history

Softcover. Austin, University of Texas Press, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, yellow wrappers, 287 pages. Light fading to spine. In ancient Mediterranean cultures, diamonds were thought to endow their owners with invincibility. In contemporary United States culture, a foreign-made luxury car is believed to give its owner status and prestige. Where do these beliefs come from In this study of craft production and long-distance trade in traditional, nonindustrial societies, Mary W. Helms explores the power attributed to objects that either are produced by skilled artisans and/or come from 'afar.' She argues that fine artisanship and long-distance trade, both of which are more available to powerful elites than to ordinary people, are means of creating or acquiring tangible objects that embody intangible powers and energies from the cosmological realms of gods, ancestors, or heroes. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Syracause NY, The Adirondack Museum, 1st, 1968, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover in a worn, tape repaired dust jacket, 207 pages, b&w illustrations including a fold-out map. Articles and primary source materials (diaries; memoirs) about the settlement and development of this region in the New York Adirondack Mountains. Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. In Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America, Wendy A. Woloson takes seriously the history of objects that are often cynically-made and easy to dismiss: things not made to last; things we don't really need; things we often don't even really want. Woloson does not mock these ordinary, everyday possessions but seeks to understand them as a way to understand aspects of ourselves, socially, culturally, and economically: Why do we--as individuals and as a culture--possess these things? Where do they come from? Why do we want them? And what is the true cost of owning them? Woloson tells the history of crap from the late eighteenth century up through today, exploring its many categories: gadgets, knickknacks, novelty goods, mass-produced collectibles, giftware, variety store merchandise. As Woloson shows, not all crap is crappy in the same way--bric-a-brac is crappy in a different way from, say, advertising giveaways, which are differently crappy from commemorative plates. Taking on the full brilliant and depressing array of crappy material goods, the book explores the overlooked corners of the American market and mindset, revealing the complexity of our relationship with commodity culture over time.

Hardcover. Middle Village, Jonathan David, 1st, 1978, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 438 pages. Black & white illustrations. Price clipped dust jacket with 2 tape repaired short tears on top edge. Clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. Boston, MA, University of Massachusetts Press, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 516 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. This volume documents Fenn's prolific career from the 1860s until his death in 1911. Sue Rainey also recounts his adventurous sketching trips in the western United States, Europe, and the Middle East, which enhanced his reputation for depicting far-flung places at a time when the nation was taking a more prominent role on the world stage.

Hardcover. Boston, MA, University of Massachusetts Press, 1st, 2013, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 516 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. A very clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket edges. This volume documents Fenn's prolific career from the 1860s until his death in 1911. Sue Rainey also recounts his adventurous sketching trips in the western United States, Europe, and the Middle East, which enhanced his reputation for depicting far-flung places at a time when the nation was taking a more prominent role on the world stage.

Hardcover. NY, W.W. Norton & Co., 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 405 pages. Clean copy.

Softcover. Jackson MS, University Press of Mississippi , 1st, 2018, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 235 pages. Throughout his life, Louis Armstrong tried to explain how singing with a barbershop quartet on the streets of New Orleans was foundational to his musicianship. Until now, there has been no in-depth inquiry into what he meant when he said, "I figure singing and playing is the same," or, "Singing was more into my blood than the trumpet." Creating the Jazz Solo: Louis Armstrong and Barbershop Harmony shows that Armstrong understood exactly the relationship between what he sang and what he played, and that he meant these comments to be taken literally: he was singing through his horn. Clean copy, like new.

Hardcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 267 pages, b&w photos. Clean, unmarked copy with only minor wear to dust jacket. This book examines the often-neglected role played by immigrant artists and critics in the circle of Alfred Stieglitz, including Japanese-German author Sadakichi Hartmann, Mexican-born caricaturist Marius de Zayas and English Sri-Lankan curator Ananda Coomaraswamy, as well as better-known U.S.-born painters, including Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keeffe.

Hardcover. London/NY, Collins Living, 1st, 2007, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 271 pages, fully illustrated with color reproductions of photographs. Features articles and cover art from October 1969 through December 1987 issues. Fine in original pictorial paper-covered boards and fine pictorial dust jacket.

Hardcover. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1884, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, maroon cloth stamped in red and gilt, 320 pages. Frontispiece, b&w plates and illustrations. Folding map. Spine sunned, light wear to extremities, previous owner's name, inscription on inside front cover, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Beverly Hills, CA, Lawrence Bassoff Collection, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Large softcover, 159 pages, illustrated throughout in color. Light wear to pictorial covers, else a very nice, tight. clean copy. Foreword by Robert Wise. 100 beautiful reproductions of classic crime film posters.

New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 196 pages. Black & white photography. Reveals the war with Russia, the first war to be extensively recorded by photography. Here are 85 photos and commentary. Many of the photos were taken by two Englishmen, Roger Fenton and William Robertson.

Hardcover. Tokyo, Sophia University, 1st, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 87 pages. INSCRIBED BY GEORGE M. WILSON ON FRONT ENDPAPER. Black boards, cream cloth spine with gilt titles, white dust jacket with illustration. Price-clipped, slight rubbing to dust jacket, pages crisp and unmarked; overall, a very clean, tight copy in great condition.

Hardcover. Boston, Little Brown , 1st, 1966, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover, 319 pages, b&w photos. In a bright, unclipped dust jacket with a couple closed tears, mild soil.

Hardcover. New York, Bramhall House, 2nd Printing, 1958, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: Fair, Hardcover. Illustrations throughout, with a treatise on The Balista and Catapult of the Ancients and an appendix on The Catapult, Balista and the Turkish Bow. Dust jacket soiled and worn, foxing on top edge, otherwise, very clean and tight.

Hardcover. New York, Oxford University Press, 1st, 2002, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, black leather with red gilt lettering on spine. 203 pages, gilt all edges, SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. It seemed that foreign governments were on the verge of recognizing the Confederacy and legitimizing its cause, and the Emancipation Proclamation had been shelved indefinitely. America's most eminent Civil War historian, James M. McPherson argues that the Union victory at Antietam sharply reversed all that. He paints a masterful account of this pivotal battle, the events that led up to it, and its aftermath. Spotless and tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1st, 1933, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, red cloth with cover and spine lettered in gilt, 16 pages of b&w plates. Popular memoirs of Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980), eldest child of President Theodore Roosevelt and Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. Rubbing and fading to boards and spine. Internally clean, Sound copy.

Hardcover. Chicago, Poole Brothers, 1st, 1894, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 125 pages. Hardcover. Title and decoration in silver on cloth cover - darkening to edges. Illustrated with Sepia photographs. All edges gilt. Front hinge tender. Clean, unmarked copy.

Hardcover. NY, Pegasus, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 338 pages, b&w illustrations. A remarkable literary hybrid--part biography, part detective story--about the enduring figure of Robinson Crusoe. January 1719. A man sits at a table, writing. Nearly sixty,Daniel Defoe is troubled with gout and mired in political controversy and legal threats. But for the moment he is preoccupied by a younger man on a barren shore--Robinson Crusoe. Several miles south, another old man, Robert Knox, sits bent over a heavy volume--published nearly forty years before.Knox's Historical Relation was a best seller when it was published in 1681, just a year after he escaped from Ceylon and returned to England. Where did Crusoe come from? And what is the secret of his endurance? Crusoe explores the intertwined lives of two real men, Daniel Defoe and Robert Knox, and the character and book that emerged from their peculiar conjunction. It is the biography of a book and its hero: the story of Defoe, the man who wrote Robinson Crusoe, and of Robert Knox, the man who was Crusoe. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press , 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 586 pages, b&w illustrations. Cuba's Revolutionary World examines in forensic detail how the turmoil that rocked a small Caribbean nation in the 1950s became one of the twentieth century's most transformative events. Initially, Castro's revolution augured well for democratic reform movements gaining traction in Latin America. But what had begun promisingly veered off course as Castro took a heavy hand in efforts to centralize Cuba's economy and stamp out private enterprise. Embracing the Soviet Union as an ally, Castro and his lieutenant Che Guevara sought to export the socialist revolution abroad through armed insurrection. Castro's provocations inspired intense opposition. Cuban anticommunists who had fled to Miami found a patron in the CIA, which actively supported their efforts to topple Castro's regime. The unrest fomented by Cuban-trained leftist guerrillas lent support to Latin America's military castes, who promised to restore stability. Brazil was the first to succumb to a coup in 1964; a decade later, military juntas governed most Latin American states. Thus did a revolution that had seemed to signal the death knell of dictatorship in Latin America bring about its tragic opposite. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Street & Smith, 1st, 1898, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover. Book is divided into 4 sections: Cuba, Porto Rico, The Philippines, & Hawaii. Each with a fold-out color map. 178, 171, 174, & 178 pages respectively. All maps present and in very good condition. Previous owner's inscription on front fly leaf. The pale green covers suffer from rubbing and abrasions causing discoloration, fading. Internally very good.

Hardcover. Hatje Cantz, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 511 pages. Clean, unmarked copy in excellent condition. From the earliest days of the Cuban Revolution, the Revolutionary High Command was intensely aware of the power of the photographic image to advance the ideals of the Revolution, at home and abroad. If portraying the human side of its leaders was an important part of the Revolution's visual ideology, so too was its conception and depiction of the Cuban populace: as early as 1959, the High Command organized mass rallies in Havana assembling more than a million Cubans from throughout the island to celebrate the victory of the Revolution. Cuba in Revolution captures the complexity and the energy of this moment in all its contradictory beauty. It gathers a colossal array of photographs by both known and anonymous photographers into five thematic, chronologically overlapping sections: "Pre-Revolutionary Cuba: 1933-1959"; "The Years of Struggle and Victory: 1953-1957"; "Sierra Maestra: The Revolutionary Movement: 1956-1959"; "Bay of Pigs 1961"; and "Picturing the Revolution: 1959-1968." From Constantino Arias' portraits of poverty and wealth in pre-revolutionary Havana to the photographs of the dead Che Guevara in Bolivia, this volume offers an epic photo-narrative of the Cuban story. Iconic pictures of Che Guevara by Alberto Korda and Rene Burri are complemented by snapshots of Fidel Castro playing golf or hunting in the Soviet Union. Raul Corrales' pictures of revolutionaries playing the conga drums during the Cuban Missile Crisis also reveal a different face of the Revolution; portraits of individual Cubans by Henri Cartier-Bresson present an equally fluid vision of everyday life in Cuba; and the political and the personal merge in startlingly intimate portraits of Che Guevara by Andrew Saint-George and images of the forbidden pop culture of the mid-1960s by Jose Figueroa. Throughout the publication there is an exhilarating tension between the heroic portrayal of the leaders-Castro, Guevara and Cienfuegos-and the dramatic portrayal of a people in the midst of revolutionary transformation.

Hardcover. Washington, D. C., Smithsonian, 1st, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 58 pages. Illustrated with full color photographs. Clean, bright copy.