History American

Hardcover. NY, Walker Books, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 214 pages. Over the past couple of decades, our national debt has become a favorite political football for Democrats and Republicans alike. Yet few Americans seem aware that the debt has a long and (mostly) honorable history. Alexander Hamilton considered it a kind of political Krazy Glue, which would also spur American industry by keeping taxes high. This borrowing power enabled the North to win the Civil War without wrecking its economy and rescued us from the Great Depression. John Steele Gordon doesn't deny the dangers of an entire nation living on credit; indeed, he believes that our fiscal affairs are a mess. But he puts this mess in fascinating perspective. And he's quick to see the human side of economic behavior: "One problem," he writes, "is that human nature predisposes us to recognize depression easily and quickly, but prosperity, like happiness, is most easily seen in retrospect." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. NY, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1st, 1874, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 256 pages. Fold-out frontis, b&w Illustrations, very nice, clean copy. Written by "two of its teachers." Includes "Fifty Cabin and Plantation Songs" arranged by Thomas P. Fenner. Illustrated with a four-fold engraved frontispiece, depicting several of the school's buildings as seen from the water, and many other engravings. An interesting account of the school, including a brief history of Virginia and of slavery and its aftermath in that state, and one of the earliest publications of slave music.

Softcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, reprint, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 248 pages. Copybooks and the Palmer method, handwriting analysis and autograph collecting - these words conjure up a lost world, in which people looked to handwriting as both a lesson in conformity and a talisman of individuality. In this engaging history, ranging from colonial times to the present, Tamara Plakins Thornton explores the shifting functions and meanings of handwriting in America.

Hardcover. NY, Time Life, reprint, 1982, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 402 pages. Hardcover with no dust jacket. Dark blue leather bound with gilt titles to front cover and spine. Embossed decoration on front cover. Gilt text block edges, red ribbon marker. Clean, tight copy. Most histories of the Civil War focus on battles and top brass. Hardtack and Coffee is one of the few to give a vivid, detailed picture of what ordinary soldiers endured every dayaEUR"in camp, on the march, at the edge of a booming, smoking hell. John D. Billings of Massachusetts enlisted in the Army of the Potomac and curvived the conditions he recorded. The authenticity of his book is heightened by the many drawings that a comrade, Charles W. Reed, made in the field. This is the story of how the Civil War soldier was recruited, provisioned, and disciplined. Described here are the types of men found in any outfit; their not very uniform uniforms; crowded tents and makeshift shelters; difficulties in keeping clean, warm, and dry; their pleasure in a cup of coffee; food rations, dominated by salt pork and the versatile cracker or hardtack; their brave pastimes in the face of death; punishments for various offenses; treatment in sick bay; firearms and signals and modes of transportation. Comprehensive and anecdotal, Hardtack and Coffee is striking for the pulse of life that runs through it.

Hardcover. Naperville IL, Sourcebooks MediaFusion, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. 502 pages, b&w illustrations. For three decades after World War I, Harlem was the site of burgeoning racial and cultural awareness and ambitions among African Americans. In the opening section of this book, Wintz provides the historical context for what became known as the Harlem Renaissance. In separate sections devoted to poetry, music, politics, art, and the phenomenon of the New Negro, contributors profile many of the era's major figures, including Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Josephine Baker, W. E. B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, A. Phillip Randolph, and Marcus Garvey. The essays place the Harlem Renaissance in the broader context of an awakening of black culture throughout the U.S. The book contains references to the accompanying CD, which offers 60 minutes of music, poetry, interviews, performances, and speeches, giving voice to the vibrant life of Harlem. Photographs, drawings, book covers, and posters add to the richness of this collection. A fabulous resource on the Harlem Renaissance.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 599 pages. Don't pick up this fascinating, deeply eccentric book expecting to find a conventional biography of Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926). The fiery American labor leader who founded the Socialist Party of America is not so much the subject as the central figure in a group portrait of utopian dreamers--including Karl Marx, Brigham Young, abolitionist Wendell Phillips, poet James Whitcomb Riley, and detective-agency founder Allan Pinkerton--from the time of the French Revolution through the dawn of the 20th century. Author Marguerite Young is a legendary Greenwich Village bohemian who died in 1995. She devoted the last 25 years of her life to this volume, which was intended as a recapitulation of the issues that had engaged Debs - justice for workers, peace for everyone, racial equality - and continued to galvanize America in the 1960s and beyond. Young doesn't provide a lot of straight factual information about Debs's life, but takes instead a snapshot of his soul as it was formed by reading and experience. The narrative closes (sort of) with the national railroad strike of 1877, a bitter defeat for labor that turned railroad worker and union activist Debs toward greater radicalism. Though not a work for the traditionally minded, Young's genre-bending book will thrill students of American social and socialist history. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Harper and Brothers, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, bound volume of every issue for 1863. Profusely illustrated, Exceptional condition. Clean. Extra shipping charges may apply. DUE TO WEIGHT, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. New York, Harry N. Abrams, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 288 pages, illustrated throughout in color and b&w. Brown cloth, pictorial dust jacket. Beautiful copy in shrinkwrap. Like new. The first biography of the couple who created the landmark collection that is still the base of most American museums.

Hardcover. NY, David Mckay, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 329 pages. "This volume puts together as a continuous narrative the diary of Rutherford B. Hayes from March, 1875 to March 1881 - covering his nomination as the Republican candidate, the campaign of 1876, the disputed election and its compromise, and his Presidency. It is based on a typed copy of the original manuscript supplied by The Rutherford B. Hayes Library of Fremont, Ohio, and its director, Watt P. Marchman. Hayes was an inveterate diary keeper from his youth to his old age. In this record of the presidential years the diary is reproduced virtually in facsimile form. All misspellings, errors in punctuation, and other eccentricities have been retained, as have the deletions and gaps in the original copy." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University, 1st, 1989, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 504 pages, b&w photographs. Newspaper and magazine clippings laid in. Light edge wear to dust jacket. Else a clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Cambridge University Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 346 pages, b&w photographs. This book shows how Henry Robinson Luce used his famous magazines to advance his interventionist agenda in Cold War China, Korea, Japan, and above all, Vietnam. This is the first balanced work on Luce and his influence, using hitherto undiscovered or inaccessible sources. Luce saw the American Century as the heir to the fading British Empire; he failed to see the hubris and cultural blindness that would lead to disaster in Vietnam - a disaster for which his magazines paved the way. Remainder mark on top edge. Else a very clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Funk & Wagnalls , 1st, 1893, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth. b&w frontis. portrait, 541 page biography, works of the great nineteenth century American preacher, lecturer, orator, and journalist. From the American Reformers Series. Spine is sunned, gilt lettering on the cover. Ex-lib with endpapers marked, stamped. Interior clean.

Hardcover. NY, Columbia University Press, 1st, 1957, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a price-clipped dust jacket, 160 pages. ".based on the Gino Speranza Lectures delivered in Columbia University by Broadus Mitchell as a part of the national celebration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Alexander Hamilton." Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin , 1st, 1929, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, illustrations by F.C. Yohn. Color frontispiece. illustrated end papers. Book store stamp on rear paste-down. light edgewear, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Paris, Corbet Aine Libraire, 1st Thus, 1836, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 2 leather bound volumes. FRENCH TEXT. Black & white illustrations, each volume with fold-out map in rear. Volume 1 with rubbing, chipping to leather covers. 1" piece of leather missing at bottom of spine. Marbled endpapers. Light foxing throughout. Volume 2 with rubbing, chipping to leather covers. Marbled endpapers. Light to moderate foxing throughout. Both volumes with clean, unmarked texts.

Hardcover. New York, Robert Carter & Brothers, Reprint, 1867, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 184 pages. Previous owners name on front endpaper. Foxing to pages. Cloth covers rubbed along edges and corners. Chipping to cloth at top and bottom of spine.

Softcover. Bowie MD, Heritage Books, reprint, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 608 pages, b&w illustrations, fold-out map in front. Includes Preface; Counties, Townships, Villages; and Index. Illustrated with 230 engravings, double-page map of New York, and engraved frontispiece portraits. "This wonderful volume belongs in the bookcase of all New York historians. More than 150 years old, this ancient text is rich in historical perspective and information that is no longer available to the modern researcher. The work begins with a general outline of New York history. Thereafter, the book is arranged alphabetically by county. Dictionary-like entries for each town are listed alphabetically within each county section. The entries give the location and history of each town, including date of settlement, famous and notable residents, important events, population statistics, number of dwellings, churches and schools, local Indians, and so on. Comprehensively annotated and profusely illustrated with engravings of towns, historic structures and distinctive natural features. Contains an index of counties, townships and villages plus a separate index of subjects and full names. Facsimile reprint of the 1842 edition. Clean, like new.

Softcover. New York, Ballentine Books, 1st, 1985, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 235 pages. Top right corner edge wear with small page corner curling. Small chip missing from colored paper on top spine. Clean, tight copy featuring the 50's to the 80's of the TV show, American Bandstand. Includes photos.

Hardcover. New York , D. Appleton and Company, 1st, 1899, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 519 pages. Blue cloth with gilded lettering. Top edge gilt. Minor bump on edges and spine. Previous owner inscription on front fly leaf. Many b&w illustrations by various artists. Nice, clean interior.

Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue cloth with gilt lettering on spine, 504 pages including index. Bright, square copy, no marking. important work. Concerns the Nativist Movements, the Klan, the Protocols, the Nazis, et al circa 1943. Clean copy, no dust jacket.

Hardcover. Florida, Brevard County Historical Commission, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 271 pages. Extensive b&w photography throughout. Gilt decoration on cover. Gilt titles on spine. Small tear to bottom corner of dust jacket repaired with tape. Light wear to dust jacket. Otherwise clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Bristol VT, The Outlook Club of Bristol, 1st, 1941, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 115 pages. Illustrated with black & white photographs. Previous owners name on front endpaper. Green textured cloth covers with title in gilt on spine and front cover. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Mount Holly VT, privately printed, unknown, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 309 pages, illustrated with b&w photographs, maps - including folded facsimile of vintage map laid in. Book is copyright 1987 but title page states this is 1999 edition.

Hardcover. Toronto, William Briggs, 1st, 1914, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with gilt stamping, 333 pages with index. Front and rear hinges cracked, ownership signature on front fly leaf, b&w illustrations, 2 related postcards laid in. Interior clean.