Subject Area: History-American
Mazey, Lisa2025 1-4955-1327-0 358 pages
Historical fiction authors use hindsight when adding to the record of tumultuous times in history. Most clearly described as writing that “dramatizes a specific historical period a few decades at least before the time of writing and focuses on a central character… who is affected directly in some way by real historical dramas,” historical fiction takes readers to a past time and place which is known but unfamiliar. This text investigates historical fiction about disguised female soldiers in the American Civil War whose role in American history is gaining renewed recognition. Three works are discussed: the books Behind Rebel Lines (1988) by Seymour Reit and I Shall Be Near to You (2014) by Erin Lindsay McCabe, and the film My Brother’s War (2005) by Whitney Hamilton. Scrutinizing these narratives is significant because they expand on women’s lives left unexplored or overlooked in canonical Civil War literature and contest the prevailing understandings of nineteenth-century military and gender boundaries.
Price: $239.95
Rogal, Samuel J.
2024 1-4955-1210-X 156 pages
"The principal substance of what follows comprises the complete text of Edward Everett's 'Gettysburg Address'. I have not attempted formal explication or criticism of the text, since sufficient numbers of Everett's biographers, Civil War historians, and specialists in public address and oral rhetoric have already published their reactions, opinions, and conclusions. Instead, I have set before readers of Everett's text a clean plate, providing only the utensils of annotation--principally historical and biographical details for those who need to consult them. I intend this volume as a means of introducing Edward Everett and his 'Address' to those persons who have not gathered, heretofore, any knowledge of the man or his presence at Gettysburg on 19 November 1863." -Samuel J. Rogal ("Introduction")
Price: $129.95
Whisker, James B.
2026 1-4955-1357-2 408 pages
This volume follows Fort bedford's history from 1755 until the ending of the American Revolution 1781.
During the French and Indian War (Seven Years War) Colonel Bouquet and General Forbes used Fort Bedford as their headquarters for portions of the campaign against Fort Duquesne, most of the army moved westward. At the peak, the fort was garrisoned by about eight hundred men. The fort saw little action during the Seven Years War and was used mainly as a supply base.Fort Bedford became the key supply base as well as a vital link in communications for Forbes' army. Bedford had been laid out on ground purchased by the Penn family from George Croghan. The ground had been occupied by Garret Pendergrass, tavern keeper. Bedford County was erected and the town made the county seat of all of Pennsylvania west of Ray's Hill,in 1771.
The various fortifications built by Forbes were intended to fulfill three principal functions: (1) to serve as protection against enemy attacks during the period while the army was advancing troops and supplies in order to consolidate a forward position; (2) to protect wagon trains and other military units engaged in transporting supplies and (3) to afford one or more rallying points in case the army should suffer a reverse which might necessitate a retreat. The actual experience of the Forbes campaign afforded ample proof of Forbes' wisdom in providing these fortifications. There are three reasons for building forts which have long been taught. First, they serve as shelter for soldiers. More importantly, they are shelter for threatened settlers. Third, they were used as points of trade and diplomatic contacts with the native aborigine. Forts were deliberately placed beyond the settlement line so that hostile warriors would be drawn to them, thereby sparing the settled communities from the violence.
The sage of Fort Bedford goes beyond it's origins and examines the various people who made this history in their own words. The quotes retain original spelling and abbreviations then in common use.
Price: $259.95
Weideman, Edward C.
2005 0-7734-6024-1 236 pages
In an age when the discovery and publication of forgotten or unknown texts, and the rediscovery of neglected works, are helping to expand the canon of literature with all its distinctively American characteristics, the publication of Edward C. Weideman’s book is a significant event. His writing provides a classic expression of the American experience sometimes labeled in literary studies as “modernism,” which encompasses the early twentieth-century search for the meaning of life in an era of social and economic breakdown, characterized by a sense of loss of a stable, secure world based on a belief in and reliance on absolute truth. The hobo narrative achieves a vividness, authenticity, and directness which might be termed “virtue of location,” drawing the reader into a time warp of Chinatown in Chicago and later the small-town life of Midwestern America in the 1930s, placing it in the tradition of such writers as Walt Whitman, John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Sinclair Lewis, and Hamlin Garland. The three short stories, written at a time when that genre was receiving increasing recognition as a serious art form, include a poignant tale of a teenager’s rite of passage through humiliation over his father’s perceived lack of education to a profound respect for his father’s wisdom and courage, a story about two old maids who hatch a plot against their ailing older brother that ends in a delightfully humorous final twist, and a macabre tale of a bizarre series of events, reminiscent of Poe.
Price: $179.95
Bartelt, Guillermo
2024 1-4955-1313-0 132 pages
Fear and fright are the progenitors of monsters and witches. In confronting overwhelming natural or social convulsions, pre-industrial man attempted to make sense of them by projecting his trepidations onto comprehensible categories of entropy. In his study on the witch hysteria in sixteenth- and seventeen-century Europe, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper contended that beliefs in sorcery were essentially inseparable from the ideology of the time (1956). For the illiterate peasantry, the fear of the existence of witches as embodiments of Satan worship had the coercive force of a social fact. Such convictions may have reflected the remnant of a pre-Christian animistic substrate that held on stubbornly in European folk culture. In any case, biblical admonitions against black magic were clear. The Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 18:11, in no uncertain terms prohibits casting spells, acting as a medium or spiritist, or consulting the dead, and the directive in Exodus 22:18, "[t]hou shalt not suffer a witch to live," was widely interpreted by mobs as a mandate for the execution of suspected practitioners. Also rooted in sacred texts, traditional American Indian notions of sorcery seem to have been, however, less concerned with sanctions than with explanations of misfortunes and catastrophes, especially in the form of illness. As recorded by ethnographers of the turn of the twentieth century, traditional Lakota affirmed that
Price: $139.95
Whisker, James B.
2024 1-4955-1294-0 124 pages
"During the colonial era, the militia system was linked to a fundamental concept of provincial citizenship. Along with church and governments, militia systems were considered to be one of three pillars of provincial society. The colonial militias constituted the primary instrument of defense for the American colonies. By the latter part of the 17th century, the militias had become more complex. ...The structures and functions of local militias and expeditionary forces continued to evolve through the series of imperial wars of the eighteenth century." -James Biser Whisker ("Introduction")
Price: $139.95
Daugherty, Leo J.
2024 1-4955-1248-7 108 pages
"From March of 1933 until the entrance of the United States into World War II in December 1941, the U.S. Army participated in one of the largest domestic relief operations in its institutional history--the Civilian Conservation Corps, better known as the 'CCC'. ...This essay illustrates how the Civilian Conservation Corps, while primarily intended as a civilian relief organization during the Great Depression (1929-1940), served as a 'pre-training course' for the men whom eventually served in the Army during the first years of World War II." -Dr. Leo J. Daugherty III
Price: $119.95