By Luise White (NHC Fellow, 1993–94; 2016–17) During the colonial period, Africans told each other terrifying rumors that Africans who worked for white colonists captured unwary residents and took their blood. In colonial Tanganyika, for example, Africans were said to be captured by these agents of colonialism and hung upside down, their throats cut so … Continued
Edited by Carmela Vircillo Franklin (NHC Fellow, 1990–91) and Herbert Bloch
By Joseph Loewenstein (NHC Fellow, 1988–89) The Author’s Due offers an institutional and cultural history of books, the book trade, and the bibliographic ego. Joseph Loewenstein traces the emergence of possessive authorship from the establishment of a printing industry in England to the passage of the 1710 Statute of Anne, which provided the legal underpinnings for … Continued
By Don H. Doyle (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) When Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863, he had broader aims than simply rallying a war-weary nation. Lincoln realized that the Civil War had taken on a wider significance — that all of Europe and Latin America was watching to see whether the United States, a … Continued
By W. J. Rorabaugh (NHC Fellow, 1983–84) The apprentice system in colonial America began as a way for young men to learn valuable trade skills from experienced artisans and mechanics and soon flourished into a fascinating and essential social institution. Benjamin Franklin got his start in life as an apprentice, as did Mark Twain, Horace … Continued
By Hugh M. Thomas (NHC Fellow, 1999–00) This is an important new study of the impact of the Norman Conquest. It provides the first full explanation of how the English and the Normans merged to become the same people. The author draws on anthropological theory, the latest scholarship on Anglo-Norman England, and sources ranging from … Continued
By William E. Leuchtenburg (Trustee; NHC Fellow, 1978–79; 1979–80; 1980–81) and Henry Steele Commager Over fifty years after its original publication, this classic work in American history is in its seventh edition. In a clear, vigorous style, its celebrated authors present the rich and complex narrative of America's experience in an account that extends from … Continued
By Lawrence P. Jackson (NHC Fellow, 2004–05) The Indignant Generation is the first narrative history of the neglected but essential period of African American literature between the Harlem Renaissance and the civil rights era. The years between these two indispensable epochs saw the communal rise of Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, Ralph Ellison, Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin, and … Continued
By Dennis Romano (NHC Fellow, 2000–01) Immortalized in later centuries in works by Lord Byron, Giuseppe Verdi, Eugène Delacroix, and others, Francesco Foscari reigned as the powerful doge of Venice during tumultuous years from 1423 to 1457. The stuff of legends, his life was marked by political conflict, vengeful enemies, family heartbreak, and, at the … Continued
By John Carson (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) How have modern democracies squared their commitment to equality with their fear that disparities in talent and intelligence might be natural, persistent, and consequential? In this wide-ranging account of American and French understandings of merit, talent, and intelligence over the past two centuries, John Carson tells the fascinating story … Continued