Download or read book Ecstatic Nation written by Brenda Wineapple and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book of 2013 A Kirkus Best Book of 2013 A Bookpage Best Book of 2013 Dazzling in scope, Ecstatic Nation illuminates one of the most dramatic and momentous chapters in America's past, when the country dreamed big, craved new lands and new freedom, and was bitterly divided over its great moral wrong: slavery. With a canvas of extraordinary characters, such as P. T. Barnum, Walt Whitman, Frederick Douglass, and L. C. Q. Lamar, Ecstatic Nation brilliantly balances cultural and political history: It's a riveting account of the sectional conflict that preceded the Civil War, and it astutely chronicles the complex aftermath of that war and Reconstruction, including the promise that women would share in a new definition of American citizenship. It takes us from photographic surveys of the Sierra Nevadas to the discovery of gold in the South Dakota hills, and it signals the painful, thrilling birth of modern America. An epic tale by award-winning author Brenda Wineapple, Ecstatic Nation lyrically and with true originality captures the optimism, the failures, and the tragic exuberance of a renewed Republic.
Download or read book This Ecstatic Nation written by Terre Ryan and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eco-critical memoir that examines the ongoing power of an American myth
Download or read book Mirabai written by Robert Bly and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning collection of poems by Mirabai, the fifteenth-century female Indian ecstatic poet. Like Coleman Barks's translations of Rumi, this collection of poems by Mirabai will appeal to anyone interested in spiritual poetry.
Download or read book The Impeachers written by Brenda Wineapple and published by Random House. This book was released on 2019-05-21 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times • The New York Times Book Review • NPR • Publishers Weekly “This absorbing and important book recounts the titanic struggle over the implications of the Civil War amid the impeachment of a defiant and temperamentally erratic American president.”—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Soul of America When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Vice-President Andrew Johnson became “the Accidental President,” it was a dangerous time in America. Congress was divided over how the Union should be reunited: when and how the secessionist South should regain full status, whether former Confederates should be punished, and when and whether black men should be given the vote. Devastated by war and resorting to violence, many white Southerners hoped to restore a pre–Civil War society, if without slavery, and the pugnacious Andrew Johnson seemed to share their goals. With the unchecked power of executive orders, Johnson ignored Congress, pardoned rebel leaders, promoted white supremacy, opposed civil rights, and called Reconstruction unnecessary. It fell to Congress to stop the American president who acted like a king. With profound insights and making use of extensive research, Brenda Wineapple dramatically evokes this pivotal period in American history, when the country was rocked by the first-ever impeachment of a sitting American president. And she brings to vivid life the extraordinary characters who brought that impeachment forward: the willful Johnson and his retinue of advocates—including complicated men like Secretary of State William Seward—as well as the equally complicated visionaries committed to justice and equality for all, like Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, Frederick Douglass, and Ulysses S. Grant. Theirs was a last-ditch, patriotic, and Constitutional effort to render the goals of the Civil War into reality and to make the Union free, fair, and whole. Praise for The Impeachers “In this superbly lyrical work, Brenda Wineapple has plugged a glaring hole in our historical memory through her vivid and sweeping portrayal of President Andrew Johnson’s 1868 impeachment. She serves up not simply food for thought but a veritable feast of observations on that most trying decision for a democracy: whether to oust a sitting president. Teeming with fiery passions and unforgettable characters, The Impeachers will be devoured by contemporary readers seeking enlightenment on this issue. . . . A landmark study.”—Ron Chernow, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Grant
Download or read book Faithful and Virtuous Night written by Louise Glück and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2014 National Book Award for Poetry A luminous, seductive new collection from the "fearless" (The New York Times) Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Louise Glück is one of the finest American poets at work today. Her Poems 1962–2012 was hailed as "a major event in this country's literature" in the pages of The New York Times. Every new collection is at once a deepening and a revelation. Faithful and Virtuous Night is no exception. You enter the world of this spellbinding book through one of its many dreamlike portals, and each time you enter it's the same place but it has been arranged differently. You were a woman. You were a man. This is a story of adventure, an encounter with the unknown, a knight's undaunted journey into the kingdom of death; this is a story of the world you've always known, that first primer where "on page three a dog appeared, on page five a ball" and every familiar facet has been made to shimmer like the contours of a dream, "the dog float[ing] into the sky to join the ball." Faithful and Virtuous Night tells a single story but the parts are mutable, the great sweep of its narrative mysterious and fateful, heartbreaking and charged with wonder.
Download or read book White Heat written by Brenda Wineapple and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2009-12-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: White Heat is the first book to portray the remarkable relationship between America's most beloved poet and the fiery abolitionist who first brought her work to the public. As the Civil War raged, an unlikely friendship was born between the reclusive poet Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a literary figure who ran guns to Kansas and commanded the first Union regiment of black soldiers. When Dickinson sent Higginson four of her poems he realized he had encountered a wholly original genius; their intense correspondence continued for the next quarter century. In White Heat Brenda Wineapple tells an extraordinary story about poetry, politics, and love, one that sheds new light on her subjects and on the roiling America they shared.
Download or read book Where the Spirits Ride the Wind written by Felicitas D. Goodman and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1990-08-22 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Dr. Goodman has pioneered in the study of bodily postures and altered states of consciousness.” —Stanley Krippner, professor of personal mythology and parapsychology “And suddenly the understanding of my own vision washed over me like a mighty wave . . . For life or for death, I was committed to that mighty realm of which I was shown a brief reminder, the world where all was forever motion and emergence, that realm where the spirits ride the wind.” —from the Prologue Anthropologist and spiritual explorer Felicitas Goodman reexamines our notions of the nature of reality by studying the ritual postures of native art assumed by her subjects during trance states. For readers desiring to discover this world of ancient myths, she has included a practical guide on how to achieve such ecstatic experiences. “The book is clearly written for the general reader and includes many descriptions of trance experiences. It may serve as a good introduction to the nature and appeal of the shamanic revival in modern Western cultures.” —Theological Book Review “A case study in experiential anthropology that offers a unique mix of autobiography, mythology, experiential research, and archaeological data to support a challenging thesis—that certain body postures may help induce specific trance states.” —Shaman’s Drum “This is a spellbinding and exceptionally readable book by an extraordinary woman.” —Yoga Journal
Download or read book America s Great Debate written by Fergus M. Bordewich and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the 1850s appeals of Western territories to join the Union as slave or free states, profiling period balances in the Senate, Henry Clay's attempts at compromise, and the border crisis between New Mexico and Texas.
Download or read book Whitetail Nation written by Pete Bodo and published by HMH. This book was released on 2010-11-15 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dedicated deer hunter “writes with humor and insight” about his adventures—and misadventures—in the wild (Orlando Sentinel). Every autumn, millions of men and women across the country don their camo, stock up on doe urine, and undertake a quintessential American tradition—deer hunting. The pinnacle of a hunter’s quest is killing a buck with antlers that “score” highly enough to qualify for the Boone and Crockett record book. But in all his seasons on the trail, Pete Bodo, an avid outdoorsman and student of the hunt, had never reached that milestone. Sadly, he had to admit it: He was a nimrod. Whitetail Nation is the uproarious story of the season Pete Bodo set out to kill the big buck. From the rolling hills of upstate New York to the vast and unforgiving land of the Big Sky to the Texas ranches that feature high fences, deer feeders, and money-back guarantees, Bodo traverses deep into the heart of a lively, growing subculture that draws powerfully on durable American values: the love of the frontier, the importance of self-reliance, the camaraderie of men in adventure, the quest for sustained youth, and yes, the capitalist’s right to amass every high tech hunting gadget this industry’s exploding commerce has to offer. Gradually, Bodo closes in on his target—that elusive monster buck—and with each day spent perched in a deer stand or crawling stealthily in high grass (praying the rattlesnakes are gone), or shivering through the night in a drafty cabin (flannel, polar fleece, and whiskey be damned), readers are treated to an unforgettable tour through a landscape that ranges from the exalted to the absurd. Along the way Bodo deftly captures the spirit and passion of this rich American pursuit, tracing its history back to the days of Lewis and Clark and examining that age old question: “Why do men hunt?”
Download or read book Innocent Ecstasy written by Peter Gardella and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Moving between theology, medical treatments, psychological theories, feminist movements and popular culture, Innocent Ecstasy demonstrates how Christianity has shaped Americans' sexual expectations-and laid the foundations for the sexual revolution.
Download or read book National Belonging and Everyday Life written by M. Skey and published by Springer. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses the current debates around national identity and multiculturalism by addressing three key questions; why do so many people treat as common sense the idea that they live in and belong to nations? And, why, and for whom, might this idea be significant, notably in an era of increasing global uncertainty?
Download or read book Reunion and Reaction written by C. Vann Woodward and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991-03-28 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the era of America's landmark antebellum compromises and that of the Compromise of 1877, a war had intervened, destroying the integrity of the Southern system but failing to determine the New South's relation to the Union. While it did not restore the old order in the South, or restore the South to parity with the Union, it did lay down the political foundations for reunion, bring Reconstruction to an end, and shape the future of four million freedmen. Originally published in 1951, this classic work by one of America's foremost experts on Southern history presents an important new interpretation of the Compromise, forcing historians to revise previous attitudes towards the Reconstruction period, the history of the Republican party, and the realignment of forces that fought the Civil War. Because much of the negotiating occurred in secrecy, historians have known less about this Compromise than others before it. Now reissued with a new introduction by Woodward, Reunion and Reaction gives us the other half of the story.
Download or read book Hawthorne written by Brenda Wineapple and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-01-11 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Handsome, reserved, almost frighteningly aloof until he was approached, then playful, cordial, Nathaniel Hawthorne was as mercurial and double-edged as his writing. “Deep as Dante,” Herman Melville said. Hawthorne himself declared that he was not “one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up their own hearts, delicately fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit” for the public. Yet those who knew him best often took the opposite position. “He always puts himself in his books,” said his sister-in-law Mary Mann, “he cannot help it.” His life, like his work, was extraordinary, a play of light and shadow. In this major new biography of Hawthorne, the first in more than a decade, Brenda Wineapple, acclaimed biographer of Janet Flanner and Gertrude and Leo Stein (“Luminous”–Richard Howard), brings him brilliantly alive: an exquisite writer who shoveled dung in an attempt to found a new utopia at Brook Farm and then excoriated the community (or his attraction to it) in caustic satire; the confidant of Franklin Pierce, fourteenth president of the United States and arguably one of its worst; friend to Emerson and Thoreau and Melville who, unlike them, made fun of Abraham Lincoln and who, also unlike them, wrote compellingly of women, deeply identifying with them–he was the first major American writer to create erotic female characters. Those vibrant, independent women continue to haunt the imagination, although Hawthorne often punishes, humiliates, or kills them, as if exorcising that which enthralls. Here is the man rooted in Salem, Massachusetts, of an old pre-Revolutionary family, reared partly in the wilds of western Maine, then schooled along with Longfellow at Bowdoin College. Here are his idyllic marriage to the youngest and prettiest of the Peabody sisters and his longtime friendships, including with Margaret Fuller, the notorious feminist writer and intellectual. Here too is Hawthorne at the end of his days, revered as a genius, but considered as well to be an embarrassing puzzle by the Boston intelligentsia, isolated by fiercely held political loyalties that placed him against the Civil War and the currents of his time. Brenda Wineapple navigates the high tides and chill undercurrents of Hawthorne’s fascinating life and work with clarity, nuance, and insight. The novels and tales, the incidental writings, travel notes and children’s books, letters and diaries reverberate in this biography, which both charts and protects the dark unknowable core that is quintessentially Hawthorne. In him, the quest of his generation for an authentically American voice bears disquieting fruit.
Download or read book Cruising Utopia written by José Esteban Muñoz and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2009-11-30 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 10 sider ad gangen og max. 40 sider pr. session
Download or read book The Rabbit Hutch written by Tess Gunty and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • The standout literary debut that everyone is talking about • "Inventive, heartbreaking and acutely funny."—The Guardian A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, TIME, NPR, Oprah Daily, People Blandine isn't like the other residents of her building. An online obituary writer. A young mother with a dark secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents — neighbors, separated only by the thin walls of a low-cost housing complex in the once bustling industrial center of Vacca Vale, Indiana. Welcome to the Rabbit Hutch. Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, Blandine shares her apartment with three teenage boys she neither likes nor understands, all, like her, now aged out of the state foster care system that has repeatedly failed them, all searching for meaning in their lives. Set over one sweltering week in July and culminating in a bizarre act of violence that finally changes everything, The Rabbit Hutch is a savagely beautiful and bitingly funny snapshot of contemporary America, a gorgeous and provocative tale of loneliness and longing, entrapment and, ultimately, freedom. "Gunty writes with a keen, sensitive eye about all manner of intimacies―the kind we build with other people, and the kind we cultivate around ourselves and our tenuous, private aspirations."—Raven Leilani, author of Luster
Download or read book The Men Who United the States written by Simon Winchester and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-10-15 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Simon Winchester never disappoints, and The Men Who United the States is a lively and surprising account of how this sprawling piece of geography became a nation. This is America from the ground up. Inspiring and engaging.” —Tom Brokaw Simon Winchester, acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Atlantic and The Professor and the Madman, delivers his first book about America: a fascinating popular history that illuminates the men who toiled fearlessly to discover, connect, and bond the citizenry and geography of the U.S.A. from its beginnings. How did America become “one nation, indivisible”? What unified a growing number of disparate states into the modern country we recognize today? To answer these questions, Winchester follows in the footsteps of America’s most essential explorers, thinkers, and innovators, such as Lewis and Clark and the leaders of the Great Surveys; the builders of the first transcontinental telegraph and the powerful civil engineer behind the Interstate Highway System. He treks vast swaths of territory, from Pittsburgh to Portland, Rochester to San Francisco, Seattle to Anchorage, introducing the fascinating people who played a pivotal role in creating today’s United States. Throughout, he ponders whether the historic work of uniting the States has succeeded, and to what degree. Featuring 32 illustrations throughout the text, The Men Who United the States is a fresh look at the way in which the most powerful nation on earth came together.
Download or read book The Mad Feast An Ecstatic Tour through America s Food written by Matthew Gavin Frank and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-11-09 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the Art of Eating Prize A richly illustrated culinary tour of the United States through fifty signature dishes, and a radical exploration of our gastronomic heritage. Following his critically acclaimed Preparing the Ghost, renowned essayist Matthew Gavin Frank takes on America’s food. In a surprising style reminiscent of Maggie Nelson or Mark Doty, Frank examines a quintessential dish in each state, interweaving the culinary with personal and cultural associations of each region. From key lime pie (Florida) to elk stew (Montana), The Mad Feast commemorates the unexpected origins of the familiar. Brazenly dissecting the myriad intersections between history and food, Frank, in this gorgeously designed volume, considers politics, sexuality, violence, grief, and pleasure: the cool, creamy whoopie pie evokes toughness in the face of New England winters, while the stewlike perloo serves up an exploration of food and race in the South. Tracing an unpredictable map of our collective appetites, The Mad Feast presents a beguiling flavor profile of the American spirit.
