By Morgan Pitelka (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) In Spectacular Accumulation, Morgan Pitelka investigates the significance of material culture and sociability in late sixteenth-century Japan, focusing in particular on the career and afterlife of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616), the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. The story of Ieyasu illustrates the close ties between people, things, and politics and offers … Continued
By Richard Bjornson (NHC Fellow, 1982–83) Independence generated the promise of a better future for the ethnically diverse populations of African countries, but during the past thirty years economic and political crises have called into question the legitimacy of speaking about nationhood in Africa. Richard Bjornson argues here that a national consciousness can indeed be … Continued
By Laurent Dubois (NHC Fellow, 2008–09; 2016–17) The banjo has been called by many names over its history, but they all refer to the same sound—strings humming over skin—that has eased souls and electrified crowds for centuries. The Banjo invites us to hear that sound afresh in a biography of one of America’s iconic folk instruments. Attuned … Continued
Edited by Theda Perdue (NHC Fellow, 2003–04) and Michael D. Green The Cherokee Removal of 1838–1839 unfolded against a complex backdrop of competing ideologies, self-interest, party politics, altruism, and ambition. Using documents that convey Cherokee voices, government policy, and white citizens’ views, Theda Perdue continues to present a multifaceted account of this complicated moment in … Continued
Edited by Josiah Ober (NHC Fellow, 1983–84) and John William Eadie
Edited by David B. Quinn (NHC Fellow, 1982–83) and Alison M. Quinn This volume makes up a collection that is basic for the understanding of how Englishmen began to explore New England (and how its inhabitants learnt something of the English) and on how that important territory first came to light in detail. The narratives are of … Continued
By Edwin D. Craun (NHC Fellow, 2002–03) Presented in three sections—Sins of the Tongue, Punishing Deviant Speech, and Deviant Speech and Gender—the essays included here give a clear picture of what we know about deviant speech in medieval culture, a picture that has begun to achieve the depth and richness of scholarship on slander in … Continued
By John E. Crowley (NHC Fellow, 1995–96) How did our modern ideas of physical well-being originate? As John Crowley demonstrates in The Invention of Comfort, changes in sensible technology owed a great deal to fashion-conscious elites discovering discomfort in surroundings they earlier had felt to be satisfactory. Written in an engaging style that will appeal to historians and … Continued
By Constantin Fasolt (NHC Fellow, 1996–97) History casts a spell on our minds more powerful than science or religion. It does not root us in the past at all. It rather flatters us with the belief in our ability to recreate the world in our image. It is a form of self-assertion that brooks no … Continued
By J. R. S. Phillips (NHC Fellow, 1987–88) Between the year 1000 and the mid-14th century, several remarkable events unfolded as Europeans made contact with a very substantial part of the inhabited world, much of it never previously known or suspected to exist by them. Leif Ericsson and other Vikings discovered North America; European crusading … Continued