. Heath And Company. Problems In European Civilization. 1960. 125p.

Machiavelli: Cynic, Patriot, or Political Scientist?

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Edited With An Introduction By De Lamar Jensen

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “ In more than four hundred years of evaluation and reinterpretation, few names in European history have caused more disagreement and controversy than Machiavelli's. Nearly everyone who has written on modem European history, and particularly on the Renaissance, agrees that Machiavelli was one of the most important figures of the century, but rarely will they concur on the reason for his prominence. Why has this polemic continued so long without sign of abating or losing its vigor? Undoubtedly there can be many answers, and among them certainly is the fact that Machiavelli’s written words deal with subjects of lasting and vital interest to all ages. People of every generation must ask themselves the questions which Machiavelli aroused. What is the relationship between politics and morals? Does the end really justify the means? What is the nature and role of the state? How are liberty and order to be balanced and maintained? To the historian an infinite number of additional problems are suggested by the life and writings of this Renaissance Floren¬tine, from the question of his relationship to the humanist writers of his time to the methods and motives of his public and pri-vate life. For Machiavelli was not restricted to one career, and each of them — diplomat, secretary, statesman, military strategist, political philosopher, historian, man of letters — offers a rich and rewarding field for schol¬arly investigation…”

Boston. D. C. Heath. Problems In European Civilization. 1960. 131p.

The Industrial Revolution In Britain: Triumph or Disaster?

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Edited with an Introduction by Philip A. M. Taylor

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “While the phrase "…Industrial Revolution," or something like it, can be found very early in the nineteenth century, it was given its wide currency by the lectures de¬livered at Oxford by Arnold ToynSefc and published in 1884, after his early death. It was in the eighth of these lectures that Toynbee summed up his views about the period 1750-1850. He pointed out the rapid growth of population; the moderniza¬tion both of the techniques and of the or¬ganization of farming, especially the trans¬forming, by the process of enclosure, of medieval open fields into modern compact farms; the rapidity of invention in industry, above all in textiles; the development of powerful machines and their grouping into factories. To him, these changes seemed emphatically revolutionary. But he thought he saw, in addition to these material changes, a change of outlook, from the medieval desire to regulate economic life to a modem acceptance of free competition. He considered that for the lower classes in town and country the total result was distastrous, "Production on a vast scale,” he said at the end of Lecture VII, "the result of free competition, led to a rapid alienation of classes and to the degradation of a large body of producers.”-

Boston. D. C. Heath Co. Problems In European Civilization.. 1958. 108p.

A Short History of Greece: From Early Times To 1964

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By W. A. Heurtley, H. C. Darby C.W. Crawley And C.M. Woodhouse

FROM THE COVER: “An introduction to Greek history from prehistoric times until the end of 1964. It is based on the historical sections of the Hand- book first issued by the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty during the war and is a companion volume to the successful series of short histories of France, Germany, Italy and Yugoslavia already published. The original contributors were the late W. A. Heurtley, Professor H. C. Darby and C. W. Crawley. The final section has been written by the Hon. C. M. Wood- house, who was formerly Director-General of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. This history will appeal to general readers and tourists as well as students in universities and schools.

'This extraordinary book compresses into 183 pages of text the history of mainland Greece from the earliest times to the end of 1964. What is more, itdoes so from the unfamiliar perspective of the present day . . . Anyone would gain by reading this short book; but most of all, perhaps, those who have attacked Greek history through the other end of the telescope.' Economist

London. Cambridge At The University Press. 1967. 210p.

Summer For The Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion

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By Edward J. Larson

FROM THE PREFACE: “ThE SCOPES TRAIL has dog ged me for more than a decade, ever since I wrote my first book on the Ameri- can controversy over creation and evolution. The trial only constituted one brief episode in the earlier book, yet people who knew of my work

asked me more about that one event than everything else in the book combined--and they would tell me about the Scopes trial and what it meant to them. Over the years, their questions and comments led me to reflect on the so-called trial of the century. Finally, one of my colleagues, Peter Hoffer, suggested that I write a separate book solely about the trial and its place in American history. The idea made immediate sense. As a historical event and topic of legend, the trial had taken on a life and meaning of its own independent of the overall creation-evolution controversy. Indeed, this book is different from my earlier one in that they chronicle remarkably separate stories. Both are tales worth telling as sto- ries of our time. Furthermore, no historian had examined the Scopes trial as a separate study in decades. I had access to a wealth of new archival material about the trial not available to earlier historians, and the benefit of additional hindsight…”

Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1997. 317p.

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

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by Dee Brown

FROM THE COVER: “Thelast words of this revisionary history of the American West come from an anonymous Indian: ‘They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land, and they took it. They are white Americans. like the author of this damning case against our national roots i n greed, perficly, ignoranceand malice. The motive force f o rour theft of land and identity from the Indians was Alanifest Destiny, the belief that white men were ordained to rule this continent, a policy that, in Dee Vrown’s words, “lifted land hunger to a lofty plane.’ Manifest destiny was a simple instrument to operate, once we got the hang of it. We would buy or battle the indians off the land we wanted…”

NY. Bantam. 1971. 498p.

Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America 1619-1964

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By Lerone Bennett, Jr.

FROM THE COVER: “A full history of the American Negro, from his origins in the great empires of the Nile Valley and the western Sudan through the Negro revolt of the 1960's. Mr. Bennett clarifies the role of Negro Americans during the Colonial period, the Revolutionary War, the Slavery era, the Civil War, the years of Reconstruction, and the crucial epoch from Booker T. Washington to Martin Luther King, Jr. His account is interspersed with portraits of the great figures like Benjamin Banneker, Frederick Douglass, W.E. B. DuBois and others, as well as with reports on the exploits and contributions of many men and women whose names generally have been forgotten in the pages of American history. In a special section of "Landmarks and Milestones," he outlines the significant dates, events, and per- sonalities of American Negro history from 1492 to 1964.”

Baltimore. Penguin. 1964.

Witchcraft at Salem

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By Chadwick Hansen

FROM THE PREFACE: “…To begin with, witchcraft actually did exist and was widely practiced in seventeenth-century New England, as it was in Europe at that time (and still is, for that matter, among the unlearned majority of mankind). It worked then as it works now in witchcraft societies like those of the West Indies, through psychogenic rather than occult means, commonly pro- ducing hysterical symptoms as a result of the victim's fear, and sometimes, when fear was succeeded by a profound sense of hopelessness, even producing death. The behavior of the afflicted persons was not fraudulent but pathological. They were hysterics, and in the clinical rather than the popular sense of that term. These people were not merely overexcited; they were mentally ill. Furthermore, they were ill long before any clergyman got to them. The general populace did reach that state of public excitement inaccurately called "mass hysteria," but this was due to the popular fear of witchcraft rather than to the preachings of the clergy…”

NY. Signet. 1969. 323p.

The Death Of A President: November 20-November 25, 1963

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By William Manchester

FROM THE FOREWORD: “On February 5, 1964, Mrs John F. Kennedy suggested that I write an account of the tragic and historic events in Texas and Washington ten weeks earlier. That is the first breath. The second, which must quickly follow, is that neither Mrs Kennedy nor anyone else is in any way answerable for my subsequent research or this narrative based upon it. My relationships with all the principal figures were entirely professional. I received no financial assistance from the Kennedy family. I was on no government payroll. No one tried to lead me, and I believe every reader, including those who were closest to the late President, will find much here that is new and some, perhaps, that is disturbing. That is my reponsibility. Mrs Kennedy asked me but one question. Before our first taping session she said, 'Are you just going to put down all the facts, who ate what for breakfast and all that, or are you going to put yourself in the book, too?' I replied that I didn't see how I could very well keep myself out of it. 'Good, she said emphatically. And so I am here, weighing evidence and forming judgments. At times you may find my presence exasperating. You may decide in the end that I have been a poor judge. But you may not conclude that I have served as anyone's amanuensis. If you doubt me you may as well stop at the end of this paragraph….”

London. Michael Joseph Ltd. 1967. 776p.

A New History Ofthe United States

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By William Miller

FROM THE JACKET: “William Miller's A NEW HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES illuminates the American past and future more brilliantly than any book of this generation. He begins with the world before Columbus, when Christendom had a bare foothold in the known world and Islam dominated. H e closes with the present, with the West once again on the defensive, threatened by an alien faith. Between the fifteenth and the middle of the twentieth century, America was discovered and settled, the balance ofpower shifted to the western hemisphere, and the new challenge from the East arose. Seldom in the life of man had such epochal events occurred, and seldom had there been such material and spiritual progress. One of the towering triumphs of this period of world history was the American Revolution. It is difficult to recall any books that develop the background of our Revolution with the depth and comprehensiveness of Mr. Miller's work…”

NY. George Braziller, Inc. 1958. 483p.

The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America

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By James Wilson

FROM THE COVER: “"The Earth Shall Weep is a very different history of Native America. James Wilson has written a fresh and lively account of Native American relations with Europeans and settlers. By placing Native American ideas of the world at the forefront and using native testimony and writings as well as conventional history, Wilson avoids the sense of tragic victimhood and academic ponderousness that so much of the writing on the subject is mired in. Taking us through the very diverse experiences ofNative Americans in New England, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest, the Great Plains, and the Far West, the book is a wonderfully sympathetic introduction to native predicaments from the first encounters to the casinos." -Colin Samson, director of Native American Studies, University ofEssex

NY. Grove Press. 1998. 489p.

The French and Indian War: Deciding The Fate Of North America

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By Walter R. Borneman

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “England and France had been at war since--well, it seemed like forever. For more than three centuries, Europe had known far more years of warfare than of peace. But no matter what the con- flict, or how causes and alliances changed, one pairing remained constant: England and France were always on opposite sides just as surely as they sat on opposite sides of the English Channel. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, this cross-Channel feud began to take on major global dimensions, as it became evident that far more than the mastery of Europe was at stake. The colonies that half a dozen nations had established in the New World were flourishing. By 1733, thirteen English colonies stretched along the Atlantic coast. But this territory was minuscule compared with French outposts and settlements that embraced half a continent--from the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River, westward across the Great Lakes, and down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico…”

NY. Harper. 2006. 407p.

The American Heritage Book of The Revolution

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By Bruce Lancaster and J. H. Plumb

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “We had our American revolution nearly two centuries ago, and the years have done something to it. The legends remain, and the statues and the grassy earthworks and the great body of tradition, but a good deal of the reality has been filtered out. When we look back we see Washington crossing the Delaware on a cold winter night, or kneeling in prayer in the snow of Valley Forge; we see the Minuteman, or the lanky Virginia rifleman pictur- esquein fringed buckskin; but somehow it all seems to be out of a pageant, and neither Washington nor the men who followed him quite come alive for us. This is a pity, because the central reality in this great act that brought a nation to its birth was the living, aspiring, struggling people who were immediately involved in it. Aromantic haze has settled down over the whole affair….”

NY. Dell. 1958. 384p.

Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know about American History but Never Leamed

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By Kenneth C. Davis

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: “Back in the early 1960s, when I was growing up, there was a silly pop song called What Did Washington Say When He Crossed the Delaware? Sung to a tarantella beat, the answer was something like "Martha, Martha, there'll be no pizza tonight." Of course, these lyrics were absurd; everybody knew Washington only ate cherry pie. On that December night in 1776, George may have told himself that if this raid on an enemy camp in Trenton, New Jersey, didn't work, he might be ordering a last meal before the British strung him up. But as the general rallied his ragged, barefoot troops across the icy Delaware, one of his actual com- ments was far more amusing than those lyrics. Stepping into his boat, Washington--the plainspoken frontiersman, not the marbleized demigod--nudged 280-pound General Henry "Ox" Knox with the tip of his boot and said, "Shift that fat ass, Harry. But slowly, or you'll swamp the damned boat.”

According to A. J. Langguth's fascinating history of the Revolution, Patriots, that is how Knox himself reported the story after the war. I certainly never heard that version of the crossing when I was in school. And that's too bad….”

NY. Avon. 1995. 489p.

A People's History of the United States 1492-Present

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By Howard Zinn

from chapter 1: “ Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island's beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

They . . . brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bels. They willingly traded everything they owned. . . . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out ofignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane. ... They would make fine servants. . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want…”

NY. Harper Collins. 1999. 732p.