W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race : 1868-1919 (Web Dubois Biography of a Race)

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W.E.B. Du Bois--the first African-American to earn a doctorate at Harvard, one of the founders of the NAACP, visionary Pan-Africanist intellectual, and author of the seminal text The Souls of Black Folks--has not received due honor in his own country because of his radicalism in later life. Du Bois, hounded during the McCarthy era for his left wing beliefs, eventually gave up his American citizenship. But as a revered leader of black people worldwide, Du Bois merited a state funeral in Ghana when he died there in 1963. This first volume in Lewis's biography, winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize, details Du Bois' early life and work, up to the landmark Pan-African Congress following World War I, which brought "black liberation" to world attention. From Publishers Weekly This rich, masterful biography covers the first half of the complex life and abundant career of scholar/activist William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963), whose work both redefined the history of race relations and spurred the 20th-century civil rights movement. Drawing on a wealth of sources, including critical readings of Du Bois's memoirs, which he "retouched . . . to produce the desired image of impregnable racial pride," Lewis advances the narrative with grace and energy. He traces the growth of Du Bois's racial identity in his Massachusetts hometown, Great Barrington, his "safe harbor" at black Fisk University and studies at Harvard under philosophers like William James and George Santayana. Lewis finds the roots of Du Bois's idea that the "Talented Tenth" should lead blacks in a commencement sermon by a black priest at Wilberforce University in Ohio, where Du Bois had his first faculty job. Lewis ( When Harlem Was in Vogue ) thoroughly explains Du Bois's major ideas, such as his view that black Americans faced a "double consciousness" and his analysis of the black community's class structure in The Philadelphia Negro. Even more compelling is the author's description of how Du Bois, the man of "incorrigible candor" who founded the NAACP, clashed for years with Booker T. Washington, the 19th century's "Great Accommodator," whom he succeeded as the preeminent voice of black Americans. Photos not seen by PW. Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race : 1868-1919 (Web Dubois Biography of a Race)

Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary

List Price: 39.00
List Price: $30.81
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Paperback: 462 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (March 1, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780300089196
ISBN-13: 978-0300089196
ASIN: 0300089198
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

"A biography that possesses many of the virtues of James Murray himself— grace, humor, intelligence, curiosity, and scholarship." -- Time"A moving and dramatic story . . . sometimes tragic, often comic, ultimately triumphant." -- Times, London Product Description This unique and celebrated biography describes how a largely self-educated boy from a small village in Scotland entered the world of scholarship and became the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary and a great lexicographer. It also provides an absorbing account of how the dictionary was written, the personalities of the people working on it, and the endless difficulties that nearly led to the whole enterprise being abandoned. "It is a magnificent story of a magnificent man, one of the finest biographies of the twentieth century, as its subject was one of the finest human beings of the nineteenth."-Anthony Burgess "A moving and dramatic story . . . sometimes tragic, often comic, ultimately triumphant."-Times (London) "A biography that possesses many of the virtues of James Murray himself-grace, humor, intelligence, curiosity, and scholarship."-Time "In her vivid biography, Murray's granddaughter brings his remarkable personality to life, and provides an unexpectedly fascinating account of the OED's long and difficult birth."-Times Literary Supplement "A gripping, engaging story; endearing, too. The daily round of a big Victorian family, with its jokes, games, and treasured seaside holidays, is entrancingly evoked."-Sunday Times (London) Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary

The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain - Chicago Cop and Mafia Hitman

List Price: 14.95
List Price: $11.66
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Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing; Original edition (March 26, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781602393417
ISBN-13: 978-1602393417
ASIN: 1602393419
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Richard Cain (1931–1973), shot to death in a Chicago sandwich shop, was most probably murdered by members of the Chicago Mafia. The author, Cain's half-brother, presents in numbing and amateurishly written detail the life of a "made" man who joined the Chicago Police Department to be mobster Sam Giancana's man on the inside. Cain achieved some fame for being an aggressive vice cop, as well as notoriety in the killing of an alleged child molester, although he was cleared of any charges. Through Giancana, Cain became involved in a CIA plot to kill Fidel Castro (though the author found no evidence to support rumors that Cain was connected to the JFK assassination). And thanks to political connections, Cain was eventually appointed chief of the Special Investigations Unit of the Cook County Sheriff's Department. Cain continued to work both sides of the law, was convicted on several charges and spent several years in prison. Despite the author's painstaking research, the descriptions of his subject as an intelligent and handsome man with savoir faire, who dazzled women with his charm and his risk taking, are less convincing than the story of a hardened criminal without a conscience. Photos. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From Booklist Now a footnote in the history of organized crime, Richard Cain embodied the symbiotic relationship of Chicago's legendary Outfit and the political machine that ran the city. An old friend of perceived Outfit kingpin Sam Giancana, Cain joined the Chicago Police Department in 1956 and quickly rose to vice-squad detective. Simultaneously, he climbed the Outfit's organizational ladder to trusted hit man and errand runner. Cain's half-brother Michael tells his duplicitous story, that of a pragmatic killer whose own demise in a 1973 Mob hit was anything but unexpected, adding valuably to organized-crime annals and Chicago history by matter-of-factly describing the everyday operations of the Outfit's soldiers rather than its capos. Cain remained involved with Giancana right up to the latter's execution-style murder but apparently didn't rank high enough to discern whether Giancana was really in charge or a front for Tony Accardo and Paul Ricca, as recent researchers have posited. Great stuff for a look at the reality of life in the Mob and a window on how the "city that works" really worked. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. The Tangled Web: The Life and Death of Richard Cain - Chicago Cop and Mafia Hitman