Recommended Books
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power; Means of Ascent; Master of the Senate; The Passage of Power
Author:
Robert A. Caro
ISBN 13:
978-0385351478
The political biography of our time, now available in a four-volume hardcover set. Robert A. Caro's life of Lyndon Johnson is one of the richest, most intensive and most revealing examinations ever undertaken of an American president. It is the magnum opus of a writer perfectly suited to his task: the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer-historian, chronicler also of Robert Moses in "The Power Broker," whose inspired research and profound understanding of the nature of ambition and the dynamics of power have made him a peerless explicator of political lives. "Taken together the installments of Mr. Caro's monumental life of Johnson . . . form a revealing prism by which to view the better part of a century in American life and politics during which the country experienced tumultuous and divisive social change. . .Gripping." --Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times " "By writing the best presidential biography the country has ever seen, Caro has forever changed the way we think, and read, A
The World of Yesterday
Authors:
Stefan Zweig
,
Anthea Bell
ISBN 13:
978-0803226616
By the author who inspired Wes Anderson’s film, The Grand Budapest Hotel Written as both a recollection of the past and a warning for future generations, The World of Yesterday recalls the golden age of literary Vienna—its seeming permanence, its promise, and its devastating fall. Surrounded by the leading literary lights of the epoch, Stefan Zweig draws a vivid and intimate account of his life and travels through Vienna, Paris, Berlin, and London, touching on the very heart of European culture. His passionate, evocative prose paints a stunning portrait of an era that danced brilliantly on the edge of extinction. This new translation by award-winning Anthea Bell captures the spirit of Zweig’s writing in arguably his most revealing work.
The Object of Zionism: The Architecture of Israel
Author:
Zvi Efrat
ISBN 13:
978-3959051330
“Destined to become a contemporary classic.” ―Eyal Weizman Contrary to popular belief, the architecture and spatial politics of the State of Israel were not born haphazardly out of emergency or speculation. The Israeli built environment is the deliberate response to a unique objective―how to design and build a model state nearly instantaneously. To do this, space had to be remade: a new terrain was molded, and dozens of new towns and hundreds of rural settlements were constructed. Fashionable postwar architectural trends like Brutalism and Structuralism were appropriated as signifiers of national vigor. The Object of Zionism is a critical study of Zionist spatial planning and the architectural fabrication of the State of Israel from the early 20th century to the 1960s and '70s. Zvi Efrat scrutinizes Israel as a singular modernist project, unprecedented in its political and ethical circumstances and its hyper-production of spatial and structural experiments. Efrat explores the construction of the State of Israel in a book that promises to become a standard reference on Israeli architectural history. Architect and architectural historian Zvi Efrat is a partner at Efrat-Kowalsky Architects in Tel-Aviv and was head of the Department of Architecture at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, between 2002 and 2010. He studied at Pratt Institute, New York University and Princeton University and has curated numerous exhibitions, among them Borderline Disorder and The Object of Zionism . Efrat is a Graham Foundation awardee.
News from Waterloo, The
Author:
Brian Cathcart
ISBN 13:
978-0571315253
The Duke of Wellington's victory over Napoleon in 1815 at Waterloo ensured British dominance for the rest of the nineteenth century. It took three days and two hours for word to travel from Belgium in a form that people could rely upon. This is a tragi-comic midsummer's tale that begins amidst terrible carnage and weaves through a world of politics and military convention, enterprise and roguery, frustration, doubt and jealousy, to end spectacularly in the heart of Regency society at a grand soiree in St James's Square after feverish journeys by coach and horseback, a Channel crossing delayed by falling tides and a flat calm, and a final dash by coach and four from Dover to London. At least five men were involved in bringing the news or parts of it to London, and their stories are fascinating. Brian Cathcart, a brilliant storyteller and historian, has visited the battlefield, travelled the messengers' routes, and traced untapped British, French and Belgian records. This is a strikingly original perspective on a key moment in British history.