( A ) Books - Page 2

Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution

Caroline Weber

Amazon Price: $10.88 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Picador Amazon Marketplace: 53 new & used starting at $5.73

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Fashion -> History
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Royalty -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 34 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Marie Antoinette and Fashion will always be connected 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I found this book to be a fantastic read! Out of the many, this is the book I chose to read first when I became interested in Marie. Caroline Weber did a beautiful job destroying (if you will) old stereotypes that are associated with this woman.
One reviewer stated," Not sure whether it wants to be a biography or fashion."
I respectfully disagree. I'm not sure you can have one without the other. I'm very pleased that I chose this book to be my first. It made me want to know more about this courageous woman as well as the fashion of the 18th century, the French Revolution, and all who were involved.
Just recently I pick this book up from my shelf, dusted it off and decided to read it again, only to realize that there were things that I had either dismissed or forgotten, and am now studying them further.

All in all, a fascinating and fast paced bitter sweet telling of how fashion and Marie Antoinette are intricately entwined.
A must read for those who are just starting to learn about her as well as the seasoned expert.

Editorial Review:

A Washington Post Book World Best Book of the Year
 
When her carriage first crossed over from her native Austria into France, fourteen-year-old Marie Antoinette was taken out, stripped naked before an entourage, and dressed in French attire to please the court of her new king. For a short while, the young girl played the part.
 
But by the time she took the throne, everything had changed. In Queen of Fashion, Caroline Weber tells of the radical restyling that transformed the young queen into an icon and shaped the future of the nation. With her riding gear, her white furs, her pouf hairstyles, and her intricate ballroom disguises, Marie Antoinette came to embody--gloriously and tragically--all the extravagance of the monarchy.

The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors

John Gribbin

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 40 new & used starting at $10.31

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Adams, John
Subjects -> Science -> General
Subjects -> Science -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A wonderfully readable account of scientific development over the past five hundred years, focusing on the lives and achievements of individual scientists, by the bestselling author of In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat

In this ambitious new book, John Gribbin tells the stories of the people who have made science, and of the times in which they lived and worked. He begins with Copernicus, during the Renaissance, when science replaced mysticism as a means of explaining the workings of the world, and he continues through the centuries, creating an unbroken genealogy of not only the greatest but also the more obscure names of Western science, a dot-to-dot line linking amateur to genius, and accidental discovery to brilliant deduction.

By focusing on the scientists themselves, Gribbin has written an anecdotal narrative enlivened with stories of personal drama, success and failure. A bestselling science writer with an international reputation, Gribbin is among the few authors who could even attempt a work of this magnitude. Praised as “a sequence of witty, information-packed tales” and “a terrific read” by The Times upon its recent British publication, The Scientists breathes new life into such venerable icons as Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling, as well as lesser lights whose stories have been undeservedly neglected. Filled with pioneers, visionaries, eccentrics and madmen, this is the history of science as it has never been told before.


From the Hardcover edition.

Confessions (Penguin Classics)

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Amazon Price: $8.00 List Price: $10.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Classics Amazon Marketplace: 226 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Religious
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Augustine, Saint
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Worthwhile even for agnostics 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 15 people found this review helpful.

Before reading any St. Augustine, I had formed an image of him as an intolerant puritan, almost Taliban-esque. As an agnostic, I did not at all expect to find him a sympathetic figure. The "Confessions," however, reveal a warmly human, hugely intelligent man, relating his own open-minded spiritual journey, which included way-stops at Manicheeism and neo-Platonism. Augustine formulated his religious and ethical systems through careful deliberation and observation, aided by an epiphany or two; his is not a story of blind, unthinking faith or of mysterious visions. His concept of God seems little different from the Chinese concept of the Tao, and his concept of grace little different from the Buddhist concept of enlightenment. Thus, there is considerable interest in his viewpoint even for non-Catholics, non-Christians, and non-believers.

In addition, this book also constitutes an autobiography of material existence in the waning years of the Western Roman Empire, and thus should be of great interest to any classicist. Little examples: Augustine confirms that, at least around 400 A.D., the normal way to read, even among the most highly literate, was aloud; Ambrose's habit of reading silently to himself inspires considerable comment and speculation. We learn that high school students were rowdy, then as now. The Roman Emperor didn't seem to matter much in the lives of citizens.

The Penguin translation by Mr. Pine-Coffin is excellent and very readable. He avoids the archaic "thou's" that plague many translations. Regrettably, the cover material chooses to emphasize the translator's status as a Roman Catholic as his single most important attribute, and his introductory comments are likely to strike non-Catholics as intolerant. Skip over that, and get right into Augustine's writing itself.

Editorial Review:

When Saint Augustine wrote his Confessions he was facing, and responding to, a growing spread of asceticism in the Roman world.

Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (New Edition, with an Epilogue)

Peter Brown

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of California Press Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $5.82

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Religious

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Epic study of Western Christianity's towering genius 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Peter Brown's AUGUSTINE of HIPPO is epic study of the adventure...the spiritual-intellectual ODYSSEY...that is Life of Aurelius Augustine,Saint and uber-Father of the Christian Church in the West. Brown's peerless biography details(36chapters;437pp)a life of towering intellectual genius from birth in AD 354 in Thagaste,Province of Northern Africa SPQR ;until his death as Bishop of Hippo in AD 430.His education is sweepingly arrayed ~beginning in Carthage as orator and magister;his thorough indoctrination in Manichaeism; his meeting with St.Ambrose and immersion in philosophy of Platonist...the birth & death of his brilliant son,Adeodatus,"gift of God"..;the everlasting presence/influence of his mother,Monica; the epiphany cited in THE CONFESSIONS,"to take and read(Biblical exhortations of St. Paul)"followed by his Conversion/Baptism and quick-fire Ordination as Roman Catholic priest;and almost-instant elevation to Bishop. This prelude is followed by Augustine's unsurpassed career as The West's first & premier existential-psychologist:THOU HAS MADE US FOR THYSELF LORD; AND OUR HEARTS ARE FOREVER RESTLESS UNTIL THEY REST IN THEE; and ironic humorist~LORD MAKE ME PURE...BUT NOT TODAY. As well as arch-foe of anti-Catholic heresy~Donatism; Pelagianism;and the Occult(with which he was expertly familiar having been 10 year Initiate therein).

Augustine's CITY of GOD is not only the first consummate philosophy of History (surpassing Herodotus "then";and Hegel/Spengler & even Marx "now" in effect on history. CITY of GOD shaped the LOGOS,world-view of Western Man for 1000 years/entire MIDDLE AGES(ca~AD 476-AD 1517).Austine wrote catechisms ENCHIRIDION);treatises on Free Will;predestination;and is formulator of the Christian concept of ORIGINAL SIN.Augustinian theology l comprises(ironically)most fundamental notions of Protestant Reformers. Catholic Church champion St.Thomas Aquinas is -as-indebted to him as to Aristotle in framing THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA.


Peter Brown's new St.AUGUSTINE of HIPPO is not so much revision but carefully written...in modus of Augustine..reflection on what he had once written.There is brief preface.There is extensively documented epilogue comprised as New Evidence;& New Directions(pp441-520).There is expanded bibliography & index.The 1967 edition is 463pp;the new is 538pp.
Any student of Augustine knows that with him "more is More. Whether 75pp mas is MORE, the reader will of course determine.Brown's book is the classic,unlikely to be surpassed,study of a genius in the service of God,SERVUS DEI. Any serious student of theology,philosophy;or history of Ideas must confront St.Augustine of Hippo.This profound, mythology-like masterwork is not the opus to start with.But when you're ready "to TAKE & READ",it is matchless story-telling that is worthy of the unique,perhaps most remarkable,QUEST for God & Truth that a great and gifted man ever committed his life toward. (777 stars)

Editorial Review:

This classic biography was first published thirty years ago and has since established itself as the standard account of Saint Augustine's life and teaching. The remarkable discovery recently of a considerable number of letters and sermons by Augustine has thrown fresh light on the first and last decades of his experience as a bishop. These circumstantial texts have led Peter Brown to reconsider some of his judgments on Augustine, both as the author of the Confessions and as the elderly bishop preaching and writing in the last years of Roman rule in north Africa. Brown's reflections on the significance of these exciting new documents are contained in two chapters of a substantial Epilogue to his biography (the text of which is unaltered). He also reviews the changes in scholarship about Augustine since the 1960s. A personal as well as a scholarly fascination infuse the book-length epilogue and notes that Brown has added to his acclaimed portrait of the bishop of Hippo.

Mr. Adams’'s Last Crusade: John Quincy Adams’'s Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life in Congress

Joseph Wheelan

Amazon Price: $19.14 List Price: $26.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: PublicAffairs Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $10.81

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> United States -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Following his single term as President of the United States (1825–1829), John Quincy Adams, embittered by his loss to Andrew Jackson, boycotted his successor's inauguration, just as his father John Adams had done (the only two presidents ever to do so). Rather than retire, the sixty-two-year-old former president, U.S. senator, secretary of state, and Harvard professor was elected by his Massachusetts friends and neighbors to the House of Representatives to throw off the "incubus of Jacksonianism." It was the opening chapter in what was arguably the most remarkable post-presidency in American history.

In this engaging biography, historian Joseph Wheelan describes Adams's battles against the House Gag Rule that banished abolition petitions; the removal of Eastern Indian tribes; and the annexation of slave-holding Texas, while recounting his efforts to establish the Smithsonian Institution. As a "man of the whole country," Adams was not bound by political party, yet was reelected to the House eight times before collapsing at his "post of duty" on February 21, 1848, and then dying in the House Speaker's office. His funeral evoked the greatest public outpouring since Benjamin Franklin's death.

Mr. Adams's Last Crusade will enlighten and delight anyone interested in American history.

Dearest Friend

Lynne Withey

List Price: $14.95 By: Amer Council on Education Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $0.75

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Adams, John

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Dearest Friend" is the biography of Abigail Adams, the unschooled minister's daughter who became the most influential woman in Revolutionary America. Rich with excerpts from her incomparable letters and alive with the ferment of a new nation, "Dearest Friend" captures both the public and the private sides of this fascinating woman. She was a keen observer of the politics of her time and fully grasped the Revolution's implications for women and slaves. She was an advocate of black emancipation and urged her husband to "Remember the Ladies" as he framed the laws of their new country. John and Abigail Adams married for love, and their passion for each other endured for the fifty-four years of their marriage. They lived apart for more than a decade while John traveled in America and abroad to help begin a new country. Abigail remained at home for most of that time, writing letters to her "Dearest Friend," raising four children, managing a farm and the family finances, and keeping John informed of the political mood at home. This book chronicles their remarkable marriage, her blossoming feminism, her battles with the loneliness of separation, and her friendships with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and other giants of her time. Intelligent, resourceful, and outspoken, Abigail Adams lived an uncommon life for a woman of her time. First published in 1981, "Dearest Friend" brings her legacy to our century.

Alexander the Great: Son of the Gods

Alan Fildes, Joann Fletcher

List Price: $24.95 By: Getty Publications Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $4.90

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Famous for more than two millennia for the amazing deeds that he accomplished in his short life of thirty-two years, King Alexander III of Macedon is the most celebrated figure of classical antiquity. Alexander the Great: Son of the Gods presents, in a year-by-year chronicle, an intimate and fascinating portrait of the man who, in less than two decades, created the greatest empire the world had ever seen and acquired a semi-mythic status that persists today.

Among the topics covered are Alexander's family life, including his stormy relationship with his father, King Philip, and the influence of his mother, Queen Olympias; his brilliant leadership, outwitting opponents and inspiring his devoted troops; and his daily life on the march and off duty, whether sharing the hardships of his men or indulging in the renowned bouts of feasting that may have contributed to his early death. Generously illustrated with ancient art from museums around the world, this is an engrossing, accessible biography of a legendary man.

Alexander of Macedon 356-323 B.C.: A Historical Biography

Peter Green

Amazon Price: $15.61 List Price: $22.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of California Press Amazon Marketplace: 95 new & used starting at $2.90

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Alexander the Great

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 79 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Exceedingly biased and unfair 1 out of 5 stars.
10 of 16 people found this review helpful.

I'm very disappointed with this book.
I was looking for some objective and critic biography but this book have an obvious agenda from page one: put down Alexander by any possible means.
For Mr Green every good or great thing Alexander is credited to had done is just propaganda or flattery.
He can even doubt the result of a great battle like Granicus because our sources are few and unreliable. For him it was a defeat hidden by propaganda, a theory he make up with nearly zero backup from the ancient sources.
But instead, he don't hesitate to follow without doubt every nasty detail some of this sources could give us about the bad acts of Alexander (the chapter about Cleitus assassination for example is pure gossipy).
For me, thats not an historian...
A shame...

Editorial Review:

Until recently, popular biographies and most scholars viewed Alexander the Great as a genius with a plan, a romantic figure pursuing his vision of a united world. Green, a Cambridge-trained classicist who is also a novelist, portrays Alexander as both a complex personality and a single-minded general, a man capable of such diverse expediencies as patricide or the massacre of civilians. 14 maps and 2 tables.

John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life

Paul C. Nagel

Amazon Price: $20.70 List Price: $23.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harvard University Press Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $14.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Political

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Five Stars 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

A great biography on John Quincy Adams. The author thoroughly went through everything from childhood to death. He was able to describe him very well. I liked hearing about his various government jobs and living in Europe. I only have a minor nitpick the author should have sticked with refering to him as JQA instead of rotating from JQA, John and Adams given his famous father it would have been better to stick with just JQA. Other that it was a great biography.

Editorial Review:

John Quincy Adams was raised, educated, and groomed to be President, following in the footsteps of his father, John. At fourteen he was secretary to the Minister to Russia and, later, was himself Minister to the Netherlands and Prussia. He was U.S. Senator, Secretary of State, and then President for one ill-fated term. His private life showed a parallel descent. He was a poet, writer, critic, and Professor of Oratory at Harvard. He married a talented and engaging Southerner, but two of his three sons were disappointments. This polymath and troubled man, caught up in both a democratic age not to his understanding and the furies of passion, was an American lion in winter.

Ataturk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey

Andrew Mango

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Overlook TP Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $11.29

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

This has GOT to be complete 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The author does a fine job in what is obviously a very thoroughly-researched and well-written work. The main thing I liked about this book is that it didn't just discuss a chronology of Ataturk's career but also looked into the ideas and influences which molded the future leader of the Turkish Republic. A little long at places, the book nevertheless makes sure the context of developments is known to the reader as well as the events themselves. While not destined to be a favorite book of mine I can certainly recommend it as a great work in this field of history.

Editorial Review:

In this major new biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the first to appear in English based on Turkish sources, Andrew Mango strips away the myth, to show the complexities of one of the most visionary, influential, and enigmatic statesmen of the century. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was virtually unknown until 1919, when he took the lead in thwarting the victorious Allies' plan to partition the Turkish core of the Ottoman Empire. He divided the Allies, defeated the last Sultan, and secured the territory of the Turkish national state, becoming the first president of the new republic in 1923, fast creating his own legend.

Andrew Mango's revealing portrait of Atatürk throws light on matters of great importance today-resurgent nationalism, religious fundamentalism, and the reality of democracy.