Author : Peter Rhoads Silver
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 436 pages
File Size : 30,31 MB
Release : 2008
Category : History
ISBN : 9780393334906
In potent, graceful prose that sensitively unearths the social complexity and tangled history of colonial relations, Silver presents an astonishingly vivid picture of 18th-century America. 13 illustrations; 2 maps.
Author : Lawrence H. Keeley
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 47,46 MB
Release : 1997-12-18
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0199880700
The myth of the peace-loving "noble savage" is persistent and pernicious. Indeed, for the last fifty years, most popular and scholarly works have agreed that prehistoric warfare was rare, harmless, unimportant, and, like smallpox, a disease of civilized societies alone. Prehistoric warfare, according to this view, was little more than a ritualized game, where casualties were limited and the effects of aggression relatively mild. Lawrence Keeley's groundbreaking War Before Civilization offers a devastating rebuttal to such comfortable myths and debunks the notion that warfare was introduced to primitive societies through contact with civilization (an idea he denounces as "the pacification of the past"). Building on much fascinating archeological and historical research and offering an astute comparison of warfare in civilized and prehistoric societies, from modern European states to the Plains Indians of North America, War Before Civilization convincingly demonstrates that prehistoric warfare was in fact more deadly, more frequent, and more ruthless than modern war. To support this point, Keeley provides a wide-ranging look at warfare and brutality in the prehistoric world. He reveals, for instance, that prehistorical tactics favoring raids and ambushes, as opposed to formal battles, often yielded a high death-rate; that adult males falling into the hands of their enemies were almost universally killed; and that surprise raids seldom spared even women and children. Keeley cites evidence of ancient massacres in many areas of the world, including the discovery in South Dakota of a prehistoric mass grave containing the remains of over 500 scalped and mutilated men, women, and children (a slaughter that took place a century and a half before the arrival of Columbus). In addition, Keeley surveys the prevalence of looting, destruction, and trophy-taking in all kinds of warfare and again finds little moral distinction between ancient warriors and civilized armies. Finally, and perhaps most controversially, he examines the evidence of cannibalism among some preliterate peoples. Keeley is a seasoned writer and his book is packed with vivid, eye-opening details (for instance, that the homicide rate of prehistoric Illinois villagers may have exceeded that of the modern United States by some 70 times). But he also goes beyond grisly facts to address the larger moral and philosophical issues raised by his work. What are the causes of war? Are human beings inherently violent? How can we ensure peace in our own time? Challenging some of our most dearly held beliefs, Keeley's conclusions are bound to stir controversy.
Author : Rachel Kleinfeld
Publisher : Vintage
Page : 496 pages
File Size : 42,63 MB
Release : 2018-11-06
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1524746878
The most violent places in the world today are not at war. More people have died in Mexico in recent years than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. These parts of the world are instead buckling under a maelstrom of gangs, organized crime, political conflict, corruption, and state brutality. Such devastating violence can feel hopeless, yet some places—from Colombia to the Republic of Georgia—have been able to recover. In this powerfully argued and urgent book, Rachel Kleinfeld examines why some democracies, including our own, are crippled by extreme violence and how they can regain security. Drawing on fifteen years of study and firsthand field research—interviewing generals, former guerrillas, activists, politicians, mobsters, and law enforcement in countries around the world—Kleinfeld tells the stories of societies that successfully fought seemingly ingrained violence and offers penetrating conclusions about what must be done to build governments that are able to protect the lives of their citizens. Taking on existing literature and popular theories about war, crime, and foreign intervention, A Savage Order is a blistering yet inspiring investigation into what makes some countries peaceful and others war zones, and a blueprint for what we can do to help.
Author : Fintan O'Toole
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 562 pages
File Size : 46,79 MB
Release : 2015-03-24
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 1466892692
A provocative new biography of the man who forged America's alliance with the Iroquois William Johnson was scarcely more than a boy when he left Ireland and his Gaelic, Catholic family to become a Protestant in the service of Britain's North American empire. In New York by 1738, Johnson moved to the frontiers along the Mohawk River, where he established himself as a fur trader and eventually became a landowner with vast estates; served as principal British intermediary with the Iroquois Confederacy; command British, colonial, and Iroquois forces that defeated the French in the battle of Lake George in 1755; and created the first groups of "rangers," who fought like Indians and led the way to the Patriots' victories in the Revolution. As Fintan O'Toole's superbly researched, colorfully dramatic narrative makes clear, the key to Johnson's signal effectiveness was the style in which he lived as a "white savage." Johnson had two wives, one European, one Mohawk; became fluent in Mohawk; and pioneered the use of Indians as active partners in the making of a new America. O'Toole's masterful use of the extraordinary (often hilariously misspelled) documents written by Irish, Dutch, German, French, and Native American participants in Johnson's drama enlivens the account of this heroic figure's legendary career; it also suggests why Johnson's early multiculturalism unraveled, and why the contradictions of his enterprise created a historical dead end.
Author : Joanne Serling
Publisher : Twelve
Page : 226 pages
File Size : 41,92 MB
Release : 2018-02-06
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 1455541893
A searing portrait of suburbia, friendship, and family strained by a devotion to false appearances. In an idyllic suburb, four young families quickly form a neighborhood clique, their friendships based on little more than the ages of their children and a shared sense of camaraderie. When one of the couples, Paige and Gene Edwards, adopt a four-year-old girl from Russia, the group's loyalty and morality is soon called into question. Are the Edwards unkind to their new daughter? Or is she a difficult child with hidden destructive tendencies? As the seams of the group friendship slowly unravel, neighbor Nicole Westerhof finds herself drawn further into the life of the adopted girl, forcing Nicole to re-examine the deceptive nature of her own family ties, and her complicity in the events unfolding around her.
Author : Marjorie Savage
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 11,59 MB
Release : 2009-05-05
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 1439166285
Realistic and practical advice for parents of college-age kids. Parents whose kids are away at college have a tough tightrope to walk: they naturally want to stay connected to their children, yet they also need to let go. What's more, kids often send mixed messages: they crave space, but they rely on their parents' advice and assistance. Not surprisingly, it's hard to know when it's appropriate to get involved in your child's life and when it's better to back off. You're On Your Own (But I'm Here If You Need Me) helps parents identify the boundaries between necessary involvement and respect for their child's independence.
Author : Peter Maass
Publisher : Pan MacMillan
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 43,95 MB
Release : 2013-01-03
Category : Bosnia and Herzegovina
ISBN : 9780230768406
An up-close account of the devastating conflict in Bosnia, 1992-3
Author : Jack Weatherford
Publisher : Ballantine Books
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 18,97 MB
Release : 2010-05-19
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0307755460
A “provocative [and] vivid” (Minneapolis Star Tribune) look at the primitive cultures that have given many gifts to the modern world, and how their very existence is now threatened “This book should serve as a ‘wake-up’ call to people everywhere.”—Library Journal In Indian Givers and Native Roots, renowned anthropologist Jack Weatherford explored the clash between Native American and European cultures. Now, in Savages and Civilization, Weatherford broadens his focus to examine how civilization threatens to obliterate unique tribal and ethnic cultures around the world—and in the process imperils its own existence. As Weatherford explains, the relationship between “civilized” and “savage” peoples through history has encompassed not only violence, but also a surprising degree of cooperation, mutual influence, trade, and intermarriage. But this relationship has now entered a critical stage everywhere in the world, as indigenous peoples fiercely resist the onslaught of a global civilization that will obliterate their identities. Savages and Civilization powerfully demonstrates that our survival as a species is based not on a choice between savages and civilization, but rather on a commitment to their vital coexistence.
Author : Rebecca Solnit
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 42,11 MB
Release : 2010-08-31
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1101459018
The author of Men Explain Things to Me explores the moments of altruism and generosity that arise in the aftermath of disaster Why is it that in the aftermath of a disaster? whether manmade or natural?people suddenly become altruistic, resourceful, and brave? What makes the newfound communities and purpose many find in the ruins and crises after disaster so joyous? And what does this joy reveal about ordinarily unmet social desires and possibilities? In A Paradise Built in Hell, award-winning author Rebecca Solnit explores these phenomena, looking at major calamities from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco through the 1917 explosion that tore up Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, 9/11, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She examines how disaster throws people into a temporary utopia of changed states of mind and social possibilities, as well as looking at the cost of the widespread myths and rarer real cases of social deterioration during crisis. This is a timely and important book from an acclaimed author whose work consistently locates unseen patterns and meanings in broad cultural histories.
Author : Ann Hagedorn
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 564 pages
File Size : 23,74 MB
Release : 2007-04-10
Category : History
ISBN : 1416539719
Written with the sweep of an epic novel and grounded in extensive research into contemporary documents, Savage Peace is a striking portrait of American democracy under stress. It is the surprising story of America in the year 1919. In the aftermath of an unprecedented worldwide war and a flu pandemic, Americans began the year full of hope, expecting to reap the benefits of peace. But instead, the fear of terrorism filled their days. Bolshevism was the new menace, and the federal government, utilizing a vast network of domestic spies, began to watch anyone deemed suspicious. A young lawyer named J. Edgar Hoover headed a brand-new intelligence division of the Bureau of Investigation (later to become the FBI). Bombs exploded on the doorstep of the attorney general's home in Washington, D.C., and thirty-six parcels containing bombs were discovered at post offices across the country. Poet and journalist Carl Sandburg, recently returned from abroad with a trunk full of Bolshevik literature, was detained in New York, his trunk seized. A twenty-one-year-old Russian girl living in New York was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for protesting U.S. intervention in Arctic Russia, where thousands of American soldiers remained after the Armistice, ostensibly to guard supplies but in reality to join a British force meant to be a warning to the new Bolshevik government. In 1919, wartime legislation intended to curb criticism of the government was extended and even strengthened. Labor strife was a daily occurrence. And decorated African-American soldiers, returning home to claim the democracy for which they had risked their lives, were badly disappointed. Lynchings continued, race riots would erupt in twenty-six cities before the year ended, and secret agents from the government's "Negro Subversion" unit routinely shadowed outspoken African-Americans. Adding a vivid human drama to the greater historical narrative, Savage Peace brings 1919 alive through the people who played a major role in making the year so remarkable. Among them are William Monroe Trotter, who tried to put democracy for African-Americans on the agenda at the Paris peace talks; Supreme Court associate justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who struggled to find a balance between free speech and legitimate government restrictions for reasons of national security, producing a memorable decision for the future of free speech in America; and journalist Ray Stannard Baker, confidant of President Woodrow Wilson, who watched carefully as Wilson's idealism crumbled and wrote the best accounts we have of the president's frustration and disappointment. Weaving together the stories of a panoramic cast of characters, from Albert Einstein to Helen Keller, Ann Hagedorn brilliantly illuminates America at a pivotal moment.
