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A Slave No
More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom,
Including Their Own Narratives of
Emancipation
by David W.
Blight
Slave narratives, some of the most
powerful records of our past, are
extremely rare, with only fifty-five
post&endash;Civil War narratives
surviving. A mere handful are first-person
accounts by slaves who ran away and freed
themselves. Now two newly uncovered
narratives, and the biographies of the men
who wrote them, join that exclusive group
with the publication of A Slave No
More, a major new addition to the
canon of American history. Handed down
through family and friends, these
narratives tell gripping stories of
escape: Through a combination of
intelligence, daring, and sheer luck, the
men reached the protection of the
occupying Union troops. David W. Blight
magnifies the drama and significance by
prefacing the narratives with each man's
life history. Using a wealth of
genealogical information, Blight has
reconstructed their childhoods as sons of
white slaveholders, their service as cooks
and camp hands during the Civil War, and
their climb to black working-class
stability in the north, where they
reunited their families.
Read
Dr. Dolhenty's Review of this Book
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Boom!:
Voices of the Sixties
by Tom
Brokaw
In The Greatest Generation, his
landmark bestseller, Tom Brokaw eloquently
evoked for America what it meant to come
of age during the Great Depression and the
Second World War. Now, in Boom!,
one of America's premier journalists gives
us an epic portrait of another defining
era in America as he brings to life the
tumultuous Sixties, a fault line in
American history. The voices and stories
of both famous people and ordinary
citizens come together as Brokaw takes us
on a memorable journey through a
remarkable time, exploring how individual
lives and the national mindset were
affected by a controversial era and
showing how the aftershocks of the Sixties
continue to resound in our lives today. In
the reflections of a generation, Brokaw
also discovers lessons that might guide us
in the years ahead.
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an Excerpt from this Book
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Dancing in
the Streets: A History of Collective
Joy
by Barbara
Ehrenreich
From the bestselling social commentator
and cultural historian, a fascinating
exploration of one of humanity's oldest
traditions: the celebration of communal
joy.
In the acclaimed Blood Rites,
Barbara Ehrenreich delved into the origins
of our species' attraction to war. Here,
she explores the opposite impulse, one
that has been so effectively suppressed
that we lack even a term for it: the
desire for collective joy, historically
expressed in ecstatic revels of feasting,
costuming, and dancing.
Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of
communal celebration in human biology and
culture. Although sixteenth-century
Europeans viewed mass festivities as
foreign and "savage," Ehrenreich shows
that they were indigenous to the West,
from the ancient Greeks' worship of
Dionysus to the medieval practice of
Christianity as a "danced religion."
Ultimately, church officials drove the
festivities into the streets, the prelude
to widespread reformation: Protestants
criminalized carnival, Wahhabist Muslims
battled ecstatic Sufism, European
colonizers wiped out native dance
rites.
The elites' fear that such gatherings
would undermine social hierarchies was
justified: the festive tradition inspired
French revolutionary crowds and uprisings
from the Caribbean to the American plains.
Yet outbreaks of group revelry persist, as
Ehrenreich shows, pointing to the 1960s
rock-and-roll rebellion and the more
recent "carnivalization" of sports.
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an Excerpt from this Book
Read
Dr. Dolhenty's Review of this Book
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The Force
of Reason
by Oriana
Fallaci
Oriana Fallaci is back with her
much-anticipated follow up to The Rage
and the Pride, her powerful
post-September 11 manifesto. The genesis
for The Force of Reason was a
postscript entitled Due Anni Dopo
(Two Years Later), which was intended as a
brief appendix to the thirtieth edition of
The Rage and the Pride (2002). Once
Ms. Fallaci completed the postscript, she
chose to expand it into a book, a
continuation of her ideas set in motion in
The Rage and the Pride. In The
Force of Reason Fallaci takes aim at
the many attacks and death threats she
received after the publication of The
Rage and the Pride. Ms. Fallaci begins
by identifying herself with one Master
Cecco, the author of a heretical book who
was burnt at the stake during the
Inquisition seven centuries ago on account
of his beliefs, and proceeds with a
rigorous analysis of the burning of Troy
and the creation of a Europe that, to her
judgment, is no longer her familiar
homeland but rather a place best called
Eurabia, a soon-to-be colony of Islam
(with Italy as its stronghold). Ms.
Fallaci explores her ideas in historical,
philosophical, moral, and political terms,
courageously addressing taboo topics with
sharp logic.
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What's So
Great About America
Look again at the title of this book:
it's not a question, but a statement.
"America is the greatest, freest, and most
decent society in existence," writes
Dinesh D'Souza. "American life as it is
lived today [is] the best life
that our world has to offer." Foreign
authors such as Alexis de Tocqueville and
Gunnar Myrdal have offered some of the
most penetrating assessments of America,
and the India-born D'Souza clearly shares
in this noble tradition.
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Domestic
Tranquility: A Brief Against
Feminism
"Even I hadn't realized the depth to
which our society and culture have been
harmed by the modern feminist movement.
Here are the analyses you need from a
woman who knows about which she writes. A
thought-provoking critique of one of the
major movements of the century. Read and
weep!"
Jonathan Dolhenty
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The
De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian
Virtues to Modern
Values
An excellent comparison of virtue and
value between society of a hundred years
ago and society of today.
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Crime and
Punishment in American
History
A good, solid, objective history of
crime and punishment. It will open your
eyes to some things you've never been told
about the history of our criminal justice
system.
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