New York City's Central Park is the most visited urban park in the United States, with more than 25 million visitors each year. Designed in 1857 by the man who would become America's most famous landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted, and his partner, Calvert Vaux, Central Park was intended to provide New Yorkers with a serene and scenic "rural" refuge from the noise and bustle of city life. Yet transforming the rocky, swampy park site into the rolling meadows, lush woodlands, and pristine lakes would prove an extremely time-consuming and labor-intensive endeavor. Thousands of workers drained marshes, blasted away boulders, and planted a quarter billion trees, flowers, and shrubs to create the 843-acre green oasis in the heart of Manhattan as envisioned by Olmsted and Vaux.
The Civil War brought enormous hardship and tragedy to America's female population. Yet, it also provided women of all races and social classes with unprecedented opportunities to participate in civic, economic, and military activities that had previously been closed to them. Although officially banned from serving in combat by both the Union and Confederate governments, women played a vital role in each side's war efforts. During the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history, some risked their lives as spies, scouts, and saboteurs, and in some instances, even disguised themselves as men to challenge their foes directly on the battlefield. Others produced and donated desperately needed supplies for the troops, or cared for ill and wounded soldiers. Those at home kept farms and businesses running while their male relations were off fighting. Women and the Civil War describes the important roles women filled while the Union and Confederate armies fought.
Discusses the prohibition era of early twentieth-century America, including temperance movements, the prohibition amendment, alcoholic beverage profiteers, and the repeal of prohibition.
In 1347, Europe was hit by the worst natural disaster in its recorded history: the Black Death. Now believed to be a combination of bubonic plague and two other rarer plague strains, the Black Death ravaged the continent for several terrible years before finally fading away in 1352. Most historians believe that the pandemic, which also swept across parts of Western Asia and North Africa, annihilated 33 to 60 percent of Europe's population—roughly 25 to 45 million men, women, and children. This massive depopulation had a deep impact on the course of European history, speeding up or initiating important social, economic, religious, and cultural changes.
The Mexican Revolution, the deadliest social upheaval in Latin American history, erupted in 1910 when political reformers, peasants, and exploited workers overthrew Mexico's longtime dictator, Porfirio Díaz. Although it took just six months for the rebels to defeat Díaz, the revolution would grind on for almost another decade, as a succession of political and military leaders-many of them more interested in securing power for themselves than in helping Mexico's downtrodden masses-vied for control. By the time the revolution petered out in 1920, it had claimed more than a million Mexican lives and left the country's economy in shambles. Yet it had also laid the groundwork for a series of far-reaching social and economic reforms, including the biggest redistribution of land in the history of the Americas. Illustrated with full-color and black-and-white photographs, and accompanied by a chronology, bibliography, and further resources, The Mexican Revolution, Updated Edition provides a clear and comprehensive account of the social and political upheaval surrounding the revolution, its major players, and its lasting effects. Historical spotlights and excerpts from primary source documents are also included.
A biography of the first Congressman from the state of Hawaii who was also the first American of Japanese descent to serve in the Congress of the United States.
Introduces the life and work of I. M. Pei, a Chinese American architect who is responsible for such works as the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Grand Louvre project in Paris, France.
In 1935, 17-year-old I M Pei left his family in Shanghai, China, to study architecture in the United States. Following the Communist takeover of China in 1949, Pei decided to remain in America to develop his budding architectural career. Over the next half century, Pei would establish himself as one of the leading architects in the world.
As one of history's most horrific political upheavals, the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, when the Chinese Communist Party officially launched the radical movement on the orders of its autocratic chairman, Mao Zedong. He intended for the movement to revitalize China's revolutionary fervor while simultaneously accelerating the country's evolution into a true communist utopia. China's young people became the advance guard for this new revolution, forming themselves into paramilitary Red Guard units. These adolescent shock troops humiliated, beat, and murdered teachers, intellectuals, local party officials, and others whom they judged to be insufficiently devoted to Mao and his radical ideals. By the time the Cultural Revolution finally ended in 1976, it had claimed the lives of some 3 to 4 million Chinese and left many millions more physically or psychologically scarred. Illustrated with full-color and black-and-white photographs, and accompanied by a chronology, bibliography, and further resources, The Chinese Cultural Revolution, Updated Edition provides a clear and comprehensive account of how this sweeping policy changed the course of Chinese history in the 20th century. Historical spotlights and excerpts from primary source documents are also included.
The State of Israel was born on May 14, 1948, in the city of Tel Aviv, in what was then officially known as Palestine. The new Jewish state was founded 2,000 years after Palestine's Roman conquerors exiled the Jews from the land they had once ruled as the Kingdom of Israel and less than 50 years after Jewish immigrants began returning to their ancient homeland as part of the Zionist movement. Within hours of Israel's establishment, armies of the five neighboring Arab countries had already begun assembling along the new nation's borders. The next morning, Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Lebanese troops invaded, launching the first in a series of conflicts between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Illustrated with full-color and black-and-white photographs, and accompanied by a chronology, bibliography, and further resources,The Establishment of the State of Israel, Updated Edition explains how this conflict has affected the history of the region and the Middle East peace process. Historical spotlights and excerpts from primary source documents are also included.
Considered by many to be the most influential hip-hop artists of all time, Run-DMC's melding of rap with rock, stripped-down musical arrangements, edgy lyrics, and straight-off-the-street look transformed the sound and style of rap during the early 1980s
This series examines the key consequences of arbitrary border making in world history - past and present. These studies describe arbitrary borders as places where people interact differently from the way they would had the boundary not existed. Analytical, but easy to read, these brief histories will appeal to a broad sweep of readership
Officially established by a 1948 United Nations mandate, which divided the area known as Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, the nation of Israel has remained steadfastly resilient in its short but tumultuous history. UN partition greatly reduced the land held by the Palestinian Arabs and set in motion a series of conflicts between Israel and its border countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt. Although Israel signed peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan in 1979 and 1994, respectively, its relationship with neighboring Lebanon and Syria continues to be strained due to those countries' ties with the Islamic political party Hezbollah. -- Publisher description.
According to the Hebrew Bible, David rose from humble beginnings as a sheepherder in the hills of Bethlehem to become the ruler of the ancient kingdom of Israel and the founder of an empire that included not only the modern state of Israel, but parts of Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan as well. Courageous and conniving, pious and vengeful, warrior, poet, fugitive, and king, David is not only one of the most complex and fascinating figures in Hebrew scripture but also one of the ancient world's best-known leaders. King David uses the ample writings by and about the revered king of Israel to explore his historical significance in world history and how his time in power contributed to modern-day situations in the Middle East.
A biography of Paul Robeson, who overcame racial discrimination to become a world-famous African American athlete, actor, singer, and civil rights activist.
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