American Odyssey
Author : Robert E. Conot
Publisher :
Page : 808 pages
File Size : 50,88 MB
Release : 1985
Category : History
ISBN :
An American Odyssey
Author : Mary Schmidt Campbell
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 486 pages
File Size : 29,7 MB
Release : 2018-08-06
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0199723648
Book Description
By the time of his death in 1988, Romare Bearden was most widely celebrated for his large-scale public murals and collages, which were reproduced in such places as Time and Esquire to symbolize and evoke the black experience in America. As Mary Schmidt Campbell shows us in this definitive, defining, and immersive biography, the relationship between art and race was central to his life and work -- a constant, driving creative tension. Bearden started as a cartoonist during his college years, but in the later 1930s turned to painting and became part of a community of artists supported by the WPA. As his reputation grew he perfected his skills, studying the European masters and analyzing and breaking down their techniques, finding new ways of applying them to the America he knew, one in which the struggle for civil rights became all-absorbing. By the time of the March on Washington in 1963, he had begun to experiment with the Projections, as he called his major collages, in which he tried to capture the full spectrum of the black experience, from the grind of daily life to broader visions and aspirations. Campbell's book offers a full and vibrant account of Bearden's life -- his years in Harlem (his studio was above the Apollo theater), to his travels and commissions, along with illuminating analysis of his work and artistic career. Campbell, who met Bearden in the 1970s, was among the first to compile a catalogue of his works. An American Odyssey goes far beyond that, offering a living portrait of an artist and the impact he made upon the world he sought both to recreate and celebrate.
Riverman
Author : Ben McGrath
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 13,27 MB
Release : 2022-04-05
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0451494016
Book Description
“This quietly profound book belongs on the shelf next to Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.” —The New York Times The riveting true story of Dick Conant, an American folk hero who, over the course of more than twenty years, canoed solo thousands of miles of American rivers—and then disappeared near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This book “contains everything: adventure, mystery, travelogue, and unforgettable characters” (David Grann, best-selling author of Killers of the Flower Moon). For decades, Dick Conant paddled the rivers of America, covering the Mississippi, Yellowstone, Ohio, Hudson, as well as innumerable smaller tributaries. These solo excursions were epic feats of planning, perseverance, and physical courage. At the same time, Conant collected people wherever he went, creating a vast network of friends and acquaintances who would forever remember this brilliant and charming man even after a single meeting. Ben McGrath, a staff writer at The New Yorker, was one of those people. In 2014 he met Conant by chance just north of New York City as Conant paddled down the Hudson, headed for Florida. McGrath wrote a widely read article about their encounter, and when Conant's canoe washed up a few months later, without any sign of his body, McGrath set out to find the people whose lives Conant had touched--to capture a remarkable life lived far outside the staid confines of modern existence. Riverman is a moving portrait of a complex and fascinating man who was as troubled as he was charismatic, who struggled with mental illness and self-doubt, and was ultimately unable to fashion a stable life for himself; who traveled alone and yet thrived on connection and brought countless people together in his wake. It is also a portrait of an America we rarely see: a nation of unconventional characters, small river towns, and long-forgotten waterways.
Coxey's Army
Author : Carlos A. Schwantes
Publisher :
Page : 344 pages
File Size : 44,62 MB
Release : 1985
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN :
Book Description
On May 1, 1894, Jacob S. Coxey led an army of tattered, hungry, unemployed people from western and mid-western states to Washington, D.C., to persuade Congress and President Cleveland to create public works and increase the money supply to stimulate the economy. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
The Majic Bus
Author : Douglas Brinkley
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 523 pages
File Size : 33,44 MB
Release : 2003-04-15
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781560254966
Book Description
Professor Douglas Brinkley arranged to teach a six-week experimental class aboard a fully equipped sleeper bus. The class would visit thirty states and ten national parks. They would read twelve books by great American writers. They would see Bob Dylan in Seattle, gamble at a Vegas casino, dance to Bourbon Street jazz in New Orleans, pay homage to Elvis Presley’s Graceland and William Faulkner’s Rowan Oak, ride the whitewater rapids on the Rio Grande, and experience a California earthquake. Their journey took them to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield, Harry Truman’s Independence, and Theodore Roosevelt’s North Dakota badlands. And it gave them the unforgettable experience of meeting some of their cultural heroes, including William S. Burroughs and Ken Kesey, who took the gang for a spin in his own psychedelic bus. Driven by Doug Brinkley’s energetic prose, The Majic Bus is a spirited travelogue of a unique experience.
North American Odyssey
Author : Craig E. Colten
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 461 pages
File Size : 10,44 MB
Release : 2014-03-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1442215860
Book Description
This groundbreaking volume offers a fresh approach to conceptualizing the historical geography of North America by taking a thematic rather than a traditional regional perspective. Leading geographers, building on current scholarship in the field, explore five central themes. Part I explores the settling and resettling of the continent through the experiences of Native Americans, early European arrivals, and Africans. Part II examines nineteenth-century European immigrants, the reconfiguration of Native society, and the internal migration of African Americans. Part III considers human transformations of the natural landscape in carving out a transportation network, replumbing waterways, extracting timber and minerals, preserving wilderness, and protecting wildlife. Part IV focuses on human landscapes, blending discussions of the visible imprint of society and distinctive approaches to interpreting these features. The authors discuss survey systems, regional landscapes, and tourist and mythic landscapes as well as the role of race, gender, and photographic representation in shaping our understanding of past landscapes. Part V follows the urban impulse in an analysis of the development of the mercantile city, nineteenth- and twentieth-century planning, and environmental justice. With its focus on human-environment interactions, the mobility of people, and growing urbanization, this thoughtful text will give students a uniquely geographical way to understand North American history. Contributions by: Derek H. Alderman, Timothy G. Anderson, Kevin Blake, Christopher G. Boone, Geoffrey L. Buckley, Craig E. Colten, Michael P. Conzen, Lary M. Dilsaver, Mona Domosh, William E. Doolittle, Joshua Inwood, Ines M. Miyares, E. Arnold Modlin, Jr., Edward K. Muller, Michael D. Myers, Karl Raitz, Jasper Rubin, Joan M. Schwartz, Steven Silvern, Andrew Sluyter, Jeffrey S. Smith, Robert Wilson, William Wyckoff, and Yolonda Youngs
In Afghanistan
Author : Jere Van Dyk
Publisher : iUniverse
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 29,23 MB
Release : 2002
Category : Afghanistan
ISBN : 059521553X
Book Description
In Afghanistan is the story of a young man, searching for adventure and self-discovery in war-torn Afghanistan during the time of the Soviet invasion. It is also a portrait of an exotic land and people desperately struggling for survival during that war, as they are today. In 1981, with a letter and some financial backing from The New York Times, Van Dyk, bearded and dressed as an Afghan, sneaked into Afghanistan , then off-limits to foreigners, and lived in the ruggedly-beautiful mountains and desert of this country with the Mujahideen, the men then fighting the Soviet Union. “My spine tingled like a boy’s. I felt the sensation of adventure…The Turbans of ten laughing young men, armed to the teeth, flapped in the wind…I would not have traded this moment for all the money in the world. It was suicidal, magnificent, and I knew we’d be all right.” But it was close. He lived through Soviet ground and helicopter attacks, saw death and suffering, but also laughter. He had much to learn about Islam, tribal traditions and the holy war the guerrillas were waging. He was accused of being a Soviet spy, but ultimately won the trust of his Afghan guides. He saw a strong, courageous, often frightened people fighting to protect the only thing they knew--their homes, their families, their way of life. The author, a former runner, a fledgling politician and writer, who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family in a small town in the Northwest, also went looking for something deep among these men who shouted “God is Great” and went into battle against the Red Army. His story is about the people he met and his journey.
In History's Shadow
Author : John Connally
Publisher : Hyperion
Page : 416 pages
File Size : 15,49 MB
Release : 1994-11-01
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780786880683
Book Description
The powerful, acclaimed autobiography of a major political figure is now available in trade paperback. The late John Connally learned the ropes of rural Texas politics under Lyndon Johnson and worked his way up, getting wounded along the way allegedly by the same bullet that killed JFK. Connally's story is an essential contribution to our understanding of recent American history. Photographs.
Incognito
Author : Michael A. Fosberg
Publisher : Self Publisher
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 30,92 MB
Release : 2010
Category : African American authors
ISBN : 9780615413969
Book Description
Michael Fosberg delves into issues of race, identity, family history, divorce, adoption, and finding a father in this poignant and funny memoir which he later embarked on transforming into a popular one-man show performed on a cross-country tour.
The African-American Odyssey
Author : Darlene Clark Hine
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 44,36 MB
Release : 1999-10
Category : African Americans
ISBN : 9780137588220
Book Description
This clearly written, comprehensive textbook explores the African-American experience in the United States from its African origins to the present. It highlights the pivotal role African Americans have played in the nation's history, placing their experience in the context of national trends and events. Tracing their journey towards freedom and full participation in American democracy, The African-American Odyssey gives voice to leaders and ordinary men and women from all walks of life. It examines the rich and expressive culture and the independent institutions African Americans created to address their needs and ensure the survival of their communities. It explores the impact of African-American culture on the larger American culture. And it forthrightly discusses both the new opportunities and the deeply rooted inequalities confronting African Americans at the beginning of the new millennium.
