Hardcover. NY, Random House , 2nd pr., 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 421 pages. Taylor offers a vivid account of the fledgling days of the National Basketball Association and the intense competition between two of its biggest early stars: Bill Russell (of the Boston Celtics) and Wilt Chamberlain (of the Philadelphia 76ers). While both players were dominant men who anchored their respective teams, their personalities differed greatly. The quiet, reflective Russell turned a serendipitous showing in front of a scout into a legendary career largely through willpower and hard work, while the outgoing Chamberlain was a much more naturally gifted athlete whose skills drew attention and offers while he was barely a teenager. Taylor highlights this distinction, asking, "[C]ould determination trump talent?" Along with examining the physical and psychological battles between the two, Taylor depicts the NBA's raucous nature in the 1950s and '60s, when fights between players were frequent, and the brash Celtics coach Red Auerbach was routinely pelted with rotten tomatoes, lit cigars and eggs. Looking at everything, from each player's private demons to the racially charged era in which they competed, Taylor's book is by turns an intimate profile and a spirited look at the foundation of modern professional basketball. Mild soiling to text block, no markings.

Hardcover. NY, Free Press, 1st, 1995, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 368 pages, b&w illustrations. Neufeld, the curator of World War II history at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., provides a well-written, comprehensively researched analysis of Nazi Germany's missile program and its antecedents. The German army became interested in rocket technology during the 1930s at the urging of Karl Becker, an engineer who believed a radical new weapon could deliver a psychological blow to an enemy. The construction of Peenemunde in 1936-37 provided a focal point for research and development that made guided missiles a reality despite Germany's limited material and scientific resources. Neufeld shows that while the rocket program was not Nazi in origin, its leaders readily compromised themselves by accepting National Socialism, especially in agreeing to the widespread use of slave labor. A more ambiguous legacy of Peenemunde is its rocket technology, which decisively shaped the second half of the 20th century. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Indianapolis, Liberty Press, 1st, 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket. 293 pages. SIGNED BY CHAMBERLAIN on title page, also INSCRIBED by him on the front fly leaf. Capitalism is a system that can stand on its own attainments, says John Chamberlain, and he offers here a fast-paced, provocative look at the intellectual forces and practical accomplishments that have created American capitalism.In clear, unequivocal language he discusses the ideas responsible for our economic institutions, the originators of these ideas, and the times in which they first became important. The political theories of the men who hammered out the Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence; the thinking of John Locke, James Madison, and Adam Smith; the deeds and discoveries of the James Watts, Eli Whitneys, and Henry Fords-all these diverse elements are shown to be part of the tradition of a free society in which American capitalism has grown and flourished. A unique blend of political and economic theory and the practical accomplishments of businessmen and innovators, The Roots of Capitalism provides valuable insights into the ideas underlying the free economy. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 2nd pr., 2005, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 261 pages, previous owner's signature on front fly leaf. "Evil is the most serious of our moral problems. All over the world cruelty, greed, prejudice, and fanaticism ruin the lives of countless victims. Outrage provokes outrage. Millions nurture seething hatred of real or imagined enemies, revealing savage and destructive tendencies in human nature. Understanding this challenges our optimistic illusions about the effectiveness of reason and morality in bettering human lives. But abandoning these illusions is vitally important because they are obstacles to countering the threat of evil. The aim of this book is to explain why people act in these ways and what can be done about it." The first part of this book is a detailed discussion of six horrible cases of evil: the Albigensian Crusade of about 1210; Robespierre's Terror of 1793?94; Franz Stangl, who commanded a Nazi death camp in 1943?44; the 1969 murders committed by Charles Manson and his "family"; the "dirty war" conducted by the Argentinean military dictatorship of the late 1970s; and the activities of a psychopath named John Allen, who recorded reminiscences in 1975. John Kekes includes these examples not out of sensationalism, but rather to underline the need to hold vividly in our minds just what evil is. The second part shows why, in Kekes's view, explanations of evil inspired by Christianity and the Enlightenment fail to account for these cases and then provides an original explanation of evil in general and of these instances of it in particular.

Hardcover. Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1st, 1950, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn dust jacket with light chipping, unclipped. 177 pages, color frontispiece, b&w illustrations, appendices, index. Clean, unmarked copy.

Hardcover. Leicester University Press, 1st, 1983, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 262 pages, b&w photographs. Minor shelf wear to dust jacket. Else a very clean, tight copy.

Hardcover. NY, Knopf, 1st, 1964, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket. 393 pages plus a 16 page index. With eight pages of illustrations and a frontispiece. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Yakt Publishing, Inc., 1st, 2016, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 396 pages. "The Rusty Dusty" summarizes the development of the Great Northern Railway in Washington State, emphasizing the Wenatcheef,,"f,,EURf,,"Oroville route, their last significant branch there. The line brought modern mechanized transportation to eastern Chelan and Okanogan Counties, shipping ten thousand carloads of fruit to national markets in its best years. The volume also outlines Great Northern President James J. Hill's support of Wenatchee Valley irrigation projects. Clean copy.

Softcover. Tema Ghana, Ghana Publishing Corp. , 1st, 1971, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 83 pages, b&w illustrations. Part of a doctoral thesis accepted by the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. A study of the wooden stools and their religious meaning in the culture of the Akan people of Ghana. Clean copy.

Softcover. NY, Viking Penguin, reprint, 2001, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, deluxe edition. Deckled pages, 782 pages Massive collection of the main Icelandic sagas. 66 page introduction by Robert Kellogg with good contextual information. Preface by Jane Smiley. Clean copy.

Softcover. Montpelier VT, St. Michael's High School, 1940-1950, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Nine stapled softcover booklets, 44-60 pages each, b&w photos. A history of this Vermont high school during WW2 and the post-war years. A few with ink name on cover, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Canberra AU, Australian National University Press, 1st, 1984, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, b&w frontis portrait, 302 pages. Clean, bright copy.

Softcover. Wellesley MA, Branden Books, 1st, 2014, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 276 pages, several b&w illustrations. SIGNED BY POTVIN on title page. Clean copy.

Softcover. Padova Italy, Editrice Antenore, 1st, 1961, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, cream color wrappers with black and blue type, 141 pages with index. Foreword by author. English text. Name on front fly leaf, light pencil marking to 10 pages.

Softcover. New Haven CT, Yale University Press, 1st, 1992, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 375 pages. In this pathbreaking and richly illustrated book, Martin Kemp examines the major optically oriented examples of artistic theory and practice from Brunelleschi's invention of perspective and its exploitation by Leonardo and Durer to the beginnings of photography. In a discussion of color theory, Kemp traces two main traditions of color science: the Aristotelian tradition of primary colors and Newton's prismatic theory that influenced Runge, Turner, and Seurat. His monumental book not only adds to our understanding of a large group of individual works of art but also provides valuable information for all those interested in the interaction between science and art. "This beautifully made volume . . . shows us the unity of the visual study of nature-the exalted mutual task of Renaissance science and art."-Scientific American. Clean copy. NOTE: Due to weight, DOMESTIC SHIPPING ONLY.

Hardcover. Greenwich CT, New York Graphic Society, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, dark red cloth/dark red DJ. 144 pp. 108 bw plates. All of Falconet's major works and attributions are illustrated in gravure, with many details. Includes a translation from the French of Falconet's Reflections sur la sculpture by Eda Mezer Levitine.

Hardcover. Charlottesville, University Press of Virginia, 1st, 1975, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 142 pages. This volume covers the voyage, a few days less than a year in duration, of the clipper ship Sea Serpent around the world in 1854-55, from New York to New York by way of Cape Horn, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. One of the crew, Hugh McCulloch Gregory, better educated than the average seaman of his day, kept a journal in which he made daily entries of events on board.

Hardcover. NY, St. Martin's, 1st, 1999, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 342 pages. Dark blue cloth covers, gilt titles, color-illustrated dust jacket, profusely illustrated with b&w plates. A comprehensive chronicle of the various arctic expeditions, lasting from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, that searched for a Northern route by sea to China, includes accounts of the ill-fated John Franklin effort and Amundsen's eventual success. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Quadrangle Books/New York Times, 2nd pr., 1976, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn, rubbed dust jacket. Translated by Ruth Geyra Stern and Sol Stern. The events preceding the Yom Kippur War in October 1973. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2006, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a unclipped dust jacket with fading to spine, 260 pages. This fascinating and unusual book tells the story of an arguably catastrophic German habit - that of valuing cultural achievement above all else and envisioning it as a noble substitute for politics. Lepenies examines how this tendency has affected German history from the late eighteenth century to today. He argues that the German preference for art over politics is essential to understanding the peculiar nature of Nazism, including its aesthetic appeal to many Germans (and others) and the fact that Hitler and many in his circle were failed artists and intellectuals who seem to have practiced their politics as a substitute form of art. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Princeton NJ, Princeton University Press, 1st, 2004, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 375 pages. In probing chapters on C. G. Jung, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot, Wolin discovers an unsettling commonality: during the 1930s, these thinkers leaned to the right and were tainted by a proverbial "fascination with fascism." Frustrated by democracy's shortcomings, they were seduced by fascism's grandiose promises of political regeneration. The dictatorships in Italy and Germany promised redemption from the uncertainties of political liberalism. But, from the beginning, there could be no doubting their brutal methods of racism, violence, and imperial conquest. Postmodernism's origins among the profascist literati of the 1930s reveal a dark political patrimony. The unspoken affinities between Counter-Enlightenment and postmodernism constitute the guiding thread of Wolin's suggestive narrative. In their mutual hostility toward reason and democracy, postmodernists and the advocates of Counter-Enlightenment betray a telltale strategic alliance--they cohabit the fraught terrain where far left and far right intersect. Clean copy.

Hardcover. NY, Alfred A. Knopf, 1st, 1946, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a worn, chipped dust jacket, 413 pages plus index. Bookplate on inside front cover, otherwise clean.

Softcover. Rochester VT, Park Street Press, 1st thus, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 288 pages. This groundbreaking survey, originally published in London in 1860, is a radically open-minded look at the use of drugs across the world and throughout the ages. Early users of tobacco in Russia would have their noses cut off and repeat offenders their heads. Pope Innocent XII excommunicated any who used it in St. Peters. Marijuana users in 14th century Egypt would have their teeth extracted for the crime. Yet use of these and other forbidden substances continued to grow. If only as a record of the perennial failure of harsh punishments to deter drug use Victorian naturalist Mordecai Cooke's work The Seven Sisters of Sleep would remain significant. But Cooke's natural humor and keen insights have ensured this work's reputation as possibly the best early book from what has grown into an enormous body of literature on mind- and mood-altering substances. Written at a time, similar to our own, when drug use was being reconsidered, The Seven Sisters of Sleep is a thought-provoking and open-minded look at the use of drugs across the world and throughout the ages. Clean copy.

Hardcover. Paris, Jean Boudriot, revised ed., 1986, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Volume 1 only. 166 pages Hardcover. B&w illustrations, fold-out b&w plates. Minor wear to dust jacket; in brodart. Light stain to top edge. Else a very clean, tight copy.