During William Gilmore Simms’s life (1806–1870), book reviews and critical essays became vital parts of American literary culture and intellectual discourse. Simms was an assiduous reviewer and essayist, proving by example the...
Intellectual life
- Author:Simms, William GilmoreSummary:
- Author:Joseph, Peniel E.Summary:
An acclaimed chronicler of the Civil Rights Movement, Peniel Joseph presents this sweeping overview of a key component of the struggle for racial equality--the Black Power movement. This is the story of the men and women who sacrificed...
- Author:Judt, Tony, Snyder, TimothySummary:
Renowned historian Tony Judt's final work brings the twentieth century's conflicted intellectual history to life as the age of ideas. Spanning the entire era and all currents of thought, this book restores clarity to the classics of...
- Author:Dyja, ThomasSummary:
Much of what defined America as it grew into a superpower was produced in Chicago. Chicago native Thomas Dyja re-creates the story of the city in its postwar prime and explains its profound impact on modern America.
- Author:Binet, LaurentSummary:
Paris, 1980. The literary critic Roland Barthes dies--struck by a laundry van--after lunch with the presidential candidate François Mitterand. But was it an accident or murder?
- Author:Lepore, JillSummary:
How does life begin? What does it mean? What happens when we die? “All anyone can do is ask,” Lepore writes. “That's why any history of ideas about life and death has to be, like this book, a history of curiosity.” Lepore starts that...
- Author:Carpenter, DavidSummary:
Progressions presents another batch of erudite and entertaining essays on a variety of topics covering Saskatchewan's literary development, as well as tributes to some of the major contributors to that history, and a pictorial...
- Author:Al-Khalili, JimSummary:
British-Iraqi physicist Jim Al-Khalili here unveils the Arabic legacy of science and philosophy--a legacy that has long been hidden from the West.
- Author:Schmidt, JamesSummary:
In this course, Boston University professor James Schmidt offers a balanced assessment of the Enlightenment, considering both its achievements and its shortcomings and focusing not only on its most important intellectual achievements...
- Author:Gilroy, PaulSummary:
- Author:Holmes, RichardSummary:
When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages...
- Author:Paquet, GillesSummary:
Ce tableau d’avancement examine le Canada français de la dernière moitié du XXe siècle et propose quelques repères utiles, souligne certains enlisements, avancées et retards, et cherche à comprendre son évolution malaisée à travers...
- Author:Atwood, MargaretSummary:
When first published in 1972, Survival was considered the most startling book ever written about Canadian literature. Since then, it has continued to be read and taught, and it continues to shape the way Canadians look at themselves....
- Author:Sledge, John S., Edgar, WalterSummary:
Southern Bound represents a running conversation on books, writers and literary travel written for the Mobile Press-Register Books page from 1995 to 2011 by John S. Sledge. The collection includes more than 100 of the best pieces culled...
- Author:Persky, StanSummary:
Twenty-five years after the Berlin Wall was pulled down by Berliners fed up with the division of their city, Stan Persky returns to Eastern Europe. In essays informative and insightful, he illuminates what some consider the final act...
- Author:hooks, bellSummary:
According to the Washington Post, no one who cares about contemporary African-American cultures can ignore bell hooks' electrifying feminist explorations. Targeting cultural icons as diverse as Madonna and Spike Lee, Outlaw Culture...
- Author:Abdul-Jabbar, KareemSummary:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar examines some of the leading political and cultural figures of the Harlem Renaissance--including Marcus Garvey,W.E.B. Du Bois, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Langston Hughes, and many more.
- Author:Abdul-Jabbar, KareemSummary:
Listen as jazz critic Stanley Crouch describes the Roaring Twenties and Kareeem discusses how jazz influenced his life.
- Author:Abdul-Jabbar, KareemSummary:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar recounts the birth of Harlem, from the boll weevil to the Great Migration, and discusses how Harlem influenced his life.
- Author:Germain, Jean-Claude, Winkler, DonaldSummary:
Jean-Claude Germain’s second volume of Montreal memoirs chronicles his coming of age: his draconian Jesuit education on the fringes of the city’s Red Light District, followed by his liberating discovery of the city’s fevered bohemian...