Slavery Ordained of God: The Southern Slaveholders’ View of Biblical History and Modern Politics
By Eugene D. Genovese (NHC Fellow, 1984–85; 1987–88)
History
A History of the Book in America. Vol. 3, The Industrial Book, 1840-1880
Edited by Scott E. Casper (NHC Fellow, 2005–06), Jeffrey D. Groves, Stephen W. Nissenbaum, and Michael Winship Volume 3 of A History of the Book in America narrates the emergence of a national book trade in the nineteenth century, as changes in manufacturing, distribution, and publishing conditioned, and were conditioned by, the evolving practices of authors and … Continued
Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory
By Barry Schwartz (NHC Fellow, 1992–93) Abraham Lincoln has long dominated the pantheon of American presidents. From his lavish memorial in Washington and immortalization on Mount Rushmore, one might assume he was a national hero rather than a controversial president who came close to losing his 1864 bid for reelection. In Abraham Lincoln and the Forge … Continued
Alexander Hamilton
By Jacob E. Cooke (NHC Fellow, 1981–82) Cooke, who edited the first 15 volumes of his subject's papers, presents a balanced reinterpretation of Hamilton's career as an American statesman, self-promoter, aristocrat, outstanding lawyer and first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. Tracing Hamilton's achievements as a political economist, Cooke corrects many exaggerations of earlier biographers, especially … Continued
Ancestral Voices: Religion and Nationalism in Ireland
By Conor Cruise O’Brien (NHC Fellow, 1993–94) Scholar and statesman Conor Cruise O’Brien illuminates why peace has been so elusive in Northern Ireland. He explains the conflation of religion and nation through Irish history into our own time. Using his life as a prism through which he interprets Ireland’s past and present, O’Brien identifies case … Continued
Atlantic Bonds: A Nineteenth-Century Odyssey from America to Africa
By Lisa A. Lindsay (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) A decade before the American Civil War, James Churchwill Vaughan (1828–1893) set out to fulfill his formerly enslaved father’s dying wish that he should leave America to start a new life in Africa. Over the next forty years, Vaughan was taken captive, fought in African wars, built and … Continued
Believe Not Every Spirit: Possession, Mysticism, and Discernment in Early Modern Catholicism
By Moshe Sluhovsky (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) From 1400 through 1700, the number of reports of demonic possessions among European women was extraordinarily high. During the same period, a new type of mysticism—popular with women—emerged that greatly affected the risk of possession and, as a result, the practice of exorcism. Many feared that in moments of … Continued
Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life
By William M. Banks (NHC Fellow, 1981–82)Edited by William M. Banks (NHC Fellow, 1981–82) Black Intellectuals offers a centuries-deep analysis of black life, beginning with the arrival of Africans as slaves, when medicine men and conjurers held ancient, powerful wisdom. Author William Banks goes on to discuss prominent figures ranging from black pioneers like Alexander … Continued
British Musical Modernism: The Manchester Group and Their Contemporaries
By Philip Rupprecht (NHC Fellow, 2005–06) British Musical Modernism explores the works of eleven key composers to reveal the rapid shifts of expression and technique that transformed British art music in the post-war period. Responding to radical avant-garde developments in post-war Europe, the Manchester Group composers – Alexander Goehr, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Harrison Birtwistle … Continued
Chance in Evolution
Edited by Grant Ramsey (NHC Fellow, 2015–16) and Charles H. Pence Humans, however much we would care to think otherwise, do not represent the fated pinnacle of ape evolution. The diversity of life, from single-celled organisms to multicellular animals and plants, is the result of a long, complex, and highly chancy history. But how profoundly … Continued