A “moving memoir of son in search of his father,” recounting the life of a psychologist and pacifist who died climbing New Zealand’s highest peak (Publishers Weekly). On February 1, 1960, Harry Scott, conscientious objector, psychologist, and mountaineer, was killed while climbing Mt. Cook. Thirty-five years later, his son set out to look for him. Funny, moving, and beautifully written, this is the story of a father's absence, told partly through the rich and exciting mix of biography, autobiography, and intellectual and social history. HARRY'S ABSENCE is a passionately argued book about New Zealand, addressing the distinction between nationalism and love of country. Finally, it is a recovery, from death, of reasons for living.
"Hooper's instinct for knowing where the ball was going to be hit was uncanny. I'm sure, too, that he made more diving catches than any other outfielder in history. With most outfielders the diving catch is half luck; with Hooper, it was a masterpiece of business."--Babe Ruth, on his selection of Harry Hooper for his all-time all-star team Through the figure of Harry Hooper (1887-1974), star of four World Series championship teams and a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Paul Zingg describes baseball's transformation from an often rowdy spectacle to a respectable career choice and entertainment institution. Zingg chronicles Hooper's rise from a sharecropper background in California to college and then to the pinnacle of his sport. Boston's leadoff hitter and right fielder from 1909 to 1920, Hooper later played for the Chicago White Sox, managed in the Pacific Coast League, and coached Princeton's team. When he retired from playing in 1925, he held every major fielding record for an American League right fielder. Hooper's diaries, memoirs, and six decades of letters offer a rich and colorful commentary on the evolution of the game, as well as insight into the tensions between a player's public and private lives.
Along with his close comrades Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera, Harry Boland (1887-1922) was probably the most influential Irish revolutionary between 1917 and 1922. His sway extended to almost every aspect of republican activity. Already prominent as a hurler before 1916, he was convicted and imprisoned after an energetic Easter Week. He subsequently became Honorary Secretary of Sinn Fein, T.D. for South Roscommon in the First Dail, President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood's Supreme Council, and a republican envoy in the United States between May 1919 and December 1921. He broke with Collins over the Treaty, but became the chief intermediary between the factions. Early in the Civil War, however, he was killed by National army officers in the Grand Hotel, Skerries. Boland's influence was the product of charm, gregariousness, wit, and ruthlessness. After his rebel father's early death, Boland's mother raised him in a spirit of intransigent hostility to Britain. Yet he was also stylish, cosmopolitan, and humane. His celebrated contest with Collins for the love of Kitty Kiernan is perhaps the most intriguing of all Irish political romances. Attractive yet elusive, his personality helped shape the Irish revolution. David Fitzpatrick's biography draws upon documents in Irish, British, and American archives, including his American diaries and thousands of letters to, from, and about Boland. Extensive use has been made of family papers and de Valera's vast archive on the Irish campaign in America. These and other recently released documents illuminate the inner workings of Irish republicanism, and the critical importance of brotherhood in the revolution. As an old-fashioned republican and advocate of 'physical force', Boland is still venerated as a martyr by revolutionary republicans. Yet, in his conduct, he practised the ambiguities associated with Sinn Fein in today's Northern Ireland. Doctrine was subordinated to the twin quests for republican unity and political supremacy, entailing reiterated compromise, systematic duplicity, and mastery of propagandist techniques. If his outlook seems archaic, his practice was astonishingly modern. Harry Boland was a forerunner for Adams and McGuinness. -- Publisher description.
Half-frozen with his journey, and shaking from his coat large flakes of the snow, which trembled in the air, they took him into the dining-room, where a blazing fire, a late dinner, and the warm and smiling welcome of Agnes greatly solaced the wayfarer. Harry had met him in Stirling, and driven him out; but Harry’s carriage, though it could be closed, was not so comfortable on a December night as in the bright sunshine of a July day. Cuthbert made hurried inquiries after Martha and Rose, in answer to which Agnes began a most animated account of an unexpected call from “young Mr. Dunlop” to say that his sister would be very happy to come with him to Agnes’s party. Little Mrs. Muir Allenders, had only ventured at the last moment to invite the baronet’s daughter; and then with but the faintest expectation that Miss Dunlop would come. Agnes was greatly elated; and Rose and Martha were with Mr. Dunlop in the drawing-room. But on the peaceful countenance of Cuthbert Charteris there passed a momentary savageness. At this moment it seemed to him, in unconscious self-estimation, that he, as the newly-arrived guest and tried friend, should be the principal person at Allenders—whereas this young Mr. Dunlop, most probably a nobody, as Cuthbert concluded with amiable liberality, defrauded him of his welcome from the sisters, and drew away Harry from his side. It was true that Harry returned in ten minutes, and that Martha and Agnes changed places; but still Cuthbert involuntarily frowned. Might not Rose, in common courtesy, have come to greet him? Alas, poor Rose! for Cuthbert could not tell how she trembled at the bright fireside of the drawing-room, nor how the astonished Agnes threw shawls round her shoulders, and wondered what could make her so cold. Mr. Charteris lingered long over his dinner. Cuthbert, to tell the truth, was rather sullen, and made by no means a brilliant appearance to Martha and Harry, who sat with him while he refreshed himself. He had a great inclination, indeed, to wrap himself up again in his travelling dress, say a surly good-bye at the drawing-room door, and betake himself home without delay; but Cuthbert disconsolately comforted himself, that it was only for one day, and sat with all his attention concentrated on the sounds from the staircase, doggedly assuring himself that no one would come. And no one did come; and Cuthbert was enraged at the fulfilment of his own prophecy. By and bye, he went up-stairs, attended by Harry, who did not quite comprehend this singular mood, to his own room; and Rose heard his voice on the stair, and trembled still more and more, though young Mr. Dunlop sat by, and did all that in him lay to engage her attention. But poor Rose felt a great inclination to steal away to her own room and cry; for she in her turn, thought it strange, very strange, that Cuthbert should linger so long, and show so little wish to see her.
An American odyssey that reveals the fascinating complexities of one of history's most brilliant, eccentric, and daring families The James family, one of America's most memorable dynasties, gave the world three famous children: a novelist of genius (Henry), an influential philosopher (William), and an invalid (Alice) who became a feminist icon, despite her sheltered life and struggles with mental illness. Although much has been written on them, many truths about the Jameses have long been camouflaged. The conflicts that defined one of American's greatest families— homosexuality, depression, alcoholism, female oppression—can only now be thoroughly investigated and discussed with candor and understanding. Paul Fisher's grand family saga, House of Wits, rediscovers a family traumatized by the restrictive standards of their times but reaching out for new ideas and ways to live. He follows the five James offspring ("hotel children," Henry called them) and their parents through their privileged travels across the Atlantic; interludes in Newport and Cambridge; the younger boys' engagement in the Civil War; and William and Henry's later adventures in London, Paris, and Italy. He captures the splendor of their era and all the members of the clan—beginning with their mercurial father, who nurtured, inspired, and damaged them, setting the stage for lives of colorful passions, intense rivalries, and extraordinary achievements. House of Wits is a revealing cultural history that revises and completes our understanding of its remarkable protagonists and the changing world where they came of age.
