![]() ![]() ![]() What if Charles Lindbergh were elected President in 1940?Įxplanation: Philip Roth’s bestselling novel, The Plot Against America (2002), gives us an alternate history in which Charles Lindbergh, trans-Atlantic pilot and all-American hero, becomes the Republican presidential candidate in 1940, defeating the incumbent Franklin Roosevelt. After fighting together in two world wars, the three nations are reunified in 1960 – a century after South Carolina’s secession had led to the Civil War in the first place. Under international pressure, the Southern states gradually abolish slavery. Texas, unhappy with the new arrangement, declares its independence in 1878. The USA (or what’s left of it) moves its capital to Columbus, Ohio - now called Columbia - but can no longer afford to buy Alaska from the Russians. The Southern forces annex Washington, DC - renaming it the District of Dixie. What if the South won the Civil War?Įffect: America becomes one nation again… in 1960.Įxplanation: In a 1960 article published in Look magazine, author and Civil War buff MacKinlay Kantor envisioned a history in which the Confederate forces won the Civil War in 1863, forcing the despised President Lincoln into exile. ![]() Here are some of their intriguing conclusions. Alternate history, long popular with fiction writers, has also been explored by historians and journalists. ![]()
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![]() The story starts out with the narrator going over an ancestor’s belongings. ![]() Coincidentally, it is also one of the very few stories in which Lovecraft accurately describes Cthulhu, the Great Old One. This is a must read if you are interested at all in the Cthulhu Mythos. The poor man is a lone survivor and as he explores his new, alien surroundings, he reluctantly comes upon the most grotesque scene any man can see. His environment changes fast from floating on the ocean waves in a rowboat to a black, sludge covered, swamp. He has a penchant for writing in-first person and Dagon is a prime example of how well Lovecraft puts us in the shoes of a man who has seen too much.Īfter escaping a shipwreck, this sailor washes upon a strange marshy beach. This first story may ease the reader into Lovecraft’s signature first-person style. Lovecraft’s works that are an easy and exciting start for any aspiring fan.ĭagonis told from the point of view of a sailor who has had enough of life and has gone mad. Disturbing tales of aliens, dark cults and witchcraft, and terrifying monsters only barely describe his particular take on horror. ![]() The genre he is most closely associated with, cosmic horror, dives deep into this fear of what is hidden from our species. Lovecraft is an author who obsessed over this main premise. ![]() The universe is huge, mostly dark, and ever expanding. There is so much that humanity does not know. ![]() ![]() ![]() Half a century later, Interaction of Color ( public library), with its illuminating visual exercises and mind-bending optical illusions, remains an indispensable blueprint to the art of seeing.Īlbers, who headed the legendary Black Mountain College that shaped such luminaries as Zen composer John Cage and reconstructionist Ruth Asawa, lays out the book’s beautifully fulfilled and timeless promise in the original introduction: In 1963, he launched into the world what would become the most influential exploration of the art, science, psychology, practical application, and magic of color - an experiment, radical and brave at the time, seeking to cultivate a new way of studying and understanding color through experience and trial-and-error rather than through didactic, theoretical dogma. ![]() ![]() Hardly anyone has accomplished more in revolutionizing the art of seeing than German-born American artist, poet, printmaker, and educator Josef Albers (March 19, 1888–March 25, 1976), as celebrated for his iconic abstract paintings as he was for his vibrant wit and spellbinding presence as a classroom performer. “Hundreds of people can talk, for one who can think,” John Ruskin wrote, “but thousands of people can think, for one who can see.” “We see, but we do not see: we use our eyes, but our gaze is glancing, frivolously considering its object,” Alexandra Horowitz lamented in her sublime meditation on looking. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In his novel, Natsume deals primarily with the psychological and ethical problems dealt with by the Meiji era intellectuals, who had to reconcile their Confucian dedication to the public with the individualism imported from the West, and the new unabashedly individualistic tide of thought which had emerged even while Meiji was alive. That year, two years had passed since the death of Emperor Meiji, under whose rule Japan saw its first period of intense modernization, and in two years Natsume himself would be dead. Kokoro (こゝろ), written by the famous Japanese author Natsume Soseki, was published in serial form by the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, for which he worked, in 1914. ![]() ![]() ![]() The extraordinary mix of such diverse personalities with strongly held opinions helped check each other. ![]() The eight most influential leaders he focuses on are: George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and Abigail and John Adams. His American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson received the National Book Award in 1996, and Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams is regarded as one of the best books on our second president.Įllis eloquently conveys the interconnected personal relationships and overriding issues that set the nation's course. How this worked is the subject of Ellis' magnificent new study Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation. In the words of historian Joseph Ellis, these decisions with long-ranging consequences came about "in a sudden spasm of enforced inspiration and makeshift construction. ![]() ![]() They knew one another personally, and their face-to-face interaction in social settings had a significant impact on the choices they eventually made. The crucial political decisions in the young American republic of the late 18th century were made by relatively few leaders. ![]() ![]() "Encompassed on all sides by the enemies of their religion," the historian Gibbon noted, "the Ethiopians slept near a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they were forgotten." Likewise forgotten-or ![]() (a monarchy that continued, with a hiatus between 5, untilĪlways relatively poor, the Abyssinians were nonetheless a proud, independent people, most of them adopting a cloistered, orthodox form of Christianity when no other African indigenous people held that faith. Mountains to join King Solomon in Jerusalem, and, according to legend, she founded the Axum dynasty that established its rule in the first century A.D. ![]() The Queen of Sheba later descended from the Ethiopian Across the nearby Red Sea, further to the north, Moses led his people to freedom. The earthquake-prone Great Rift Valley, has a biblical quality-and little wonder. Situated at the conjunction of the African and Arab worlds known as the Horn of Africa, the mountainous country, split down the middle by Possibly the cradle of mankind, the ancient land of Abyssinia, now called Ethiopia, is the birthplace of coffee. ![]() Lewis Lewin, Phantastica: Narcotic and Stimulating Drugs (1931) and by this abuse are inspired to profound wisdom on It may also be observed in coffee house politicians whoĭrink cup after cup. Manifest by a remarkable loquaciousness sometimes accompanied by acceleratedĪssociation of ideas. an excessive state of brain-excitation which becomes ![]() The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our WorldĬoffee makes us severe, and grave, and philosophical. ![]() ![]() ![]() However, as the Civil Rights Movement progressed, Ellison often found himself the target of black critics who accused him of choosing acceptance by white society over his African-American identity. Influenced by an artistic heritage that ranged from jazz to Ernest Hemingway, Ellison sought to transcend the racial categories that so starkly divided America in the 1950s. In 1952, Ellison published Invisible Man, the story of a nameless African-American man navigating America during the mid-twentieth century. ![]() Ralph Ellison did turn out to be a man of letters and, like his namesake, sought out universal truths through his art. The father, a great lover of literature, named his son Ralph Waldo Ellison and believed that his boy would also grow up to be a poet. On 1 March 1913, an African-American couple in Oklahoma City had their first baby boy. ![]() ![]() ![]() The premise of Life and Death is basically the same Twilight story, but with all the characters gender-reversed. This is because it was published not as a stand-alone novel, but a literal compilation of the new release and the original Twilight book, flipped back to back. When Life and Death came out, you might remember it being hella thick. ![]() Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined (2016) It is a short spin-off that focuses on a side character from the third book, Eclipse, and briefly involves the originals. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner was the next vampire-centered piece of Meyer’s since she ended the Twilight Saga with Midnight Sun. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (2010) (novella) The twilight Spin-Offs and Reimaginings 3.5. ![]() ![]() ![]() This view is reinforced by other medieval historians such as Shahrazuri (1201) and Al-Qifti (1255). The earliest reference to his having written poetry is found in his biography by al-Isfahani, written 43 years after his death. ![]() ![]() Khayyam was famous during his lifetime not as a poet but as an astronomer and mathematician. The authenticity of the poetry attributed to Omar Khayyam is highly uncertain. ![]() įitzGerald's work has been published in several hundred editions and has inspired similar translation efforts in English, Hindi and in many other languages. By the 1880s, the book was extremely popular throughout the English-speaking world, to the extent that numerous "Omar Khayyam clubs" were formed and there was a " fin de siècle cult of the Rubaiyat". FitzGerald had a third edition printed in 1872, which increased interest in the work in the United States. Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains ( rubāʿiyāt) attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia".Īlthough commercially unsuccessful at first, FitzGerald's work was popularised from 1861 onward by Whitley Stokes, and the work came to be greatly admired by the Pre-Raphaelites in England. A collection of postcards with paintings of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Indian artist M. ![]() ![]() She despises her conceited professors and the entire college structure. The anger Franny feels about her frustrations with Lane, however, is indicative of the rage and harsh judgments that have permeated her life lately. Then, she gets angry with herself for feeling frustrated. Lane is arrogant, which only frustrates her. ![]() ![]() Though Franny tells him she has missed him, she really doesn't mean it. Lane's decision to hide his enthusiasm hints at the deep rift between him and Franny. Franny arrives, and they set off to an expensive French restaurant for lunch Lane conceals how excited he is about their reunion. In it, she discusses her love for him, as well as a fondness for the poet Sappho. "Franny" opens as Franny's boyfriend, Lane Coutell, also a college student, waits at the train station for her to pick him up. Zooey charts Franny's brother's attempts to help her find some sense of stability, purpose, and solace. "Franny" chronicles the title character's existential dis-ease while away at college and encountering for the first time the harsh realities of the world. Franny and Zooey are siblings, the youngest members of the fictional Glass family who figure prominently in many of Salinger's writings. Salinger, contains two shorter works, the short story "Franny" and the novella Zooey. Franny and Zooey (1961), a work of fiction by American author J.D. ![]() |