history

Softcover. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 536 pages. Illustrated in color and black-and-white. A landmark study of California's visual arts and poetry, 1925 to 1975, Utopia and Dissent demonstrates the profound influence this regional culture had on American art and thought. Bookselle's label on rear cover, wrinkle to page 513, otherwise clean, very good.

Hardcover. New York, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 3rd Printing, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 426 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Sunfading to dust jacket. Light soiling to textblock edges. Otherwise a very clean, unmarked copy with only minor dust jacket wear. A tight copy. Black and white illustrations throughout.

Softcover. NY, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1st pbk., 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 218 pages with 256 b&w illustrations. From cover: "describes the ideals that inspired an earlier generation to leave city and factory in order to practice crafts ranging from bookbinding and metalwork to furniture making." Mild curl to cover, otherwise very good, clean.

Hardcover. Salt Lake City, Peregrine Smith, Inc, 1st US, 1980, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 218 pages. Green cloth cover with gilt lettering to spine, color illustrated dust jacket, 256 b&w plates, some in color. Light wear to dust jacket; overall a tight, clean copy.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Belknap Press / Harvard University Press, 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 896 pages. This masterly study has a grand sweep. It ranges over centuries, with a long look backward over several millennia. Yet the history it unfolds is primarily the story of individuals: thinkers and dreamers who envisaged an ideal social order and described it persuasively, leaving a mark on their own and later times. The roster of utopians includes men of all stripes in different countries and eras--figures as disparate as More and Fourier, the Marquis de Sade and Edward Bellamy, Rousseau and Marx. Fascinating character studies of the major figures are among the delights of the book. 1980 National Book Award winner. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, 1st, 1977, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 435 pages, b&w illustrations. An illustrated world history of the Yiddish theatre covering five continents and more than 300 years. Mild wear to rear panel of dust jacket, clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, George H. Doran, 1st, 1915, Hardcover, black cloth covers with gilt title, top edge gilt. 523 pages, b&w photos. The author wrote this book to depict and commemorate "leading representatives of the Stage". He writes about: William Warren, laura Keene, Matilda Heron, Lester Wallack, James W. Wallace, Mark Smith, Edward Adams, Henry J. Montague; Edwin Booth, Augustin Daly, Henry Irving, Johnston Forbes-Robertson, Edward H. Sothern and Julia Marlowe. Index. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. New York, Rizzoli , 1st, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 280 pages. Like new in publisher's shrink-wrap. Valentina was the twentieth century's first American fashion designer celebrity, working and living on equal social footing with the clientele she dressed (Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, Millicent Rogers, and Audrey Hepburn, among others). One of the few designers who proved that America could live without the Parisian haute couture, her career is a much needed missing link in the history of American fashion. Beyond merely turning out show-stopping evening gowns, Valentina's exotic beauty, dramatic personality, and incomparable style earned her a legendary reputation. Kohle Yohannan explores the carefully constructed persona and lore of this designer who helped define American Couture. Published in association with the Museum of the City of New York's exhibition Valentina: New York Couture and the Cult of Celebrity, this book includes photographs, never-before-seen personal ephemera, sketches, and original platinum prints from master photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, and George Hoyningen-Huene.

Hardcover. NY, Valentine's Manual Inc., 3rd pr., 1926, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth stamped in gold, 388 pages. With a beautiful and elaborate color illuminated title-page with gilt, color frontispiece, five double-page color plates and countless illustrations both throughout the text and on sepia printed plates. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. University of South Carolina Press, Supreme Council, Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, 1st, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 269 pages. " ...a fascinating journey through the history of Scottish Rite in America. This comprehensive pictorial history provides valuable insights into the critical role masons have played throughout our nation's history." b/w, sepia, & color plates throughout. In Valley of the Craftsmen, the story of "higher degree" Freemasonry is depicted through portraits, official papers, material objects, photographs, buildings, and stagecraft. Featuring many previously unpublished images, Valley of the Craftsmen begins with rare illustrations of the English and French philosophical sources that were projected upon an American landscape vitalized and transformed by the concept of fraternity. The story is framed by American popular culture and the serious private effort of individual men in small towns and expansive cities who were intent on developing a moral life in service to their communities. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Illinois, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 1908, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 582 pages. Dark blue cloth covers, gilt titles. Very slight edgewear, previous owner's short ink inscription to front endpaper, pencil notations to rear endpaper, light pencil underlining to a handful of pages; overall, a very neat, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1967, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket with light edgewear. In 1945, a previously unknown Vermeer was discovered by the Allied Art Commission in the collection of Hermann Goering. The question arose: where - and how - did Goering acquire it? From the investigation came a story that rocked the art world. The trail finally led to Han van Meegeren, an obscure painter who had sold seven authenticated Vermeers over a number of years. Faced with a possible death sentence for collaborating in a sale of a national treasure to the Nazis, van Meegeren insisted he had not helped the Nazi cause: he had painted all the Vermeers himself. Needless to say, nobody believed him - until he proved he was telling the truth by painting still another Vermeer, before the eyes of an astonished jury. Here, with 24 pages of illustrations, is the story of the audacious forger who fooled the most eminent art critics, yet failed to impress them with his own paintings. Lord Kilbracken offers an exhaustive study of van Meegeren's background - his motives , his two marriages, and all the pieces of the puzzle that go to make up an understandable complex human being. With fascinating detail he also makes it clear exactly how the incredibly bold deception was executed - and why it worked. The result is an eminently readable true account that has all the narrative excitement of a thriller. No markings.

Hardcover. London, Allen Lane, 1st, 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 830 pages. Europe's history is littered with kingdoms, duchies, empires and republics which have now disappeared but which were once fixtures on the map of their age - 'the Empire of Aragon' which once dominated the western Mediterranean; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for a time the largest country in Europe; the successive kingdoms (and one duchy) of Burgundy, much of whose history is now half-remembered - or half-forgotten - at best. This book shows the reader how to peer through the cracks of mainstream history writing and listen to the echoes of lost realms across the centuries. Illustrated in color and b&w. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Viking Studio, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. This lavish, photo-laden tour of Tinsel Town's history is coffee-table condensation of 87 years of Vanity Fair coverage of the Hollywood scene. Visually, it's a thrilling compendium of images that have defined not only the film industry and its workers but how the American public has understood them. Ranging from Edward Steichen's iconographic black-and-white portraits of Louise Brooks, Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg, and Gloria Swanson (which defined the "look" of Hollywood in its first half-century) to the contemporary and often shocking color photographs of Annie Leibovitz (of nearly everyone from Sylvester Stallone and John Travolta to Cate Blanchette and Johnny Depp)Dand peppered with shots by Bruce Weber, Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Griege Hurrell and othersDthe book traces how these stars have come to embody pop mythologies of everyday life. The photos are interspersed among 13 (mostly short) essays by writers as diverse as Carl Sandberg, Patricia Bosworth, P.G. Wodehouse, Dorothy Parker, Peter Biskind and D.H. Lawrence, which range from the humorous to the illuminating. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Abrams, 1st, 2008, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 384 pages, 100 color, 200 b&w images by the world's best photographers. Essays by Christopher Hichens, others. In publisher's shrinkwrap. Vanity Fair: The Portraits brings together 300 iconic portraits from Vanity Fair's 95-year history in a remarkable book that captures the image of modern fame--the magical thing that happens when individual talent and beauty (and sometimes genius) is caught in the spotlight of popular curiosity and passion. The photographers--from Edward Steichen and Cecil Beaton to Annie Leibovitz and Mario Testino--are a glittering and celebrated group themselves. Their portraits have become the iconic likenesses of the best-known figures from the worlds of art, film, music, sports, business, and politics.

Softcover. NY, Atheneum, reprint, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 314 pages. The roles of planter and slave in a changing plantation society in Brazil. Clean, bright copy.

Hardcover. London, National Gallery , 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 256 pages, illustrated throughout in color. Light shelf-wear to dust jacket with small scratch on front cover. Clean, tight copy. With over 150 illustrations and an in-depth chronology, this beautifully produced and comprehensive book surveys Velazquez's entire career and explores his universal popularity. Fascinating essays by world-class Velazquez scholars address the artist's life and technique, examining his studies in Seville and Italy to his final great works at the court of Philip IV.

Hardcover. NY, Nan A. Talese / Doubleday, 1st US, 2009, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, demi dust jacket. The history, cultural life, customs and social life of Venice. 403 pages. Chronology, Bibliography, Index. Two 8 page sections of full color illustrations, and two of black and white; b/w drawings at each chapter head. Clean copy.

Hardcover. New York, Longmans, Green and Co., 1st, 1928, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 217 pages, b&w plates. Edgewear, chipping, light soiling to dust jacket; in brodart. Else a very clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. GR, DZA Verlag fur Kultur und Wissenschaft, 1st, 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 161 pages, no dust jacket, pictorial boards. A collection of essays and photographs on the city of Dresden, ending in it's destruction at the end of WWII. Foreward by Herbert Wagner.

France, Michelin & Co., 1st, 1931, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 176 pages. Guide book to WW1 battlefield, illust. with black & white photos, maps (color two-page of Verdun). End-pages with ads. Previous owner's signature front endpaper. Dust jacket in excellent condition.

Softcover. UK, Antony Rowe, reprint, nd, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 112 pages, b&w illustrations. 178 b/w photos. The great German assault on Verdun opened on 21 February 1916 and the battle went on with furious attacks and counterattacks till it finally petered out on 18 December, ten months later, some two and a half months longer than the British offensives of the Somme and Third Ypres combined. After describing the origins and conduct of the battle with maps and illustrations the book takes us on a tour of the town and of various parts of the battlefield with its numerous forts. Originally published in 1919 by Michelin. Clean copy.

Softcover. Middlebury VT, privately printed, reprint., 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, green card wraps, 151 pages. Clean copy.

Softcover. Lanham MD, Rowman & Littlefield , 1st, 2003, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 349 pages. In Vergil's Empire, Eve Adler offers an exciting new interpretation of the political thought of Vergil's Aeneid. Adler argues that in this epic poem, Vergil presents the theoretical foundations of a new political order, one that resolves the conflict between scientific enlightenment and ancestral religion that permeated the ancient world. The work concentrates on Vergil's response to the physics, psychology, and political implications of Lucretius' Epicurean doctrine expressed in De Rerum Natura. Proceeding by a close analysis of the Aeneid, Adler examines Vergil's critique of Carthage as a model of universal enlightenment, his positive doctrine of Rome as a model of universal religion, and his criticism of the heroism of Achilles, Odysseus, and Epicurus in favor of the heroism of Aeneas. Beautifully written and clearly argued, Vergil's Empire will be of great value to all interested in the classical world. Clean copy.