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Harvard University Press

Author : Max Hall
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674380806
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Harvard University Press by : Max Hall

Download or read book Harvard University Press written by Max Hall and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A university press is a curious institution, dedicated to the dissemination of learning yet apart from the academic structure; a publishing firm that is in business, but not to make money; an arm of the university that is frequently misunderstood and occasionally attacked by faculty and administration. Max Hall here chronicles the early stages and first sixty years of Harvard University Press in a rich and entertaining book that is at once Harvard history, publishing history, printing history, business history, and intellectual history. The tale begins in 1638 when the first printing press arrived in British North America. It became the property of Harvard College and remained so for nearly half a century. Hall sketches the various forerunners of the "real" Harvard University Press, founded in 1913, and then follows the ups and downs of its first six decades, during which the Press published steadily if not always serenely a total of 4,500 books. He describes the directors and others who left their stamp on the Press or guided its fortunes during these years. And he gives the stories behind such enduring works as Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being, Giedion's Space, Time, and Architecture, Langer's Philosophy in a New Key, and Kelly's Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings.

Harvard Observed

Author : John T. Bethell
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674377332
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (773 download)

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Book Synopsis Harvard Observed by : John T. Bethell

Download or read book Harvard Observed written by John T. Bethell and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Depicting the evolution of 20th-century Harvard in the broader context of national and world events, this text shows how changes in the structure and aspirations of American society led the University to remake itself after World War II, and to do so again after the social upheavals of the Vietnam era.

Harvard A to Z

Author : John T. Bethell
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674020898
Total Pages : 409 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Harvard A to Z by : John T. Bethell

Download or read book Harvard A to Z written by John T. Bethell and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Open this book and step into the storied corridors of the nation's oldest university; encounter the historic landmarks and curiosities; and among them, meet the famous dropouts and former students, the world-class scholars, eccentrics, and prodigies who have given the institution its incomparable character. An alphabetical compendium of short but substantial essays about Harvard University--its undergraduate college and nine professional schools--this volume traverses the gamut of Harvardiana from Aab and Admissions to X Cage and Z Closet. In between are some two hundred entries written by three Harvard veterans who bring to the task over 125 years of experience within the university. The entries range from essential facts to no less interesting ephemera, from the Arnold Arboretum designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to the peculiar medical specimens of the Warren Museum; from Arts and Athletics to Towers and Tuition: from the very real environs (Cambridge, Charles River, and Quincy Street) to the Harvard of Hollywood and fiction. Harvard A to Z is a browser's delight, offering readers the chance to dip into the history and lore, the character and culture of America's foremost institution of higher learning. Table of Contents: Preface Map of Harvard Aab Admissions Adolphus Busch Hall Affirmative Action Alpha-Iota of Massachusetts Allston Alumni American Repertory Theatre Architecture Archives Arms Arnold Arboretum Art Museums Arts Athletics Bells Brattle Theatre Business School Cambridge/Boston Cantab Carpenter Center Characters Charles River Clocks College Pump Commencement Consulting Continuing Education The Core Crimson Crimson Key Dance Deans Degrees Dental School Dining Services Diplomas Discipline Divinity School Diversity Dropouts Dumbarton Oaks Ed School Elmwood Endowment ETOB Extinct Harvard Faculty Club "Fair Harvard" Fashion Fictional Harvard Film Archive Final Clubs Fire First Year Firsts (Men) Firsts (Women) Fountains Fundraising Gates Gay and Lesbian Gazette Gilbert & Sullivan Glass Flowers God's Acre 00 "Godless Harvard" Gold Coast Governance Grade Inflation GSAS GSD Great Salt and Other Relics Guardhouse Harvard Advocate Harvard College Harvard Crimson Harvard Elsewhere Harvard Forest Harvard Foundation Harvard Hall Harvard Heroes Harvard Hill Harvard Magazine Harvard Neighbors Harvard Student Agencies Harvard Union Harvard University Press Hasty Pudding Show Hillel Holden Chapel Hollywood's Harvard Honorary Degrees Houghton Library Houses Information Technology International Outreach Ivy League Jazz John Harvard--and His Statue Kennedy School of Government Lamont Library Lampoon Law School Lectures Libraries Life Raft Maps Medical School Memorial Church Memorial Hall Music Native American Program Nieman Fellows Nobel Laureates Observatory Ombuds Outings and Innings Phillips Brooks House Portrait Collection Presidents Prodigies School of Public Health Public Service Quincy Street Radcliffe Rebellions and Riots Regalia Research Centers and Institutes Reunions Rhodes Scholars ROTC Sanders Theatre Sardis Science Museums Scientific Instruments Signet Society Society of Fellows Soldiers Field Songs and Marches Statues and Monuments Theatre Collection Towers Trademark Licensing and Protection Tuition Underground UHS University Professors Vanserg Hall Villa I Tatti Virtual Harvard Wadsworth House Warren Museum WHRB Widener Library Wireless Club X Cage The Yard Z Closet Zeph Greek Appendix: Harvard Lingo Acknowledgments Index

The Harvard Book Selections From Three Centuries

Author : William Bentinck Smith
Publisher : Legare Street Press
ISBN 13 : 9781015407794
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis The Harvard Book Selections From Three Centuries by : William Bentinck Smith

Download or read book The Harvard Book Selections From Three Centuries written by William Bentinck Smith and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Racism in America

Author : Harvard University Press
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674251660
Total Pages : 171 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Racism in America by : Harvard University Press

Download or read book Racism in America written by Harvard University Press and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-06 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Racism in America has been the subject of serious scholarship for decades. At Harvard University Press, we’ve had the honor of publishing some of the most influential books on the subject. The excerpts in this volume—culled from works of history, law, sociology, medicine, economics, critical theory, philosophy, art, and literature—are an invitation to understand anti-Black racism through the eyes of our most incisive commentators. Readers will find such classic selections as Toni Morrison’s description of the Africanist presence in the White American literary imagination, Walter Johnson’s depiction of the nation’s largest slave market, and Stuart Hall’s theorization of the relationship between race and nationhood. More recent voices include Khalil Gibran Muhammad on the pernicious myth of Black criminality, Elizabeth Hinton on the link between mass incarceration and 1960s social welfare programs, Anthony Abraham Jack on how elite institutions continue to fail first-generation college students, Mehrsa Baradaran on the racial wealth gap, Nicole Fleetwood on carceral art, and Joshua Bennett on the anti-Black bias implicit in how we talk about animals and the environment. Because the experiences of non-White people are integral to the history of racism and often bound up in the story of Black Americans, we have included writers who focus on the struggles of Native Americans, Latinos, and Asians as well. Racism in America is for all curious readers, teachers, and students who wish to discover for themselves the complex and rewarding intellectual work that has sustained our national conversation on race and will continue to guide us in future years.

Lynching and Local Justice

Author : Danielle F. Jung
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108888607
Total Pages : 95 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis Lynching and Local Justice by : Danielle F. Jung

Download or read book Lynching and Local Justice written by Danielle F. Jung and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the social and political consequences of poor state governance and low state legitimacy? Under what conditions does lynching – lethal, extralegal group violence to punish offenses to the community – become an acceptable practice? We argue lynching emerges when neither the state nor its challengers have a monopoly over legitimate authority. When authority is contested or ambiguous, mass punishment for transgressions can emerge that is public, brutal, and requires broad participation. Using new cross-national data, we demonstrate lynching is a persistent problem in dozens of countries over the last four decades. Drawing on original survey and interview data from Haiti and South Africa, we show how lynching emerges and becomes accepted. Specifically, support for lynching most likely occurs in one of three conditions: when states fail to provide governance, when non-state actors provide social services, or when neighbors must rely on self-help.

The Mortal Sea

Author : W. Jeffrey Bolster
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674070461
Total Pages : 413 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mortal Sea by : W. Jeffrey Bolster

Download or read book The Mortal Sea written by W. Jeffrey Bolster and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-08 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the Viking ascendancy in the Middle Ages, the Atlantic has shaped the lives of people who depend upon it for survival. And just as surely, people have shaped the Atlantic. In his innovative account of this interdependency, W. Jeffrey Bolster, a historian and professional seafarer, takes us through a millennium-long environmental history of our impact on one of the largest ecosystems in the world. While overfishing is often thought of as a contemporary problem, Bolster reveals that humans were transforming the sea long before factory trawlers turned fishing from a handliner's art into an industrial enterprise. The western Atlantic's legendary fishing banks, stretching from Cape Cod to Newfoundland, have attracted fishermen for more than five hundred years. Bolster follows the effects of this siren's song from its medieval European origins to the advent of industrialized fishing in American waters at the beginning of the twentieth century. Blending marine biology, ecological insight, and a remarkable cast of characters, from notable explorers to scientists to an army of unknown fishermen, Bolster tells a story that is both ecological and human: the prelude to an environmental disaster. Over generations, harvesters created a quiet catastrophe as the sea could no longer renew itself. Bolster writes in the hope that the intimate relationship humans have long had with the ocean, and the species that live within it, can be restored for future generations.

Science at Harvard University

Author : Clark A. Elliott
Publisher : Lehigh University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780934223126
Total Pages : 398 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (231 download)

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Book Synopsis Science at Harvard University by : Clark A. Elliott

Download or read book Science at Harvard University written by Clark A. Elliott and published by Lehigh University Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This collection of original historical essays examines aspects of the relationship between science and the nation's oldest academic institution. This is history as viewed from the varying perspectives of a group of scholars for whom science at Harvard University is a significant component of their ongoing research. Thus, the essays are of specialist interest, while collectively the volume is a case study of science in an institutional setting. In conducting their research, the authors have used a wealth of primary sources from the Harvard Archives and other repositories." "The volume opens with a thematic introduction by Margaret Rossiter reflecting the picture of Harvard science drawn in the several papers in the volume, while suggesting ways in which a study of Harvard relates to and illuminates the history of science in America." "The subsequent papers follow a generally chronological sequence, beginning with Sara Schechner Genuth's study of attitudes toward comets in relation to early Harvard University programs and functions. Mary Ann James examines the beginnings of applied science at Harvard, and Bruce Sinclair continues that theme with a comparative study of MIT and Harvard." "Toby Appel's paper on zoologist Jeffries Wyman identifies the special part that personal character plays in institutional history. Curtis Hinsley concentrates on facilities and shows how the Peabody Museum gave rise to teaching in anthropology. David Livingstone's biographical treatment of Nathaniel S. Shaler reveals a number of intellectual strands running through the University in the late nineteenth century, and John Parascandola's paper on L. J. Henderson likewise deals with a figure of wide influence and many interests, ranging from biochemistry to sociology. The latter topic leads to Lawrence Nichols's account of the rise of sociology at Harvard. A view of the internal tensions within psychology are seen in Rodney Triplet's study of Henry A. Murray." "I. Bernard Cohen examines the relations among Howard Aiken, IBM, and Harvard in the development of the Mark I computer, while Peggy Kidwell studies the Observatory community during World War II and its response to national defense and a developing federal support system." "Finally, Clark Elliott considers the history of Harvard science as a field for study through a review of published literature and archival sources and makes suggestions for further investigation."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Civil Resistance

Author : Erica Chenoweth
Publisher : What Everyone Needs to Know(r)
ISBN 13 : 0190244399
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (92 download)

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Book Synopsis Civil Resistance by : Erica Chenoweth

Download or read book Civil Resistance written by Erica Chenoweth and published by What Everyone Needs to Know(r). This book was released on 2021-03-05 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring both historical cases of civil resistance and more contemporary examples such as the Arab Awakenings and various ongoing movements in the United States, Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know® provides a comprehensive and engaging review of the current field of knowledge.

Science at the Bar

Author : Sheila Jasanoff
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674039122
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Science at the Bar by : Sheila Jasanoff

Download or read book Science at the Bar written by Sheila Jasanoff and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Issues spawned by the headlong pace of developments in science and technology fill the courts. How should we deal with frozen embryos and leaky implants, dangerous chemicals, DNA fingerprints, and genetically engineered animals? The realm of the law, to which beleaguered people look for answers, is sometimes at a loss—constrained by its own assumptions and practices, Sheila Jasanoff suggests. This book exposes American law’s long-standing involvement in constructing, propagating, and perpetuating a variety of myths about science and technology. Science at the Bar is the first book to examine in detail how two powerful American institutions—both seekers after truth—interact with each other. Looking at cases involving product liability, medical malpractice, toxic torts, genetic engineering, and life and death, Jasanoff argues that the courts do not simply depend on scientific findings for guidance—they actually influence the production of science and technology at many different levels. Research is conducted and interpreted to answer legal questions. Experts are selected to be credible on the witness stand. Products are redesigned to reduce the risk of lawsuits. At the same time the courts emerge here as democratizing agents in disputes over the control and deployment of new technologies, advancing and sustaining a public dialogue about the limits of expertise. Jasanoff shows how positivistic views of science and the law often prevent courts from realizing their full potential as centers for a progressive critique of science and technology. With its lucid analysis of both scientific and legal modes of reasoning, and its recommendations for scholars and policymakers, this book will be an indispensable resource for anyone who hopes to understand the changing configurations of science, technology, and the law in our litigious society.

Harvard

Author : Bainbridge Bunting
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674372917
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (729 download)

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Book Synopsis Harvard by : Bainbridge Bunting

Download or read book Harvard written by Bainbridge Bunting and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1985 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This history of Harvard's architecture examines the Federal architecture of Charles Bulfinch, H.H. Richardson's Romanesque buildings, the Imperial manner reflected in Widener Library, and the work of other architects such as Charles McKim, Gropius and Le Corbusier.

Making Harvard Modern

Author : Morton Keller
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019803301X
Total Pages : 609 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (98 download)

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Book Synopsis Making Harvard Modern by : Morton Keller

Download or read book Making Harvard Modern written by Morton Keller and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-11-15 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making Harvard Modern is a candid, richly detailed portrait of America's most prominent university from 1933 to the present: seven decades of dramatic change. Early twentieth century Harvard was the country's oldest and richest university, but not necessarily its outstanding one. By the century's end it was widely regarded as the nation's, and the world's, leading institution of higher education. With verve, humor, and insight, Morton and Phyllis Keller tell the story of that rise: a tale of compelling personalities, notable achievement and no less notable academic pratfalls. Their book is based on rich and revealing archival materials, interviews, and personal experience. Young, humbly born James Bryant Conant succeeded Boston Brahmin A. Lawrence Lowell as Harvard's president in 1933, and set out to change a Brahmin-dominated university into a meritocratic one. He hoped to recruit the nation's finest scholars and an outstanding national student body. But the lack of new money during the Depression and the distractions of World War Two kept Conant, and Harvard, from achieving this goal. In the 1950s and 1960s, during the presidency of Conant's successor Nathan Marsh Pusey, Harvard raised the money, recruited the faculty, and attracted the students that made it a great meritocratic institution: America's university. The authors provide the fullest account yet of this transformation, and of the wrenching campus crisis of the late 'sixties. During the last thirty years of the twentieth century, a new academic culture arose: meritocratic Harvard morphed into worldly Harvard. During the presidencies of Derek Bok and Neil Rudenstine the university opened its doors to growing numbers of foreign students, women, African- and Asian-Americans, and Hispanics. Its administration, faculty, and students became more deeply engaged in social issues; its scientists and professional schools were more ready to enter into shared commercial ventures. But worldliness brought its own conflicts: over affirmative action and political correctness, over commercialization, over the ever higher costs of higher education. This fascinating account, the first comprehensive history of a modern American university, is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the present state and future course of higher education.

Harvard Dictionary of Music

Author : Willi Apel
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674375017
Total Pages : 968 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis Harvard Dictionary of Music by : Willi Apel

Download or read book Harvard Dictionary of Music written by Willi Apel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1969 with total page 968 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains nearly 1000 pages of precise and accessible information on all musical subjects.

A New History of German Literature

Author : David E. Wellbery
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674015036
Total Pages : 1038 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (15 download)

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Book Synopsis A New History of German Literature by : David E. Wellbery

Download or read book A New History of German Literature written by David E. Wellbery and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 1038 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A New History of German Literature' offers some 200 essays on events in German literary history.

Building State Capability

Author : Matt Andrews
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198747489
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis Building State Capability by : Matt Andrews

Download or read book Building State Capability written by Matt Andrews and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governments play a major role in the development process, and constantly introduce reforms and policies to achieve developmental objectives. Many of these interventions have limited impact, however; schools get built but children don't learn, IT systems are introduced but not used, plans are written but not implemented. These achievement deficiencies reveal gaps in capabilities, and weaknesses in the process of building state capability. This book addresses these weaknesses and gaps. It starts by providing evidence of the capability shortfalls that currently exist in many countries, showing that many governments lack basic capacities even after decades of reforms and capacity building efforts. The book then analyses this evidence, identifying capability traps that hold many governments back - particularly related to isomorphic mimicry (where governments copy best practice solutions from other countries that make them look more capable even if they are not more capable) and premature load bearing (where governments adopt new mechanisms that they cannot actually make work, given weak extant capacities). The book then describes a process that governments can use to escape these capability traps. Called PDIA (problem driven iterative adaptation), this process empowers people working in governments to find and fit solutions to the problems they face. The discussion about this process is structured in a practical manner so that readers can actually apply tools and ideas to the capability challenges they face in their own contexts. These applications will help readers devise policies and reforms that have more impact than those of the past.

Who’s Black and Why?

Author : Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674276124
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Who’s Black and Why? by : Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Download or read book Who’s Black and Why? written by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-22 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2023 PROSE Award in European History “An invaluable historical example of the creation of a scientific conception of race that is unlikely to disappear anytime soon.” —Washington Post “Reveals how prestigious natural scientists once sought physical explanations, in vain, for a social identity that continues to carry enormous significance to this day.” —Nell Irvin Painter, author of The History of White People “A fascinating, if disturbing, window onto the origins of racism.” —Publishers Weekly “To read [these essays] is to witness European intellectuals, in the age of the Atlantic slave trade, struggling, one after another, to justify atrocity.” —Jill Lepore, author of These Truths: A History of the United States In 1739 Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences announced a contest for the best essay on the sources of “blackness.” What is the physical cause of blackness and African hair, and what is the cause of Black degeneration, the contest announcement asked. Sixteen essays, written in French and Latin, were ultimately dispatched from all over Europe. Documented on each page are European ideas about who is Black and why. Looming behind these essays is the fact that some four million Africans had been kidnapped and shipped across the Atlantic by the time the contest was announced. The essays themselves represent a broad range of opinions, which nonetheless circulate around a common theme: the search for a scientific understanding of the new concept of race. More important, they provide an indispensable record of the Enlightenment-era thinking that normalized the sale and enslavement of Black human beings. These never previously published documents survived the centuries tucked away in Bordeaux’s municipal library. Translated into English and accompanied by a detailed introduction and headnotes written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Andrew Curran, each essay included in this volume lays bare the origins of anti-Black racism and colorism in the West.

Heathen

Author : Kathryn Gin Lum
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674275799
Total Pages : 369 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis Heathen by : Kathryn Gin Lum

Download or read book Heathen written by Kathryn Gin Lum and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philip Schaff Prize, American Society of Church History S-USIH Book Award, Society for U.S. Intellectual History Merle Curti Award in Intellectual History, Organization of American Historians “A fascinating book...Gin Lum suggests that, in many times and places, the divide between Christian and ‘heathen’ was the central divide in American life.”—Kelefa Sanneh, New Yorker “Offers a dazzling range of examples to substantiate its thesis. Rare is the reader who could dip into it without becoming much better informed on a great many topics historical, literary, and religious. So many of Gin Lum’s examples are enlightening and informative in their own right.”—Philip Jenkins, Christian Century “Brilliant...Gin Lum’s writing style is nuanced, clear, detailed yet expansive, and accessible, which will make the book a fit for both graduate and undergraduate classrooms. Any scholar of American history should have a copy.” —Emily Suzanne Clark, S-USIH: Society for U.S. Intellectual History In this sweeping historical narrative, Kathryn Gin Lum shows how the idea of the heathen has been maintained from the colonial era to the present in religious and secular discourses—discourses, specifically, of race. Americans long viewed the world as a realm of suffering heathens whose lands and lives needed their intervention to flourish. The term “heathen” fell out of common use by the early 1900s, leading some to imagine that racial categories had replaced religious differences. But the ideas underlying the figure of the heathen did not disappear. Americans still treat large swaths of the world as “other” due to their assumed need for conversion to American ways. Race continues to operate as a heathen inheritance in the United States, animating Americans’ sense of being a world apart from an undifferentiated mass of needy, suffering peoples. Heathen thus reveals a key source of American exceptionalism and a prism through which Americans have defined themselves as a progressive and humanitarian nation even as supposed heathens have drawn on the same to counter this national myth.