As centuries turn and decades pass, many wars and major historical events fade into the national memory as bold-face words in our history textbooks. However, the Civil War is unique, in that it still remains a heavily discussed, published, and debated topic in todayas society. No other war has struck such a chord in our countryas consciousness, combining romantic notions of glory and chivalry with horrific images of death and devastation, both of the landscape and its people. Entire libraries of books are devoted to discussing the battles, the tactics, and machines of warfare, the strategies of notable and eccentric commanders, and the biographies of the many larger-than-life personalities conducting the war, both civilian and military. But like most wars, the Civil War was a arich manas war, but a poor manas fight.a It is the story of the common soldieras plight that is most engaging, for it is in those stories in which one sees the true effects the war had on the people and time. The Tar Heel State provided much of the manpower behind the Confederate armies and thus, sacrificed many of its fathers and sons for the Confederate cause. An eclectic scrapbook of sorts, Piedmont Soldiers and Their Families details, in word and image, the lives of some of those common soldiers and their families in Forsyth, Stokes, Surry, Yadkin, and Davidson Counties, allowing todayas readers an opportunity to explore the lives of their ancestors affected by the war.
"Between these pages the reader will learn that North Carolina citizens did not idly stand by as their soldiers marched off to war. The women worked themselves into “patriotic exhaustion” through Aid Societies. Civilians with different means of support from the lower class to the plantation mistress wrote the governor complaining of hoarding, speculation, the tithe, bushwhackers, unionism, conscription, and exemptions. Never before had so many died due to guerilla warfare. Unknown before starving women with weapons stormed the merchant or warehouses in search for food. Others turned to smuggling, spying, or nature’s oldest profession. Information from period newspapers, as well as mostly unpublished letters, tell their stories."
This book addresses the most important issues associated with Confederate desertion. How many soldiers actually deserted, when did they desert, and why? What does Confederate desertion say about Confederate nationalism and the war effort? Mark A. Weitz has taken his argument beyond the obvious reasons for desertion?that war is a horrific and cruel experience?and examined the emotional and psychological reasons that might induce a soldier to desert. Just as loyalty to his fellow soldiers might influence a man to charge into a hail of lead, loyalty to his wife and family could also lead him to risk a firing squad in order to return home.
The third edition of Europe 1783-1914 provides a comprehensive overview of Europe from the outbreak of the French Revolution to the origins of the First World War. William Simpson and Martin Jones combine accounts of the most important countries, notably France, Germany and Russia, with the wider political, economic, social and cultural developments affecting Europe as a whole. These include: A survey of Europe c.1780: the social and economic background, forms of government, and the Enlightenment The impact of the French Revolution and Napoleon on Europe The spread of nationalism: the 1848 Revolutions and the unification of Italy and Germany Changes in the world of ideas: religious belief, romanticism, and cultural achievements in art, literature and music The age of imperialism: the expansion of Europe, Marxism and left-wing movements, international relations, 1870-1914 The reciprocal relationship between Europe and the United States Europe in 1914: shifts in the intellectual climate through the works of Darwin and Freud, scientific discoveries and the impact of new technologies, and changes in society and the position of women. Each chapter features a list of key dates, concise background information and suggestions for further reading, as well as a concluding ‘Topics for Debate’ section which contains relevant contemporary sources and outlines the contrasting views of recent historians on the key issues. The suggestions for further reading have been updated in every chapter by the addition of relevant and significant new books, published up to and including 2014. Extensively illustrated throughout with maps, contemporary cartoons and portraits, Europe 1783–1914 is a clear, detailed and highly accessible analysis of this turbulent and formative period of European history.
On March 24, 1944, Nazi occupation forces in Rome killed 335 unarmed civilians in retaliation for a partisan attack the day before. Portelli has crafted an eloquent, multi-voiced oral history of the massacre, of its background and its aftermath. The moving stories of the victims, the women and children who survived and carried on, the partisans who fought the Nazis, and the common people who lived through the tragedies of the war together paint a many-hued portrait of one of the world's most richly historical cities. The Order Has Been Carried Out powerfully relates the struggles for freedom under Fascism and Nazism, the battles for memory in post-war democracy, and the meanings of death and grief in modern society.
The last two centuries have been the scene of dramatic change throughout Europe. And one of the main causes of these tremendous and spectacular changes was the economy. These transformations were achieved by people: scientists and political thinkers, inventors and entrepreneurs, educators, skilled and educated workers. Who not only invented machines and computers, but were able to renew economic and political systems. This volume, therefore, presents a new approach to the period by looking at case studies to understand how these changes came about and the impact they had on modern Europe. Ivan Berend presents the spectacular history of modern European economy as a chain of "small" events, actions, and the ideas of individuals, as the influence of institutions and bold entrepreneurs. The essays are grouped into six chapters and discuss the power of entrepreneurship; the power of institutions; economic regimes and the permanent renewal of capitalism; the power of ideas and inventions; pioneering companies; from the rise of industrial cities to post-industrial suburbanization; bubbles, great depressions and economic cycles. All of the single episodes and personal stories offer a cross-section of the complex and interrelated history of modern Europe. Case Studies on Modern European Economy will be essential reading for students of economic and modern European history.
In this groundbreaking study, Barton A. Myers analyzes the secret world of hundreds of white and black Southern Unionists as they struggled for survival in a new Confederate world, resisted the imposition of Confederate military and civil authority, began a diffuse underground movement to destroy the Confederacy, joined the United States Army as soldiers, and waged a series of violent guerrilla battles at the local level against other Southerners. Myers also details the work of Confederates as they struggled to build a new nation at the local level and maintain control over manpower, labor, agricultural, and financial resources, which Southern Unionists possessed. The story is not solely one of triumph over adversity but also one of persecution and, ultimately, erasure of these dissidents by the postwar South's Lost Cause mythologizers.
Kenneth A. Christensens THE TOSCANINI MYSTIQUE, is the first full length biography about the legendary Italian conductors life and career in almost thirty-five years. Maestro Toscanini had a frigid and extremely unhappy childhood, along with a severe musical education at the Parma Conservatory. This unglamorized account of a gifted teenagers professional conducting debut at Rio de Janerios Teatro Imperial, is told as it really happened. Toscanini was married to a ballerina, Carla De Martini, who bore him four children, but also had an illegitimate son with a gifted soprano, who was born retarded. Toscaninis vulgar mistreatment of nearly all the singers and musicians who performed under his direction was legendary, and is examined with unusual insight about his uncanny memory and talent for musical recreation. The recollection of many famous artists including Caruso, Debussy, Kreisler, Puccini, Stravinsky, Verdi, and Wagners descendants are quoted alongside his confrontations with Hitler, Mussolini and the Sicilian mafia. But the Maestro also was the most generous of all musicians, donating both his time and talents to many worthwhile charities, for which he received no financial compensation. The life of this great conductor is presented as the struggles of a musical and theatrical reformer, who was a major historical figure that just happened to be one of the greatest musicians who ever lived. Mr. Christensen has painstakingly wrote his narrative, using all the previous biographies and magazine articles on his life, the scripts of two video documentaries and the liner notes for the most widely available re-releases of his recordings. He rewrote and clarified the awkward original Italian translations for non-specialist readers and has supplied new English translations for the numerous operatic titles and other musical works as well as all the foreign language newspapers, magazines and theatres mentioned in the text. In addition, he has provided professional critiques on the most widely available Toscanini recordings from RCA Victors Arturo Toscanini Collection, and historic reissues of Toscaninis NBC radio broadcast concerts. Here was a man, who had the nerve to stand up to world dictators and fought hard to prevent the Western worlds supreme musical masterpieces from being abused and mistreated, but without taking any credit for laboriously recreating all these composers inspiration. He enjoyed to play practical jokes on his family and friends, but this humorous side is known only through letters, because Toscanini never published any autobiography or memoirs about his art. Toscanini gave the world premieres of 14 operas, including Leoncavallos Pagliacci, and three by Puccini, including La Boheme, La Fanciulla del West and Turandot. Toscanini served as musical director: the Teatro Regio in Turino (1895-98), La Scala in Milano (1898-1908), New Yorks Metropolitan Opera (1908-1915), barely missed dying upon the Lusitania, becoming musical director of La Scala again (1920-1929), the New York Philharmonic (1926-1936), and the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937-1954). In between, he also guest conducted at the Bayreuth, Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals and conducted the inaugural concerts of the Palestine Symphony. Toscanini then recorded his most important repertory with the BBC Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and NBC Symphony Orchestras, alongside the Robert Shaw Chorale and such esteemed soloists as Jascha Heifetz, Rudolf Serkin, plus, his own son-in-law Vladimir Horowitz. His seven operatic recordings featured Jan Peerce, Helen Traubel, Richard Tucker, Giuseppe di Stefano, Rose Bampton, Cesare Siepi, Herva Nelli, Licia Albanese, Robert Merrill, Jussi Bjoerling, Lauritz Melchior, and many other gifted singers and musicians of the past, whose names alone are too much to mention.
