In 1912 textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, mostly immigrants, went on strike in response to a pay cut, speedups, and unsafe working conditions. Representatives from the Industrial Workers of the World came in to help organize the strike. The city declared martial law and a tense standoff went on for weeks. National newspapers provided breathless coverage of the strike and painted drastically different pictures of what was happening and who was to blame. When a woman was shot in ambiguous circumstances, strike leaders were tried for murder--not for shooting her, but for purportedly inciting mob violence leading to her death...

Numerous theories have been proposed for the causes of dancing mania, and it remains unclear whether it was a real illness or a social phenomenon. One of the most prominent theories is that victims suffered from ergot poisoning, which was known as St Anthony’s Fire in the Middle Ages. During floods and damp periods, ergots were able to grow and affect rye and other crops. Ergotism can cause hallucinations, but cannot account for the other strange behaviour most commonly identified with dancing mania...

This work is a scathing criticism of the economic and philosophical arguments of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's The Philosophy of Poverty.

The fourteenth volume of the 15-volume series The World’s Story has a different concept than the previous books edited by Eva March Tappan. This book lists a detailed timeline of important events, starting from the early Eastern cultures till up to recent events from the beginning of the 20th century. The original book was compiled in German by historian Karl Ploetz and translated into English for this series by William H. Tillinghast . - Summary by Sonia

Myths and Legends of the Great Plains is a compendium of myths and legends from the Great Plains region of the US. It includes many short stories, and also quite a few songs and poems. Each tale is tagged with what culture it is from -

"...The preparation of a volume of the quainter, purer myths, suitable for general reading, authentic, and with illustrations of the country portrayed, but with no pretensions to being a purely scientific piece of work.... This volume is intended for popular use." As with most mythologies or religions, these stories tell how the world came to be, how places and peoples got their names, how social customs and mores developed, adventures of the ancestors or gods, and much, much more.

Twenty-three stories of the history of early Oregon plus an appendix: A Brief Summary Of The History Of The Old Oregon Country From Original Sources. OLD OREGON was a mighty sweep of country, and a most romantic one. From the northern border of Mexican California to near Sitka in Russian America it stretched, nearly eight hundred miles. Eastward it stretched over a country of mighty mountain … until the limits of the Oregon country, at the crest of the main range of the Rockies…. The romance ever lingers…...

It is a loss to American literature that so much of the legendary history of these Indian tribes has gone, beyond hope of recovery. Exquisite in color, poetical in feeling, these legends of sun, moon, and stars, of snow, ice, lightning, thunders, the winds, the life of the forest birds and animals about them, and the longing to understand the why and the how of life—all which we have only in fragments…. As in all the other volumes of this series, no effort has been made to ornament or amplify these legends in the effort to make them “literary,” or give them “literary charm...

"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...

Kellogg Durland spent a year in Russia as a journalist in 1906, during a seminal period in Russian history. This is a highly interesting read, knowing as we do what fell out for Russia in the next decade. The Russian Revolution did not appear from nowhere in 1917. Durland's account shows the rumblings that existed before the explosion.

These Norwegian tales of elemental mountain, forest and sea spirits, have been handed down by hinds and huntsmen, wood choppers and fisher folk. They are men who led a hard and lonely life amid primitive surroundings. The Norwegian Fairy Book has an appeal for one and all, since it is a book in which the mirror of fairy-tale reflects human yearnings and aspirations, human loves, ambitions and disillusionments, in an imaginatively glamored, yet not distorted form. [from the book's preface]

A detailed and exhaustive history of the Norwegian People, written in two volumes. The author, Knut Gjerset, was born in Western Norway in 1865 and immigrated to Chippewa County, Minnesota, in the US with his parents in 1871 and his brother Oluf later got elected to public office there. He received a B.A. in Literature from the University of Minnesota, and also studied at John's Hopkins University from 1895-1896, and the University of Heidelberg, where he was awarded a PhD, from 1896-1898. This first...

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.

As a girl, Lady Duff-Gordon was noted both for her beauty and intelligence. As an author, she is most famous for this collection of letters from Egypt. Lady Duff-Gordon had tuberculosis, and went to Egypt for her health. This collection of her personal letters to her mother and her husband. By all accounts everyone loved her, and the letters are very personal in style and content. The letters are as much an introduction to her person as a record of her life on the Upper Nile.

Lady Sarah Isabella Augusta Wilson was the aunt of Winston Spencer Churchill. In 1899 she became the first woman war correspondent when she was recruited to cover the Siege of Mafeking for the Daily Mail during the Boer War. She moved to Mafeking with her husband at the start of the war, where he was aide-de-camp to Colonel Robert Baden-Powell. Baden-Powell asked her to leave Mafeking for her own safety after the Boers threatened to storm the British garrison. This she duly did, and set off on a...

This collection of 14 stories collected by Lafcadio Hearn, contains Japanese ghost stories, but also several non-fiction pieces. Hearn tries to give a glimpse into the customs of the Japanese, by giving examples of Buddhist Proverbs and explaining the use of incense and the nation wide fascination with poetry. Furthermore, he has again translated several hair-rising ghost stories, like "A Passional Karma" about the truly undying love of a young couple.

Greece-born Lafcadio Hearn (1850 - 1904) spent decades of his life in Japan, even marrying a Japanese woman, thus becoming a Japanese citizen by the name of Koizumi Yakumo (小泉 八雲). He wrote many books on Japan, especially about its folklore. In this posthumously published book, he takes a closer look at Japan's religious history: How it developed from ancient beliefs into Shintoism, resisted suppression attempts by both Buddhism and Christianity and how – despite efforts to westernise Japan during the era known as Meiji Restoration – it remained the basis for Japanese society...

Lafcadio Hearn was one of the first Westerners to live in Japan during the early Meiji era, and a prolific writer. Although chiefly known for his collections of Japanese ghost stories , he also wrote many non-fiction essays about his life in Japan. This book contains 11 essays covering a variety of topics. For example, Hearn writes about his visits to Kyoto and Osaka, Japanese art, as well as Buddhism and Nirvana. Prooflisteners for this book were Isana and Margot.

Imagine a young, twenty-something woman in 1860, reared “in the indolent life of the ordinary Southern girl” (which means she has never learned to cook); married to a professional man who knows “nothing of manual labor;” who is mother to a young son; and who has just found out she is pregnant with their second child. Imagine that this couple has become “embarrassed financially” by “imprudent speculations,” and that they are discussing what to do. They decide to buy a wagon and three yoke of unbroke oxen and head overland to California...

This is a 1st hand account written by a survivor of the Titanic about that fateful night and the events leading up to it as well as the events that followed its sinking.

Leander Stillwell was an 18-year-old Illinois farm boy, living with his family in a log cabin, when the U.S. Civil War broke out. Stillwell felt a duty “to help save the Nation;” but, as with many other young men, his Patriotism was tinged with bravura: “the idea of staying at home and turning over senseless clods on the farm with the cannon thundering so close at hand . . . was simply intolerable.” Stillwell volunteered for the 61st Illinois Infantry in January 1861. His youthful enthusiasm for the soldier’s life was soon tempered at Shiloh, where he first “saw a gun fired in anger,” and “saw a man die a violent death...

Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace chronicles the lives of five Russian aristocratic families during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Many considered this book to be the best Russian work of literature of all time and it is massive in scale. The book is divided in four volumes and the chapters don't just contain the narrative of the plot to the novel but philosophical discussions as well. This may be intimidating to average book readers but they shouldn't be discouraged to try reading War and Peace. After all, this book was written for all and not just for intellectuals...

The Cossacks (1863) is an unfinished novel which describes the Cossack life and people through a story of Dmitri Olenin, a Russian aristocrat in love with a Cossack girl. This text was acclaimed by Ivan Bunin as one of the finest in the language.

More systematic, but no less sincere than A Confession , The Critique of Dogmatic Theology is an early attempt on the part of Tolstoy to impart the results of his meticulous study and fearless inquiry into the beliefs and traditions of Orthodox Christianity following his renewed interest in spirituality. - Summary by Paul Rizik

This account by Trotsky is of the events in Russia from the October Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, to his signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty with Germany on 3rd March 1918 which took Russia out of the First World War. The treaty exacted heavy losses for Russia in terms of annexations of land and financial indemnities to Germany. In this extended essay, Trotsky argues the reasons as to why he decided to sign what appears to be a disastrous agreement for Russia.

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

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

Buddhism and Buddhists in China is an anthropological text describing Buddhism as practiced in China at the beginning of the 20th Century. Interestingly, it also compares and contrasts Buddhism with Christianity with respect to or in response to missionary work.

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...

The Liezi (Chinese: 列子; pinyin: Lièzĭ; Wade-Giles: Lieh Tzu; literally “[Book of] Master Lie”) is a Daoist text attributed to Lie Yukou, a circa 5th century BCE Hundred Schools of Thought philosopher, but Chinese and Western scholars believe it was compiled around the 4th century CE. During the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, the Liezi was designated a Daoist classic, completing the trilogy with the more famous Daodejing and Zhuangzi. The Liezi is generally considered to be the most practical of the major Daoist works, compared to the philosophical writings of Laozi and the poetic narrative of Zhuangzi...

Frederick II , under whose reign the Holy Roman Empire reached its greatest territorial extent, was called by his contemporaries "Stupor Mundi," the "astonishment of the world." Frequently at war with the papacy, which was hemmed in between Frederick's northern and southern Italian lands, he was excommunicated four times. Frederick spoke six languages and was an avid patron of the arts. He negotiated a peace treaty ending the sixth crusade, reigned over a cosmopolitan court at Palermo, and entrusted the administration of his southern kingdom to an efficient Muslim and Jewish bureaucracy...

Logan Marshall's book "The Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters" gives readers a first-hand account of the greatest sea disaster of all time straight from the survivors of the ill-fated sunken ship. Unlike many of the books about the Titanic that was written recently, Logan Marshall was fortunate that he was able to interview the survivors of the Titanic and access to all the important documents about the ship, including the diagrams, maps and actual photographs related to the disaster...

This two volume work is the autobiography of Lord Cochrane, a naval captain of the Napoleonic period. His adventures are seminal to the development of naval fiction as a genre. Marryat sailed with Cochrane, while later writers borrowed incidents from this biography for their fictions. Most notable among these is Patrick O'Brian, three of whose novels have clear parallels to incidents in the life of Cochrane. This first volume covers Cochrane's earlier life, during which he is most active militarily. (Introduction by Timothy Ferguson)

This second volume of the biography of Lord Cochrane deals with his fall from grace, imprisonment for debt, loss of honours, and attempts to clear his name. It has had a marked influence on naval fiction, most obviously on some of the novels by Patrick O'Brian. - Summary by Timothy Ferguson

Maria Chapdelaine is one of the most famous French Canadian novels. It is the love story of Maria Chapdelaine, daughter of a peasant family in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region of Quebec, in the 1900s. It is often seen as an allegory of the French Canadian people, describing simple joys and great tragedies, the bonds of family, the importance of faith, and the strength of body and spirit needed to endure the harshness of life in Canada’s northern wilderness.

Louis Hughes was born a slave near Charlottesville, Virginia to a white father and a black slave woman. Throughout his life he worked mostly as a house servant, but was privy to the intimate details and workings of the entire McGee cotton plantation and empire.In Thirty Years A Slave Hughes provides vivid descriptions and explicit accounts of how the McGee plantation in Mississippi, and the McGee mansion in Tennessee functioned--accounts of the lives of the many slaves that lived, suffered and sometimes died under the cruel and unusual punishments meted out by Boss and his monstrously unstable and vindictive wife...

Mr. Desjardins was driven to write this work to refute statements uttered by the nationalist Henri Bourassa, which the former feared painted all Quebecers with the same unpatriotic brush in respect to their contribution to the Great War.

Alcott in 1862 served as a nurse in Georgetown, D.C during the Civil War. She wrote home what she observed there. Those harrowing and sometimes humorous letters compiled make up Hospital Sketches.

"When two young girls decide to have a tea party with their dolls and a mysterious dog comes and eats their prized cake, they end up finding a circus run-away, Ben Brown. Ben is a horse master, and loves horses, so when the Moss' take the young boy in, they decide to give him work at the neighbors house driving cows (on a horse, of course). After that a series of events happens, and Ben finds out his beloved father is dead. Miss Celia, a neighbor, feels sorry and comforts him, and finally offers to let Ben stay with her and her fourteen-year-old brother, Thornton who is called Thorny...

Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans Volume 1, translated by Bernadotte Perrin.

FURNISHING THE HOME OF GOOD TASTEA BRIEF SKETCH OF THE PERIOD STYLES IN INTERIOR DECORATION WITH SUGGESTIONS AS TO THEIR EMPLOYMENT IN THE HOMES OF TODAY BY LUCY ABBOT THROOP Preface To try to write a history of furniture in a fairly short space is almost as hard as the square peg and round hole problem. No matter how one tries, it will not fit. One has to leave out so much of importance, so much of historic and artistic interest, so much of the life of the people that helps to make the subject vivid, and has to take so much for granted, that the task seems almost impossible...

Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth from a variety of sources within the monarch's court, compiled and interpreted by Lucy Aikin.

In From the Darkness Cometh the Light, or Struggles for Freedom Delaney tells the story of how she was born into slavery of her mother--a freeborn black woman who had been kidnapped and sold on the blocks--but escaped while a teenager and eventually sued in court for her freedom. After the Civil War, Delaney spent the rest of her life inspiring other African Americans to take advantage of the new opportunities available to them as a result of their new found freedom, and to constantly strive to improve their lives and the lives of their progeny

A Short History of Russia by Lucy Cazalet is a helpful introduction to the people, places, and events that shaped Russia, the largest country in the world. While covering the bullet points of Russian history, the author expands to greater detail when talking about the people whose ideas and victories became the backbone of Russian culture and politics. The timeline of this book is the 9th century A.D. to 1906, when the country's first State Parliament opened, but before the last Romanov Tsar, Nicholas II, was executed, and Revolution swept the entire country.

Old Rail Fence Corners is an historical treasure trove containing the stories of the first significant waves of European-American settlers in the now state of Minnesota (United States of America). This book has direct accounts of mid-19th century lives and experiences on the frontier, recounted by the frontiersmen and women when many of them were in their mid-90s. A group of volunteer women -- the Book Committee -- sought to record these recollections before they were lost with the passing of these remarkable adventurers...

If you've read and loved Anne of Green Gables, you'd definitely like to add Rainbow Valley by Lucy Maud Montgomery to your collection. Published in 1919, it is the seventh book in the series and follows the further life and adventures of Anne Shirley. At Ingleside, Anne is now happily married to her childhood friend the devoted Gilbert Blythe and have now been together blissfully for fifteen years. They have six children. The book opens with the return of Anne and Gilbert (who is now a brilliant doctor) from a sojourn in London, where they had gone to attend a big medical congress...

Lydia Maria Child, an American abolitionist, compiled this collection of short stories and poems by former slaves and noted activists as an inspiration to freed slaves. In her dedication to the freedmen, she urges those who can read to read these stories aloud to others to share the strength, courage and accomplishments of colored men and women. In that spirit, this recording aims to gives that voice a permanent record. As in the original text, the names of the colored authors are marked with an "x".

"Famous Affinities of History" is a book of passion-filled accounts of the most famous love affairs of history. The stories of Cleopatra, Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Jonathan Swift, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, George Sand and other famous people of all times (even those of royal blood are not spared), are dealt with in Lyndon Orr's own interesting and suspenseful style. Written in four volumes, this book makes for an informative, interesting and thoroughly enjoyable read, giving us an insight into the lives and lifestyles of various popular figures of history.

FOR more than six hundred years that is, since Magna Carta, in 1215 there has been no clearer principle of English or American constitutional law, than that, in criminal cases, it is not only the right and duty of juries to judge what are the facts, what is the law, and what was the moral intent of the accused; but that it is also their right, and their primary and paramount duty, to judge of the justice of the law, and to hold all laws invalid, that are, in their opinion, unjust or oppressive, and all persons guiltless in violating, or resisting the execution of, such laws...

Lytton Strachey’s first great success, and his most famous achievement, was “Eminent Victorians” (1918), a collection of four short biographies of Victorian heroes. With a dry wit, he exposed the human failings of his subjects and what he saw as the hypocrisy at the centre of Victorian morality. This work was followed in the same style by “Queen Victoria” (1921).

The Awakening of Europe by M. B. Synge is the third book in the series, Story of the World. Included in this history is a myriad of interesting men, women, and events that shaped Europe during the years 1520-1745.

This is the second volume in the series, The Story of the World, which covers the period of history from the rise of Rome to the Conquest of Peru. Along the way, passing through the Dark Ages, going on the Crusades, and exploring the unknown world with the brave men who had the courage to travel unknown seas. Also featured is the destruction of Pompeii and the invention of the Printing Press, along with many other interesting happenings of history during this time period.

Telling the history of geographical discoveries, "Book of Discovery" is a record of splendid endurance, of hardships bravely borne, of silent toil, of courage and resolution unequalled in the annals of mankind, of self-sacrifice unrivalled and faithful lives laid ungrudgingly down. Of the many who went forth, the few only attained. It is of these few that this book tells. (From the Preface of the book).

Book I of the "Story of the World" series. Focuses on the civilizations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea from the time of Abraham to the birth of Christ. Brief histories of the Ancient Israelites, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Scythians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans are given, concluding with the conquest of the entire Mediterranean by Rome. Important myths and legends that preceded recorded history are also related. Ages 9-18

A light journey through the history of chemistry, from its start in the obscure mysteries of alchemy to what was, for the author, the cutting edge of the development of modern atomic theory … and whose developing blind ends we can now see with the advantage of hind sight.

"The Princess Elizabeth of England was born at Greenwich, between three and four of the afternoon of September 7, 1533. Her birth was a matter of small rejoicing to her parents, who were sorely disappointed that their first-born was not a boy." So begins this short, but stirring biography by the British historian, Mandell Creighton, of the magnificent last monarch of the Tudor dynasty. We see Elizabeth in constant peril during the turbulent and ineffectual reigns of Edward VI and Mary. At her accession, her country is little better than an appendage of the Spanish state...

This short history by the eminent British historian, Mandell Creighton, places Elizabeth and her reign within the context of 16th century European political, religious, and military events. Elizabeth overcomes her two great rivals, King Philip of Spain and Mary, Queen of Scots. England gradually unites behind her Queen, who survives multiple assassination plots. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the English, lightly taxed by their frugal sovereign, launch flourishing commerce enterprises. The author writes of the Protestant Reformation that "a change of belief meant a revolt from authority...

A children’s book detailing early American history from the Norsemen to the Revolution, meant for educational use. (Description by the reader)

I have merely tried to make a written record of some of the hours I have lived through during the course of this war. A modest Lieutenant of Chasseurs, I cannot claim to form any opinion as to the operations which have been carried out for the last nine months on an immense front. I only speak of things I have seen with my own eyes, in the little corner of the battlefield occupied by my regiment.

A philippic is a fiery, damning speech delivered to condemn a particular political actor. The term originates with Demosthenes, who delivered an attack on Philip II of Macedon in the 4th century BCE.Cicero consciously modeled his own attacks on Mark Antony, in 44 BC and 43 BC, on Demosthenes’s speeches, and if the correspondence between M. Brutus and Cicero are genuine [ad Brut. ii 3.4, ii 4.2], at least the fifth and seventh speeches were referred to as the Philippics in Cicero’s time. They were also called the Antonian Orations by Aulus Gellius...