ISSUE: Autumn 1995
Among his many accomplishments, Theodore Roosevelt was an able historian, as he proved in his four-volume account of the winning of the West which he began in 1888. The four volumes are respectively: From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769—1776; From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777—1783; The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784—1790; and Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791—1807. Bison Books has published a new paper Presidential Edition of The Winning of the West with introductions to each volume by a contemporary American historian [$15 per volume]. Johns Hopkins has come out with a paper edition of its much lauded, multi-volume account of The Jewish People in America with each of the five volumes tracing the Jewish experience in this country by a separate author. The first volume is Eli Faber’s A Time for Planting: The First Migration, 1654—1820; the second is Hasia R. Diner’s A Time for Gathering: The Second Migration, 1820—1880; the third is Gerald Sorin’s A Time for Building: The Third Migration, 1880—1920; the fourth is Henry L. Feingold’s A Time for Searching: Entering the Mainstream, 1920—1945; and the fifth volume is Edward S. Shapiro’s A Time for Healing: American Jewry Since World War II [$14. 95 each volume]. In July 1865 John Richard Dennett set out on a tour through the conquered South and reported his observations of the defeated land in a series of 36 articles for the new weekly magazine, The Nation. These articles have now been collected in one volume and published in a paper edition under the title The South As It Is, 1865—1866 by Louisiana [$15. 95], David Charles Sloane’s The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History is an account of the cemetery’s connection to popular culture as this nation evolved from country churchyards to urban cemeteries to suburban memorial parks. Johns Hopkins is now offering a paper edition of this work [$18. 95]. As an addition to the Smithsonian History of Aviation series, the Smithsonian Institute has issued a paper edition of Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group by Daniel Ford. This is an account of the American pilots who took their P-40’s decorated with a shark’s face just behind the propeller into combat against Japanese aircraft flying over China in World War II [$15. 95]. Harvard is offering a paper edition of Steven Skowronek’s The Politics Presidents Make: Leadership from John Adams to George Bush, a winner of the American Political Science Association’s Richard E. Newstadt Award for best book on the presidency and the J. David Greenstone Award for best book in politics and history [$16. 95]. Princeton has reissued two earlier works by historian James M. McPherson, author of the highly acclaimed one-volume account of the Civil War, Battle Cry of Freedom. Each volume has a new preface by the author. The first originally published in 1964 is The Struggle For Equality: Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction and the second is The Abolitionist Legacy From Reconstruction to the NAACP [$14. 95 each]. Journalist Murray Kempton has been observing the American scene from his perch in Manhattan for better than three decades now, and he is considered one of the most perceptive observers of the American scene. The best of Kempton’s columns, essays, reviews, and reportage was collected in Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 1994. Times Books is now offering a paper edition of Rebellions, Perversities, and Main Events [$16], Yale has reprinted Eugene V. Rostow’s Toward Managed Peace: The National Security Interests of the United States, 1759 to the Present [$17].
In addition to being a novelist, Jane Austen was a prolific correspondent, and her letters give an intimate and an informative insight into life in early 19th-century Britain. The first edition of Ms. Austen’s letters appeared in 1932 and a second followed 20 years later. Now, Deidre Le Faye has added new material that has come to light since 1952 and reordered the letters into their correct chronological sequence. She has provided full annotation to each letter including its provenance and information on the watermarks, postmarks and other physical details of the manuscripts, together with new biographical, topographical and general indexes. The latest collection of Jane Austen’s Letters has been published by Oxford [$49. 95 cloth]. South to a Very Old Place is black novelist and critic Albert Murray’s account of an odyssey through his native South in the early 1970’s with his remembrances of growing up there in the 2O’s and 3O’s. Murray writes what he terms a “meandertale”: a book blending folklore, history and memory together with the intermingled blackness and whiteness of American culture. A new edition of Murray’s odyssey has been published by the Modern Library [$13. 50 cloth]. A recent addition to Nebraska’s Bison Books series is Catherine Coffin Phillip’s Jessie Benton Fremont: A Woman Who Made History, Jessie Fremont being the wife of the famed explorer, soldier, and politician, John C. Fremont [$15 paper]. Kenneth S. Lynn’s Hemingway was acclaimed by the New York Review of Books as “one of the most brilliant and provocative biographies in recent memory” after its publication in 1987. The biography was also a Los Angeles Times Book Award winner. A new paper edition was recently published by Harvard [$18. 95]. Brigadier General James Johnston Pettigrew was considered in his day a beau ideal of the Southern cavalier. Even before he joined the ranks of the Confederacy, he had already made his mark as a scientist, scholar, author, lawyer, and politician. He is best remembered as the unwavering leader of the North Carolina brigade in Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg which he survived only to be slain in a minor skirmish just a few days after that epic battle. Clyde N. Wilson’s Carolina Cavalier: The Life and Mind of James Johnston Pettigrew was originally published by Georgia in 1990 and was recently reissued in a paper edition [$19. 95]. Noted CBS correspondent Eric Sevareid first published his autobiographical account of the depression and World War II, Not So Wild a Dream, in 1946. A new edition with a new introduction by the author appeared in 1976 and Missouri has now reprinted that edition in paper, a work historian William Manchester has called “a classic American autobiography superbly written, which evokes poignant memories of the American dream” [$24. 95]. As a soldier, Jose Zuniga distinguished himself during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm both as a journalist and a combat medic, and he appeared to be on a fast track to the Pentagon. But then, he came out of the closet and was discharged from the Army. He recounted his experiences in Soldier of the Year, the story of a gay, American patriot, a new edition of which is available as a Pocket Book [$12].
In To the Ends of the Earth: Women’s Search for Education in Medicine, Thomas Neville Bonner recounted the story of women’s long struggle to become physicians. He focused both on international comparisons and on the personal histories of many of the pioneers, their determination and dedication, their setbacks and successes. Harvard published the original edition in 1992, and now is out with a paper edition [$16. 95]. Harvard has also reprinted A History of Women; Renaissance and Enlightenment Paradoxes, a collection of essays with George Duby and Michelle Perrot, general editors, and Natalie Zemon Davis and Arlette Farge, editors. The essays range from an account of women’s work and family to “the ambiguities of literature” [$16.95].
Chicago recently published a second edition of Frank Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin’s Critical Terms in Literary Study, a work first published in 1980 which has since become a landmark introduction to the work of literary theory. The new edition is significantly expanded, featuring six new chapters that confront, in different ways, the growing understanding of literary works as cultural practices. The new chapters include “Popular Culture,” “Diversity,” “Imperialism/Nationalism,” “Desire,” “Ethics,” and “Class.” Among the authors of these chapters are John Fiske, Louis Menand, Seamus Deane, and Daniel T. O’Hara [$47. 50 cloth, $17. 95 paper]. Chicago is also offering a paper edition of Joseph M. Williams’s Style: Toward Clarity and Grace which has been acclaimed as a fit companion for E. B. White’s famous The Elements of Style [$9. 95]. Olga W. Vickery’s The Novels of William Faulkner: A Critical Interpretation was hailed by a reviewer upon its publication more than 30 years ago as “a preeminent interpretation of Faulkner in the formalist critical tradition.” A new revised edition has been published by Louisiana [$11.95 paper].
Hailed as prophets by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Alvin and Heidi Toffler have become household names as a result of their studies of the future such as Future Shock, Powershift, and The Third Wave.Their latest contribution is Creating a New Civilization: The Politics of the Third Wave, a new paper edition of which has been issued by Turner Publishing with a foreword by Newt himself [$7. 95]. A recent Vintage book is Arkady Vaksberg’s Stalin Against the Jews, an account by a Russian investigative journalist using newly declassified archives to open one of the last secrets of the Stalin era; the Soviet dictator’s murderous personal vendetta against his country’s Jews [$13]. As part of its Latin America series, Pittsburgh has published Unsettling Statecraft: Democracy and Neoliberalism in the Central Andes by Catherine M. Conaghan and James M. Malloy [$49.95 cloth, $22.95 paper], Chicago has republished John Patrick Diggins’s The Promise of Pragmatism: Modernism and the Crisis of Knowledge and Authority[$18.95 paper]. Billed as “the essential guide for gaining your educational confidence,” “I’ve Forgotten Everything I Learned in School!” is Marilyn Vos Savant’s refresher course offering the skills and information “you need to be a wellrounded person.” A new paper edition is available from St. Martin’s [$12.95].
Anthony Powell’s acclaimed epic A Dance to the Music of Time is a four-volume panorama of 20th-century England. Opening just after World War I, the epic follows the protagonist Nick Jenkins and his friends through the fever of the 1920’s, the chill of the 1930’s, and the carnage of the 1940’s. In the climactic volume Powell offers a portrait of postwar London. Chicago is now offering a paper edition in four volumes entitled First, Second, Third, and Fourth Movement [$17. 95 for the first 3 volumes, $18. 95 for the 4th]. Two of the most famous novels of the 20th century were orginally published by Scribner, namely Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms which the company published in 1929, and For Whom the Bell Tolls which appeared in the critical year of 1940. Scribner now has added these two novels to its Paperback Fiction series, with A Farewell priced at $10 and For Whom at $12. Dubbed “the American Agatha Christie,” Mignon G. Eberhart made her literary debut in 1929 with The Patient in Room 18. She made an encore a year later with While the Patient Slept and went on to become one of the most popular mystery writers of her time in a career spanning more than half a century. Bison Books recently reprinted her first two mysteries now considered to be classics [$9.95 each paper].
