Noel Riley Fitch has written a perfect book, full to the brim with literary history, correct and whole-hearted both in statement and in implication. She makes me feel and remember a good many things that happened before and after my time. I'm glad to have lived long enough to read it. --Glenway Wescott
"The Wasted Generation" is a book by Owen Johnson which is centered on a character David Littledale affected by the unexpected war and the circumstances that surround it. This book focuses on the reflection of David on his entire life; his once social life partying, searching for entertainment, and trying so hard not to be bored with life concerning his current situation at the center of the first world war. A book on self-reflection and self-discipline for both young and old.
A compelling history of radical transformation in the fourth-century--when Christianity decimated the practices of traditional pagan religion in the Roman Empire. The Final Pagan Generation recounts the fascinating story of the lives and fortunes of the last Romans born before the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity. Edward J. Watts traces their experiences of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes, when heated confrontations saw the Christian establishment legislate against pagan practices as mobs attacked pagan holy sites and temples. The emperors who issued these laws, the imperial officials charged with implementing them, and the Christian perpetrators of religious violence were almost exclusively young men whose attitudes and actions contrasted markedly with those of the earlier generation, who shared neither their juniors’ interest in creating sharply defined religious identities nor their propensity for violent conflict. Watts examines why the "final pagan generation"—born to the old ways and the old world in which it seemed to everyone that religious practices would continue as they had for the past two thousand years—proved both unable to anticipate the changes that imperially sponsored Christianity produced and unwilling to resist them. A compelling and provocative read, suitable for the general reader as well as students and scholars of the ancient world.
Irving Fisher's treatise on Eugenics - the process of improving human genetic qualities thought favorable through selective breeding - summarizes the practice and defends it from detractors. A strong advocate of eugenics since soon after its inception in the 1880s, Irving Fisher would frequently give talks where he passionately advanced the idea. The notion of selective breeding generated rumors and reproach almost from the inception; a good portion of this tract is aimed at debunking rumors that had sprung up. As a historical text shedding insight into eugenics in the United States, Irvine Fisher's thoughts are a useful source. The author effectively presents the core arguments and justifications, quoting Mendelian genetics and giving examples of selective breeding in species other than humans. Fisher would go on to found the American Eugenics Society and serve as its first President in the 1920s.
Each Christmas, adults and children alike delight at the story of the kings from the East who followed the star to Bethlehem to offer gifts to the newborn Christ. While this familiar tale is recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, another little-known version later emerged that claimed to be the eyewitness account of the wise men. This ancient manuscript has lain hidden for centuries in the vaults of the Vatican Library, but through the determined persistence of a young scholar, Brent Landau, this astonishing discovery has been translated into English for the very first time as the Revelation of the Magi. Everything we know about the wise men is based on only a few verses from the Bible. With the Revelation of the Magi, we can now read the story from the Magi's perspective. Readers will learn of the Magi's prophecies of God's incarnation from the beginning of time, their startling visitation in the form of a star, the teachings they receive from the baby Jesus, and the wise men's joyous return to their homeland to spread the good news. This ancient version of the Christmas story is guaranteed to astonish and delight. It will also raise larger questions of the significance and meaning of Christ's birth, and the mission to spread the good news to every corner of the globe. All the drama and intrigue of the brief description of Jesus's birth in the Bible is filled out in greater, more colorful detail, offering for the first time the complete story of these beloved characters.
According the author, this work was inspired by a comment credited to Prof. Wole Soyinka, Nigerian foremost playwright, poet, novelist, and Nobel laureate, describing the present generation of Nigeria as A WASTED GENERATION, and the activism of the Nigerian foremost and indefatigable human rights crusader, Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi. The novel is an expose of corruption in every segment of African society. It exposes the political, religious, educational, economical and moral decay and decadence in Africa. It satirizes the leadership mistrust and dissappointment.
A pioneering, dazzling satire about a biracial black girl from Philadelphia searching for her Jewish father in New York City Oreo is raised by her maternal grandparents in Philadelphia. Her black mother tours with a theatrical troupe, and her Jewish deadbeat dad disappeared when she was an infant, leaving behind a mysterious note that triggers her quest to find him. What ensues is a playful, modernized parody of the classical odyssey of Theseus with a feminist twist, immersed in seventies pop culture, and mixing standard English, black vernacular, and Yiddish with wisecracking aplomb. Oreo, our young hero, navigates the labyrinth of sound studios and brothels and subway tunnels in Manhattan, seeking to claim her birthright while unwittingly experiencing and triggering a mythic journey of self-discovery like no other.
Originally published in 1954, this is a magnificent book about the greatest adventure of our age: humanity’s exploration of the skies and space. One of the classics of aviation and scientific literature, written by wartime flier Guy Murchie, this book will fascinate even non-pilots and non-science oriented readers.
Excerpt from The Faith of a Quaker There arise also the insistent questions which beset all mystics, and which in Quakerism demanded a corporate, instead of an individual, answer. Was the light infallible? Was the claim to it an assumption of spiritual exaltation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
New York Times Bestseller: “A marvelously readable biography” of the couple and their relationships with Picasso, Fitzgerald, and other icons of the era (The New York Times Book Review). Wealthy Americans with homes in Paris and on the French Riviera, Gerald and Sara Murphy were at the very center of expatriate cultural and social life during the modernist ferment of the 1920s. Gerald Murphy—witty, urbane, and elusive—was a giver of magical parties and an acclaimed painter. Sara Murphy, an enigmatic beauty who wore her pearls to the beach, enthralled and inspired Pablo Picasso (he painted her both clothed and nude), Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The models for Nicole and Dick Diver in Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, the Murphys also counted among their friends John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Fernand Léger, Archibald MacLeish, Cole Porter, and a host of others. Far more than mere patrons, they were kindred spirits whose sustaining friendship released creative energy. Yet none of the artists who used the Murphys for their models fully captured the real story of their lives: their Edith Wharton childhoods, their unexpected youthful romance, their ten-year secret courtship, their complex and enduring marriage—and the tragedy that struck them, when the world they had created seemed most perfect. Drawing on a wealth of family diaries, photographs, letters and other papers, as well as on archival research and interviews on two continents, this “brilliantly rendered biography” documents the pivotal role of the Murphys in the story of the Lost Generation (Los Angeles Times). “Often considered minor Lost Generation celebrities, the Murphys were in fact much more than legendary party givers. Vaill’s compelling biography unveils their role in the European avant-garde movement of the 1920s; Gerald was a serious modernist painter. But Vaill also shows how their genius for friendship and for transforming daily life into art attracted the most creative minds of the time.” —Library Journal