EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

EBookClubs

Read Books & Download eBooks Full Online

Book The Unheralded Triumph

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jon C. Teaford
  • Publisher : JHU Press
  • Release : 2019-12-01
  • ISBN : 142143525X
  • Pages : 484 pages

Download or read book The Unheralded Triumph written by Jon C. Teaford and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2019-12-01 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1984. In 1888 the British observer James Bryce declared "the government of cities" to be "the one conspicuous failure of the United States." During the following two decades, urban reformers would repeat Bryce's words with ritualistic regularity; nearly a century later, his comment continues to set the tone for most assessments of nineteenth-century city government. Yet by the end of the century, as Jon Teaford argues in this important reappraisal, American cities boasted the most abundant water supplies, brightest street lights, grandest parks, largest public libraries, and most efficient systems of transportation in the world. Far from being a "conspicuous failure," municipal governments of the late nineteenth century had successfully met challenges of an unprecedented magnitude and complexity. The Unheralded Triumph draws together the histories of the most important cities of the Gilded Age—especially New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Baltimore—to chart the expansion of services and the improvement of urban environments between 1870 and 1900. It examines the ways in which cities were transformed, in a period of rapid population growth and increased social unrest, into places suitable for living. Teaford demonstrates how, during the last decades of the nineteenth century, municipal governments adapted to societal change with the aid of generally compliant state legislatures. These were the years that saw the professionalization of city government and the political accommodation of the diverse ethnic, economic, and social elements that compose America's heterogeneous urban society. Teaford acknowledges that the expansion of urban services dangerously strained city budgets and that graft, embezzlement, overcharging, and payroll-padding presented serious problems throughout the period. The dissatisfaction with city governments arose, however, not so much from any failure to achieve concrete results as from the conflicts between those hostile groups accommodated within the newly created system: "For persons of principle and gentlemen who prized honor, it seemed a failure yet American municipal government left as a legacy such achievements as Central Park, the new Croton Aqueduct, and the Brooklyn Bridge, monuments of public enterprise that offered new pleasures and conveniences for millions of urban citizens."

Book Fear and the Muse Kept Watch

Download or read book Fear and the Muse Kept Watch written by Andy McSmith and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2015-07-07 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dazzling exploration of one of the most contradictory periods of literary and artistic achievement in modern history, journalist Andy McSmith evokes the lives of more than a dozen of the most brilliant artists and writers of the twentieth century. Taking us deep into Stalin's Russia, Fear and the Muse Kept Watch asks the question: can great art be produced in a police state? For although Josif Stalin ran one of the most oppressive regimes in world history, under him Russia also produced an outpouring of artistic works of immense and lasting power—from the poems of Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam to the opera Peter and the Wolf, the film Alexander Nevsky, and the novels The Master and Margarita and Doctor Zhivago. For those artists visible enough for Stalin to take an interest in them, it was Stalin himself who decided whether they lived in luxury or were sent to the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the secret police, to be tortured and sometimes even executed. McSmith brings together the stories of these artists—including Isaac Babel, Boris Pasternak, Dmitri Shostakovich, and many others—revealing how they pursued their art under Stalin's regime and often at great personal risk. It was a world in which the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, whose bright yellow tunic was considered a threat to public order under the tsars, struggled to make the communist authorities see the value of avant garde art; Babel publicly thanked the regime for allowing him the privilege of not writing; and Shostakovich's career veered wildly between public disgrace and wealth and acclaim. In the tradition of Eileen Simpson's Poets in Their Youth and Phyllis Rose's Parallel Lives, Fear and the Muse Kept Watch is an extraordinary work of historical recovery. It is also a bold exploration of the triumph of art during terrible times and a book that will stay with its readers for a long, long while.

Book Federalizing the Muse

Download or read book Federalizing the Muse written by Donna M. Binkiewicz and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2005-12-15 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Endowment for the Arts is often accused of embodying a liberal agenda within the American government. In Federalizing the Muse, Donna Binkiewicz assesses the leadership and goals of Presidents Kennedy through Carter, as well as Congress and the National Council on the Arts, drawing a picture of the major players who created national arts policy. Using presidential papers, NEA and National Archives materials, and numerous interviews with policy makers, Binkiewicz refutes persisting beliefs in arts funding as part of a liberal agenda by arguing that the NEA's origins in the Cold War era colored arts policy with a distinctly moderate undertone. Binkiewicz's study of visual arts grants reveals that NEA officials promoted a modernist, abstract aesthetic specifically because they believed such a style would best showcase American achievement and freedom. This initially led them to neglect many contemporary art forms they feared could be perceived as politically problematic, such as pop, feminist, and ethnic arts. The agency was not able to balance its funding across a variety of art forms before facing serious budget cutbacks. Binkiewicz's analysis brings important historical perspective to the perennial debates about American art policy and sheds light on provocative political and cultural issues in postwar America.

Book NOT THE TRIUMPH BUT THE STRUGGLE

Download or read book NOT THE TRIUMPH BUT THE STRUGGLE written by Amy Bass and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Luther King Jr., uprisings in American cities, student protests around the world, the rise of the Black Power movement, and decolonization and apartheid in Africa.".

Book Triumph of the Expert

Download or read book Triumph of the Expert written by Joseph Morgan Hodge and published by Ohio University Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Triumph of the Expert is a history of British colonial policy and thinking and its contribution to the emergence of rural development and environmental policies in the late colonial and postcolonial period.

Book The Muse

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jessie Burton
  • Publisher : HarperCollins
  • Release : 2016-07-26
  • ISBN : 0062409948
  • Pages : 292 pages

Download or read book The Muse written by Jessie Burton and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Miniaturist comes a captivating and brilliantly realized story of two young women—a Caribbean immigrant in 1960s London, and a bohemian woman in 1930s Spain—and the powerful mystery that ties them together. England, 1967. Odelle Bastien is a Caribbean émigré trying to make her way in London. When she starts working at the prestigious Skelton Institute of Art, she discovers a painting rumored to be the work of Isaac Robles, a young artist of immense talent and vision whose mysterious death has confounded the art world for decades. The excitement over the painting is matched by the intrigue around the conflicting stories of its discovery. Drawn into a complex web of secrets and deceptions, Odelle does not know what to believe or who she can trust, including her mesmerizing colleague, Marjorie Quick. Spain, 1936. Olive Schloss, the daughter of a Viennese Jewish art dealer and an English heiress, follows her parents to Arazuelo, a poor, restless village on the southern coast. She grows close to Teresa, a young housekeeper, and Teresa’s half-brother, Isaac Robles, an idealistic and ambitious painter newly returned from the Barcelona salons. A dilettante buoyed by the revolutionary fervor that will soon erupt into civil war, Isaac dreams of being a painter as famous as his countryman Picasso. Raised in poverty, these illegitimate children of the local landowner revel in exploiting the wealthy Anglo-Austrians. Insinuating themselves into the Schloss family’s lives, Teresa and Isaac help Olive conceal her artistic talents with devastating consequences that will echo into the decades to come. Rendered in exquisite detail, The Muse is a passionate and enthralling tale of desire, ambition, and the ways in which the tides of history inevitably shape and define our lives.

Book Muse

    Book Details:
  • Author : Jonathan Galassi
  • Publisher : Vintage
  • Release : 2015-06-02
  • ISBN : 0385353359
  • Pages : 176 pages

Download or read book Muse written by Jonathan Galassi and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux: a first novel, at once hilarious and tender, about the decades-long rivalry between two publishing lions, and the iconic, alluring writer who has obsessed them both. Paul Dukach is heir apparent at Purcell & Stern, one of the last independent publishing houses in New York, whose shabby offices on Union Square belie the treasures on its list. Working with his boss, the flamboyant Homer Stern, Paul learns the ins and outs of the book trade—how to work an agent over lunch; how to swim with the literary sharks at the Frankfurt Book Fair; and, most important, how to nurse the fragile egos of the dazzling, volatile authors he adores. But Paul’s deepest admiration has always been reserved for one writer: poet Ida Perkins, whose audacious verse and notorious private life have shaped America’s contemporary literary landscape, and whose longtime publisher—also her cousin and erstwhile lover—happens to be Homer’s biggest rival. And when Paul at last has the chance to meet Ida at her Venetian palazzo, she entrusts him with her greatest secret—one that will change all of their lives forever. Studded with juicy details only a quintessential insider could know, written with both satiric verve and openhearted nostalgia, Muse is a brilliant, haunting book about the beguiling interplay between life and art, and the eternal romance of literature.

Book John Singer Sargent and His Muse

Download or read book John Singer Sargent and His Muse written by Karen Corsano and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This sensitive and compelling biography sheds new light on John Singer Sargent’s art through an intimate history of his family. Karen Corsano and Daniel Williman focus especially on his niece and muse, Rose-Marie Ormond, telling her story for the first time. In a score of paintings created between 1906 and 1912, John Singer Sargent documented the idyllic teenage summers of Rose-Marie and his own deepening affection for her serene beauty and good-hearted, candid charm. Rose-Marie married Robert, the only son of André Michel, the foremost art historian of his day, who had known Sargent and reviewed his paintings in the Paris Salons of the 1880s. Robert was a promising historian as well, until the Great War claimed him first as an infantry sergeant, then a victim, in 1914. His widow Rose-Marie served as a nurse in a rehabilitation hospital for blinded French soldiers until she too was killed, crushed under a bombed church vault, in 1918. Sargent expressed his grief, as he expressed all his emotions, on canvas: He painted ruined French churches and, in Gassed, blinded soldiers; he made his last murals for the Boston Public Library a cryptic memorial to Rose-Marie and her beloved Robert. Braiding together the lives and families of Rose-Marie, Robert, and John Sargent, the book spans their many worlds—Paris, the Alps, London, the Soissons front, and Boston. Drawing on a rich trove of letters, diaries, and journals, this beautifully illustrated history brings Sargent and his times to vivid life.

Book Triumph of the Fatherland

Download or read book Triumph of the Fatherland written by Brigitte Young and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVTells the story of the women who fought for a voice in the construction of a German state system /div

Book The Muse s Mirrour

Download or read book The Muse s Mirrour written by and published by . This book was released on 1778 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Book Magic and Witchery in the Modern West

Download or read book Magic and Witchery in the Modern West written by Shai Feraro and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-26 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book marks twenty years since the publication of Professor Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon, a major contribution to the historical study of Wicca. Building on and celebrating Hutton’s pioneering work, the chapters in this volume explore a range of modern magical, occult, and Pagan groups active in Western nations. Each contributor is a specialist in the study of modern Paganism and occultism, although differ in their embrace of historical, anthropological, and psychological perspectives. Chapters examine not only the history of Wicca, the largest and best-known form of modern Paganism, but also modern Pagan environmentalist and anti-nuclear activism, the Pagan interpretation of fairy folklore, and the contemporary ‘Traditional Witchcraft’ phenomenon.

Book A Bibliography of Modern Arthuriana  1500 2000

Download or read book A Bibliography of Modern Arthuriana 1500 2000 written by Ann F. Howey and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2006 with total page 806 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotated bibliography of the Arthurian legend in modern English-language fiction, not only in literary texts, but in television, music, and art. The legend of Arthur has been a source of fascination for writers and artists in English since the fifteenth century, when Thomas Malory drew together for the first time in English a variety of Arthurian stories from a number of sources to form the Morte Darthur. It increased in popularity during the Victorian era, when after Tennyson's treatment of the legend, not only authors and dramatists, but painters, musicians, and film-makers found a sourceof inspiration in the Arthurian material. This interdisciplinary, annotated bibliography lists the Arthurian legend in modern English-language fiction, from 1500 to 2000, including literary texts, film, television, music, visual art, and games. It will prove an invaluable source of reference for students of literary and visual arts, general readers, collectors, librarians, and cultural historians--indeed, by anyone interested in the history of the waysin which Camelot has figured in post-medieval English-speaking cultures. ANN F. HOWEY is Assistant Professor at Brock University, Canada; STEPHEN R. REIMER is Associate Professor at the University of Alberta, Canada

Book Six Minutes To Freedom

Download or read book Six Minutes To Freedom written by Kurt Muse and published by Kensington Publishing Corp.. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dear President Bush, My name is Kimberly Anne Muse. I am writing this letter not for me but for my father, Kurt Frederick Muse. As you should know by now, he is a political prisoner in Panama. . .. Born in the United States and raised in Panama, Kurt Muse grew up with a deep love for his adopted country. But the crushing regime of General Manuel Noriega in the late 1980s threatened his, and a nation's, freedom. A nightmare of murder and unexplained disappearances compelled Kurt and a few trusted friends to begin a clandestine radio campaign, urging the people of Panama to rise up for their basic human rights. Six Minutes to Freedom is the remarkable tale of Kurt Muse's arrest and harrowing months of imprisonment; his eyewitness accounts of torture; and the plight of his family as they fled for their lives. It is also the heart-pounding account of the only American civilian ever rescued by the elite Delta Force. Timelier than ever, this is a thrilling and highly personal narrative about one man's courage and dedication to his beliefs. "A cliffhanger drama of survival against all odds." --Jeffery Deaver "A dramatic portrayal of idealism, courage, integrity, and fortitude." --John Douglas and Mark Olshaker "A must-read for anyone interested in how Delta Force operates." --John Weisman "Harrowing, entertaining, inspiring, and very, very readable." --Col. Lee A. Van Arsdale, U.S. Army Special Forces (Ret) "A thrilling chronicle that puts a human face on unspeakable actions." --Continental magazine A Featured Alternate of the Military Book Club

Book The Civic Muse

    Book Details:
  • Author : Frank A. D'Accone
  • Publisher : University of Chicago Press
  • Release : 2007-12-01
  • ISBN : 0226133680
  • Pages : 894 pages

Download or read book The Civic Muse written by Frank A. D'Accone and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 894 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Siena, blessed with neither the aristocratic nor the ecclesiastical patronage enjoyed by music in other northern Italian centers like Florence, nevertheless attracted first-rate composers and performers from all over Europe. As Frank A. D'Accone shows in this scrupulously documented study, policies developed by the town to favor the common good formed the basis of Siena's ambitious musical programs. Based on decades of research in the town's archives, D'Accone's The Civic Muse brilliantly illuminates both the sacred and the secular aspects of more than three centuries of music and music-making in Siena. After detailing the history of music and liturgy at Siena's famous cathedral and of civic music at the Palazzo Pubblico, D'Accone describes the crucial role that music played in the daily life of the town, from public festivities for foreign dignitaries to private musical instruction. Putting Siena squarely on the Renaissance musical map, D'Accone's monumental study will interest both musicologists and historians of the Italian Renaissance.

Book The Rape of the Muse

    Book Details:
  • Author : Michael Stein
  • Publisher : Permanent Press (NY)
  • Release : 2011
  • ISBN : 9781579622237
  • Pages : 0 pages

Download or read book The Rape of the Muse written by Michael Stein and published by Permanent Press (NY). This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rand Taber, an artist in his twenties who has lost his inspiration, becomes the studio assistant of Harris Montrose, an artistic giant and eccentric who has secluded himself in Providence, Rhode Island, and finds more than a muse to keep him occupied during his stay there.

Book Cultivating the Muse

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ευφροσύνη Σπέντζου
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
  • Release : 2002
  • ISBN : 9780199240043
  • Pages : 340 pages

Download or read book Cultivating the Muse written by Ευφροσύνη Σπέντζου and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2002 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultivating the Muse looks beyond the secure and benign images traditionally associated with inspiration in classical literature and scholarship. In contrast to the shapeless collectivity of the Muses in ancient accounts, this collection aspires to redeem their shape in other more vitalforms, closer or more distant incarnations of the ever-elusive maiden. Protagonists -- or victims -- in a complex game of cultural exploration, the alternative Muses and muse-like figures of this book are manipulated, abused, or effaced, but at the same time they also advocate or resist their fatesand explore their own powers of persuasion. Inspiration is here not so much explored in its traditional cultic dimensions, but rather invoked for its capacity to trigger fervent debates about power, desire, knowledge, identity, and gender in the societies of ancient Greece and Rome.

Book Walking with the Muses

Download or read book Walking with the Muses written by Pat Cleveland and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York in the sixties and seventies was glamorous and gritty at the same time, a place where people like Warhol, Avedon, and Halston as well their muses came to pursue their wildest ambitions, and when the well began to run dry they darted off to Paris. Though born on the very fringes of this world, Patricia Cleveland, through a combination of luck, incandescent beauty, and enviable style, soon found herself in the centre of all that was creative, bohemian, and elegant. A "walking girl," a runway fashion model whose inimitable style still turns heads on the runways of New York, Paris, Milan, and Tokyo, Cleveland was in high demand. Ranging from the streets of New York to the jet-set beaches of Mexico, from the designer retailers of Paris to the offices of Diana Vreeland, here is Cleveland's larger-than-life story. One minute she's in a Harlem tenement making her own clothes and dreaming of something bigger, the next she's about to walk Halston's show alongside fellow model Anjelica Huston. One minute she's partying with Mick Jagger and Jack Nicholson, the next she's sharing the dance floor with Warhol. One moment she's idolizing the silver screen sensation Warren Beatty, years later, she's deciding whether to resist his considerable amorous charms. In New York, she struggles to secure her first cover of a major magazine. In Paris, she's the toast of the town. A page-turning memoir of a life well lived, Walking with the Muses is a book you won't soon forget.