William M. Drew's Books

The Woman Who Dared

The Life and Times of Pearl White, Queen of the Serials

By: William M. Drew

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The Woman Who Dared

The Life and Times of Pearl White, Queen of the Serials

By: William M. Drew

In the early days of motion pictures—before superstars, before studio conglomerates, before even the advent of sound—there was a woman named Pearl White (1889–1938). A quintessential beauty of the time, with her perfectly tousled bob and come-hither stare, White's rise to stardom was swift; her assumption of the title of queen of American motion picture serials equally deserved. Born the youngest of five children in a small, rural Missouri farm town, White first began performing in high school. She would eventually make the decision to cut her education short, dropping out to go on the Trousdale Stock Company. A bit player in the early years of her career, she was eventually spotted by the Powers Film Company in New York. She made her film debut in 1910 and soon set herself apart from her female colleagues with her reputation for fearless performances that often involved her own stunt work. It was that same daring attitude that would put her on the map internationally as an actress. From flying airplanes to swimming across rapid rivers, to racing cars in serials like The Perils of Pauline (1914), White was undaunted by the demands of her onscreen career. She went on to star in popular serial classics such as The New Exploits of Elaine (1915), The Iron Claw (1916), The Fatal Ring (1917), and The Lightning Raider (1919). As active socially as she was professionally, White would also lend her audacious spirit to activism as she took part in the early feminist movement. Her bravery and mastery of her craft made her a positive role model for suffragettes who battled for women's rights in the United States. The Woman Who Dared: The Life and Times of Pearl White, Queen of the Serials, is the first full-length biography of this pioneering star. In this study of film history and female agency, Drew delves into the cultural impact of White's work and how it evolved along a concurrent trajectory with the social upheavals of the Progressive Era.

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Page Count

673

Publisher

University Press of Kentucky

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813196841

ISBN 13

9780813196848

The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman

Part. III.

By: William Langland,Walter William Skeat

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The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman

Part. III.

By: William Langland,Walter William Skeat

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.

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Page Count

666

Publisher

BoD – Books on Demand

Published Date

ISBN 10

375252474X

ISBN 13

9783752524741

The Visions of William Concerning Piers the Plowman

By: William Langland

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The Visions of William Concerning Piers the Plowman

By: William Langland

Reprint of the original, first published in 1873.

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666

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BoD – Books on Demand

Published Date

ISBN 10

3368182757

ISBN 13

9783368182755

America’s War against Global Jihad

Past, Present, and Future

By: William R. Nester

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America’s War against Global Jihad

Past, Present, and Future

By: William R. Nester

A specter haunts America, the specter of Global Jihad, Islamic Holy War. This specter was never more horrific than on September 11, 2001, when nineteen fanatics hijacked four jetliners and used them as guided missiles to destroy the twin World Trade Towers, damage the Pentagon, murder nearly 3,000 people, and cause as much as several hundred billion dollars’ worth of direct and indirect damage to New York City and the national economy. But Jihadists have periodically attacked Americans ever since November 1979, when mobs shouting death to America overran the American embassy in Tehran and held 52 officials hostage for 444 days. President George W. Bush responded to the September 11 atrocities by declaring a global war on terror. Now in its second decade, that war has cost the United States thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Americans are haunted by horrific televised images from across a swath of the Muslim world of bomb-blasted cities, hundreds of slaughtered bodies, thousands of refugees huddled in squalid camps, and American journalists in orange jump suits kneeling in the desert before the black robed and masked men who will behead them. Americans increasingly question whether the global war on terror has been worth those costs for their own nation and the lands where it is fought. This book analyzes America’s crusade against Jihadism. The key related questions it addresses are these: Looking back, what were the successes and failures of Washington’s counter-Jihadist strategy before and after September 11? Looking ahead, should Americans stay the course or cut their losses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere? Was the catastrophic September 11 attack a one-time event or could its equivalent or worse in death and destruction happen again? Renowned Harvard professor Samuel Huntington asserted that: “The underlying problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism, it is Islam, a different civilization, whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.” Is that true? Just what of Muhammad’s words and deeds, if any, justifies the barbarism of al Qaeda, Islamic State, and other Jihadists? Finally, just how corporeal is that specter of global Jihad to the United States? A startling surprise awaits the reader in the final chapter as acclaimed expert William Nester weighs the specter of global Jihad against an array of other national security threats.

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Page Count

405

Publisher

Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1498575315

ISBN 13

9781498575317

The Last Silent Picture Show

Silent Films on American Screens in the 1930s

By: William M. Drew

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The Last Silent Picture Show

Silent Films on American Screens in the 1930s

By: William M. Drew

This book details the fate of an entire art form—the silent cinema—in the United States during the 1930s and how it managed to survive the onslaught of sound.

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