Hardcover. Chicago, Quadrangle Books, 1st, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Good, Hardcover in a rubbed, worn dust jacket, 277 pages. Name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Random House, 1st, 1969, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a lightly worn dust jacket, 387 pages. These essays originated in a series of lectures and seminars held by the Graduate School of Contemporary European Studies and the Centre for the Advanced Study of Italian Society of the University of Reading in 1966-1967. The countries covered include Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, Finland, Norway, Great Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal. Name on front fly leaf otherwise clean.
Hardcover. NY, Rizzoli, 1st US, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 207 pages. Entertainingly idiosyncratic in its selection of material, this historical compendium of facts and fascinating lore takes off on a visual romp through the history of gardens. Rather than adhere to a conventional narrative format, Vercelloni--an Italian architect, city planner and landscape gardener--arranges his material as though it were a slide show, devoting each page to an image and accompanying text. Beginning with the "landscape" of the Ice Ages, forging ahead to the Renaissance and finally reaching contemporary times, the author presents a captivating grab-bag of information, covering such topics as the significance of flowers in Renaissance painting, the reasoning behind the 17th-century craze for tulips and the role of contemporary urban parks in society. With its strong visual orientation and pungent text, Vercelloni's "historical atlas" looks deftly and light-heartedly at humanity's ongoing love of gardens. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Boston, Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1st, 1849, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, embossed brown cloth covers with gilt lettering on spine. How respectable members of society communicated by letter with examples of mannered correspndence of the mid-19th century. Clean copy.
Softcover. West Lafayette IN, Purdue University Press , 1st, 2020, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 529 pages, b&w illustrations. Eva and Otto is a true story about German opposition and resistance to Hitler as revealed through the early lives of Eva Lewinski Pfister (1910-1991) and Otto Pfister (1900-1985). It is an intimate and epic account of two Germans-Eva born Jewish, Otto born Catholic-who worked with a little-known German political group that resisted and fought against Hitler in Germany before 1933 and then in exile in Paris before the German invasion of France in May 1940. After their improbable escapes from separate internment and imprisonment in Europe, Eva obtained refuge in America in October 1940 where she worked to rescue other endangered political refugees, including Otto, with the help of Eleanor Roosevelt. As revealed in recently declassified records, Eva and Otto later engaged in different secret assignments with the US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in support of the Allied war effort. Despite their vastly different backgrounds, Eva and Otto gave each other hope and strength as they acted upon what they understood to be an ethical duty to help others threatened by fascism. The book provides a sobering insight into the personal risks and costs of a commitment to that duty. Their unusually beautiful writing-directed to each other in diaries and correspondence during two long periods of wartime separation-also reveals an unlikely and inspiring love story.
Softcover. Berkeley CA, University of California Press, reprint, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 210 pages. Taking Gandhi's statements about civil disobedience to heart, in February 1922 residents from the villages around the north Indian market town of Chauri Chaura attacked the local police station, burned it to the ground and murdered twenty-three constables. Appalled that his teachings were turned to violent ends, Gandhi called off his Noncooperation Movement and fasted to bring the people back to nonviolence. In the meantime, the British government denied that the riot reflected Indian resistance to its rule and tried the rioters as common criminals. These events have taken on great symbolic importance among Indians, both in the immediate region and nationally. Amin examines the event itself, but also, more significantly, he explores the ways it has been remembered, interpreted, and used as a metaphor for the Indian struggle for independence. The author, who was born fifteen miles from Chauri Chaura, brings to his study an empathetic knowledge of the region and a keen ear for the nuances of the culture and language of its people. In an ingenious negotiation between written and oral evidence, he combines brilliant archival work in the judicial records of the period with field interviews with local informants. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Everett, City of Everett, 1st, 1893, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, 134 pages. Hardcover. Black & white photographs and illustrations. Preliminary ad pages with darkening, light soil. 2.5" horizontal closed tear on foredge of pages 45-48. Moderate wear to black cloth covers. Clean, unmarked text. Scarce.
Hardcover. NY, E.J. Brill, 1st, 1993, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 578 pages plus charts, b&w photos in rear. Translation and notes by H.P. Salomon and I.S.D. Sassoon. Da Costa's long-lost book rejects the divine origin of the rabbinic tradition. His insight was that what he calls Pharisaism is irreconcilable with the religion of the Pentateuch and therefore cannot derive from the same source. He claims, for example, that the Law of Moses does not allow for a belief in an afterlife for individual human beings. Concomitantly he denied the Mosaic origin of the notion of eternal punishment. The rabbinic reading of the Mosaic Law appeared to him almost as great a falsification as the Christian one. Yet there could be no reversion to Christianity and despite his deep rift with the synagogue he still believed in ultimate redemption for the Jewish people. As he so dramatically declares in his closing sonnet, Israel's rehabilitation depends on its shedding man-made doctrines, and holding fast to the Law in its purity.
Softcover. Burlington VT, Free Press, 1st, 1874, Book: Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 66 pages. Reprints an oration by L.E. Chittenden. Mild wear, crease to front wrapper, chipping to paper on spine. Clean.
Hardcover. Cambridge MA, Cambridge City Council/Charles Sever, 1st, 1881, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 163 pages, 9 b&w plates. Brown cloth with dark brown and gilt decoration. Top edge gilt. Bright, clean copy with just a little edgewear to rear cover edge.
Hardcover. Hampton NH, Peter E. Randall, reprint, 1972, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, turquoise cloth with gilt lettering, two reprinted publications in one volume. B&w illustrations. Perry's work originally published in 1913; and Bell's in 1876. Fold-out map of Exeter of the past with a facsimile of 1776 newspaper page on rear. Name on front fly leaf otherwise a clean, bright copy.
Hardcover. Reno, Center for Basque Studies, 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 333 pages, b&w photos. Black illustrated boards, no dust jacket. Light bumping to corners, else a clean, tight copy. his story--that of the government-in-exile of Lehendakari Jose Antonio Agirre and the multitudes of other Basques who were forced by war and oppression to flee their homeland--has not been written in English before and is rather unknown to the Basque, Spanish, and French historiography. Drawing on primary sources; archival documentation; and interviews with many Basque political exiles, resistance members, and former prisoners of labor camps Professor Xabier Irujo tells a gripping story of the Basque autonomous government, conceived during the beginnings of a bloody civil war, forced to organize a mass exile and then overtaken by necessity to feed and clothe its exiled population. Following this initial period, the exiled Basques were then confronted by World War and forced again into flight, this time mainly to the Americas. Never giving up their opposition to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, the government continued its struggle during forty long years of existence, through wars hot and cold as well as countless political developments. While tracing the history of Lehendakari Agirre, this book is more the story of all of the Basques who were forced into exile, and it serves as a testimony to their unwavering determination to return to their homeland. In addition, the book contains an extensive biographical index of many of the heretofore unknown exile activists: writers, politicians, soldiers, intellectuals, but even more so, Basque patriots.
Hardcover. New York, The Century Co., 1st, 1929, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, 341 pages, gilt title on spine, blue cloth cover. Very slight edge and corner wear, otherwise, very clean and tight copy.
Hardcover. NY, Simon & Schuster, 1st, 2000, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket, 512 pages. B&w illustrations. With this handsome book, David Sweetman, a biographer of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, brings together the dissolute lives of various artists who came to represent decadent fin-de-siecle Paris: Oscar Wilde, Felix Feneon, Alfred Jarry, and, of course, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. As the author reminds us, imitations of the latter's work adorn the walls of French-themed bars worldwide and have become a shorthand for sanitized debauchery. Toulouse-Lautrec--absinthe drinker and brothel frequenter--was instrumental in the development of the poster, but what is his artistic legacy? Although Toulouse-Lautrec dominates the book's subtitle, Sweetman's sweep is much grander. In much the same way as his main subject was, Sweetman proves a sympathetic host to the women of Montmartre, tragic figures such as La Goulue, Jane Avril, and Suzanne Valadon, and he is particularly insightful on the singer Aristide Bruant's influence on the fledgling artist. Clean copy.
Softcover. Durham NC, Duke University Press, 2nd pr., 1994, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 342 pages. In Extended Play, one of the country's most innovative music writers conducts a wide-ranging tour through the outer limits of contemporary music. Over the course of more than twenty-five portraits, interviews, and essays, John Corbett engages artists from lands as distant as Sweden, Siberia, and Saturn. With a special emphasis on African American and European improvisers, the book explores the famous and the little known, from John Cage and George Clinton to Anthony Braxton and Sun Ra. Employing approaches as diverse as the music he celebrates, Corbett illuminates the sound and theory of funk and rap, blues and jazz, contemporary classical, free improvisation, rock, and reggae. Using cultural critique and textual theory, Corbett addresses a broad spectrum of issues, such as the status of recorded music in postmodern culture, the politics of self-censorship, experimentation, and alternativism in the music industry, and the use of metaphors of space and madness in the work of African American musicians. He follows these more theoretically oriented essays with a series of extensive profiles and in-depth interviews that offer contrasting and complementary perspectives on some of the world's most creative musicians and their work. Clean copy.
Hardcover. New York, The Macmillan Company, reprint, 1958, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, dark blue cloth, 179 pagees, with illustrations by Mudge-Marriatt. Minor corner and spine edge wear, otherwise, in very good condition. The "extraordinary seaman" was Captain Lord Cochrane, tenth Earl of Dondonald; the author of this book was an M.P., and contributor of the Parliamentary Report to the weekly New Statesman. "Captain Cochrane went to sea in the Royal Navy's greatest period. He became one of the finest sea fighters Britain has ever known. His scientific ingenuity and imaginative genius made him a pioneer of combat methods which were only fully developed nearly one hundred and fifty years later in the second world war."
Hardcover. NY, Henry Holt and Co., 1st, 2017, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket, 294 pages. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro were young Jewish refugees, idealistic and in love. As photographers in the 1930s, they set off to capture their generation's most important struggle-the fight against fascism. Among the first to depict modern warfare, Capa, Taro, and their friend Chim took powerful photographs of the Spanish Civil War that went straight from the action to news magazines. They brought a human face to war with their iconic shots of a loving couple resting, a wary orphan, and, always, more and more refugees-people driven from their homes by bombs, guns, and planes. Today, our screens are flooded with images from around the world. But Capa and Taro were pioneers, bringing home the crises and dramas of their time-and helping give birth to the idea of bearing witness through technology. With a cast of characters ranging from Langston Hughes and George Orwell to Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway, and packed with dramatic photos, posters, and cinematic magazine layouts, here is Capa and Taro's riveting, tragic, and ultimately inspiring story. Clean copy.
Hardcover. Urbana IL, University of Illinois Press, 1st, 1990, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. Power was at the heart of FDR's relationship with the media: the power of the nation's chief executive to control his public messages versus the power of the free press to act as an independent watchdog over the president and the government. This compelling study points to Roosevelt's consummate news management as a key to his political artistry and leadership legacy.
Hardcover. London, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1st, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright dust jacket. "This collection of illustrations from the National Art Library at the V&A contains well-known and unfamiliar fables accompanied by contemporary texts and translations, often with a topical or satirical content. It gives a cross-section of illustrative styles from the 15th to the 20th centuries. Fabulous color and b/w illustrations throughout. A wonderful reference volume, with a small bibliography and an "Analysis by Theme" at rear (plus Index)." Clean copy.
Hardcover. 1st, 1981, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover in near fine condition (some discoloration to black laminated covers). 112 pages, b/w and color illustrations of fashion from 1907 to 1967. Annotated catalogue of an exhibition from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York held at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Hardcover. NY, Weybright and Talley, 1st US, 1970, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Hardcover, lavender cloth with gilt tile on spine, 338 pages. Previous owner's name on front fly leaf, otherwise clean. No dust jacket but flaps laid-in.
New York, Aperture, Rep., 1998 , Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover, 162 pages, many B&W & sepia period photographs of China, its people and culture. Very richly illustrated, captions, chronology, list pioneer phiotographers, sources, general bibliography, acknowledgements. Photographs from the archives of Arnold Arboretum - Harvard University.