Posts filed under 'History'
Zami A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography Used at University of California Santa Barbara
Zami A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography by Audre Lorde is being used in a Feminist Studies Course, Women, Representation, and Cultural Production, Spring 2010.University of California Santa Barbara.
“ZAMI is a fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her . . . Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page.”—Off Our Backs
Audre Lorde is also the author of Sister Outsider: Essays & Speechs. For more information on Lorde’s books, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
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Add comment March 3, 2010
The Death of American Virtue: Clinton Vs. Starr Picked at Carlow University
The Death of American Virtue: Clinton Vs. Starr has been selected at Carlow University for its Spring 2010, Introduction to Political Science course.
Ten years after one of the most polarizing political scandals in American history, author Ken Gormley offers an insightful, balanced, and revealing analysis of the events leading up to the impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton. From Ken Starr’s initial Whitewater investigation through the Paula Jones sexual harassment suit to the Monica Lewinsky affair, The Death of American Virtue is a gripping chronicle of an ever-escalating political feeding frenzy. In exclusive interviews, Bill Clinton, Ken Starr, Monica Lewinsky, Paula Jones, Susan McDougal, and many more key players offer candid reflections on that period. Drawing on never-before-released records and documents—including the Justice Department’s internal investigation into Starr, new details concerning the death of Vince Foster, and evidence from lawyers on both sides—Gormley sheds new light on a dark and divisive chapter, the aftereffects of which are still being felt in today’s political climate.
“Anyone who lived through the improbable sequence of events that led to the impeachment of President Clinton will be riveted by this vivid dissection of a saga of ambition, pride, and raw politics that diminished both a president and his prosecutor.”
—LINDA GREENHOUSE, lecturer in law, Yale Law School, and former Supreme Court correspondent, New York Times
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment March 1, 2010
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot Adopted at Sweet Briar College and California State University Los Angeles
**Book is being used in several classes at Sweet Briar College in Virginia and California State University Los Angeles in the Spring 2010 semester
In 1951, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, stricken with cervical cancer, became an involuntary donor of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were propagated by scientist George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. These cells are now known worldwide as HeLa. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, award-winning science writer Rebecca Skloot brilliantly weaves together the Lacks’s story–past and present–with the story of the birth of bioethics, the story of HeLa cells, and the dark history of experimentation on African Americans. Important, powerful, and compassionate, this is a remarkable work of science and social journalism.
“The Immoral Life of Henrietta Lacks is an ideal book for classroom discussions in bioethics, history of science, and science journalism. Author Rebecca Skloot does an exceptional job of raising critical issues that should encourage both scholars and students to reevaluate the research decision making process, the way research subjects are treated, and the balance of power in this country as determined by race, economics, and even education. An incredibly readable and smart text that should be a part of countless university discussions.” — Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, and Professor of Journalism, University of Wisconsin-Madison
“This book not only describes the enormous contributions of Henrietta Lacks, her family and the many physicians and scientists to the history of science – it humanizes their contributions. In this way the public owes a debt to Rebecca Skloot for explaining science and its ethical issues in a way that should enlighten and inform. In my mind, she’s written the perfect bioethics book.”– Eric M. Meslin, Ph.D. Director, Indiana University Center for Bioethics
“Deftly weaving together history, journalism and biography, Rebecca Skloot’s sensitive account tells of the enduring, deeply personal sacrifice of this African American woman and her family…A stunning illustration of how race, gender and disease intersect to produce a unique form of social vulnerability, this is a poignant, necessary, and brilliant book.”—Alondra Nelson, associate professor of sociology, Columbia University
Science journalist and author Rebecca Skloot will be the “Lunch With an Author” session at the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) conference on Saturday, March 6, 2010 and also “Author Meets the Critics” session on Saturday, March 6, 2010, 4-5:30pm. For more details, visit the APPE website at http://www.indiana.edu/~appe
Author website: rebeccaskloot.com/
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
For Booklist’s Story Behind the Story: Rebecca Skloot’s Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks go to: http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=3886330
2 comments March 1, 2010
Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret MacMillan Picked at James Madison University
Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History by Acclaimed historian and “great storyteller” (The New York Review of Books) has been selected at James Madison University for course Twentieth Century World History.
Read an excerpt at: http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780679643586&view=excerpt
“Reminds readers that history matters…. This is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the importance of correctly understanding the past.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“MacMillan deftly maneuvers through time [in this] wide-ranging and provocative testament to transparency as the best historical education.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment November 25, 2009
Concise History of the Catholic Church Selected at Providence College
Providence College’s Development of Western Civilization Program will be using Thomas Bokenkotter’s essential one-volume history of the Catholic Church.
Covering the life of Christ, the election of Pope Benedict XVI, and everything in between, A Concise History of the Catholic Church has been one of the bestselling religious histories of the past two decades and a mainstay for scholars, students, and others looking for a definitive, accessible history of Catholicism.
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment September 15, 2009
Boston College’s Sociology Dept is Using The Translator as a Primer for its course named “African World Perspective” this fall
Boston College’s Sociology Dept is using The Translator: A Memoir for its course named “African World Perspective” this fall. In 2003, Daoud Hari, a Zaghawa tribesman in northern Darfur, fled his village, which was under attack by Sudanese militiamen. Here is Daoud’s harrowing and life-changing, eyewitness account of the brutal genocide in the Sudan.
Zine Magubane, Associate Professor of Sociology, Boston College says “I chose this book because The Translator offers American students a superb opportunity to hear about the realities of the Darfur situation through the voice of an African person. The book is both an excellent primer on the political situation in Darfur and a deeply moving personal story that gives students a sophisticated, yet accessible, view into the Darfur conflict.”
We are pleased to say The Translator is also a book pick by Colorado Mountain College and Mars Hill College for First-Year Experience.
Website: www.SaveDarfur.org
For more information on the book and the author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Read an excerpt here:
http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780812979176&view=excerpt
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment September 9, 2009
Putin’s Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New Russia Examined at the Univ. of Colorado
Acclaimed journalist Steve Levine’s Putin’s Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New Russia will be used in a Political Science course at the Univ. of Colorado this fall. Get an inside look at the Russian leader’s autocratic regime and his turn away from the West. Check out the article: //www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_28/b4091000336244.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment August 25, 2009
Three Modern Library Books Picked at The College of Saint Rose
Three books from Random House’s Modern Library acclaimed collection has been selected for English courses at The College of Saint Rose–The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: or, Gustavus Vassa, the African (Olaudah Equiano), The Algerine Captive: or, The Life and Adventures of Doctor Updike Underhill (Royall Tyler), and Charlotte Temple (Susanna Rowson).
Website: http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment August 25, 2009
Author and Yale Professor Akhil Reed Amar’s America’s Constitution: A Biography Book Used at Yale University
“…[T]he best biography ever written about the U.S. Constitution….”
So said Harvard University professor Laurence H. Tribe of Akhil Reed Amar’s America’s Constitution: A Biography.
We have just learned that Professor Amar will be teaching his book this Fall in his large Constitutional Law course at Yale University. Lucky students!
“I was about to describe America’s Constitution as the best biography ever written about the U.S. Constitution — until it occurred to me that it’s the only real biography of that remarkable document. As with the gaggle of myopic elephant attendants each of whom sees and strokes only one small part of the whole, many have written about some part of the Constitution or its history, or about the Constitution as seen from the perspective of one branch (usually, the judiciary), but only Yale Law School’s justly legendary Akhil Amar has undertaken to tell the story of the Constitution as a whole. And what a story he tells! What David McCullough is to John Adams, what Walter Isaacson is to Benjamin Franklin, Akhil Amar is to the Constitution of the United States. Marvelously readable and breathtakingly informative, Amar’s biography of our nation’s founding document fills a huge void — and fills it brilliantly.”
–Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor Harvard University
For more information on the book or author, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment August 24, 2009
Sam Walton’s Made in America Book of Choice at California State University Chico
Sam Walton’s book Made in America has been selected by the California State University Chico’s Management Dept this fall. A large class of students will be taking the course, Understanding Global Business.
For more information on the book, visit http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart
Order an exam copy here.
Add comment August 24, 2009
