History

Hardcover. Freeport ME, Bond Wheelwright Co. , 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket. 204 pages, b&w illustrations. The author, great grandson of Captain Barry, contextualizes the captain's correspondence and journals with information about transportation, economic conditions and the ice trade of the 19th century. Documents vessels commanded by Capt. Barry, including the James Perkins, Oakland, Madagascar, Delhi and William Lord. Glossary of sea terms; bibliography. Name stamp to front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Princeton Providence, Princeton University Press / Brown University Press, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcovers. Complete in two volumes. Volume I: The Journals of Clermont-Crevecoeur, Verger, and Berthier. Volume II: The Itineraries, Maps, Views. Both volumes are fine in near fine unclipped dust jackets. Housed in a lightly rubbed slipcase that has a chip to one of the pictorial labels. INSCRIBED BY CO-EDITOR ANNE BROWN on the half title page in Vol. 1. Mild residue to prelim page in Vol. 2, otherwise nice, clean and unmarked. Vol. 1: 351 pages, Vol. 2: 362 pages, color and b&w illustrations, indexed, fold out maps. PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO SIZE AND WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, brick-red cloth, 477 pages, b&w illustrations. Offers an illustrated history of sexual politics in ancient Athens. This work examines the ideology and practices that underlay the reign of the phallus. It demonstrates that classical Athens was more sexually polarized and repressive of women than any other culture in Western history. The phallus was pictured everywhere in ancient Athens: painted on vases, sculpted in marble, held aloft in gigantic form in public processions, and shown in stage comedies. This obsession with the phallus dominated almost every aspect of public life, influencing law, myth, and customs, affecting family life, the status of women, even foreign policy. This is the first book to draw together all the elements that made up the "reign of the phallus"--Men's blatant claim to general dominance, the myths of rape and conquest of women, and the reduction of sex to a game of dominance and submission, both of women by men and of men by men. In her elegant and lucid text Eva Keuls not only examines the ideology and practices that underlay the reign of the phallus, but also uncovers an intense counter-movement--the earliest expressions of feminism and antimilitarism. Clean, bright copy, lacks dust jacket.

Hardcover. Pasadena MD, Minerva Center, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 110 pages, b&w illustrations. As the debate on the role of women in the military continues, an interesting historical footnote has been brought forth: the publication of the only known surviving set of letters of one of the estimated 400 women who disguised themselves as men to fight as soldiers in the Civil War. Born on a farm in New York in 1843, Wakeman was the oldest of nine children. Few details of her family life are known, nor what exactly precipitated her flight into the army, but glimpses of this strong-minded woman are provided throughout: "I am as independent as a hog on the ice. If it is God's will for me to fall in the field of battle, it is my will to go and never return home." Private Wakeman did not return home: she is buried under her masculine pseudonym. How many more women were buried as men? Civil War historian Burgess provides an intriguing introduction to what is sure to become an area of growing interest. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Simon and Schuster, 2nd pr., 1959, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark gray boards with black cloth spine, gilt lettering on spine. 350 pages, b&w illustrations, color endpaper maps. INSCRIBED BY RYAN on half title page and dated Dec 59. In 1956 Ryan began to write The Longest Day,which tells the story of the D-Day Invasion of Normandy, later published in 1959. It was an instant success, and Ryan helped in the writing of the screenplay for the 1962 hit film of the same name. Darryl F. Zanuck paid the author US $175,000 for the screen rights to the book. Lacks dust jacket, a clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Charles Little and James Brown, 2nd Ed., 1840, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Two volumes (199 and 278 pages) bound in brown polished calf with raised bands and gilt design on spine, covers with gilt rules. Minor wear to spine edges. Vol. 1 with engraved portrait frontispiece, Vol. 2 with facsimile of Abigail's handwriting. Library bookplate on first blank page (verso of front fly leaf). Some foxing to preliminary pages, otherwise a clean, bright set.

Hardcover. London, Cassell Petter & Galpin, unknown, unknown, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Two volumes in one. Volume I is 576 pages. Volume II is 588 pages. Blue cloth cover, gilt lettering and design, corners and edges are worn and frayed. Top edge gilt. Heavy foxing on title page and frontispiece, light foxing on some pages throughout, otherwise inside is bright and clean with many b&w illustrations. Previous owner's sticker on front endpage, reads "Used in tour around the world, 1881-1882." Previous owner was author and traveller Joseph Cook. A impressive and thorough copy. PLEASE NOTE: DUE TO SIZE & WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 2nd pr., 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 502 pages, b&w illustrations. "Superb...A remarkable achievement, by far the best general account of the war now available. It is critical, insightful, and rooted in a wealth of archival sources; it brings far more of the Mexican experience than any other work...and it clearly demonstrates the social and cultural dynamics that shaped Mexican and American politics and military force."-Journal of American HistoryIt has long been held that the United States emerged victorious from the Mexican-American War because its democratic system was more stable and its citizens more loyal. But this award-winning history shows that Americans dramatically underestimated the strength of Mexican patriotism and failed to see how bitterly Mexicans resented their claims to national and racial superiority. Their fierce resistance surprised US leaders, who had expected a quick victory with few casualties. By focusing on how ordinary soldiers and civilians in both countries understood and experienced the conflict, The Dead March offers a clearer picture of the brief, bloody war that redrew the map of North America. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Burlington, VT, Edward Smith, 1st, 1833, Book: Good, 252 pages. Hardcover, half calf leather binding with heavy chipping to corners, and front and rear. Pages darkened and moderately worn on edges. Small size. Good condition considering age.

Hardcover. Amsterdam, Uitgeverij Aksant, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial boards, 366 pages, a few color and b&w illustrations. INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR on the half title page. This study describes and analyses a wide array of initiatives leading to the hunt, by Dutch whalemen, of whales and seals in Arctic waters, the temperate zones of the South Pacific and the waters of the Dutch East Indies during the major part of the nineteenth century (1815-1885) - an era neglected so far. A pioneering book focused on the men involved in the two maritime industries, be it on shore or aboard the whaleship.

Hardcover. NY, Viking , 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 282 pages. Black & white maps, plans and illustrations. Documents the experiences of late-Renaissance Venetian nuns, many of whom were upper-class women immured against their will, exploring how convents of the period were often political hotbeds and the sites of illicit love affairs in their resident's efforts to find fulfillment. Clean copy.

Softcover. Quezon City, Malaya Books, reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 212 pages, b&w illustrations, fold-out map in front. A 1970 reprint of a title first published in 1900. Clean copy, light edgewear to wrapper.

Hardcover. Washington DC, Insignia Publishing Company, 2nd pr., 1998, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 347 pages. The first book about Gulf War Syndrome. An intensely personal account of the struggle of two dedicated public servants to expose one of the largest government cover-ups of modern history. A former CIA analyst exposes the officially sanctioned deceptions that have made Gulf War veterans the walking wounded of Desert Storm. NOTE: The first blank page has been torn out but does not affect the rest of the book, in clean condition.

Hardcover. New York, Naval History Society, 1st, 1915, Book: Near Fine, Dust Jacket: None, 240 pages, b&w illustration. White vellum spine and corners with blue-gray boards, gilt lettering on spine, top edge gilt. Limited to 600 copies, this is #582. Beautiful bright copy.

Hardcover. Salem MA, Marine Research Society, 1st, 1930, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover. 399 pages. B&W portraits of sea captains and ships throughout. Tissue-covered frontispiece. Top edge colored blue. Green pictorial dust jacket with pasted-on color illustration, taping and edgewear. Blue boards with gilt title to spine and stain to front cover. Otherwise, a clean, tight copy. The twenty-first volume in the series of publications by the Marine Research Society.

Hardcover. Londo, Longmans, Green, and Co. , 1892, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in embossed brown cloth, gilt lettering on spine, 328 pages plus publisher's ads in rear. A collection of historical essays from English historian, James Anthony Froude. Titles include: The Spanish Story of the Armada, Antonio Perez: An Unsolved Historical Riddle, Saint Teresa, The Templars, The Norway Fjords, and Norway Once More. Written by James Anthony Froude, an English historian, biographer, novelist, and editor of Fraser's Magazine, a general and literary journal published from 1830 to 1882. Repair to cloth on spine which shows edgewear, fading. Owner's stamp om front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. London, Duckworth, 1st, 1985, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket with fading to spine. A magisterial assessment of the major historian of early Byzantium, by one of today's leading historians of late antiquity. Most of our understanding of the age of Justinian is based on the works of Procopius of Caesarea, the most important Greek historian of late antiquity. Many modern histories of the period virtually paraphrase his major work, the Wars. Today, questions of how we are to reconcile the Wars with Procopius' two minor works-the panegyrical Building and the sensational Secret History, still dominates current scholarship. 297 pages. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown, And Company, 1st, 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bound in publisher's red cloth, lettered in gold with black letterbox, 307 pages. The sixth of Churchill's seven war speech volumes. Victory contains speeches from January to August 1945. Having done so much to win the war, Churchill faced frustration of his postwar plans when his wartime government fell to Labor in the General Election of July 1945. His final speech in this volume - a review of the war delivered on 16 August 1945 to the House of Commons - is delivered as Leader of the Opposition rather than as Prime Minister. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 4th pr., 1953, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Volume VIII in The History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. 435 pages, illustrated with maps (one fold-out) and b&w photos. Gilt on spine with light fading, lacks dust jacket, Dust jacket flaps pasted on front endpapers otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, New York Genealogical & Biographical Society, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with gilt lettering, 150 pages, b&w illustrations. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Oxford University Press, 1st, 1954, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light brown cloth with black lettering on spine, 301 pages. Endpapers map, frontis. portrait. Light ring stain on front cover otherwise clean, no dust jacket.

Hardcover. NY, Jewish Opinion Publishing Corporation, 1st, 1944, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover. 285 pages+ portrait frontis. Original full cloth binding, edges browned. Original dust jacket, chipped, tanning. First Edition. Stephen S. Wise (1874-1949) was born in Budapest and as a child emigrated to New York, where he received his Jewish and secular education. He was ordained as a rabbi in the New Jewish Theological Seminary and went on to become a Reform rabbi and ardent Zionist and Anti-fascist. This book was published to mark Rabbi Wise's 70th birthday. his comments on Zionism, Hitlerism, the fate of the Jews - as WW2 was drawing to a close - were enormously influential.

Softcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 416 pages. Open from 1942 until 1945, the Hollywood Canteen was the most famous of the patriotic home front nightclubs where civilian hostesses jitterbugged with enlisted men of the Allied Nations. Since the opening night, when the crowds were so thick that Bette Davis had to enter through the bathroom window to give her welcome speech, the storied dance floor where movie stars danced with soldiers has been the subject of much U.S. nostalgia about the 'Greatest Generation.' Drawing from oral histories with civilian volunteers and military guests who danced at the wartime nightclub, Sherrie Tucker explores how jitterbugging swing culture has come to represent the war in U.S. national memory. Yet her interviewees' varied experiences and recollections belie the possibility of any singular historical narrative. Some recall racism, sexism, and inequality on the nightclub's dance floor and in Los Angeles neighborhoods, dynamics at odds with the U.S. democratic, egalitarian ideals associated with the Hollywood Canteen and the 'Good War' in popular culture narratives. Clean copy in publisher's shrinkwrap.

Softcover. Carbondale IL, Southern Illinois University Press , 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, dark gray covers with some fading. 639 pages. A detailed documentary on the American Colonial Society, discussing culture, politics, religion, and much more. David Potter and Gordon L. Thomas have selected representative and important speeches and exhortations delivered by famous Americans from the beginning of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The selections are arranged in five categories--those dealing with academic, legal, occasional, political, and religious matters. They are drawn from every stratum of colonial activity--from the classrooms, clerical studies, town meetings, provincial assemblies, and the bar. Great names abound in these pages, but, frequently, expounders of great ideas found here are unremembered figures whose works cannot be found easily elsewhere. The editors have carried out careful research on each speech to assure the authenticity of the text. They have added, for each selection, a note on the speaker and on the place where he delivered his address. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Burlington VT, University of Vermont, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, light blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 276 pages. Annotated, bibliography, index. This book is described as the only comprehensive work available on Vermont local government and the first such state study in New England since the 1930's. Publisher's correction to page 232 laid in. Bookmarks on front endpaper, owner's small stamp to half-title page. Otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A Knopf, 1960, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, unclipped dust jacket, 324 pages plus index. Illustrated with 17 halftone reproductions from various sources and with line drawings by Nick Eggenhofer. A comprehensive history of the slaughter of the buffalo, the battles between the hunters and Indians. Also tells of the buffalo hunting for sport by Washington Irving and the Russian Prince Alexis. Describes Buffalo Bill's killing buffaloes to feed the men who were building a railroad across the plains. Most of the book, however chronicles the hide hunters who swarmed over the ranges in 1871 and reduced the herds of nearly forty million buffaloes to fewer than one-thousand, taking the hides and leaving the meat to rot. Bookplate on inside front cover, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 186 pages. A detailed study of the politics underlying British policies of mercantilism in the American colonies. Focusing on the political activity of interest groups in the British Empire of the eighteenth century, Professor Kammen relates political influence in Georgian England to American colonial history, to the early history of the industrial revolution, to the incredible flood of writings in the later eighteenth century on political economy, and to the dynamics of Anglo-American political society, public life, and the empire. Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New Brunswick NJ, Rutgers University Press,, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 243 pages, b&w photos. In a bright dust jacket. A much needed biography of the father of quality, live theatrical productions for television in the "golden age of television" in the 1950s is finally here. Fred Coe won multiple awards during his career, including the Emmy and Tony awards, among many others.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin , 4th pr., 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, red textured cloth stamped in gilt, 273 pages, in a lightly worn dust jacket, unclipped. SIGNED BY JOHNSON on the half title page: "With best wishes, Lyndon B Johnson". While not personally inscribed, this volume comes from the library of Holmes Baldridge who worked in Truman's Justice Department in the early 1950s. Probably a secretarial signature although a check of Johnson's autograph versus suspected secretary signatures is not conclusive.

Hardcover. NY, Da Capo Press, reprint, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with gilt lettering on spine, front cover. 280 pages plus index. Facsimile reprint from 1777. Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Hardcover. New York , The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1st, 1942, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 275 pages. Blue cloth cover with gilt lettering. Edges and corners and worn and bumped, faint smudges on cloth. Previous owner's inscription on front flyleaf. Pages untrimmed, some unopened. Some foxing on front and rear endpapers. Otherwise, inside is bright and clean, with many b&w illustrations throughout.

Hardcover. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with light edgewear, 460 pages. Translated by Lawrence Lipson. A vivid historical narrative of the US military intervention in Central America. Uncommon. Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.

Softcover. Maryville MO, Maryville Tribune, 1s6t, 1899, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, unpaginated but about 100 pages."A Photographic Reproduction of Public Buildings, Prominent People, Picturesque Scenes, Pretty Homes". A souvenir booklet published by the local paper. Nice condition, Clean.

Hardcover. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 250 pages. b&w illustrations. The Progressive Era promoted a vision of America united by an emphasis on science and progressive reform. The zeal to modernize business, government and social relations extended to farm families and the ways women defined their roles. In this study of the expert advice offered by the domestic economy movement, Holt argues that women were not passive receptors of these views. Seeing their place in agriculture as multi-faceted and important, they eagerly accepted improved education and many modern appliances but often rejected suggestions conflicting with their own views of the rewards and values of farm life. Progressive reform inevitably left a mixed legacy; science and technology did not perfect rural society. But many programs such as 4-H and Master Homemaker still exist and are still shaped by women's desire to preserve and pass on the possibilities of rural life. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 2nd pr., 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 390 pages. With 30-page booklet outlining speeches laid-in, containing a number of press blurbs supporting Hoover's ideas. Scribner's colophon on copyeight page but no A, so assumed 2nd printing. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NP, Privately Printed, 1st, 1987, Hardcover, brown cloth stamped in gilt. 84 pages illustrated with 25 b&w photos and a town map. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Salem MA, Peabody Museum of Salem, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Four softcover journals, 307 pages total, b&w illustrations. Light cover wear, some dog-earred pages. Clean set. Scholarly essays covering a wide spectrum of maritime history.

Hardcover. Baltimore, Genealogical Publishing Company, 2nd pr., 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth stamped with gilt lettering, 608 pages. After the Revolutionary War, the federal government awarded bounty lands to citizens and soldiers for services rendered. In its simplest form, this involved the exchange of free land for military service. Federal records of these Revolutionary War bounty land awards are well known and readily accessible to genealogists. But the federal government was not alone in rewarding its citizens and soldiers with bounty lands. Nine state governments adopted similar policies, generating even more records. Unlike the federal bounty land records, however, these state records are not centralized; instead, they are found in the various states in the form of manuscript records and printed books and are all but inaccessible to the researcher. Until now, that is! Because with this work by Lloyd Bockstruck we now have a master index to state bounty land records, a Revolutionary War resource unparalleled for freshness, originality, and research potential. The nine states that awarded bounty lands in their western reserves or on their western borders (directly affecting the future states of Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Ohio, and Tennessee) are Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. (The basis for the Connecticut and Georgia awards, by the way, differ from the norm.) Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. Delhi, Oxford University Press, USA, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 426 pages. Light wear to dust jacket with small closed tear to upper edge of rear cover. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Indianapolis/NY, Bobbs-Merrill, 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn dust jacket, 490 pages, b&w frontis. Rush, the Philadelphia doctor who signed the Declaration of Independence, was an energetic, ambitious man given to devising reforms and, as the author puts it, meddling in politics. He studied medicine in Edinburgh and London, meeting Hume, Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, et al. and, Hawke thinks, solidifying his republican disposition. Back in Pennsylvania he agitated for independence, made friends with John Adams, urged Paine to write Common Sense, and entered Congress. Apart from the recurrent epidemics of the age, the practice of military medicine and propaganda for resuming debt payments occupied Rush during the war; afterwards he turned to progressive education, speculated in land, fought paper money, equivocally supported the abolition of slavery, declared that tobacco is unhealthful, and boosted the Constitution before it was even written. Dust jacket chipped, faded in parts, clean internally.

Hardcover. NY, Macmillan , 2nd pr., 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 274 pages, clean copy.

Hardcover. Brooklyn NY, Zone Books, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 594 pages, b&w illustrations. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on the title page. In this long-awaited study, Claudio Lomnitz tells an unprecedented story about the experience and ideology of American and Mexican revolutionary collaborators of the Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magon. Based on extensive research in American and Mexican archives, Lomnitz explores the rich, complicated, and virtually unknown lives of Magon and his comrades devoted to the "Mexican Cause." This anthropological history of anarchy, cooperation, and betrayal seeks to capture the experience and meaning of these dedicated militants who themselves struggled to understand their role and place at the margins of the Mexican Revolution. For them, the revolution was untranslatable, a pure but deaf subversion: "La revolucion es la revolucion." For Lomnitz, their experiences reveal the meaning of this phrase.

Softcover. Princeton, NJ, Markus Weiner Publishers, 1st English Translation, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 327 pages. Softcover. B/w illustrations throughout. Decorated wrapper, excellent. Pages clean and bright. Binding good. Like new copy. This fascinating study of eunuchs guides readers as they travel through various lands and periods, familiarizing themselves with the duties and responsibilities, the unspeakable torments, and the passions and joys of these individuals.

Hardcover. Cleveland, Ohio, Alexander T. Bunts, 1st, 1938, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 219 pages. Limited first edition copy. Minor fading on blue cloth cover. Faded sticker mark on front flyleaf. Otherwise, a very clean and tight copy.

Hardcover. Westholme Publishing, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 374 pages, b&w illustrations. Bright, clean. INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR on title page. "Early in the afternoon of May 22, 1856, ardent pro-slavery Congressman Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina strode into the United States Senate Chamber in Washington, D.C., and began beating renowned anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner with a cane until it splintered and the helpless Massachusetts senator lay unconscious and covered in blood. One of the most shocking and provocative events in American history, the caning convinced each side that the gulf between them was unbridgeable and that they could no longer discuss their vast differences of opinion regarding slavery on any reasonable level."