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Listening to the Philosophers: Notes on Notes
by Raffaella CribioreListening to the Philosophers offers the first comprehensive look into how philosophy was taught in antiquity through a stimulating study of lectures by ancient philosophers that were recorded by their students. Raffaella Cribiore shows how the study of notes—whether Philodemus of Gadara's notes of Zeno's lectures in the first century BCE, or Arrian recording the Discourses of Epictetus in the second century CE, or the students of Didymus the Blind in the fourth century and Olympiodorus in the sixth century—can enable us to understand the methods and practices of what was an orally conducted education. By considering the pedagogical and mnemonic role of notetaking in ancient education, Listening to the Philosophers demonstrates how in antiquity the written and the spoken worlds were intimately intertwined.
Borne by the River: Canoeing the Delaware from Headwaters to Home
by Rick Van NoyAfter a near-fatal stroke and a separation, amidst a global pandemic, Rick Van Noy decided to go for a paddle. In Borne by the River, he charts the story of discovery, and healing that came from this solo canoe journey. Paddling two hundred miles on the Delaware River to his boyhood home just upriver from Trenton, New Jersey, Van Noy contemplates his fate and life, as well as the simple joy of sitting in a small boat floating down a large river with his dog, Sully.Deftly combining memoir, natural and local history, and engaging reportage of his encounters with other paddlers and river enthusiasts, including members of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, Van Noy reveals deep and shifting layers of environmental, historical, cultural, and personal significance of the Delaware. Borne by the River reckons with the way that rivers braid into one's own life—thrilling rapids, eddying pauses, and life-changing rifts and falls. Van Noy rediscovers and shares how river journeys can scatter anxieties, wash away regrets, and recreate the spirit in its free-flowing currents.
Unexpected Revolutionaries: How Central Banks Made and Unmade Economic Orthodoxy (Cornell Studies in Money)
by Manuela MoschellaIn Unexpected Revolutionaries, Manuela Moschella investigates the institutional transformation of central banks from the 1970s to the present. Central banks are typically regarded as conservative, politically neutral institutions that uphold conventional macroeconomic wisdom. Yet in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2020 COVID-19 crisis, central banks have upended observer expectations by implementing largely unknown and unconventional monetary policies. Far from abiding by well-established policy playbooks, central banks now engage in practices such as providing liquidity support for a wide range of financial institutions and quantitative easing. They have even stretched the remit of monetary policy into issues such as inequality and climate change. Moschella argues that the political nature of central banks lies at the heart of these transformations. While formally independent, central banks need political support to justify their policies and powers, and to obtain it, they carefully manage their reputation among their audienceselected officials, market actors, and citizens. Challenged by reputational threats brought about by twenty-first-century recessionary and deflationary forces, central banks such as the Federal Reserve System and the European Central Bank strategically deviated from orthodox monetary policies to preempt or manage political backlash and to regain public trust. Central banks thus evolved into a new role only in coordination with fiscal authorities and on the back of public contestation. Eye-opening and insightful, Unexpected Revolutionaries is necessary reading for discussions on the future of the neoliberal macroeconomic regime, the democratic oversight of monetary policymaking, and the role that central banks canor cannotplay in our domestic economies.
Fire Dancers in Thailand's Tourism Industry: Art, Affect, and Labor
by Tiffany Rae PollockFire Dancers in Thailand's Tourism Industry explores the evolution of fire dancing from informal community jam sessions into the iconic, tourist-oriented performances at beach parties and bars, through a close consideration of the role of affect in the lives of fire dancers in the ever-changing scene. Rather than pursuing the common notion that tourism industries are exploitative enterprises that oppress workers, Tiffany Rae Pollock centers the perspectives of fire artists themselves, who view the industry as simultaneously generative and destructive. Dancers reveal how they employ affect to navigate their lives, art, and labor in this context, showcasing how affect is not only a force that acts on people but also is used and shaped by social actors toward their own ends. Fire Dancers in Thailand's Tourism Industry highlights men as affective laborers, investigating how they manage the eroticization of their identities and the intersections of art and labor in tourist economies. Exploring moments of performance and everyday life, Pollock examines how fire artists reimagine their labor, lives, and communities in Thailand's tourism industry.
The Fragmentary City: Migration, Modernity, and Difference in the Urban Landscape of Doha, Qatar
by Andrew M. GardnerAs Andrew M. Gardner explains in The Fragmentary City, in Qatar and elsewhere on the Arabian Peninsula, nearly nine out of every ten residents are foreign noncitizens. Many of these foreigners reside in the cities that have arisen in Qatar and neighboring states. The book provides an overview of the gulf migration system with its diverse migrant experiences. Gardner focuses on the ways that demography and global mobility have shaped the city of Doha and the urban characteristics of the Arabian Peninsula in general. Building on those migrant experiences, the book turns to the spatial politics of the modern Arabian city, exploring who is placed where in the city and how this social landscape came into historical existence. The author reflects on what we might learn from these cities and the societies that inhabit them. In The Fragmentary City, Andrew M. Gardner frames the contemporary cities of the Arabian Peninsula not as poor imitations of Western urban modernity, but instead as cities on the frontiers of a global, neoliberal, and increasingly urban future.
The Last Ta'ifa: The Banu Hud and the Struggle for Political Legitimacy in al-Andalus (Medieval Societies, Religions, and Cultures)
by Anthony H. MinnemaIn The Last Ta'ifa, Anthony H. Minnema shows how the Banu Hud, an Arab dynasty from Zaragoza, created and recreated their vision of an autonomous city-state (ta'ifa) in ways that reveal changes to legitimating strategies in al-Andalus and across the Mediterranean. In 1110, the Banu Hud lost control of their emirate in the north of Iberia and entered exile, ending their century-long rule. But far from accepting their fate, the dynasty adapted by serving Christian kings, nurturing rebellions, and carving out a new state in Murcia to recover, maintain, and grow their power. By tracing the Banu Hud across chronicles, charters, and coinage, Minnema shows how dynastic leaders borrowed their rivals' claims and symbols and engaged in similar types of military campaigns and complex alliances in an effort to cultivate authority. Drawing on Arabic, Latin, and vernacular sources, The Last Ta'ifa uses the history of the Banu Hud to connect the pursuit of legitimacy in al-Andalus to the politics of other emerging kingdoms and emirates. The actions of Hudid leaders, Minnema shows, echoed across the region as other kings, rebels, and adventurers employed parallel methods to gain power and resist the forces of centralization, highlighting the constructed nature of legitimacy in al-Andalus and the Mediterranean.
Italian Forgers: The Art Market and the Weight of the Past in Modern Italy
by Carol HelstoskyItalian Forgers takes an unorthodox approach to the fascinating topic of art forgery, focusing not on art forgery per se, but on the major forgery scandals that shifted the Italian art market in response to constant, and often intense, demand for Italian objects. By focusing on power dynamics that both precipitated forgery scandals and forged Italian cultural identities, this book connects the debates and discussions about three well-known Italian forgers—Giovanni Bastianini, Icilio Joni, and Alceo Dossena—to anchor and investigate the mechanics of the Italian art market from unification through the fascist era.Carol Helstosky examines foreign accounts of transactions and Italian writings about the art market. The actions and words of Italian dealers illustrate how the Italian art and antiquities market was an undeniably modern industry, on par with tourism in terms of its contribution to the Italian economy and to understandings of Italian identity. These accounts also reveal how dealers, artists, go-betweens, guides, and restorers worked to not only meet the intense demand for Italian products but also to develop highly sophisticated business practices to maintain financial stability and respond to shifts in demand consciously (but not always conscientiously).Italian Forgers weaves a compelling narrative about the history of Italian identity, forgery, and the value of the past. As a result, Helstosky brings historical perspective to the study of art forgery and art fraud. She reveals how historical circumstances and structural imbalances of cultural power shaped the market for art and antiquities and amplified incidents of art deception and forgery scandals.
Schoolishness: Alienated Education and the Quest for Authentic, Joyful Learning
by Susan D. BlumIn Schoolishness, Susan D. Blum continues her journey as an anthropologist and educator. The author defines "schoolishness" as educational practices that emphasize packaged "learning," unimaginative teaching, uniformity, constant evaluation by others, arbitrary forms, predetermined time, and artificial boundaries, resulting in personal and educational alienation, dependence, and dread.Drawing on critical, progressive, and feminist pedagogy in conversation with the anthropology of learning, and building on the insights of her two previous books Blum proposes less-schoolish ways of learning in ten dimensions, to lessen the mismatch between learning in school and learning in the wild. She asks, if learning is our human "superpower," why is it so difficult to accomplish in school? In every chapter Blum compares the fake learning of schoolishness with successful examples of authentic learning, including in her own courses, which she scrutinizes critically.Schoolishness is not a pedagogical how-to book, but a theory-based phenomenology of institutional education. It has moral, psychological, and educational arguments against schoolishness that, as Blum notes, "rhymes with foolishness."
An Irish Passion for Justice: The Life of Rebel New York Attorney Paul O'Dwyer
by Robert Polner Michael TubridyAn Irish Passion for Justice reveals the life and work of Paul O'Dwyer, the Irish-born and quintessentially New York activist, politician, and lawyer who fought in the courts and at the barricades for the rights of the downtrodden and the marginalized throughout the 20th century.Robert Polner and Michael Tubridy recount O'Dwyer's legal crusades, political campaigns, and civic interactions, deftly describing how he cut a principled and progressive path through New York City's political machinery and America's reactionary Cold War landscape. Polner and Tubridy's dynamic, penetrating depiction showcases O'Dwyer's consistent left-wing politics and defense of accused Communists in the labor movement, which exposed him to sharp criticism within and beyond the Irish-American community. Even so, his fierce beliefs, loyalty to his brother William, who was the city's mayor after World War II, and influence in Irish-American circles also inspired respect and support. Recognized by his gentle brogue and white pompadour, he fought for the creation of Israel, organized Black voters during the Civil Rights movement, and denounced the Vietnam War as an insurgent Democratic candidate for US Senate. Finally, he enlisted future president Bill Clinton to bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. As the authors demonstrate, O'Dwyer was both a man of his time and a politician beyond his years.An Irish Passion for Justice tells an enthralling and inspiring New York immigrant story that uncovers how one person, shaped by history and community, can make a difference in the world by holding true to their ideals.
Cultural and Creative Industries Policymaking: Sweden in the European Context (New Directions in Cultural Policy Research)
by Katja LindqvistThis book traces the emergence and development of cultural and creative industries (CCI) policy in Europe in the last 25 years. Why and how CCI policy has been designed and implemented in Europe is a central question of the book, in particular with regards to negotiations and relations between policy actors across established policy domains. There are many policy publications and reports on best practice and general descriptions of how policy systems work, fewer describe policy development over time and from a comparative perspective. Drawing mainly on research in policy studies, this book aims to improve knowledge of the dynamics of cultural and creative activities as well as that of policymaking in a changing policy landscape and increasingly cross-disciplinary research frameworks.
Multilevel Pedagogical Leadership in Higher Education: A Non-Affirmative Approach (Educational Governance Research #25)
by Janne Elo Michael UljensThis Open Access book addresses the theoretical grounding of the pedagogical dimensions of higher education leadership and its empirical study. The book’s general point of departure is that educational leadership is a multi-level phenomenon, operating as policy work on a transnational and national level, as educational leadership on various organizational levels, and as supervision and teaching on an interactional level. It is in and through these discursive practices that policies are initiated, interpreted, translated and enacted. The volume demonstrates how Non Affirmative Theory (NAT) of education applies to understanding and dealing with the pedagogical dimensions of the multi-level and multi-actor phenomena of HE leadership in a coherent manner. It allows one to explore how the pedagogical scope of action at each level of leadership is framed or staged by the other levels, as well as how actors at different levels utilise their scope. The book starts out by exploring the pedagogical aspects of HE leadership as a multi-level and multi-actor phenomenon at a theoretical level. It continues to discuss nation state HE in a global perspective, and HE leadership in an organisational perspective. Next, the book looks at departmental leadership, management and development. Parallel with this, the volume critically explores the non-affirmative position itself by a contrasting dialogue with other theoretical approaches.
Assessing Government Transparency in China (2021)
by He Tian Yanbin LvThe book continues to use quantitative and empirical research methods to summarize and analyze the achievements of government openness in China in 2020. It points out that in 2020, the exploration of standardization and standardization of government affairs openness is accelerating, decision-making openness is making steady progress, and government affairs services, administrative law enforcement, and management results are all making significant progress. However, in the future, it is still necessary to further enhance the awareness of openness, identify the needs of the public, integrate openness into the whole process of government affairs activities, and improve the level of information security. Besides, the book for the first time first carries out a third-party assessment of the government affairs publicity in the national free trade zones and free trade zones, and releases research reports on the publicity of administrative punishment information, government news release,work and production resumption information, and health science popularization information.
Piezoelectric Sensors (Springer Series on Chemical Sensors and Biosensors #18)
by Peter LieberzeitThis book provides a comprehensive overview of piezoelectric sensor devices and instrumentation and their use for chemical and biochemical analysis. Sensors relying on established transducers, such as the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and the surface acoustic wave resonator (SAW) are covered, and novel devices like surface transverse wave (STW) resonators, film bulk acoustic resonators (FBAR) as well as non-piezoelectric devices with mass-sensitive properties are presented. As their name implies, such devices respond directly to mass changes on their surfaces and thus address the most fundamental quality of any analytes. First, the book presents the fundamentals of new measuring strategies with these devices. Then, it introduces a variety of chemo- and biosensing application scenarios of these devices. In addition, the book covers both the state-of-the-art of academic research and prospects concerning the commercialization of these sensors. Given its scope, the book is of interest to academics, specialists in industry, and advanced students in the areas of analytical chemistry, rapid analysis, and sensor technology, giving them the unique possibility to familiarize themselves with this chemical sensing strategy. Readers will benefit from the coverage of both cutting-edge research results and applications that help bridge the gap between academia and industry.
The EBMT Handbook: Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapies
by Anna Sureda Selim Corbacioglu Raffaella Greco Nicolaus Kröger Enric CarrerasThis Open Access new edition of the EBMT handbook with its new format, addresses the latest developments and innovations in hematopoietic cell transplantation and cellular therapy. Consisting of 94 chapters, it has been written by 210 leading experts in the field. Discussing all types of hematopoietic cell transplantation, including selection of stem cell sources, it also covers the indications for transplantation, the management of early and late complications as well as the new and rapidly evolving field of cellular therapies and new infections (COVID-19). This book provides an unparalleled description of current practices to enhance readers’ knowledge and practice skills.
Advances in Data-Driven Computing and Intelligent Systems: Selected Papers from ADCIS 2023, Volume 4 (Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems #890)
by Swagatam Das Snehanshu Saha Carlos A. Coello Coello Hemant Rathore Jagdish Chand BansalThe volume is a collection of best selected research papers presented at International Conference on Advances in Data-driven Computing and Intelligent Systems (ADCIS 2023) held at BITS Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus, Goa, India during 21 – 23 September 2023. It includes state-of-the art research work in the cutting-edge technologies in the field of data science and intelligent systems. The book presents data-driven computing; it is a new field of computational analysis which uses provided data to directly produce predictive outcomes. The book will be useful for academicians, research scholars, and industry persons.
Envisioning the Future of Education Through Design (Lecture Notes in Educational Technology)
by Ronghuai Huang Dejian Liu Michael Agyemang Adarkwah Huanhuan Wang Boulus ShehataThis book identifies the educational problems and issues that could be solved by design and discusses how to overcome these challenges by adopting a design thinking approach. The chapters cover topics such as opportunities and challenges for the futures of education, the emerging models of design thinking for education, learning activity design, educational design for learning with special needs, designing learning spaces of the future, designing the classroom of the future, the design of authentic learning, and design of elderly education. It aims to assist educators and various stakeholders (e.g., administrators, practitioners, researchers, teachers, and students) in the educational field to realize the importance of design in education and enables them to use design and design thinking to overcome the educational challenges to achieve sustainable development.
The Regeneration of Nerves and Spinal Cord: About Mechanisms and Therapeutic Approaches
by Lars P. KlimaschewskiThis non-fiction book provides information about the latest findings on research and therapy of nerve regeneration with catchy drawings and in understandable words. Why do nerves in the extremities regenerate, but the axons in the spinal cord do not? Can transplanted stem cells or biopolymers restore regeneration? Are bioprostheses able to functionally replace amputated arms or legs? Neuroscientist Lars Klimaschewski answers these questions and reports on exciting findings from anatomy, cell and molecular biology and neurotechnology. Find out, among other things, how a brain-computer interface processes signals from the brain in order to control the arm or leg muscles again via electrodes after a paraplegia.The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.
Staphylococcus aureus: Interplay between Bacteria and Hosts
by Akio Nakane Krisana AsanoStaphylococcus aureus is an opportunistic human pathogen that colonizes the mucosal surfaces. It is the causative agent of various serious acute and chronic infections. Recent prevalence of infectious diseases caused and expanded by hospital-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (HA-MRSA), community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA) and livestock-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (LA-MRSA). MRSA infections must be more serious problem in near future. It is presumed that offense and defense responses are continuously executed between S. aureus and host to establish and maintain commensalism for S. aureus. Therefore, it is essential to elucidate interplay between S. aureus and hosts to prevent staphylococcal infectious diseases. This book is comprised of content that focuses on this aspect.
The Three Ethologies: A Positive Vision for Rebuilding Human-Animal Relationships (Animal Lives)
by Matthew CalarcoA transformative vision for human-animal relations on personal, social, and environmental levels. The Three Ethologies offers a fresh, affirmative vision for rebuilding human-animal relations. Venturing beyond the usual scholarly and activist emphasis on restricting harm, Matthew Calarco develops a new philosophy for understanding animal behavior—a practice known as ethology—through three distinct but interrelated lenses: mental ethology, which rebuilds individual subjectivity; social ethology, which rethinks our communal relations; and environmental ethology, which reconfigures our relationship to the land we co-inhabit with our animal kin. Drawing on developments in philosophy, (eco)feminist theory, critical geography, Indigenous studies, and the environmental humanities, Calarco casts an inspiring vision of how ethological living can help us to reimagine our ideas about goodness, truth, and beauty.
The Pandemic Workplace: How We Learned to Be Citizens in the Office
by Ilana GershonA provocative book arguing that the workplace is where we learn to live democratically. In The Pandemic Workplace, anthropologist Ilana Gershon turns her attention to the US workplace and how it changed—and changed us—during the pandemic. She argues that the unprecedented organizational challenges of the pandemic forced us to radically reexamine our attitudes about work and to think more deeply about how values clash in the workplace. These changes also led us as workers to engage more with the contracts that bind us as we rethought when and how we allow others to tell us what to do. Based on over two hundred interviews, Gershon’s book reveals how negotiating these tensions during the pandemic made the workplace into a laboratory for democratic living—the key place where Americans are learning how to develop effective political strategies and think about the common good. Exploring the explicit and unspoken ways we are governed (and govern others) at work, this accessible book shows how the workplace teaches us to be democratic citizens.
Just Wonder: Shifting Perspectives in Tradition
by Pauline Greenhill Jennifer OrmeInspired by folklore, television, fairy tales, social media, novels, and films, Just Wonder addresses crucial themes in social and ecological justice efforts. Moving into the mid-twenty-first century, wonder—as a potentially critical sociocultural, ecological, and individual stance—will play a significant role in reconceptualizing the present to imagine a different and better world. These essays examine fairy tales and other traditional forms of the fantastic and the real to offer alternative expressions of justice relevant to gender, sex, sexuality, environment, Indigeneity, class, ability, race, decolonizing, and human and nonhuman relations. By analyzing fairy tales and wonder texts from various media through an intersectional feminist lens, Pauline Greenhill and Jennifer Orme consider how wonder genres and forms blend with diverse conceptions of seeking and enacting justice. International collaborators—both established and emerging scholars who self-identify with different subjectivities, locations, and generations and come from an impressive range of inter/disciplines—engage with contemporary and historical texts from various languages and cultural contexts, including interventions, counterparts, and comparisons to the fairy tale. Just Wonder offers a critical look at how creative wondering can expand the ability to resist modes of oppression while fostering equity, as well as encourage curiosity and imagination. In a world that can be overwhelming and precarious, this book presents scholarly, artistic, personal, and collective-action interventions to identify and respond to injustice while centering wonder and, thus, imagination, questioning, and hope. Just Wonder will appeal to fairy-tale scholars; folklorists; students and scholars of film, media studies, and cultural studies; as well as a general audience.
Opening Windows: Embracing New Perspectives and Practices in Natural Resource Social Sciences (Society and Natural Resources Book Series)
by Douglas Jackson-Smith Jaye Mejía-Duwan Michaela Hoffelmeyer Angie Carter Gabrielle Roesch-McNally John Schelhas Jasmine K. Brown Michael Dockry Sarah Hitchner Sarah Naiman Grace Wang Evan J. Andrews Christine Knott Solange Nadeau Courtenay Parlee Archi Rastogi Rachel Kelly Maria Andrée Lópex Gómez Madu Galappaththi Ana Carolina Esteves Dias E. Carina H. Keskitalo Richard Dimba Kiaka Paul Hebinck Rodgers Lubilo Prativa Sapkota Rebecca M. Ford Maddison Miller Andrea Rawluk Kathryn J. H. Williams John R. Parkins Christopher Jadallah Eliza Oldach Abraham Miller-Rushing Caitlin Hafferty Ian Babelon Robert Berry Beth Brockett James Hoggett Bryanne Lamoureux Melanie Zurba Yan Chen Durdana Islam Kate Sherren Robert Emmet Jones Tobin N. Walton Simon West Wiebren Johannes Boonstra Sasha Quahe Jessica Cockburn Nosiseko Mtati Vanessa Masterson Gladman Thondhlana Anna Haines Brett Alan Miller Polly Nguyen William Stewart Daniel R. WilliamsThe third decennial review from the International Association for Society and Natural Resources, Opening Windowssimultaneously examines the breadth and societal relevance of Society and Natural Resources (SNR) knowledge, explores emergent issues and new directions in SNR scholarship, and captures the increasing diversity of SNR research. Authors from various backgrounds—career stage, gender and sexuality, race/ethnicity, and global region—provide a fresh, nuanced, and critical look at the field from both researchers’ and practitioners’ perspectives. This reflexive book is organized around four key themes: diversity and justice, governance and power, engagement and elicitation, and relationships and place. This is not a complacent volume—chapters point to gaps in conventional scholarship and to how much work remains to be done. Power is a central focus, including the role of cultural and economic power in “participatory” approaches to natural resource management and the biases encoded into the very concepts that guide scholarly and practical work. The chapters include robust literature syntheses, conceptual models, and case studies that provide examples of best practices and recommend research directions to improve and transform natural resource social sciences. An unmistakable spirit of hope is exemplified by findings suggesting positive roles for research in the progress ahead. Bringing fresh perspectives on the assumptions and interests that underlie and entangle scholarship on natural resource decisionmaking and the justness of its outcomes, Opening Windows is significant for scholars, students, natural resource practitioners, managers and decision makers, and policy makers.
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home: A Novel
by Lorrie Moore"Get ready to expand your sense of what Lorrie Moore—and a novel—can do." —Ron Charles, The Washington Post, on A Gate at the StairsFrom "one of the most acute and lasting writers of her generation" (Caryn James, The New York Times)—a daring novel, her first in more than a decade, about love and death and what lies between and after. A ghost story set in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, an elegiac consideration of grief, devotion (filial and romantic), and the vanishing and persistence of all things—seen and unseen.A teacher visiting his dying brother in the Bronx. A mysterious journal from the nineteenth century stolen from a boardinghouse. A therapy clown and an assassin, both presumed dead, but perhaps not dead at all . . .With her distinctive, irresistible wordplay and singular wry humor and wisdom, Lorrie Moore has given us a magic box of longing and surprise as she writes about love and rebirth and the pull toward life. Bold, meditative, theatrical, this new novel is an inventive, poetic portrait of lovers and siblings, and of the stories we have been told, which take us through a trapdoor on an imagined journey to the tragic-comic landscape that is, unmistakably, the world of Lorrie Moore.
The North Star: Canada and the Civil War Plots Against Lincoln
by Julian SherFINALIST FOR THE 2023 MAVIS GALLANT PRIZE FOR NON-FICTIONLONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 J. W. DAFOE BOOK PRIZEA riveting account of the years, months and days leading up to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and the unexpected ways Canadians were involved in every aspect of the American Civil War.Canadians take pride in being on the &“good side&” of the American Civil War, serving as a haven for 30,000 escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad. But dwelling in history's shadow is the much darker role Canada played in supporting the slave South and in fomenting the many plots against Lincoln. The North Star weaves together the different strands of several Canadians and a handful of Confederate agents in Canada as they all made their separate, fateful journeys into history. The book shines a spotlight on the stories of such intrepid figures as Anderson Abbott, Canada&’s first Black doctor, who joined the Union Army; Emma Edmonds, the New Brunswick woman who disguised herself as a man to enlist as a Union nurse; and Edward P. Doherty, the Quebec man who led the hunt to track down Lincoln&’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth. At the same time, the Canadian political and business elite were aiding the slave states. Toronto aristocrat George Taylor Denison III bankrolled Confederate operations and opened his mansion to their agents. The Catholic Church helped one of Booth&’s accused accomplices hide out for months in the Quebec countryside. A leading financier in Montreal let Confederates launder money through his bank. Sher creates vivid portraits of places we thought we knew. Montreal was a sort of nineteenth-century Casablanca of the North: a hub for assassins, money-men, mercenaries and soldiers on the run. Toronto was a headquarters for Confederate plotters and gun-runners. The two largest hotels in the country became nests of Confederate spies. Meticulously researched and richly illustrated, The North Star is a sweeping tale that makes long-ago events leap off the page with a relevance to the present day.
The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America
by Erik Larson#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes the true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death. &“As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find.&” —San Francisco ChronicleCombining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America&’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair&’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country&’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his &“World&’s Fair Hotel&” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.The Devil in the White City draws the reader into the enchantment of the Guilded Age, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson&’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.