Hardcover. Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. The daguerreotype, invented in France, came to America in 1839. By 1851, this early photographic method had been improved by American daguerreotypists to such a degree that it was often referred to as "the American process." The daguerreotype-now perhaps mostly associated with stiffly posed portraits of serious-visaged nineteenth-century personages-was an extremely detailed photographic image, produced though a complicated process involving a copper plate, light-sensitive chemicals, and mercury fumes. It was, as Sarah Kate Gillespie shows in this generously illustrated history, something wholly and remarkably new: a product of science and innovative technology that resulted in a visual object. It was a hybrid, with roots in both fine art and science, and it interacted in reciprocally formative ways with fine art, science, and technology. Gillespie maps the evolution of the daguerreotype, as medium and as profession, from its introduction to the ascendancy of the "American process," tracing its relationship to other fields and the professionalization of those fields. She does so by recounting the activities of a series of American daguerreotypists, including fine artists, scientists, and mechanical tinkerers. She describes, for example, experiments undertaken by Samuel F. B. Morse as he made the transition from artist to inventor; how artists made use of the daguerreotype, both borrowing conventions from fine art and establishing new ones for a new medium; the use of the daguerreotype in various sciences, particularly astronomy; and technological innovators who drew on their work in the mechanical arts.
Hardcover. Philadelphia, W.A. Henry Press, 3rd Ed., 1926, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, pictorial gray cloth stamped in black and white. 330 pages, top edge gilt. frontis., b/w plates, text illustrations appendix, index. A highly regarded social history of Nantucket treats the purchase and settlement of the island, the early proprietors, and various events in Nantucket history, such as Nantucket's role in the Revolution. The balance of the work consists of histories of some thirty founding families. Genealogists should also consult the appendices for a list of Quakers who visited Nantucket between 1664 and 1847. Small embossed stamp on front fly leaf, otherwise a bright, clean copy.
Hardcover. UK, White Owl/Pen & Sword, 20231st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 191 pages, b&w photos. Charlie Chaplin's career has been described, critiqued, and scrutinized. There are book-length studies on Chaplin's music hall career, his career at Keystone Studios and the Mutual Studios. Somehow, his tenure with First National studios, however, has been largely neglected, even though it was during this several-year contractual time period that Chaplin built and occupied his own studio for the first time, that he attempted and succeeded in filming a comedy feature (The Kid) and that he helped to set up United Artists, an organization that protected the salaries and creative freedom of actors in Hollywood. This period in Chaplin's story is especially interesting because such landmark moments are accompanied by Chaplin's first marriage and divorce, the death of his first child, his friendship with French silent film comedian Max Linder, World War I and the role he would play in it, and the production and release of several unsuccessful films that marked Chaplin's first creative blockage - one that threatened his future career. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, NBM, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 192 pages. Early b&w comic strips. Mutt and Jeff was the first successful daily comic strip; before it, the funnies were Sunday features. It debuted in 1907, however, as A. Mutt, limning the follies of lanky racetrack gambler Augustus Mutt. Diminutive sidekick Jeff appeared the following year to form a partnership that lasted until the strip's overdue demise in 1983. Mutt and Jeff was the first strip to essay weeks-long story lines, such as a trip to Mexico to join Pancho Villa's revolution. Compared to better-remembered strips of the era, Mutt and Jeff was crudely drawn, yet it captured the nation's fancy. Despite its significance in comics history, Mutt and Jeff is scantly regarded today. By the mid-1920s, Fisher handed creative duties over to ghosts to free up time for the playboy lifestyle that the strip's sizable revenues allowed him. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Edward Arnold, 2nd pr., 1905, Book: Fair, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, original blue cloth covers worn with faded gilt lettering. Frontis. missing, hinges cracked, B&w photos, folding maps present. An account of the British territories in East Africa, intended as a guide for prospective colonisers, and future developers. Topics discussed include the physical geography, native peoples such as the Swahilis, the Masai, Somalis, and Nandi, vegetations and animals, slavery, the Uganda railway and more. Sir Charles Eliot was a British colonial administrator and commissioner for the Protectorate of British East Africa, now Kenya.
Hardcover. Salem, MA, The Essex Institute, 2nd pr., 1922, Book: Good, Hardcover, 122 pages. Ex-library copy with white tape on spine and small stamp on copyright page, otherwise clean. Blue cloth, gilt title to spine, no dust jacket. The second edition adds additional material and illustrations. Clean, tight copy.
Softcover. Washington D. C., Eastern High School, 1st, 1915, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover with heavy gray wrappers stamped in blue and black, 40 pages, stapled. Magazine format. Illustrated with black & white photographs and drawings, local ads. Cover chipped, interior clean, sound.
Hardcover. Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter, 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, blue boards, 205 pages. INSCRIBED BY PERLMAN on the front fly leaf. Abraham Heschel believed that the Holocaust was an "Eclipse of Humanity." In the philosophical and historical context in which it occurred, Heschel saw this eclipse as embedded in the phenomenological approach of Heidegger. Focusing on their respective phenomenological methods, attitudes toward being, Heschel's view of Adam and Heidegger's notion of Dasein, this book is an analysis of Heschel's critique of Heidegger and the postmodernism that followers of Heidegger espoused. Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's Press, 1st, 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a dust jacket with light fading to spine, 487 pages. In this book Ryoshin Minami studies the last hundred years of Japan's remarkable economic growth from the Meiji period up to the present day. First, he reveals the factors which account for Japan's successful economic take-off during the Meiji period. Second, he explains why Japan achieved a more rapid rate of economic growth than other developed countries. This forms the major part of the book and will interest those in the developed countries who have felt the full force of Japan's export drive and whose own industries are consequently in decline. Finally, the author evaluates the results of Japan's economic growth and makes predictions for its future. The book makes a comprehensive survey of the Japanese experience in the pre- and post-war periods and points out lessons not only for developed countries but also for developing countries. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. Chapel Hill NC, University of North Carolina Press, 1st, 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. The personal correspondence between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Anthony Eden during the time they were simultaneously in office tells the dramatic story of a relationship that began with great promise but ended in division and estrangement. Many of the letters have only recently been declassified, making it possible for the first time to publish this unique historic collection in its entirety. Peter G. Boyle's introduction, annotations, and conclusion provide context for the letters--details about the personalities and careers of Eden and Eisenhower and major issues that influenced the Anglo-American relationship up to 1955, such as relations with the Soviet Union, nuclear concerns, colonialism, the Middle and Far East, economic issues, and intelligence matters. The letters themselves offer an intimate look into the special connection between Britain and the United States through the often eloquent words of their leaders. Clean copy.
Softcover. Charlottesville, University of Virginia Press, 1st pbk, 1991, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 256 pages. A collection of scholarly essays on Virginia in the 1800s. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, W.W. Norton and Co., 1st, 1979, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, price-clipped dust jacket, 346 pages. John Randolph of Roanoke, the notorious Virginian congressman and senator, was as renowned for his eccentric behavior as for his unusual political positions. Frontispiece portrait. Clean copy.
Softcover. NY, Cambridge University Press, reprint, 1996, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 434 pages. Of all the terms with which Americans define themselves as members of society, few are as elusive as "middle class." This book traces the emergence of a recognizable and self-aware "middle class" between the era of the American Revolution and the end of the nineteenth century. The author focuses on the development of the middle class in larger American cities, particularly Philadelphia and New York. He examines the middle class in all its complexity, and in its day-to-day existence--at work, in the home, and in the shops, markets, theaters, and other institutions of the big city. The book places the new language of class---in particular the new term "middle class"--in the context of the concrete, interwoven experiences of specific anonymous Americans who were neither manual workers nor members of urban upper classes. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Jonathan Cape, 1st UK, 1960, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 431 pages. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1st US, 1943, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth covers lettered in gold with black letterbox, 322 pages. Contains speeches throughout 1942. This year was a low point of the war, full of setbacks and disappointments across the globe for the British. Throughout the year Churchill's speeches conveyed sober, resolved, and eloquent defiance - with of course an occasional sparkle of Churchillian wit, even in the dark hours of the war. The title of this volume comes from Churchill's 10 November 1942 speech at the Lord Mayor's Day Luncheon in London at a time when fortune finally favored the British with victories in North Africa: "The Germans have received back again that measure of fire and steel which they have so often meted out to others. Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." Light marking to front endpapers.
Softcover. Middletown CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1st, 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 225 pages. First published in 1930 and untranslated until now, this is one of the minor classics of French historical literature. The author relates the bizarre beginnings of the Third Republic during the presidency of Adolphe Thiers (1871-1873), when an assembly dominated by monarchists groped uncertainly toward the establishment of a republican government.
Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st thus, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 87 pages. Foreword, black and white photographs, and colophon. A description of the Allied bombing campaign from the perspective of the German survivors.
Hardcover. NY, Penguin Press, 3rd pr., 2011, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 564 pages. From the preeminent Hitler biographer, a fascinating and original exploration of how the Third Reich was willing and able to fight to the bitter end of World War II. As Kershaw shows, the structure of Hitler's "charismatic rule" created a powerful negative bond between him and the Nazi leadership- they had no future without him, and so their fates were inextricably tied. Terror also helped the Third Reich maintain its grip on power as the regime began to wage war not only on its ideologically defined enemies but also on the German people themselves. Yet even as each month brought fresh horrors for civilians, popular support for the regime remained linked to a patriotic support of Germany and a terrible fear of the enemy closing in. Based on prodigious new research, Kershaw's The End is a harrowing yet enthralling portrait of the Third Reich in its last desperate gasps. B&w illustrations. Clean copy.
Hardcover. NY, Harper & Row, Revised Ed., 1974, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 282 pages. INSCRIBED BY CHAMBERLAIN on the front fly leaf. The Updated Edition of a title first published in the 1960s. Clean copy.
Hardcover. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1st UK, 1965, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a worn dust jacket with pieces gone, 229 pages plus index. A study of the controversial period in America which followed the Civil War examining the political situation in the South.
Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 1994, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a dust jacket with minor wear, 278 pages. A re-examination of the roles played by authors, readers, scribes and texts in medieval literature, which describes how consideration of marks on the physical manuscript - elements added by scribes and readers - can shed light on interpretive issues that have puzzled modern readers. Light underlining to 18 pages in first chapter.
Softcover. London, Penguin Books , reprint, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 553 pages. The Europeans is richly enthralling, panoramic cultural history of nineteenth-century Europe, told through the intertwined lives of three remarkable people: a great singer, Pauline Viardot, a great writer, Ivan Turgenev, and a great connoisseur, Pauline's husband Louis. Their passionate, ambitious lives were bound up with an astonishing array of writers, composers and painters all trying to make their way through the exciting, prosperous and genuinely pan-European culture that came about as a result of huge economic and technological change. This culture - through trains, telegraphs and printing - allowed artists of all kinds to exchange ideas and make a living, shuttling back and forth across the whole continent from the British Isles to Imperial Russia, as they exploited a new cosmopolitan age. Clean copy.
Softcover. Indianapolis, Liberty Fund, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 211 pages. Edited and with an Introduction by Blair Worden. This edition brings back into print, after two and a half centuries, the pioneering work of English republicanism, Marchamont Nedham's The Excellencie of a Free-State, which was written in the wake of the execution of King Charles I. First published in 1656, and compiled from previously written editorials in the parliamentarian newsbook Mercurius Politicus, The Excellencie of a Free-State addressed a dilemma in English politics, namely, what kind of government should the Commonwealth adopt? Clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. London, Faber & Faber, 1st, 1963, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 94 pages. David Daube was a scholar of Roman and Jewish law, and his expertise led him to some unique scriptural insights. In this stimulating monograph, Daube argues that the Bible presents the exodus as a judicial proceeding, with Egypt coming under God's judgment for its treatment of the Israelite slaves. He shows that this judicial model explains some unusual details of the narrative. For example, Moses' negotiations with Pharaoh and the fact that Israelite women were given jewelry before their departure are part of implementing the proper procedures for releasing slaves as outlined in Deut 15:13. Daube also brings out parallels in the biblical accounts of Israel's release from Egypt, Jacob's departure from Laban in Gen 31, and the release of the captured ark of the covenant by the Philistines in I Sam 6. Name on front fly leaf, light pencil notations to several pages.