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Charles Williams has achieved considerable reputation for his novels. He has been recognized as a brilliant theologian and a sensitive literary critic. But Williams himself wished most to be remembered as a poet, and trusted his future literary reputation to the two-volume series of poems on the Arthurian theme, ""Taliessin Through Logres"" and ""The Region of the Summer Stars"". Of the first volume Williams wrote: ""The matter and the style require and reward attention. The poems do not so much tell a story or describe a process as express states or principles of experience. The names and incidents of the Arthurian myth are taken as starting-points for investigation and statement on common and profound experiences"". In this first full-length study of these poems, they receive, in both matter and style, the close attention that Williams requested. The emphasis in this study is on the quality of these poems as poetry and only secondarily upon their religious content. Although essentially Christian, they are placed within the context of the multifaceted, many-changing forms of recurring myths. Times they represent one of the few attempts in the twentieth century to encapsulate an age-old ever-recurring ""pattern in the web"" in a brilliant structure that is thoroughly modern.

The letters of Charles and Bessie Ewing provide eyewitness accounts of the social upheaval and warfare that shook turn-of-the century China. In addition to discussing their missionary activities in the villages of North China and their struggle to master the Chinese Mandarin dialect, the Ewings describe the impact of Western culture upon the social structure of Imperial China as they lived it. Ruoff sets the larger scene about which the Ewings wrote: the Sino-Japanese war, the extra-territorial treaties, the Boxer Uprising, the foreign military interventions, the belated effort to modernize by the Manchu dynasty, the struggle against opium addiction, the student political movement, and the beginning of the Chinese Revolution. We also learn about the last great empress of China, Tzu Hsi, and the last emperor, the child Pu Yi. Through the Ewing correspondence and his own narrative, Ruoff shows the parallel between the attitude toward the Chinese held by the foreign community in the 1890s and the equally restricted outlook the Chinese held of their land and themselves. But just as the views held by the young Congregationalist minister Ewing change during his nearly two decades of service in China, so also the views of the Chinese themselves undergo vast changes. This book is both a history of a period in modern China and the story of an American family living that history.

On August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led 400 Confederate irregulars to a rise on the outskirts of Lawrence, Kansas.  For two years, the 3,000 inhabitants of this prosperous frontier community had managed to escape the Civil War which raged in the East.  At Quantrill's command, the horrors of that war were brought directly into their homes.  The attack began at dawn.  When it was over, more than 150 townsmen were dead and most of the settlement burned to the ground.In Bloody Dawn, Thomas Goodrich considers why this remote settlement was signaled out to receive such brutal treatment.  He also describes the retribution that soon followed, which in many ways surpassed the significance of the Lawrence Massacre itself.  The story that unfolds reveals an event unlike anything our nation has experienced before or since.

First published in 1958, ""Red River Campaign"" examines how partisan politics, economic needs and personal profit determined military policy and operations in Louisiana and Arkansas during the spring of 1864. In response to the demands of Free-Soil interests in Texas and the New England textiles manufacturers' need for cotton, Lincoln authorised an expedition to open the way to Texas. General Nathaniel Banks conducted a combined military and naval campaign up the Red River that lasted only from March 12th to May 20th, 1864, but which was one of the most destructive campaigns of the war.

This text reproduces Arnold's essay of 1886 on Grant, and Twain's rejoinder to the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut. Arnold's essay praised Grant, but to many Americans its tone seemed patronizing of their hero and country.

In ""The Heroic Earth"" David T. Murphy argues that geopolitical ideas were most dynamic and significant in Germany not during the Nazi era (1933-45) but in the democratic culture of the Weimar Republic (1919-33). By helping to condition the German population to geopolitical ideas, which emphasized revision of the Versailles settlement and enlarging Germany's living space, geopolitics helped contribute to Nazi imperialism. From the defeat of Germany in 1918 until the rise of National Socialism in 1933, theories of geopolitical determinism enjoyed a broad currency in many fields of German public life. The ancient notion that environmental factors - climate, topography, resource distribution - shape society in significant ways was now applied in a radically determinist fashion to help Germans understand why they had lost the war and what they had to do to regain their place among the Great Powers. Under the rubric of ""Geopolitik"", politicians, teachers, writers and others argued that the key to Germany's past, and the hope for its future, lay in understanding geography's determining impact upon races, cultures, states and warfare. Theories of geographical determinism shaped German thinking about politics, race, science, education, aesthetics, and many other subjects on the eve of the Nazi era. Challenging traditional historiography, Murphy argues that geopolitics faded in importance after Adolf Hitler came to power.

With evocative settings and narratives ranging from the supernatural to the humorous, from bawdy hilarity to detailed realism, These stories create a world of poignant and magical times and places within the mundane affairs of ordinary men and women.

Ohio was once covered by a thick forest and populated by a great variety of animals. However, the effects of native settlement upon animal species varied widely, and the fortunes of many rose and fell. This is an examination of 200 years of wildlife in Ohio.

In this reassessment of the career of Nelson A. Miles - which he began as a volunteer officer in the Civil War - the author suggests that comments made by his enemies influenced the way Miles's career has been viewed by historians and tries to readdress this.

A companion volume to ""Taken at the Flood"", this work identifies areas of research and in-depth source material for studies of the Maryland Campaign of 1862.

From official records, personal letters, and postwar memoirs, Jack D. Welsh, M.D., has compiled the medical histories of 425 Confederate generals. The generals' early military experience, at West Point and in Florida, Mexico, or on the western frontier, meant that hundreds of them were exposed to and immunized against the diseases that killed so many soldiers in the Civil War, while many also were wounded or lost limbs. In addition, several survived street fights, duels, and shooting accidents-all before the war. Throughout the Civil War, most officers fought in spite' of illness or wounds and spent little time in hospitals. Welsh mentions this fact not to point out bravery, but rather to illustrate the prevailing attitudes toward disease and injuries. Ninety-six Confederate generals died during the war; half of those who survived lived to age 70 or older. Welsh does not attempt to analyze the effects of an individual's medical problems on a battle or the war, but whenever possible provides information about factors that may have contributed to the wound, injury, or illness, and the outcome. He also details the immediate care, logistics of transportation, timing of operations, and the remedies used or recommended by the physicians, when such data is available. This insight into the lives of men who often paid a high price for the Confederacy will prove fascinating for physicians, historians of medicine, and students of the Civil War.

Peter S. Bridges's service as American Ambassador to Somalia capped his three decades as a career officer in the American Foregin Service. This text presents a frank description of his experiences in Somalia and elsewhere, offering pointed assessments of American foreign policy and policymakers.

In this lively memoir, William B. Saxbe narrates his life's journey from his youth in a small Ohio town to his military career during World War II and Korea and through his career as a public servant in Ohio, Washinton D.C. and overseas.

Perhaps the most easily recognizable military helmet of the 20th century is the German Stahlhelm. In this revised and expanded edition of the text, Floyd R. Tubbs and Robert W. Clawson identify and classify the Stahlhelm and relate its history, designs, features and uses. Including detailed drawings and illustrative photographs, the book should appeal to both the collector as well as the military historian.

What would the world be like if history had taken a different course? Science fiction literature has long contemplated this interesting question. The Alternate History: Refiguring Historical Time examines alternate history science fiction using the eschatological, genetic, entropic, and teleological historical models. Hellekson's original approach explains much of the appeal of alternate history and distinguishes among the many varieties of the genre. In her measured consideration of a range of writers, Hellekson displays a deep and broad knowledge of the major works in this genre—those by famous or neglected writers alike.

A young law graduate of the University of Pennsylvania assumed the unpaid position as coach of Oberlin College's football squad in October 1892. This "bespectacled, stoop-shouldered" young-man, as he was described by one player who saw him on his first day of coaching, was John Heisman. Brandt traces the origins of football at this renowned academic institution and the success of its students on and off the playing field, regaling readers with the stories of the fans, the players, the heroes, the rivals.

This photographic collection explores Lake Erie and its effects on the birds that make this region their home. It observes a year of weather changes and avian migrations - from the wintertime convergence of ducks and othe waterbirds to the raptors and shorebird migrations in the fall.

A Man of Distinction among Them represents an important step in under standing the complexities surrounding the early history of the Ohio Country and the Old Northwest and provides the clearest and most comprehensive portrait of a central figure in that history: Alexander McKee.Fathered by a white trader and raised partly by his Shawnee mother, McKee was at home in either culture and played an active role in Great Lakes Indian affairs for nearly 50 years.McKee served as a "cultural mediator"—a go-between who linked the native and European worlds. He exploited his familial affiliation and close economic ties to both communities to encourage trade, foster diplomatic relations, and forge a military alliance between the British government and the tribes of the Old Northwest.

Three themes are examined in this text: the social dynamics of race relations in Union Army camps, the relationship that evolved between Southern and Northern black soldiers, and the role off-duty activities played to help soldiers meet the demands of military service and the challenges of freedom.

These letters to ""Michal,"" Williams's endearing name for his wife, from ""Serge,"" a moniker by which his intimate friends addressed him, are more than just a collection of love letters - they are significant for what they tell us about the man, for the light they throw on his work, and for the way they show Williams in the context of his literary contemporaries.

Only two states can claim the title ""the Mother of U.S. Presidents"" - Ohio and Virginia. Fifteen presidents have hailed from either Ohio or Virginia, though one of those men, William Henry Harrison, is attributed to both states. The other seven men from Ohio who have piloted the United States from the White House are Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, William Howard Taft, and Warren G. Harding. The presidents associated with Ohio and Virginia led the United States during two critical eras. During the nation's formative periods (1780-1850), more than half of the presidents were from Virginia; in the six decades following the end of the Civil War, seven of the nation's twelve leaders were Ohioans. During their presidencies, the country was transformed from a rural, agrarian, diplomatically isolationist society into a wealthy and powerful commercial and industrial nation. Ohio's dominance in politics from the Civil War through World War I was particularly evident in the 1920 presidential election, in which the two candidates were Republican Warren G. Harding and Democrat James Cox - both Ohio natives. Drawing on recent scholarship, the essays place each president squarely in the context of his time.

Founded in 1871 by a group of entrepreneurs from Cleveland, Akron, and Canton, the Valley Railway paralleled the Cuyahoga River Valley, stretching from southeast Cleveland to Akron and then on to Canton and Valley Junction in Tuscarawas County. The Railway filled a need in the region by providing an important passenger rail link among the three cities and provided direct access to the coal fields in Stark and Tuscarawas Counties, supplying coal for Cleveland's iron mills and other growing industries. The Railway began operation in 1880, continued service until 1962, and was revived in the early 1970s. Construction of the Valley Railway coincided with a growing interest in travel and tourism in the United States. It was in the spirit of tourism and boosterism that John Reese wrote his Guide, which is the only primary-source account of the landscape and communities of the region in 1880. Reese discusses both the built environment - bridges, viaducts, trestles, and roadbeds - and natural features in plain view from the train and illustrates it all with thirty period engravings. In addition, the Guide is filled with advertisements for all sorts of tradesmen, merchants, and businesses then found along the line, providing an added degree of interest - and amusement - for modern readers. In their new Introduction, historians Sam Tamburro and Juliet Galonska provide a corporate history of the Valley Railway, a thorough examination of the impact of the Railway on the rural communities through which it passed, and a discussion of the brief but vital role it played in tying together the regional ""metropolitan corridor"" of Cleveland, Akron, and Canton, all complemented with photographs of the region today.

This collection of poetry takes the reader through a world that is at once beautiful and tragic, sacrosanct and profane. The poems are drawn ineluctably to the place where passion and intelligence collide - and often end with passion having fled and intelligence standing alone.

Brings to life one of the most enigmatic, romantic, and ultimately tragic characters in American history. The life of nineteenth-century journalist, diplomat, adventurer, and enthusiast for lost causes John Louis O'Sullivan is usually glimpsed only in brief episodes, perhaps because the components of his life are sometimes contradictory. An exponent of romantic democracy, O'Sullivan became a defender of slavery. A champion of reforms for women, labor, criminals, and public schools, he ended his life promoting spiritualism. This first full-length biography reveals a man possessed of the idealism and promise, as well as the prejudices and follies, of his age, a man who sensed the revolutionary and liberating potential of radical democracy but was unable to acknowledge the racial barriers it had to cross to fulfill its promise.

I've often read books about people who grew up in the country, and have been amazed to find that they all seemed to have been great philosophers. They saw, and felt, a great deal more than I had time to see or think or feel. They seem to have responded poetically to clouds floating in a blue sky, and rhapsodized on the music of summer rain. I often wonder if they had to go two miles in musical summer rain to milk, and to carry the full pail carefully home without getting rain mixed with it, and then walk three miles through stiff clinging mud, to school. I know that often in the heat of noonday, leaning on a hoe, looking across valleys at the mountains, so blue, so close, my only conscious thought was, 'How can I ever get away from here?' Thus begins Belinda Jelliffe's semi-autobiographical novel For Dear Life, first published in 1936. The republication of this novel reintroduces readers to a strong southern writer, an interesting female voice, and a compelling story. This realistic portrayal of life among the rural poor of the early twentieth century shows the struggle of a tough-minded woman who fought her entire life to overcome the obstacles that confronted women and the working poor. Presented here with two previously unpublished short stories, For Dear Life, edited by Virginia Pruitt and Howard Faulkner, will appeal to those interested in women's studies, social history, and American studies, as well as to anyone who enjoys quality fiction.

An Ohio folk artist's affectionate recollection of his boyhood in the Appalachian foothills. Rix Mills Remembered presents 100 of the more than 500 paintings by this highly regarded folk artist. With nostalgic affection, Patton describes the scenes he painted, recalling on canvas the sorghum mill, the blacksmith shop, the school, the general store, the church, and the life he shared with his family in the 1920s and 1930s. The paintings and narratives in this collection will be a welcome celebration of the State of Ohio.