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The Invention of Air.
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I began gathering stories about pregnancy and its avoidance in Mexican archives twenty-five years ago when I was working on my dissertation on religious history. This topic fascinated me because it was central to the preoccupations of so many women I knew, and it seemed to present a link to past generations. But as I researched, I also realized that radical differences existed between the experiences and attitudes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexican women and the concerns, practices, and understandings of my own period that I had assumed were timeless and unchanging. For me, this was a liberating discovery.
This book is one of the reasons why I became a historian.
Ulrich uncovered the nearly illegible diary of an eighteenth-century midwife in Maine and included excerpts of the original at the start of each chapter. When I read the excerpts, I thought: How could these possibly be significant and what do they mean, anyway?
And then, like a detective, a gifted mind-reader, and a learned botanist all rolled into one, Ulrich unpacked each entry, weaving each snippet into the fabric of a wide textile of social history that includes reproductive history, gender and marital relations, local economies, political conflicts, and religion.
Abortion and abortifacients play a marginal role in the story Ulrich tells, but the history of midwifery and reproductive health are central to it.Â
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER ⢠Drawing on the diaries of one woman in eighteenth-century Maine, "A truly talented historian unravels the fascinating life of a community that is so foreign, and yet so similar to our own" (The New York Times Book Review).
Between 1785 and 1812 a midwife and healer named Martha Ballard kept a diary that recorded her arduous work (in 27 years she attended 816 births) as well as her domestic life in Hallowell, Maine. On the basis of that diary, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich gives us an intimate and densely imagined portrait, not only of the industrious andâŚ
The brain: brilliant, powerful... and utterly bizarre. Why would someone be terrified they might slip down a shower drain? Or insist they've turned into a cat? What can rare brain disordersâand surprisingly common mental quirksâteach us about how we think, feel, and behave?
My interest in the American Revolution began with a college course on the French Revolution. I was enthralled by the drama of it all. Being the impressionable late adolescent that I was, I naturally explained to my professor, a famous French historian of the French Revolution, that I wanted to dedicate my life to the study of this fascinating historical period. My professor urged me to reconsider. He suggested I look at a less well-known Revolution, the one British colonists undertook a decade earlier. I started reading books about the American Revolution. Now, forty years on, Iâm still enthralled by the astonishing creative energy of this period in American history.
Eighteenth-century innovators came in many forms. Some were artisans, the craftspeople who made utilitarian things. Some were what were sometimes called toy makers, not because they made toys, but because they made baubles and trinkets for adults. Some were natural philosophers, whose innovations came in the physical sciences. And some were artistsâcreators of high-priced, highly-prized, and beautiful things. In this latter category, John Singleton Copley was Americaâs most accomplished. Perhaps the finest portraitist ever to paint in America, on the eve of the War for Independence, the young Copley left for Britain, never to return to the country of his birth. Kamenskyâs intimate and moving portrait shows Copley, the ex-pat and loyalist, ascending to the pinnacle of the British art world. But far more importantly, it shows the price Copley and his family paid for this ascent, reminding the reader that innovation does not happen in a political vacuum.Â
In this life of painter John Singleton Copley, Jane Kamensky untangles the web of principles and interests that shaped the age of America's revolution. Copley's talent earned him the patronage of Boston's leaders but he did not share their politics and painting portraits failed to satisfy his lofty artistic goals. A British subject who lamented America's provincialism, Copley looked longingly across the Atlantic. When resistance escalated into war, he was in London. A painter of America's revolution as Britain's American War, the magisterial canvases he created made him one of the towering figures of the British art scene. Kamensky bringsâŚ
My interest in the American Revolution began with a college course on the French Revolution. I was enthralled by the drama of it all. Being the impressionable late adolescent that I was, I naturally explained to my professor, a famous French historian of the French Revolution, that I wanted to dedicate my life to the study of this fascinating historical period. My professor urged me to reconsider. He suggested I look at a less well-known Revolution, the one British colonists undertook a decade earlier. I started reading books about the American Revolution. Now, forty years on, Iâm still enthralled by the astonishing creative energy of this period in American history.
No single American better embodies the ideals of ingenuity and innovation than the great polymath Benjamin Franklin. Practically everything a man could do in the eighteenth century Franklin didâand he did them with an aptitude matched by few and exceeded by even fewer. Franklin made a fortune in the printing tradeârare enough in the publishing and printing capitals of Europe, but all but unheard of in the colonies. His scientific discoveries were unparalleled and earned him the accolades of the greatest scientific minds of the age.
He was also responsible for countless inventionsâincluding the lightning rod, bifocals, a smokeless stove, and the glass armonica, an instrument for which both Mozart and Beethoven composed music. He was a master of the byzantine politics of European royal courtsâthis despite being of ordinary birth and coming of age in a place with none of the pomp and majesty of Europeâs great imperial capitals.âŚ
In this new account of Franklin's early life, Pulitzer finalist Nick Bunker portrays him as a complex, driven young man who elbows his way to success.
From his early career as a printer and journalist to his scientific work and his role as a founder of a new republic, Benjamin Franklin has always seemed the inevitable embodiment of American ingenuity. But in his youth he had to make his way through a harsh colonial world, where he fought many battles with his rivals, but also with his wayward emotions. Taking Franklin to the age of forty-one, when he made hisâŚ
The brain: brilliant, powerful... and utterly bizarre. Why would someone be terrified they might slip down a shower drain? Or insist they've turned into a cat? What can rare brain disordersâand surprisingly common mental quirksâteach us about how we think, feel, and behave?
My interest in the American Revolution began with a college course on the French Revolution. I was enthralled by the drama of it all. Being the impressionable late adolescent that I was, I naturally explained to my professor, a famous French historian of the French Revolution, that I wanted to dedicate my life to the study of this fascinating historical period. My professor urged me to reconsider. He suggested I look at a less well-known Revolution, the one British colonists undertook a decade earlier. I started reading books about the American Revolution. Now, forty years on, Iâm still enthralled by the astonishing creative energy of this period in American history.
Next to Franklin, Thomas Jefferson is surely the most inventive, innovative member of the American Revolutionary pantheon. He is known for his powerful formulations of revolutionary ideasâin the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and his inaugural address as third President of the United States. These contributions rested on deep and disciplined study in the human sciences, including history, geography, ethnography, political economy, as well as applied sciences such as horticulture, viticulture, and architecture. In their learned meditation on the life and thought of this most learned of American founders, Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter Onuf offer a fresh perspective on Jefferson.
In so many ways, he embodied the cutting-edge values of the American Revolution, but Jefferson also embodied the contradictions of the Revolutionâparticularly as they related to the institution of slavery. Rather than dismiss him as a hypocrite, Gordon-Reed and Onuf set out to explain Jefferson. ForâŚ
Thomas Jefferson is still presented today as an enigmatic figure, despite being written about more than any other Founding Father. Lauded as the most articulate voice of American freedom, even as he held people in bondage, Jefferson is variably described as a hypocrite, an atheist and a simple-minded proponent of limited government. Now, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and leading Jefferson scholar team up to present an absorbing and revealing character study that finally clarifies the philosophy of Jefferson. The authors explore what they call the "empire" of Jefferson's imagination-his expansive state of mind born of the intellectual influences and lifeâŚ
After many years of studying the subject and still more writing about it, my mind is still blown away by the fact that pretty much everything around you is a chemical of some kind. Even more impressive to me is that all of the molecules that make up everything you can see, smell, touch, and taste are made from combinations of just a handful of elements. The periodic table is a one-page summary of pretty much everything, the ultimate Lego kit to build a whole universe. I love finding out about and telling the stories of these incredible chemical constructions.
A biography of a molecule that features in my book.
Mauve changed fashion, industry, and medicine. While trying to make quinine in the lab, the only malaria drug available at the time, William Perkin created mauve, the first artificial dye. Other chemists later discovered malaria drugs derived from Perkinâs mauve.
In 1856 eighteen-year-old English chemist William Perkin accidentally discovered a way to mass-produce color. In a "witty, erudite, and entertaining" (Esquire) style, Simon Garfield explains how the experimental mishap that produced an odd shade of purple revolutionized fashion, as well as industrial applications of chemistry research. Occasionally honored in certain colleges and chemistry clubs, Perkin until now has been a forgotten man.
"By bringing Perkin into the open and documenting his life and work, Garfield has done a service to history."-Chicago Tribune "[A]n inviting cocktail of Perkin biography, account of the dye industry and where it led, and socialâŚ
Bertrand Russell wrote that: âMathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty â a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.â I agree. Math is, however, a human thing, all tangled up with the nature of human personality and the history of our civilizations. Well-written biographies of great mathematicians put that âstern perfectionâ in a proper human context.
When I was asked to review this book, my first instinct was to decline. Newton (1642-1727) was a towering genius but a dull fellow, with no interest in other human beings. He often published anonymously for fear that, he explained: "Public esteem, were I able to acquire and maintain it ⌠would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing which I chiefly study to decline." How can a biographer make such a person interesting?
The author dodges very nimbly around this problem, giving us an account, not so much of the man as of his reputation and influence. Perhaps this means that her book is not a true biography, but it is done with such skill and wit, I include it anyway.
Isaac Newton has become an intellectual avatar for our modern age, the man who, as even children know, was inspired to codify nature's laws by watching an apple fall from a tree. Yet Newton devoted much of his energy to deciphering the mysteries of alchemy, theology, and ancient chronology. How did a man who was at first obscure to all but a few esoteric natural philosophers and Cambridge scholars, was preoccupied with investigations of millennial prophecies, and spent decades as Master of the London Mint become famous as the world's first great scientist? Patricia Fara demonstrates that Newton's reputation, surprisinglyâŚ
Tamim Ansary is the son of an Afghan father and an American mother. As a writer, growing up in Afghanistan and growing old in America has drawn him to issues that arise from cultural confusion in zones where civilizations overlap. His books include histories and memoirs, which he considers two sides of the same coin: a memoir is history seen up close, history is memoir seen from a distance. Much of his work explores how perspective shapes perceptions of realityâa central theme of his best-known book, Destiny Disrupted, A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes.
Yes, yes, history is an unbroken river of themes, but itâs also a chain of pivotal dramatic episodes. Dolnick gives us one such moment. In 17th century Europe, within two generations, a collection of brilliant oddballs invented science. Theyâre people, so theyâre doing the sorts of things people do, elbowing and shoving one another to find the ultimate truth before the other guy. I appreciate that in the course of reading such a wonderfully enjoyable story, I somehow learn a great deal about the truth they were seeking, the underlying mathematical order of the universe in which they believed.
âEdward Dolnickâs smoothly written history of the scientific revolution tells the stories of the key players and events that transformed society.â â Charlotte Observer
From New York Times bestselling author Edward Dolnick, the true story of a pivotal moment in modern history when a group of strange, tormented geniusesâIsaac Newton chief among themâinvented science and remade our understanding of the world.
At a time when the world was falling apartâ in an age of religious wars, plague, and the Great Fire of Londonâa group of men looked around them and saw a world of perfect order. Chaotic as it looked,âŚ
I chose the dramatic backdrop of the Tiananmen massacre because after my first trip to China in the 1980âs I became a host family for mainland students studying at UCLA where I was Medical Director of Student Health. During those weeks in 1989 many students communicated with friends and family back in China using our fax machine. From their perspective, the conflict was a generational struggle between the very old leaders, many of whom marched with Mao and who were desperate to hang onto power (and therefore for my plot would want to get their hands on an elixir to double their lifespan), and the younger generation anxious for reforms.
I am delighted to recommend this book. Not only is it a fascinating true story, but it is also a page-turner. The story starts in 1937 when Joseph Needham, an English biochemist, falls in love with a Chinese student. He travels to China with her, where he begins a lifelong quest to document the scientific contributions of ancient China.
In sumptuous and illuminating detail, Simon Winchester, the bestselling author of The Professor and the Madman ("Elegant and scrupulous"âNew York Times Book Review) and Krakatoa ("A mesmerizing page-turner"âTime) brings to life the extraordinary story of Joseph Needham, the brilliant Cambridge scientist who unlocked the most closely held secrets of China, long the world's most technologically advanced country.
No cloistered don, this tall, married Englishman was a freethinking intellectual, who practiced nudism and was devoted to a quirky brand of folk dancing. In 1937, while working as a biochemist at Cambridge University, he instantly fell in love with a visiting ChineseâŚ
I grew up all around historyâmy childhood home was across the street from where one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence used to liveâand have long been fascinated by the connections between American and other countriesâ histories, especially in the old ports and harbors where sailing ships connected America to the world. Iâve lived and taught for the past two decades in Hong Kong, one of the worldâs great ports and a place to think about the American Revolution not as âourâ history but as part of how to explain Americans to the world.
âIf ideas like freedom and liberty were important, why didnât the whole empire rebel?â Undergraduate me asked this question in lecture to Gordon Wood, one of the foremost advocates of the role of ideas in the Revolution. Wood was an amazing lecturer: he brought even cynical students to tears in his last lecture of the term on the Revolution, exiting to applause in what felt like a mic drop.
He answered my question well enoughâhe mentioned the Royal Navyâs capacity to deter Nova Scotia and island colonies from rebellionâbut he hemmed and hawed as he spoke. There was a gap in the armor, the waning authority of an authoritative teacher who suddenly didnât seem to have all the answers.Â
I found my answer when I read OâShaughnessyâs book. Caribbean planters cared about their political rights. They protested the Stamp Act. But they were also far wealthier than their North AmericanâŚ
There were 26-not 13-British colonies in America in 1776. Of these, the six colonies in the Caribbean-Jamaica, Barbados, the Leeward Islands, Grenada and Tobago, St. Vincent; and Dominica-were among the wealthiest. These island colonies were closely related to the mainland by social ties and tightly connected by trade. In a period when most British colonists in North America lived less than 200 miles inland and the major cities were all situated along the coast, the ocean often acted as a highway between islands and mainland rather than a barrier.
The plantation system of the islands was so similar toâŚ
I was always interested in history but didnât pay much attention to the American Revolution because I thought I knew the story. When I began to read more on the topic, I found it was far more complex and more interesting than Iâd realized. Eventually I wanted to go beyond the standard storyline of Lexington-Concord-Bunker Hill-Washingtonâs road to victory at Yorktown. I started researching the Revolution, looking at original documents, including British materials that historians did not often consult. I found a treasure trove of fascinating stories and perspectives that I hadnât been aware of. Iâve been researching and writing on the topic ever since.
After having read so much on George Washington and the Continental Army, I found this book on the British army to be a refreshing change as well as highly informative. I was impressed with how the author humanized British soldiers, challenging the stereotype that they were the dregs of British society who only fought because of the brutal discipline imposed on them by their officers.
Spring shows that most British soldiers were patriotic, skilled fighters who fought very well despite a host of hardships. They quickly adapted to American conditions and achieved much success in battle, even though they were usually outnumbered. I was pleased with the authorâs perspective on a subject that hasnât received much attention.
The image is indelible: densely packed lines of slow-moving Redcoats picked off by American sharpshooters. Now Matthew H. Spring reveals how British infantry in the American Revolutionary War really fought.
This groundbreaking book offers a new analysis of the British Army during the ""American rebellion"" at both operational and tactical levels. Presenting fresh insights into the speed of British tactical movements, Spring discloses how the system for training the army prior to 1775 was overhauled and adapted to the peculiar conditions confronting it in North America.
First scrutinizing such operational problems as logistics, manpower shortages, and poor intelligence, Spring thenâŚ
