Softcover. State University of New York Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 285 pages. This book charts new directions in Egyptian social history, providing the first systematic account of adaptation and protest among crafts and service workers in Egypt in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using a wealth of new sources, John T. Chalcraft challenges conventional notions of craft stagnation and decline by recovering the largely unknown histories of crafts workers' restructuring in the face of world economic integration, and their petitions, demonstrations, and strike-action at a time of state-building and colonial rule. Chalcraft demonstrates the economic importance of petty producers and service providers, and tells the story of widespread collective assertion couched in new discourses of citizenship and nationalism. He also gives a new interpretation of the end of the guilds in Egypt and addresses larger debates about unevenness under capitalism. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 244 pages. B&w drawings by Edward Ardizzone. Nobody believed Hugsy Goode when he prophesied that a tunnel lay beneath the alley until--generations later--Nicholas (alias Copin) and Timothy (alias Tornid) decide to explore. And lo and behold, right under the vine-covered hole outside the house where Hugsy Goode used to live, they find an entrance to adventures beyond their wildest dreams. A sequel to The Alley. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Philadelphia/NY, J.P. Lippincott, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in blue cloth covers stamped in black and gilt. Stated First Edition, SIGNED BY PULLEN on a prelim page. Pullen's classic and highly acclaimed book tells how Chamberlain and his men fought at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville on their way to the pivotal battle of Gettysburg. Small ownership sticker on the front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Grove Press, 1st, 2019, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 376 pages. A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom's The Yellow House tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America's most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother's struggle against a house's entropy, and that of a prodigal daughter who left home only to reckon with the pull that home exerts, even after the Yellow House was wiped off the map after Hurricane Katrina. The Yellow House expands the map of New Orleans to include the stories of its lesser known natives, guided deftly by one of its native daughters, to demonstrate how enduring drives of clan, pride, and familial love resist and defy erasure. Located in the gap between the "Big Easy" of tourist guides and the New Orleans in which Broom was raised, The Yellow House is a brilliant memoir of place, class, race, the seeping rot of inequality, and the internalized shame that often follows. It is a transformative, deeply moving story from an unparalleled new voice of startling clarity, authority, and power. A first printing of the winner of the 2019 National Book Award in nonfiction. Clean copy.
Hardcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 238 pages. Theodosius I was the last Roman emperor to rule over both East and West. After the military disaster of Adrianople he had to rebuild the state by adopting a new policy of cooperation with the barbarians. He also suppressed paganism and established a unified Catholic Church by law. His reign was a turning point in the history of the late Roman Empire. The authors describe the military, political, and religious struggles of this turbulent period and analyze the far-reaching effects of his policies in the fourth and fifth centuries. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Viking, 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 728 pages. The long-awaited biography of the genius who masterminded Henry VIII's bloody revolution in the English government, which reveals at last Cromwell's role in the downfall of Anne Boleyn. Since the sixteenth century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell. History has not been kind to the son of a Putney brewer who became the architect of England's split with Rome. Where past biographies portrayed him as a scheming operator with blood on his hands, Hilary Mantel reimagined him as a far more sympathetic figure buffered by the whims of his master. So which was he--the villain of history or the victim of her creation? MacCulloch sifted through letters and court records for answers and found Cromwell's fingerprints on some of the most transformative decisions of Henry's turbulent reign. But he also found Cromwell the man, an administrative genius, rescuing him from myth and slander. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st US, 1895, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth stamped in black and white and gilt, 339 pages. An historical novel written in the late 19th century. This work vividly recounts the harrowing retreat of Napoleon's army from Moscow, depicted through the eyes of a central character, Sergeant Julian Wyatt, who embodies the spirit and challenges faced during this tumultuous time. With eight full page illustrations by W. H. Overend and three maps.
Hardcover. London, Angus and Robertson, 1st UK, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket. General, minister of war, prime minister, and unrepentant ultranationalist, Hideki Tojo was the most powerful leader in the Japanese government during World War II. This clear and compelling portrait of Tojo illuminates the spartan, single-minded, incorruptible personality of the man who chose war rather than succumb to U.S.-induced economic strangulation. 20 photos. 288 pages. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Norton, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. In Sawgamet, a north woods boomtown gone bust, the cold of winter breaks the glass of the schoolhouse thermometer, and the dangers of working in the cuts are overshadowed by the mysteries and magic lurking in the woods. Stephen, a pastor, is at home on the eve of his mother's funeral, thirty years after the mythic summer his grandfather returned to the town in search of his beloved but long-dead wife. And like his grandfather, Stephen is forced to confront the losses of his past. Touch introduces you to a world where monsters and witches oppose singing dogs and golden caribou, where the living and the dead part and meet again in the crippling beauty of winter and the surreal haze of summer.
Hardcover. NY, Macmillan, 1st, 1905, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, green cloth stamped in white and gilt, 349 pages, b&w illustrations, top edge gilt. Chronicles the daring explorers who crossed oceans from the West to the far shores of the North Pacific. From the dawn of Russian and European ambitions to the first American and British voyages, the book weaves together the lives, motives, and trials of men who chased a sea of unknowns. It presents a vivid look at discovery, rivalry, and the costs of pushing beyond the maps. Drawing on primary sources, Laut illustrates the fierce competition for discovery and dominance in the fur trade among these intrepid adventurers. Previous owner's signature on front fly leaf, mild wear to top of spine, otherwise a clean, tight copy.
Softcover. Annapolis MD, Naval Institute Press, reprint, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 509 pages, b&w illustrations. Based on twenty years of research in formerly secret archives, this book reveals for the first time the full significance of War Plan Orange -- the U.S. Navy's strategy to defeat Japan, formulated over the forty years prior to World War II. The author does a good job of describing how the plan changed over time regarding possible objectives (rescuing Philippines, capturing Truk, making Guam into the "Gibraltar of the Pacific) as well as the different groups who pushed for their vision on how to best execute the plan from the gung-ho thrusters to the cautionaries to name the major approaches. The book also details the interplay between the navy and the army as they worked together to create a global plan of war as the world became more dangerous in the 1930's (the Rainbow Plans). The work concludes with an analysis of just how successful all the effort that went into creating Plan Orange was to the waging of the Pacific War in 1941-45. Clean copy.
Softcover. Forest VA, TLC Publishing, 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 128 pages, profusely illustrated in b&w. This book outlines the history of railroading in West Virginia from the earliest entry of Baltimore & Ohio into what was then western Virginia up to the 1860s. In addition to B&O, Chesapeake & Ohio, Western Maryland, Norfolk & Western, and Virginian have major chapters. Smaller sections cover the New York Central, short lines, logging railroads, and others that had only a smaller presence in the state. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Boston, Mariner Books, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 253 pages, b&w illustrations. From a longtime New Yorker staff cartoonist, an evocative family memoir, a love letter to New York City, and a delightful exploration of the origins of creativity--richly interleaved with the author's witty, beloved cartoons. David Sipress, a dreamer and obsessive drawer living with his Upper West Side family in the age of JFK and Sputnik, goes hazy when it comes to the ceaselessly imparted lessons-on-life from his meticulous father and the angsty expectations of his migraine-prone mother. With wry and brilliantly observed prose, Sipress paints his hapless place in the family, from the time he is tricked by his unreliable older sister into rocketing his pet turtle out his twelfth-floor bedroom window to the moment he walks away from a Harvard PhD program in Russian history to begin his life as a professional cartoonist. Sipress's cartoons appear in the story with spot-on precision, inducing delightful Aha! moments in answer to the perennial question aimed at cartoonists: Where do you get your ideas?
Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 179 pages. Whatever Gets You through the Night is an irreverent and deeply funny retelling of the Arabian Nights and a wildly inspired exploration of the timeless art of storytelling. Award-winning writer Andrei Codrescu re-imagines how Sheherezade saved Baghdad's virgins and her own life through a heroic feat of storytelling-one that kept the Persian king Sharyar hanging in agonizing narrative and erotic suspense for 1001 nights. For Sheherezade, the end of either suspense or curiosity means death, but Codrescu keeps both alive in this entertaining tale of how she learned to hold a king in thrall, setting with her endless invention an unsurpassable example for all storytellers across the ages. Liberated and mischievous, Codrescu's Sheherezade is as charming as she is shrewd-and so is the story Codrescu tells.
Hardcover. Washington DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 292 pages, b&w illustrations. SIGNED BY BOTH AUTHORS on the title page. Additionally INSCRIBED BY COHN on the dedication page. Kevin J. Crisman and Arthur B. Cohn show how a confluence of geographic, technological, economic, and social conditions in the United States and Canada turned an ancient idea into a practical alternative to more expensive and dangerous steamboats. Reviewing evidence from travelers' memoirs, regional histories, pictorial records, and the only horseboat ever studied by archaeologists - a wreck on the floor of Lake Champlain's Burlington Bay, in Vermont - the authors trace the evolution of horseboats from early mechanisms that forced the animals to walk in tight circles to "endless floor" treadmills that resembled modern exercise machines. In a lively narrative interspersed with quotes from passenger accounts, the book charts the rise and demise of horseboat businesses on the Hudson River, as well as in New York City, St. Louis, and Halifax, Nova Scotia. The authors also describe and record the underwater excavation of the Lake Champlain wreck, revealing a wealth of detail about the construction and operation of a typical treadwheel horseboat of the 1830s and 1840s. Clean copy.
Softcover. Santa Barbara CA, Capra Press, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, Capra Chapbook Series No. 27, 50 pages. Small trade paper original simultaneous with scarcer hardcover issue. A collection of early poems by Ursula K. Le Guin, edited by Robert Durand and Noel Young, with a frontispiece portrait of the author by illustrator James Brunsman. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Holiday House, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 132 pages. Illustrated throughout with Jackson's black and white photographs. In this fascinating book, Laurie Lawlor tells parallel stories of the settling of the western United States and the wanderings of a man who captured much of that history in singular and beautiful photographs. Lawlor includes forty of Jackson's photographs as illustrations for her narrative. Bibliography, timeline, glossary, and index. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Washington DC, National Geographic Books, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 207 pages. Recounted in gripping words and unforgettable images, Avakian's remarkable experiences will draw readers into the Muslim world to meet friends and terrorists, leaders and thieves and everyday people. She lived and worked for two years in the Gaza strip, often in Islamic dress, once beaten bloody by Hamas. For several terrifying days in Somalia she was pinned down by sniper fire on the way to her hotel. She careened across the snowy Tien-Shen Mountains with Islamic fundamentalists in an ancient Lada, only to be detained and tossed out by the Uzbek KGB. All the while, she captured some of the most important stories of our time-the famine in Sudan, the violence in Gaza and Somalia, the daily life of Hezbollah. She traveled extensively with Yasser Arafat as one of the only non-Arab photographers given such access. Small scar to front of dust jacket otherwise a clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Dutton Caliber, 1st, 2022, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 324 pages, b&w illustrations. When the P-51 Mustang began tearing across European skies in early 1944, the Allies had been losing the air war for years. Staggering numbers of bomber crews, both British and American, had been shot down and killed thanks to the Luftwaffe's superior fighter force. Not only did the air war appear grim, but any landing of troops in France was impossible while German fighters hunted overhead. But behind the scenes, a team of visionaries had begun to design a bold new type of airplane, one that could outrun and outmaneuver Germany's best. Wings of War is the incredible true story of the P-51 Mustang fighter and the unlikely crew of designers, engineers, test pilots, and army officers who brought it from the drafting table to the skies over World War II. This is hardly a straightforward tale of building an airplane--for years, the team was stymied by corruption within the defense industry and stonewalled by the Army Air Forces, who failed to understand the Mustang's potential. But when squadrons of Mustangs were finally unleashed over Hitler's empire, the Luftwaffe was decimated within months, clearing the skies for D-Day. Clean copy.
Softcover. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1st US, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 193 pages. Most European prosecutions for the crime of witchcraft occurred between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the peak coming in the hundred years after 1560. This volume brings together the large amount of recent scholarship on witchcraft of this period and provides a novel analysis of the trials by considering the legal systems involved. Witch hunts, methods of torture, and the scientific interest in magic spells and demonology as an intellectual pursuit are also covered in detail. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Blackie & Son, reprint, nd, Hardcover, red cloth covers stamped in 2-colors. 384 pages illustrated with three maps and a color frontis and 4 b&w plates by William Rainey. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st US, 1901, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth stamped in 3-colors plus gilt on front cover and spine, 393 pages plus publishers ads in rear. with twelve b&w illustrations by William Rainey, and a map.
Hardcover. Carbondale IL, Southern Illinois University Press, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 524 pages. Top edge gilt. This fifth volume of Horace Traubel's "With Walt Whitman in Camden" is the first to appear in print without the benefit of a final reading by the author. His wife, Gertrude Traubel, corrected only obvious slips and unnecessary repetitions, checking references that seemed unclear. While the manuscript was sometimes difficult to decipher, it was never in disjointed notes, but always a continuous narrative. Final volume of Horace Traubel's compilation of his daily conversations with poet Walt Whitman, capturing much of the poet's philosophy. Traubel was Whitman s intimate friend, biographer, and literary executor. Clean copy.