EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book The Finest Building in America

Download or read book The Finest Building in America written by Edwin G. Burrows and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When first opened to the public in 1853, New York's Crystal Palace created a sensation. Those who had seen London's Crystal Palace, the structure it was openly intended to emulate, argued that America's copy far surpassed it. Built in what is today Bryant Park, a four-acre site between 40th and 42nd Streets, the colossus of glass and steel indeed seemed poised to displace the British original in worldwide fame. Walt Whitman pronounced it "unsurpassed anywhere for beauty." Young Samuel Clemens--not yet Mark Twain--called it a "perfect fairy palace." Many perceived it as putting America, still in the thrall of European culture, on the map. "To us on this side of the water," wrote newspaperman Horace Greely, who had also visited London's Crystal Palace, "it was original." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Edwin G. Burrows offers the tale of what was proclaimed the country's "finest building." Centerpiece of the 1853 World's Fair, the New York Crystal Palace, like its London counterpart, was intended to display the country's latest technological achievements--as well as a few dubious cultural artifacts. But its primary function was simply to be seen and admired by the crowds that thronged to it; its very existence caused patriotic breasts to swell. And then suddenly it was gone. On October 5, 1858, merely five years after its construction, the Crystal Palace caught fire. Despite frantic attempts to save it, the magnificent dome was engulfed and within thirty minutes the entire structure reduced to a heap of smoldering debris, through which for days afterward bereft New Yorkers picked for mementos. With sumptuous images and lively storytelling The Finest Building in America brings back to life an extraordinary monument, one that briefly but wholeheartedly captured the imagination of a country, giving form to its dreams and ambitions, and then vanishing from view.

Book Crystal Palace

    Book Details:
  • Author : John McKean
  • Publisher : Phaidon Press
  • Release : 1994
  • ISBN : 9780714829258
  • Pages : 60 pages

Download or read book Crystal Palace written by John McKean and published by Phaidon Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume covers one of the most influential buildings of the 19th century. Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace was the first public building to omit references to the past. Amid the historicist debates and battle of the styles of mid-19th-century Britain, Paxton's design was rational and straightforward.

Book Death at the Crystal Palace

Download or read book Death at the Crystal Palace written by Jennifer Ashley and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intrepid cook Kat Holloway puts aside her apron to delve into Victorian London’s high society and catch a killer in this thrilling new mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of Murder in the East End. While attending an exhibition at the Crystal Palace, young cook Kat Holloway is approached by a woman in distress. Lady Covington is a wealthy widow convinced that her entire family is trying to kill her. Kat feels compelled to help. So, she escorts the lady home to discover whether she is delusional or in true danger. When it quickly becomes apparent that the threat is all too real, Kat promises aid. Her charming confidant Daniel McAdam is busy infiltrating a plot against the Crown, and she worries he will not have time to lend his sleuthing expertise. This might be for the best, as Kat fears her growing emotional entanglement with Daniel can only lead to disaster. But soon, Kat faces a more serious threat when her involvement in both investigations plunges her into peril.

Book Great Exhibitions

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jonathan Meyer
  • Publisher : Antique Collectors Club Dist
  • Release : 2006
  • ISBN :
  • Pages : 344 pages

Download or read book Great Exhibitions written by Jonathan Meyer and published by Antique Collectors Club Dist. This book was released on 2006 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The need for peoples to come together to celebrate their industry, demonstrate their skills and to trade the results of this industry has existed sin ce man first organized himself into socially cohes ive units.This eventually found universal expressi ion in the extended series of international exhibi tions which began in London in 1851 and has contin

Book The Glass Palace

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ghosh
  • Publisher : Penguin Books India
  • Release : 2008
  • ISBN : 9780670082209
  • Pages : 604 pages

Download or read book The Glass Palace written by Ghosh and published by Penguin Books India. This book was released on 2008 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Glass Palace Begins With The Shattering Of The Kingdom Of Burma, And Tells The Story Of A People, A Fortune, And A Family And Its Fate. It Traces The Life Of Rajkumar, A Poor Indian Boy, Who Is Lifted On The Tides Of Political And Social Turmoil To Build An Empire In The Burmese Teak Forest. When British Soldiers Force The Royal Family Out Of The Glass Palace, During The Invasion Of 1885, He Falls In Love With Dolly, An Attendant At The Palace. Years Later, Unable To Forget Her, Rajkumar Goes In Search Of His Love. Through This Brilliant And Impassioned Story Of Love And War, Amitav Ghosh Presents A Ruthless Appraisal Of The Horrors Of Colonialism And Capitalist Exploitation. Click Here To Visit The Amitav Ghosh Website

Book Church of the Social Revolution

Download or read book Church of the Social Revolution written by Bouck White and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 72 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Mystery at the Crystal Palace

Download or read book The Mystery at the Crystal Palace written by Carolyn Keene and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nancy has come to Minneapolis in the dead of winter to investigate a robbery. An old friend, Alison MacDonald, has inherited from her uncle the Crystal Palace, a state-of-the-art skating arena. But a large portion of the money he also left her has disappeared, and if Nancy doesn’t find it, Alison will lose the Palace!

Book New York Crystal Palace

Download or read book New York Crystal Palace written by Georg Carstensen and published by . This book was released on 1854 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book The Glass Castle

Download or read book The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-01-02 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A triumphant tale of a young woman and her difficult childhood, The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience, redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and wonderfully vibrant. Jeannette Walls was the second of four children raised by anti-institutional parents in a household of extremes.

Book The Measure of Manhattan  The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel  Jr   Cartographer  Surveyor  Inventor

Download or read book The Measure of Manhattan The Tumultuous Career and Surprising Legacy of John Randel Jr Cartographer Surveyor Inventor written by Marguerite Holloway and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-02-18 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Randel is endlessly fascinating, and Holloway’s biography tells his life with great skill." —Steve Weinberg, USA Today John Randel Jr. (1787–1865) was an eccentric and flamboyant surveyor. Renowned for his inventiveness as well as for his bombast and irascibility, Randel was central to Manhattan’s development but died in financial ruin. Telling Randel’s engrossing and dramatic life story for the first time, this eye-opening biography introduces an unheralded pioneer of American engineering and mapmaking. Charged with “gridding” what was then an undeveloped, hilly island, Randel recorded the contours of Manhattan down to the rocks on its shores. He was obsessed with accuracy and steeped in the values of the Enlightenment, in which math and science promised dominion over nature. The result was a series of maps, astonishing in their detail and precision, which undergird our knowledge about the island today. During his varied career Randel created surveying devices, designed an early elevated subway, and proposed a controversial alternative route for the Erie Canal—winning him admirers and enemies. The Measure of Manhattan is more than just the life of an unrecognized engineer. It is about the ways in which surveying and cartography changed the ground beneath our feet. Bringing Randel’s story into the present, Holloway travels with contemporary surveyors and scientists trying to envision Manhattan as a wild island once again. Illustrated with dozens of historical images and antique maps, The Measure of Manhattan is an absorbing story of a fascinating man that captures the era when Manhattan—indeed, the entire country—still seemed new, the moment before canals and railroads helped draw a grid across the American landscape.

Book Dostoevsky in Context

Download or read book Dostoevsky in Context written by Deborah A. Martinsen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-05 with total page 589 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores the Russia where the great writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81), was born and lived. It focuses not only on the Russia depicted in Dostoevsky's works, but also on the Russian life that he and his contemporaries experienced: on social practices and historical developments, political and cultural institutions, religious beliefs, ideological trends, artistic conventions and literary genres. Chapters by leading scholars illuminate this broad context, offer insights into Dostoevsky's reflections on his age, and examine the expression of those reflections in his writing. Each chapter investigates a specific context and suggests how we might understand Dostoevsky in relation to it. Since Russia took so much from Western Europe throughout the imperial period, the volume also locates the Russian experience within the context of Western thought and practices, thereby offering a multidimensional view of the unfolding drama of Russia versus the West in the nineteenth century.

Book Life in the Crystal Palace

    Book Details:
  • Author : Alan Harrington
  • Publisher : Hassell Street Press
  • Release : 2021-09-09
  • ISBN : 9781014682390
  • Pages : 296 pages

Download or read book Life in the Crystal Palace written by Alan Harrington and published by Hassell Street Press. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Book Inside the Lost Museum

    Book Details:
  • Author : Steven Lubar
  • Publisher : Harvard University Press
  • Release : 2017-08-07
  • ISBN : 0674983297
  • Pages : 417 pages

Download or read book Inside the Lost Museum written by Steven Lubar and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-07 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Curators make many decisions when they build collections or design exhibitions, plotting a passage of discovery that also tells an essential story. Collecting captures the past in a way useful to the present and the future. Exhibits play to our senses and orchestrate our impressions, balancing presentation and preservation, information and emotion. Curators consider visitors’ interactions with objects and with one another, how our bodies move through displays, how our eyes grasp objects, how we learn and how we feel. Inside the Lost Museum documents the work museums do and suggests ways these institutions can enrich the educational and aesthetic experience of their visitors. Woven throughout Inside the Lost Museum is the story of the Jenks Museum at Brown University, a nineteenth-century display of natural history, anthropology, and curiosities that disappeared a century ago. The Jenks Museum’s past, and a recent effort by artist Mark Dion, Steven Lubar, and their students to reimagine it as art and history, serve as a framework for exploring the long record of museums’ usefulness and service. Museum lovers know that energy and mystery run through every collection and exhibition. Lubar explains work behind the scenes—collecting, preserving, displaying, and using art and artifacts in teaching, research, and community-building—through historical and contemporary examples. Inside the Lost Museum speaks to the hunt, the find, and the reveal that make curating and visiting exhibitions and using collections such a rewarding and vital pursuit.

Book The Architecture of Failure

Download or read book The Architecture of Failure written by Douglas Murphy and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2012 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Against those who considerarchitecture to be a wholly optimistic activity, this book shows how the history of modern architecture is inextricably tied to ideas of failure and ruin. By means of an original reading of the earliest origins of modernism, the Architecture of Failure exposes the ways in which failure has been suppressed, ignored and denied in the way we design our cities. It examines the 19th century fantasy architecture of the iron and glass exhibition palaces, strange, unprecedented, dream-like structures, almost all now lost, existing only as melancholy archive fragments; it traces the cultural legacy of these buildings through the heroics of the early 20th century, post-war radicals and recent developments, discussing related themes in art, literature, politics and philosophy. Critiquing the capitalist symbolism of the self-styled contemporary avant-garde, the book outlines a new history of contemporary architecture, and attempts to recover a radical approach to understanding what we build. Douglas Murphy blogs at http://www.youyouidiot.blogspot.com/

Book Old New York   Or  Reminiscences of the Past Sixty Years

Download or read book Old New York Or Reminiscences of the Past Sixty Years written by John Wakefield Francis and published by . This book was released on 1865 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: