DOCTRINA CHRISTIANAThe first book printed in the Philippines has been the object of a hunt which has extended from Manila to Berlin, and from Italy to Chile, for four hundred and fifty years. The patient research of scholars, the scraps of evidence found in books and archives, the amazingly accurate hypotheses of bibliographers who have sifted the material so painstakingly gathered together, combine to make its history a bookish detective story par excellence. It is easy when a prisoner has been...

THE ILLUSTRATED WAR NEWS, N.B.--REMOVE INSETTED LEAFLET, DEC. 30 1914.THE GREAT WAR. In reviewing the events of the last week throughout the world-wide area of war, let us begin with the Dark Continent, where everything went in our favour--very brilliantly so. First of all, then, we may now be said to have completed our conquest of the German Cameroon country by taking possession of the whole of the railway which runs northward from Bonabari, and is now in the hands of our troops. A...

The New York Times, CURRENT HISTORY, A Monthly Magazine, THE EUROPEAN WAR, VOLUME IIAPRIL, 1915 Germany's War Zone and Neutral Flags The German Decree and Interchange of Notes Answering American Protests to Germany and Britain BERLIN, Feb. 4, (by wireless to Sayville, L.I.)--The German Admiralty today issued the following communication: The waters around Great Britain and Ireland, including the whole English Channel, are declared a war zone on and after Feb. 18, 1915. Every enemy merchant ship found in this war zone will be destroyed, even if it is impossible to avert dangers which threaten the crew and passengers...

When a bunch of apparently non-practicing Musalmans headed by Mohamed Atta launched that fidayeen attack on New York’s World Trade Centre that Sep 11, the world at large, by then familiar with the ways of the Islamic terrorism, was at a loss to fathom the unthinkable source of that unexpected means of the new Islamist scourge. The symptoms of a latent terrorist in the Muslim youth can be traced to the sublimity of Muhammad's preaching’s in Mecca and the severity of his Medina sermons make Islam a Janus-faced faith that forever bedevils the mind of the Musalmans...

Recognizing the importance of establishing for history an authentic text of the Trial of major German WWII war criminals, the International Military Tribunal, consisting of members from Great Britain, the USA, Russia, and France, directed the publication of the Record of the Trial. This volume contains basic, official, pre-trial documents together with the Tribunal’s judgment and sentence of the defendants.

Rolf, a youth in early Christian Iceland, loses first his father, then his property, and finally his freedom to the schemes of a greedy neighbor. Outlawed from Iceland, Rolf travels abroad, meeting with shipwreck, enslavement, Viking berserkers, and many other dangers and adventures. All the while, Rolf searches for a way to prove his father was killed unjustly and win back his own property and freedom. Even more difficult, Rolf must end the cycle of enmity, vengeance, and pride that hangs like a curse over his family. - Summary by Erin Schellhase

Harris Newmark was personally acquainted with every person and family involved in the founding of the city of Los Angeles, California. He gathers into this well-written book his reminiscences of the period from 1853 to 1913, as Los Angeles developed from a tiny village surrounded by great ranchos into a modern city. This book is a fascinating treasure trove of information for anyone who lives in Los Angeles. ***NOTE: It should be noted that there is language within this book that was commonplace during the time this book was written that is often considered offensive today.***

"The Conspiracy of Pontiac" was Parkman's first history book and first published in 1851. It covers the Indian wars of 1763 to 1769. Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, put together a coalition of Indian tribes from around the Great Lakes region and the Illinois and Ohio Countries to attack the British under General Jeffrey Amherst. - Summary by Richard Carpenter

This volume covers the age of expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War, including the creation of the Constitution, the Presidency of George Washington, the War of 1812, and the settling of the West, along with tales of Johnny Appleseed, the Alamo, the Gold Rush, the death of Jefferson, and The Wreck of the Hesperus. Authors include Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Francis Scott Key, John Greenleaf Whittier and Lord Byron. - Summary by Ed Humpal

"Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" is a collection of nearly five hundred mostly supernatural tales written by Pu Songling during the early Qing Dynasty. It was written in Classical Chinese rather than Vernacular Chinese. Pu is believed to have completed the majority of the tales sometime in 1679, though he could have added entries as late as 1707. He borrows from a folk tradition of oral storytelling to put to paper a series of captivating, colorful stories, where the boundary between reality and the odd or fantastic is blurred...

“The Author of the following work has endeavored to give a faithful record of … the Exiles of Florida. Torn from their native land, their friends and homes, they were sold in the markets of Carolina and Georgia. Feeling the hand of oppression bearing heavily upon them, they fled to Florida, and, under Spanish laws, became free. … At a time of profound peace, our army, acting under the direction of the Executive, invaded Florida, murdered many of these free men, and brought others to the United States and consigned them to slavery...

From the Preface: The formation of a Battalion of Jews for service in the British Army is an event without precedent in our annals, and the part played by such a unique unit is assured of a niche in history owing to the fact that it fought in Palestine, not only for the British cause, but also for the Restoration of the Jewish people to the Promised Land. - Summary by J. H. Patterson

A short review of the history and presence of Native Americans in the area of the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, USA. - Summary by david wales

"Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio" or "Strange Tales of Liaozhai" is a collection of nearly five hundred mostly supernatural tales written by Pu Songling during the early Qing Dynasty. It was written in Classical Chinese rather than Vernacular Chinese. Pu is believed to have completed the majority of the tales sometime in 1679, though he could have added entries as late as 1707. He borrows from a folk tradition of oral storytelling to put to paper a series of captivating, colorful stories, where the boundary between reality and the odd or fantastic is blurred...

The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, by Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné, is a classic work on the great events that re-opened the Christian gospel to a needy world. It tells of how the twenty-year-old Martin Luther, browsing through books in the library at the University of Erfurt, takes down from the shelf a particular volume that has caught his interest. He has never seen anything like it. It is a Bible! He is astonished to find in this volume so much more than the fragments of gospels and epistles that were selected for public reading in churches...

The title says it all. World War I narratives of German activities in Belgium after the German invasion of this neutral country. - Summary by david wales

A 1973 U.S. government publication describing the history and physical characteristics of this Arizona national monument within the boundaries of the Navajo Nation. - Summary by david wales

In 1903, Panama became a brand new state in Central America by seceding from Colombia in order to facilitate the construction of the Panama Canal, which was finished in 1914. This fledgling nation was home to the oldest inhabited European settlement on the American continent, a rich indigenous culture, and a splendid natural beauty from coast to jungle. Such was the scene as found by George A. Miller as he was "Prowling about Panama" in 1919, an activity that is more a "getting lost in the right way" than systematic exploration. Follow the author on his prowls through an amazing country that at the time of writing was an exciting mixture of tradition and modernity. .

Auguste Comte was from France and published this book in French in 1844. He made a very great impact on the sciences and claims to have “discovered the principal laws of Sociology." Comte says Reason has become habituated to revolt but that doesn’t mean it will always retain its revolutionary character. He discusses Science, the trade-unions, Proletariat workers, Communists, Capitalists, Republicans, the role of woman in society, the elevation of Social Feeling over Self-love, and the Catholic Church in this book...

Kant's Prolegomena, although a small book, is indubitably the most important of his writings. It furnishes us with a key to his main work, The Critique of Pure Reason; in fact, it is an extract containing all the salient ideas of Kant's system. It approaches the subject in the simplest and most direct way, and is therefore best adapted as an introduction into his philosophy. - Summary by Open Court Publishing Company

The Royal Irish Constabulary was the armed police force of the United Kingdom in Ireland from the early nineteenth century until 1922. About seventy-five percent of the RIC were Roman Catholic and about twenty-five percent were of various Protestant denominations, the Catholics mainly constables and the Protestants officers. In consequence of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the RIC was disbanded in 1922 and was replaced by the Garda Síochána in the Irish Free State and the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland...

The title of this 1961 Smithsonian Institution bulletin says it all. “In 18th-century America, the pleasant practice of taking tea at home was an established social custom with a recognized code of manners and distinctive furnishings. Pride was taken in a correct and fashionable tea table whose equipage included much more than teapot, cups, and saucers. It was usually the duty of the mistress to make and pour the tea; and it was the duty of the guests to be adept at handling a teacup and saucer and to provide social ‘chitchat...

This 1914 book gives a picture of the British Army structure and life in the early hours of World War I. Summary by david wales

"The History Teacher’s Magazine is devoted to the interests of teachers of History, Civics, and related subjects in the fields of Geography and Economics. It aims to bring to the teacher of these topics the latest news of his profession. It will describe recent methods of history teaching, and such experiments as may be tried by teachers in different parts of the country. It will keep the teacher in touch with the recent literature of history by giving an impartial judgment upon recent text-books...

Tor is a young beggar living in the city of Jerusalem during the tumultuous time of the Roman occupation. Shouts of hope are the last thing this street boy expects when he witnesses Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. Tor comes face to face with the man Jesus and from that moment his life is forever changed. With thievery, injustice, and brutality as the backdrop of this novel, Tor learns to trade his hatred for love, and what it means to be a follower of Christ. This novel is for ages eight and up.

This poem is part of the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," writen by Wordsworth between 1821 - 22. - Summary by David Lawrence

"Human, all-too-Human, is the monument of a crisis. It is entitled: 'A book for free spirits,' and almost every line in it represents a victory—in its pages I freed myself from everything foreign to my real nature. Idealism is foreign to me: the title says, 'Where you see ideal things, I see things which are only—human alas! all-too-human!' I know man better—the term 'free spirit' must here be understood in no other sense than this: a freed man, who has once more taken possession of himself."

This 1866 book was published in a time of great change in the Church of England. Trollope began as a High Church adherent and then worked his way to a Broad Church stance, a theological liberalism . This book deals with a crisis of faith and a crisis of structural form in the Victorian Church of England. It possesses all the interesting attributes of the novelist’s style. Note on the final chapter: John William Colenso was a British mathematician, theologian, Biblical scholar and social activist, who was the first Church of England Bishop of Natal. His progressive views on biblical criticism and treatment of African natives were controversial. - Summary by David Wales

The History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, by Jean-Henri Merle d’Aubigné, is a classic work on the great events that re-opened the Christian gospel to a needy world. The author was a Swiss Protestant pastor. He was also a historian with a great understanding of the Bible, along with a broad and deep knowledge of the Reformation.D’Aubigné tells the story of outstanding people who had a love for God and his word, and who dared to present biblical truths which had been obscured for centuries...

Description. History. “… those who read this book and have no opportunity of visiting the Tower expect that the characters in the moving drama of its history shall have some semblance of life as they walk across the stage…. My wish has been to persuade those who come to visit the Tower that there is a great deal to be seen in its immediate vicinity… A noble and historic building like the Tower resembles a venerable tree whose roots have spread into the soil in all directions, during the uncounted years of its existence, far beyond the position of its stem.” - Summary by Book Preface and David Wales

Poe’s famous narrative poem and the author’s reflections on its composition.

Housing, Food, Clothing, Health, Sanitation, Recreation, Religion, Duties, Discipline. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts in history in the Graduate School of the University of Illinois 1918. - Summary by David Wales

The History Teacher's Magazine was a monthly publication devoted to the interests of teachers specializing in history, civics, and geography. It provides scholarly articles as well as advice on organizing course content, tips for engaging students, book reviews, and inspiration. - Summary by Sarah Jennings

In this third installment from the “Ragged Dick” series by Horatio Algers, Jr., the reader is reacquainted with some old friends and meets young Mark Manton. Mark is a match boy plagued by bad luck and an even worse guardian. But, with new friends, hard work, and smart choices, Mark may just find his luck taking a turn for the better. summary by tfaulder

A collection of legends and myths of the Hawaiian islands and their 'strange people' as told by His Majesty King Kalakaua, the last king of Hawaii. Introduction, including a history, geography and social and religious commentary on the islands by R.M. Daggett, United States Minister to the Hawaiian Islands 1882-1885.

This is a concise history of the Vikings by Allen Mawer, MA, Professor of English Language and Literature in Armstrong College, University of Durham: late Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. It includes the following chapters: I.Causes of the Viking movement; II.The Viking movement down to the middle of the 9th century; III.The Vikings in England to the death of Harthacnut ; IV.The Vikings in the Frankish Empire to the founding of Normandy ;V. The Vikings in Ireland to the battle of Clontarf ; VI...

“[these essays on Shakespeare, Pepys, Restoration novels, and bohemianism]—the results of many hours of quiet but rather aimless browsing among books, and not of special investigations, undertaken with a view to definite scholastic ends. They are, moreover, as will readily be seen, completely unacademic in style and intention.” Published in 1897. Hudson was a prolific author, naturalist, and ornithologist. His most popular book in the early 20th century was Green Mansions.

"The History Teacher’s Magazine is devoted to the interests of teachers of History, Civics, and related subjects in the fields of Geography and Economics. It aims to bring to the teacher of these topics the latest news of his profession. It will describe recent methods of history teaching, and such experiments as may be tried by teachers in different parts of the country. It will keep the teacher in touch with the recent literature of history by giving an impartial judgment upon recent text-books...

A severe earthquake, centered in the vacation area of West Yellowstone, Montana, shook the ground and its inhabitants and visitors on August 17, 1959, at 11.37 pm. A mountainside fell, a lake formed, roads and houses disappeared, people were trapped, people died. The author of this narrative went to the area the day after the quake, took first-hand stories of the catastrophe, researched in the following months, and wrote this account within a year of the shaking. The printed source has many informative photographs. - Summary by David Wales

This 1911 history of the public health revolution that transformed New York City in the nineteenth century is also about every city and town of the world and the sanitary challenges that each encountered. Stephen Smith was an American surgeon and a pioneer in public health. “The story of a great life-saving social revolution, the mightiest in the nineteenth century and one of the most momentous in the history of civilization, is told here for the first time. It is told from the standpoint of the transformation of the City of New York, by a chief actor in the event.” Chapter four, New York The Unclean, is the heart of this work.

Simon Dubnow was born in 1860 to a poor Jewish family in Belarussian town of Mstsislaw and later became authority of Jewish history and an activist. Due to his Jewish origin, he had to move to St.Petersburg, Odessa, Vilna, St.Petersburg, Kaunas, Berlin and finally Riga after Hitler came to power. When Nazi troops occupied Latvia 1941, he was moved with thousands of other Jews to Riga ghetto and was eventually killed. His life is a symbol of Jewish suffering in Eastern Europe in the first half of 20 century. This book is one of the most extensive and thorough study of the glory and suffering of the Jews in Russia and Poland for 2000 years. - Summary by S. S. Kim

After the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which many claim sparked off the Civil War that put an end to legalized slavery in America, there was a great outcry that Stowe had blown her fictional story out of all proportion to the facts. She was viewed by some as an irresponsible monster. Stowe defended herself by painstakingly publishing this Key, describing the actual people, incidents, statutes, court cases, news articles, advertisements, and published facts from whence she drew her material...

John Dewey, an early 20th Century American philosopher, psychologist, educational theorist saw Social Psychology as much a physical science as Biology and Chemistry. This project encompasses Part 1 of 4 of his book Human Nature and Conduct. Dewey's uses the word "HABIT" as a specialized catch-all word to describe how a person and his/her objective environment interact. This interaction is the basis for moral judgement. Dewey writes: "All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self.” In other places he also asserts that "Habits are Will." - Summary by William Jones, Soloist

Eminent British botanist Agnes Arber provides an authoritative history of printed Herbals -- books widely used in early modern Europe to catalogue the uses of different kinds of plants. While Herbals often reflected pre-scientific and magical beliefs about the properties of plants, Arber's work reveals that they were also critical to the early development of botany and medicine as empirical sciences. A classic in the history of science. - Summary by Josh Leach

"The History Teacher’s Magazine is devoted to the interests of teachers of History, Civics, and related subjects in the fields of Geography and Economics. It aims to bring to the teacher of these topics the latest news of his profession. It will describe recent methods of history teaching, and such experiments as may be tried by teachers in different parts of the country. It will keep the teacher in touch with the recent literature of history by giving an impartial judgment upon recent text-books...

William Caruthers was a retired newspaperman who spent 25 years listening to stories told by the inhabitants of Death Valley. This 1951 book collects those stories; the printed version has many interesting pictures. ''Of the actors who made the history of the period, few remain. It was the writer’s good fortune that many of these men were his friends. It is the romance, the comedy, the often stark tragedy these men left along the trail which you will find in the pages that follow.''

Join Rough and Ready for his adventure on the streets of New York City. Working as a newsboy, Rough and Ready tries to support himself and his sister on his meager earnings. Unfortunately, their stepfather is seeking to kidnap little Rose, getting an education is hard work, swindlers are trying to trick him out of his money, and thieves are planning nefarious deeds. Luckily for Rough and Ready, he makes some good friends along the way. Summary by Tori Faulder

History and customs of the Irish and Ireland. A word of warning to the listener: The Wild Irishman contains the biased, uncomplimentary opinions of Englishman, Thomas Crosland. Remember this was written in the late 1800's and published in 1905. Crosland was hyper critical of Irishmen and women at a time when American cities often posted signs, "No Irish Need Apply." If you are Irish, as am I, try to not be overly offended or simply walk away. - Summary by John Brandon

Nothing seems to be known about Mr and Mrs William Platt, the writers of Stories of the Scottish Border. What they produced is an eccentric guidebook and history, seen partly through the ballads of the region. The book recounts the military stratagems, treachery and courage of those who struggled for control of the Border lands and of the whole country, and tells of the triumphs or tragic fate of those who took part on both sides. It also tells us stories of the Border Reivers, raiders who lived by riding out and stealing their neighbours’ livestock...

In 1888, George Broke with Harold Topham and William Williams, made the first exploration of the Alaskan Mt. St. Elias range, including the crossing of the great Malaspina Glacier and an attempt on the S.E. face of Mt. St. Elias itself. The journey is described in the interesting work With Sack and Stock in Alaska, vividly detailing the country visited and the characters met along the way. - Summary by Fritz

This recording of the 1931 book about Yosemite National Park comprises the narrative text about the Park from its discovery by non-natives in the Indian War of 1851 to the mid-twentieth century. The printed book contains dozens of early photographs and drawings, as well as an extensive timeline and bibliography, which are not here recorded. The author was an ecologist, historian, and administrator. He was an officer of the U.S. National Park Service for thirty four years, serving as the Chief Naturalist of Yosemite from 1923-1929 and later as Park Superintendent. - Summary by David Wales

"The History Teacher’s Magazine is devoted to the interests of teachers of History, Civics, and related subjects in the fields of Geography and Economics. It aims to bring to the teacher of these topics the latest news of his profession. It will describe recent methods of history teaching, and such experiments as may be tried by teachers in different parts of the country. It will keep the teacher in touch with the recent literature of history by giving an impartial judgment upon recent text-books...

THREE great names stand forth conspicuous in the annals of America, those of Washington, Bolívar, San Martin. Of Washington, the great leader of the Democracy of the North; of Bolívar and of San Martin, who were the emancipators of the southern half of the continent. The story of the life-work of the latter of these two is the Argument of this book.The scene of action passes on a vast theatre, a territory extending for more than fifty degrees of latitude, from Cape Horn to the Tropic of Cancer, and occupies twenty years of strife...

In 1827 Thomas Southwood-Smith published The Use of the Dead to the Living, a pamphlet which argued that the current system of burial in the United Kingdom was a wasteful use of bodies that could otherwise be used for dissection by the medical profession. "If, by any appropriation of the dead, I can promote the happiness of the living, then it is my duty to conquer the reluctance I may feel to such a disposition of the dead, however well-founded or strong that reluctance may be". Southwood-Smith's lobbying helped lead to the 1832 Anatomy Act, the legislation which allowed the state to seize unclaimed corpses from workhouses and sell them to surgical schools...

Armenians trace their history back to before the time of the Babylonians and earliest recorded history - in fact, to Togarmah, a grandson of Japhet, Noah's son, who settled in Armenia after the Ark came to rest on mount Ararat. Armenia was also the first State in the world to adopt Christianity as their official religion, around the 3rd Century AD. This book contains many wonderful folk and fairy tales culled from this long history of the Armenian country people, to whom all nature is full of stories, by the scholar and storyteller Mr. A. G. Seklemian. - Summary by Noel Badrian

The life of Frederick Douglass, recorded in the pages which follow, is not merely an example of self elevation under the most adverse circumstances; it is, moreover, a noble vindication of the highest aims of the American anti-slavery movement.

A young man travels to South Africa to find his Mother and sister. He wants to be a clergyman and a farmer when he arrives there. This story includes accounts of the Zulu-Boer wars. - Summary by Ingrid Kennedy

Everything about the sea: history of ships, famous mariners and life on shipboard, adventure, shipwrecks and daring rescues. - Summary by Kikisaulite

Between the former site of old Fort Dearborn and the present site of our newest Board of Trade there lies a restricted yet tumultuous territory through which, during the course of the last fifty years, the rushing streams of commerce have worn many a deep and rugged chasm. These great canons—conduits, in fact, for the leaping volume of an ever-increasing prosperity—cross each other with a sort of systematic rectangularity, and in deference to the practical directness of local requirements they are in general called simply—streets...

Sir Walter Besant was a prolific novelist and historian. He wrote Fifty Years Ago to present a picture of life, manners, and society in Great Britain as it was when Queen Victoria ascended to the throne. In 1837, the seeds of new technology and new ideas were present and monumental changes from the ways of the 1700's were about to be felt. Starting first in London and over several decades, the progress moved outwards to the country towns of the British Isles. - Summary by Gary Clayton

These simple stories of two of England’s greatest cathedrals were originally written for youth but adults will also enjoy them. St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, and Canterbury Cathedral in Kent County are central to the story of England, especially church history though not exclusively so. Here are stories of great spiritual leaders, saints, sinners, politicians, kings, soldiers, murders, pilgrimages, common folks, peoples’ spiritualities, spiritual life, civil life. - Summary by david wales

This book tells the story of exploration in America in the words of the explorers themselves. It consists of extracts from narratives of the early discoverers and explorers of the American continent from the Northmen in 10th century to 17th century Massachusets Bay Colony. - Summary by Kikisaulite

Excerpt from Preface: Their patriotic sacrifices were made with an enthusiasm that showed the earnest spirit ready on every occasion to appear in generous acts. Some gave their own property, and went from house to house to solicit contributions for the army. Colors were embroidered by fair hands, and presented with the charge never to desert them; and arms and ammunition were provided by the same liberal zeal. They formed themselves into associations renouncing the use of teas, and other imported luxuries, and engaging to card, spin, and weave their own clothing.

The question most frequently asked me since I began my stay in South America has been: "Why do they have so many revolutions there?" Possibly the events recounted in the following pages may help the reader to answer this for himself. I hope that he will share my conviction that militarism has already definitely disappeared from more than half the continent and is slowly becoming less powerful in the remainder. Constitutional traditions, inherited from Spain and Portugal, implanted a tendency toward...

This is Stowe's second book, another one depicting the horrors of southern slavery, published 4 years after Uncle Tom's Cabin and 5 years before the commencement of the Civil War, when new territories wanting admittance into the US , were vying to become slave states, threatening to spread the heinous system. While a work of fiction, the book successfully documents the horrors of the slave system, and depicts how some slaves escaped into the Dismal Swamp , where they often lived for years hiding from their pursuers, often in community...

This 1898 collection of thirteen previously published articles exhibits the acute perception of one of the most popular writers of the late 19th-early 20th centuries. “These "Tales of the Trail" are based upon actual facts which came under the personal observation of the author… and will form another interesting series of stories of that era of great adventures, when the country west of the Missouri was unknown except to the trappers, hunters, and army officers.” Henry Inman was an American soldier, frontiersman, and author...

Written in 1908 by socialist critic and gay rights activist Edward Carpenter, The Intermediate Sex is a thoughtful, humanizing, and frequently utopian treatise on homosexuality that defies some of the period's more stultifying notions about human sexuality. In it, Carpenter argues for the legitimization of “uranianism,” recounts the history of homosexuality from antiquity to present day, highlights the great social and aesthetic work done by Uranians, and outlines some of the transformative social effects that might occur from a greater acceptance of homosexuality.

Ralph Keeler failed as a novelist, but this autobiography reflects a life well-lived with humor and adventure. Keeler was in the same literary circle as satirist Bret Harte, novelist Charles Warren Stoddard, editor Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and essayist William Dean Howells. He so impressed Mark Twain that Twain wrote an essay about him called "Ralph Keeler". In 1873, on his way to Cuba, he reportedly was thrown overboard by a Spanish loyalist who objected to his backing of the revolutionary, anti-Spanish movement. - Summary by John Greenman

John Woodhouse Audubon , son of the famous painter John James Audubon and an artist in his own right, joined Col. Henry Webb's California Company expedition in 1849. From New Orleans the expedition sailed to the Rio Grande; it headed west overland through northern Mexico and through Arizona to San Diego, California. Cholera and outlaws decimated the group. Many of them turned back, including the leader. Audubon assumed command of those remaining and they pushed on to California, although he was forced to abandon his paints and canvases in the desert…...

This history begins when Pizarro and Almagro, Valdivia and Benalcazar, led their desperadoes across the Isthmus to the conquest, massacre, and enslavement of the prosperous and civilised millions who inhabited the Pacific coast of South America. It ends with the United States opening a way through that same Isthmus for the ships, the trade, the capital of all the world; with American engineers laying railroad iron on the imperial highway of the Incas; with British bondholders forgiving stricken Peru's national debt; with their debtor bravely facing the fact of bankruptcy, and turning over to them all its railways.

Robert James Manion was a Canadian doctor who volunteered in the Canadian medical corps during World War I. This book is his memoir of the war. After the war he entered politics and served in several Canadian governments. The listener may note a lack of mention of the United States soldier; this is because the memoir was written before the entry of that country into the war. - Summary by David Wales

In a nineteenth century Sicilian fishing village, the Malavoglia family gambles everything on being able to profit from a cargo of lupin nuts. The cargo is lost at sea and a succession of misfortunes and tragedies assails the family. A masterpiece of social commentary hailed within Italy but neglected by the wider world, The House by the Medlar Tree ranks alongside the works of Zola, Dickens or Balzac among the great books of European literature. The book is the inspiration behind the 1948 film 'La Terra Trema' , one of the earliest works of the great Italian director Luchino Visconti. - Summary by Tom Denholm

Reading this book, I had a vision of a land, heretofore sunk in the mists of muteness, suddenly rising up into the eminence of song. Innumerable books have been written about the South; some good books have been written in the South. This book is the South. . . . . Part One is the primitive and evanescent world of Georgia. Part Two is the threshing and suffering brown world of Washington. . . . Part Three is Georgia again . . . this black womb of the ferment seed: the neurotic, educated, spiritually stirring Negro. From the Forward by Waldo Frank

The charming story of “Gudrun” is a romance of the old heroic period, written by some unknown poet of Austria or Bavaria in the thirteenth century. Next to the "Nibelungen Lied," it is the most important of the German epic poems...The same elemental passions are depicted. The men are brave, vigorous heroes, rejoicing in battle and feats of prowess; the women are beautiful, constant, and courageous. There are many fine delineations of character in the original, as well as vigorous sketches of northern scenery...

“These tales are memories of several months spent as a special correspondent attached to the forces of the American Navy on foreign service…. [I have] been content to chronicle the interesting incidents of the daily life as well as the achievements and heroisms of the friends who keep the highways of the sea…. I would not end without a word of thanks to the enlisted men for their unfailing good will and ever courteous behaviour.” Henry Beston was an American author. In 1918, Beston became a press representative for the U...

Hamlet is Jeremy’s dog. This 1923 book is Hugh Walpole’s second volume in his Jeremy semi-autobiographical trilogy , Jeremy at Crale ), about a ten-year-old English boy. One commentator wrote this of the first book: “With affectionate humor, Mr. Walpole tells the story of Jeremy and his two sisters, Helen and Mary Cole, who grow up in Polchester, a quiet English Cathedral town…. Mr. Walpole has given his narrative a rare double appeal, for it not only recreates for the adult the illusion of his own happiest youth, but it unfolds for the child-reader a genuine and moving experience with real people and pleasant things...

William Elliot Griffis born in Philadelphia in 1843, was an educator, author and Congregational minister. In 1870 he was invited to go to Japan in order to modernize the school system and became the Superintendent of Education in the Province of Echizen. Whilst there he became interested in the folk lore, legends and stories of the East and began to collect tales from the story tellers that he met with and the literature that he found there. The thirty four wonderful stories in this collection are some of the ones that he found and fortunately decided to share with us...

Woolf wrote this novel based on his experience as a government agent for British imperialist-controlled Ceylon in the early part of the twentieth-century. He focuses his story on one poor family in a jungle village as they struggle to survive, not just faced with a very harsh environment but with their own human prejudices, superstitions, jealousies, violence, ignorance, and greed. In the background is the other enemy: the foreign government that controls them but does not really understand or care for these uncivilized, not really human beings. It was an important work because its point of view was sympathetically a native one. JL

Joseph Rogers was an English physician, medical officer, and health care reformer in London. The system of poor-law dispensaries and separate sick wards, with proper staffs of medical attendants and nurses, was due to the efforts of Rogers and his colleagues. His memoir, published in 1889, contains an informative biography written by his brother. His career was not without conflict as his zeal sometimes offended governing boards. - Summary by David Wales

This volume contains the principal hero-lays of the six great epic cycles of the Teutonic Middle Ages: The Langobardian Legends, the Amelung and Kindred Legends; Dietrich of Bern's Adventures; the Nibelung Legends; the Hegeling Legends; and Beowulf. To them, the author has added the great mythical Carolingian cycle, which centred round the persons of Charlemagne and his heroes, and the Breton ones of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, as well as the legend of the Holy Grail. Therefore, this one book tells all of the great epic and romances of the Middle Ages in accessible language for the general public.

This history of the Women's Suffrage agitation is written at a time when the question is in the very forefront of British politics. What the immediate future holds for those women who are most actively engaged in fighting for their political freedom no one can foretell, but one thing is certain: complete victory for their cause is not far distant. When the long struggle for the enfranchisement of women is over, those who read the history of the movement will wonder at the blindness that led the Government of the day to obstinately resist so simple and obvious a measure of justice...

Giovanna and Costantino Ledda are a happily married couple living with their young child in a Sardinian country village close to their extended family. Costantino is wrongly convicted of murdering his wicked uncle and with no way of supporting herself, Giovanna reluctantly divorces him and is driven to marry Brontu Dejas, a wealthy but brutish drunkard who has always lusted after her. As well as enduring a marriage amounting to slavery, Giovanna is derided by villagers for having two husbands...

"In the year 1907, the Woman’s Home Companion commissioned me to go to Russia to write the story of the early days, courtship and marriage of her whom the world knows to-day as the 'Tsaritsa,' The following year, the same periodical sent me to Italy to write a similar account of the life of Queen Elena; and in 1910 I was once more sent abroad, this time to Spain, to learn all about Queen Victoria Eugenie....'Your task is difficult,'remarked a friend to whom I had just explained that I was writing the lives of the Empress of Russia, the Queen of Spain, and the Queen of Italy...

In this short work, Morris and Woodress present a selection of fascinating source materials to survey key events which occurred during the presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. As the authors state in their preface, "The early part of the last century was an exciting time to live in America. The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution, mostly old men by now, saw that their experiment in republican government had turned out to be a success...

Richmond, Virginia, was the capital of The Confederacy during the American Civil War, 1861-1865. It was the focus of two military campaigns by Northern armies, one in the summer of 1862 and the second in 1864-1865. When the city was conquered and destroyed in early April, 1865, , it was only a few days later that General Lee surrendered to General Grant and the Civil War was over. Published in 1961, this is National Park Service Historical Handbook 33. The text contains many informative maps and interesting photographs. - Summary by david wales

Simon Dubnow was born in 1860 to a poor Jewish family in Belarussian town of Mstsislaw and later became authority of Jewish history and an activist. Due to his Jewish origin, he had to move to St.Petersburg, Odessa, Vilna, St.Petersburg, Kaunas, Berlin and finally Riga. When Nazi troops occupied Latvia 1941, he was moved with thousands of other Jews to Riga ghetto and was eventually killed. His life is a symbol of Jewish suffering in Eastern Europe. In this book Jews have been migrating from Germany...

In this famous early work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, he investigates the artistic characteristics of Apollonian and Dionysian characteristics in Greek art, specifically in Greek tragedy as it evolved. Then he applies his conclusions about Greek tragedy to the state of modern art, especially modern German art and specifically to the operas of Richard Wagner.

While most associate the "Great War" with trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, and poison gas, ships played roles in the military at the beginning of the 20th century. Stories of the Ships is a 1919 collection of accounts described in the first person by those who fought battles on the sea during World War I. It gives the listener a more complete account of the conflicts that defined the most costly war in history. Lewis Ransome Freeman was an American explorer, journalist and war correspondent who wrote over twenty books chronicling his many travels, as well as numerous articles...

In 1904, Margaret Nevinson, a respectable lady and active suffragette, joined the board of guardians in Hampstead Heath. The guardians had responsibility over the parish workhouse. In the UK, before the 1930s, one could not receive welfare assistance unless he or she entered the workhouse. A house for which one had to work. The conditions were so poor, sometimes even poorer then conditions in prison. The workhouse inspired many novels, the most famous is Oliver Twist. This collection of short stories is about the horrors Margaret saw, chiefly about things women had to endure...

Picture a tranquil English village, with an inn on the green. A lone patron enjoys his wine and teasing the landlord's pretty daughter, when suddenly they are rudely interrupted by a local aristocrat and his two henchmen. These same three reappear the following day to disrupt the May Day celebrations.Suddenly, a group of men in Lincoln green appear to save the day. But who are they? This is a different take on the tale of Robin Hood, placing him in the time of Henry III, rather than the more traditional reign of Richard I...

"I have called the present volume "Legends of Saints and Sinners," which to a certain extent it is; but I mean it for a book of Irish Christian folk-lore. My idea in compiling it has been to give for the first time a collection of genuine Irish folk-lore which might be called "Christian." By this I mean folk-stories and folk-poems which are either entirely founded upon Christian conceptions, or else are so far coloured by them, that they could never have been told—at least in their present shape—had not Christianity established itself in Ireland...

Published in 1917, this "little volume of 'Theta’s' letters to his home people" was assembled to provide useful information for young men who might like to become pilots for the Royal Flying Corps. A mixture of conversational letters, poems, and descriptions of flying, the book proves entertaining, even today, despite having been written in training and in active duty during World War I. - Summary by Lynette Caulkins

PREFACE This Booklet has been written and compiled for the use of any student or layman who seeks concise and clear information on the history of Influenza. Brief and salient facts are set forth relating to “Flu” epidemics and pandemics: other collateral features have also been discussed, connected with or bearing upon this subject. Honolulu, Hawaii, U. S. A., 1921. - A. Mouritz Notes: Much of the material in "The Flu" is still relevant today, like pandemic terminology, thoughts about causes and micro-organisms, the flu's relationship with pneumonia, the impact on society, and approaches to treatments "The Flu" is included in the Surgeon General's Library at the U...

The United States Department of the Interior, Office of Education partnered with the Columbia Broadcasting System to present a series of 26 dramatic radio broadcast programs detailing the role of immigrants in the development of the USA. This small volume was printed as a supplement to the programs. It contains a great deal of the data concerning the contributions of immigrants to the country, often in condensed or tabular form, which were highlighted in the broadcasts. - Summary by Mark Smith

Parkman has been hailed as one of America's first great historians and as a master of narrative history. Numerous translations have spread the books around the world. The American writer and literary critic Edmund Wilson in his book O Canada , described Parkman’s France and England in North America in these terms: The clarity, the momentum and the color of the first volumes of Parkman’s narrative are among the most brilliant achievements of the writing of history as an art. Parkman's biases, particularly his attitudes about nationality, race, and especially Native Americans, has generated criticism...

In Spanish California, a troubling pattern had developed. The natives were reduced to peasants, the Franciscan friars that ministered to them were derided, and the only people who mattered were the caballeros – who styled themselves as knights of the New World. These men strutted about in elegant clothes, riding magnificent horses, and sporting rapiers at their sides that they were quick to draw if they felt their honor was affronted. Into this world burst Zorro . A later-day Robin Hood, he stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but he also took it upon himself to punish men who had notably abused others...

L.W. de Laurence, an occult and spiritual author and publisher, not only provides a history of the Tarot for fortune-telling purposes, but writes "a harmony of the meanings which have been attached to the various cards." De Laurence also offers a simple method for divinatory work with the cards, as opposed to the "cumbrous and involved" handbooks of the day.