By Harold G. Marcus (NHC Fellow, 1985–86) In this eminently readable, concise history of Ethiopia, Harold Marcus surveys the evolution of the oldest African nation from prehistory to the present. For the updated edition, Marcus has written a new preface, two new chapters, and an epilogue, detailing the development and implications of Ethiopia as a … Continued
By Daniel W. Patterson (NHC Fellow, 1997–98) On a wintry night in 1831, a man named Charlie Silver was murdered with an axe and his body burned in a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. His young wife, Frankie Silver, was tried and hanged for the crime. In later years people claimed that a … Continued
By Joseph E. Harris (NHC Fellow, 1985–86) Africa has witnessed the birth of many important developments in history. Human evolution, including the use of fire, food production via plant cultivation and animal domestication, as well as the creation of sophisticated tools and hunting weapons from iron took place in Africa. Other historical events such as … Continued
Edited by Emory Elliott (NHC Fellow, 1979–80) This award-winning series is dedicated to making literature and its creators better understood and more accessible to students and interested readers, while satisfying the standards of teachers and scholars. It systematically presents career biographies of writers from all eras and all genres through volumes dedicated to specific types … Continued
By Marcia Kupfer (NHC Fellow, 2012–13) A single, monumental mappa mundi (world map), made around 1300 for Hereford Cathedral, survives intact from the Middle Ages. As Marcia Kupfer reveals in her arresting new study, this celebrated testament to medieval learning has long been profoundly misunderstood. Features of the colored and gilded map that baffle modern expectations are … Continued
By John Seelye (NHC Fellow, 1983–84) This book, the second volume in Seelye's series on the rivers of America in the American imagination, explores how George Washington's vision of a "more perfect union" for America–based upon the linking of the nation's waterways by technical means–was carried out. The first volume, Prophetic Waters, dealt with the … Continued
Edited by John Wood Sweet (NHC Fellow, 2011–12) and Lisa A. Lindsay In Biography and the Black Atlantic, leading historians in the field of Atlantic studies examine the biographies and autobiographies of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century African-descended people and reflect on the opportunities and limitations these life stories present to studies of slavery and the African diaspora. … Continued
Edited by David Armitage (NHC Fellow, 1996–97) and Henry St. John Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was one of the most creative political thinkers in eighteenth-century Britain. In this volume, modernised and fully annotated texts of his most important political works, the Dissertation upon Parties, the letter, 'On the Spirit of Patriotism', and The Idea … Continued
By Emily R. Grosholz (NHC Fellow, 1985–86) The Cartesian method, construed as a way of organizing domains of knowledge according to the "order of reasons," was a powerful reductive tool. Descartes made significant strides in mathematics, physics, and metaphysics by relating certain complex items and problems back to more simple elements that served as starting … Continued
By Stephen A. Conrad (NHC Fellow, 1986–87)