Our Lives and Times


Book Description

Recorded history's most dynamic epoch comes to life as never before in book form. A veritable browser's paradise, Our Lives & Times encompasses the 20th century and beyond, packing more than one hundred years of facts, images, essays, and chronological timelines into one visually deightful, thoroughly readable, highly entertaining chronicle of the people and events that shaped our past, and continue to shape our present.




Louisiana Women


Book Description

Highlights the significant historical contributions of some of Louisiana's most noteworthy and also overlooked women from the eighteenth century to the present. This volume underscores the cultural, social, and political distinctiveness of the state and showcases how these women affected its history.




Georgia Women


Book Description

This first of two volumes extends from the founding of the colony of Georgia in 1733 up to the Progressive era. From the beginning, Georgia women were instrumental in shaping the state, yet most histories minimize their contributions. The essays in this volume include women of many ethnicities and classes who played an important role in Georgia’s history. Though sources for understanding the lives of women in Georgia during the colonial period are scarce, the early essays profile Mary Musgrove, an important player in the relations between the Creek nation and the British Crown, and the loyalist Elizabeth Johnston, who left Georgia for Nova Scotia in 1806. Another essay examines the near-mythical quality of the American Revolution-era accounts of "Georgia's War Woman," Nancy Hart. The later essays are multifaceted in their examination of the way different women experienced Georgia's antebellum social and political life, the tumult of the Civil War, and the lingering consequences of both the conflict itself and Emancipation. After the war, both necessity and opportunity changed women's lives, as educated white women like Eliza Andrews established or taught in schools and as African American women like Lucy Craft Laney, who later founded the Haines Institute, attended school for the first time. Georgia Women also profiles reform-minded women like Mary Latimer McLendon, Rebecca Latimer Felton, Mildred Rutherford, Nellie Peters Black, and Martha Berry, who worked tirelessly for causes ranging from temperance to suffrage to education. The stories of the women portrayed in this volume provide valuable glimpses into the lives and experiences of all Georgia women during the first century and a half of the state's existence. Historical figures include: Mary Musgrove Nancy Hart Elizabeth Lichtenstein Johnston Ellen Craft Fanny Kemble Frances Butler Leigh Susie King Taylor Eliza Frances Andrews Amanda America Dickson Mary Ann Harris Gay Rebecca Latimer Felton Mary Latimer McLendon Mildred Lewis Rutherford Nellie Peters Black Lucy Craft Laney Martha Berry Corra Harris Juliette Gordon Low




The Lives and Times of Bonnie & Clyde


Book Description

The author carefully gleaned materials from obscure locally published accounts, previously untapped court records, and archived but unpublished oral history accounts from some sixty victims, neighbors, relatives, and police who were involved in the exploits of the infamous duo. Using this information, he traces the violent path of Bonnie and Clyde until May 23, 1934, when they die in an ambush.




The Times of Their Lives


Book Description

The utterly absorbing real story of the lives of the Pilgrims, whose desires and foibles may be more recognizable to us than they first appear. Americans have been schooled to believe that their forefathers, the Pilgrims, were somber, dark-clad, pure-of-heart figures who conceived their country on the foundation of piety, hard work, and the desire to live simply and honestly. But the truth is far from the portrait painted by decades of historians. They wore brightly colored clothing, often drank heavily, believed in witches, had premarital sex and adulterous affairs, and committed petty and serious crimes against their neighbors in surprisingly high numbers. Beginning by debunking the numerous myths that surround the landing of the Mayflower and the first Thanksgiving, James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz lead us through court transcripts, wills, probate listings, and rare firsthand accounts, as well as archaeological finds, to reveal the true story of life in colonial America.




Extra Lives


Book Description

In Extra Lives, acclaimed writer and life-long video game enthusiast Tom Bissell takes the reader on an insightful and entertaining tour of the art and meaning of video games. In just a few decades, video games have grown increasingly complex and sophisticated, and the companies that produce them are now among the most profitable in the entertainment industry. Yet few outside this world have thought deeply about how these games work, why they are so appealing, and what they are capable of artistically. Blending memoir, criticism, and first-rate reportage, Extra Lives is a milestone work about what might be the dominant popular art form of our time.




Virginia Women


Book Description

The exploration of the history of Virginia women through the lives of exemplary and remarkable individuals. Seventeen essays written by established and emerging scholars recover the stories and voices of a diverse group of women.




The Death and Life of the Great Lakes


Book Description

New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award "Nimbly splices together history, science, reporting and personal experiences into a taut and cautiously hopeful narrative.… Egan’s book is bursting with life (and yes, death)." —Robert Moor, New York Times Book Review The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario, and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of surface fresh water and provide sustenance, work, and recreation for tens of millions of Americans. But they are under threat as never before, and their problems are spreading across the continent. The Death and Life of the Great Lakes is prize-winning reporter Dan Egan’s compulsively readable portrait of an ecological catastrophe happening right before our eyes, blending the epic story of the lakes with an examination of the perils they face and the ways we can restore and preserve them for generations to come.




Kentucky Women


Book Description

Kentucky Women: Their Lives and Times introduces a history as dynamic and diverse as Kentucky itself. Covering the Appalachian region in the east to the Pennyroyal in the west, the essays highlight women whose aspirations, innovations, activism, and creativity illustrate Kentucky's role in political and social reform, education, health care, the arts, and cultural development. The collection features women with well-known names as well as those whose lives and work deserve greater attention. Shawnee chief Nonhelema Hokolesqua, western Kentucky slave Matilda Lewis Threlkeld, the sisters Emilie Todd Helm and Mary Todd Lincoln, reformers Madeline Mc- Dowell Breckinridge and Laura Clay, activists Anne McCarty Braden and Elizabeth Fouse, politicians Georgia Davis Powers and Martha Layne Collins, sculptor Enid Yandell, writer Harriette Simpson Arnow, and entrepreneur Nancy Newsom Mahaffey are covered in Kentucky Women, representing a broad cross section of those who forged Kentucky's relationship with the American South and the nation at large. With essays on frontier life, gender inequality in marriage and divorce, medical advances, family strife, racial challenges and triumphs, widowhood, agrarian culture, urban experiences, educational theory and fieldwork, visual art, literature, and fame, the contributors have shaped a history of Kentucky that is both grounded and groundbreaking. Contributors: Lindsey Apple on Madeline McDowell Breckinridge; Martha Billips on Harriette Simpson Arnow; James Duane Bolin on Linda Neville; Sarah Case on Katherine Pettit and May Stone; Juilee Decker on Enid Yandell; Carolyn R. Dupont on Georgia Montgomery Davis Powers; Angela Esco Elder on Emilie Todd Helm and Mary Todd Lincoln; Catherine Fosl on Anne Pogue McGinty and Anne McCarty Braden; Craig Thompson Friend on Nonhelema Hokolesqua, Jemima Boone Callaway, and Matilda Lewis Threlkeld; Melanie Beals Goan on Mary Breckinridge; John Paul Hill on Martha Layne Collins; Anya Jabour on Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge; William Kuby on Mary Jane Warfield Clay; Karen Cotton McDaniel on Elizabeth "Lizzie" Fouse; Melissa A. McEuen on Nancy Newsom Mahaffey; Mary Jane Smith on Laura Clay; Andrea S. Watkins on Josie Underwood and Frances Dallam Peter.




American Aristocracy


Book Description