FLASH... FLASH... FLASH...A lighthouse signals from the rocky shore, guiding ships away from danger. Once sailors watched for giant bonfires that were set high on hills. Now, most lighthouses are fully automated. In Beacons of Light: Lighthouses, Gail Gibbons tells all about these beautiful and useful structures, using careful explanations, colorful facts, and helpful illustrations to show how lighthouse technology has developed and changed over the years. FLASH... FLASH... FLASH... In this informative, delightfully evocative book, lighthouses are beacons of light thatremind us of our past.
Praised by The New York Times; O, The Oprah Magazine; Bitch Magazine; Slate; Publishers Weekly; and more, this is “a bracing corrective to a national mythology” (New York Times) around the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice. In A More Beautiful and Terrible History award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light. We see Rosa Parks not simply as a bus lady but a lifelong criminal justice activist and radical; Martin Luther King, Jr. as not only challenging Southern sheriffs but Northern liberals, too; and Coretta Scott King not only as a “helpmate” but a lifelong economic justice and peace activist who pushed her husband’s activism in these directions. Moving from “the histories we get” to “the histories we need,” Theoharis challenges nine key aspects of the fable to reveal the diversity of people, especially women and young people, who led the movement; the work and disruption it took; the role of the media and “polite racism” in maintaining injustice; and the immense barriers and repression activists faced. Theoharis makes us reckon with the fact that far from being acceptable, passive or unified, the civil rights movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering. Activists embraced an expansive vision of justice—which a majority of Americans opposed and which the federal government feared. By showing us the complex reality of the movement, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the progress that occurred. A More Beautiful and Terrible History will change our historical frame, revealing the richness of our civil rights legacy, the uncomfortable mirror it holds to the nation, and the crucial work that remains to be done. Winner of the 2018 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize in Nonfiction
For centuries, men and women have manned lighthouses to ensure the safe passage of ships. It is a lonely job, and a thankless one for the most part. Until something goes wrong. Until a ship is in distress. In the 23rd century, this job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail. At least, they aren't supposed to.
In preparing the new edition of Dr. Lord's great work, it has been thought desirable to do what the venerable author's death in 1894 did not permit him to accomplish, and add a volume summarizing certain broad aspects of achievement in the last fifty years. It were manifestly impossible to cover in any single volume--except in the dry, cyclopaedic style of chronicling multitudinous facts, so different from the vivid, personal method of Dr. Lord--all the growths of the wonderful period just closed. The only practicable way has been to follow our author's principle of portraying selected historic forces,--to take, as representative or typical of the various departments, certain great characters whose services have signalized them as "Beacon Lights" along the path of progress, and to secure adequate portrayal of these by men known to be competent for interesting exposition of the several themes.
Reproduction of the original. The publishing house Megali specialises in reproducing historical works in large print to make reading easier for people with impaired vision.
Beacon Lights of History is a fourteen volume study by American historian John Lord which covers the history and the development of civilization from the old pagan civilizations through to modern Europe and America. Table of Contents: Volume 1: The Old Pagan Civilizations Volume 2: Jewish Heroes and Prophets Volume 3: Ancient Achievements Volume 4: Imperial Antiquity Volume 5: The Middle Ages Volume 6: Renaissance and Reformation Volume 7: Great Women Volume 8: Great Rulers Volume 9: European Statesmen Volume 10: European Leaders Volume 11: American Founders Volume 12: American Leaders Volume 13: Great Writers Volume 14: The New Era
