"To the world when it was half a thousand years younger," Huizinga begins, "the outline of all things seemed more clearly marked than to us." Life seemed to consist in extremes—a fierce religious asceticism and an unrestrained licentiousness, ferocious judicial punishments and great popular waves of pity and mercy, the most horrible crimes and the most extravagant acts of saintliness—and everywhere a sea of tears, for men have never wept so unrestrainedly as in those centuries.First...

This is Volume III of nine in series on the Sociology of Culture. Originally published in 1949, this is a study of the play-element in culture and is translated from the German edition.

The aftermath of the Civil War comes to dramatic life in this sweeping new collection of firsthand writing from the Reconstruction era—featuring pieces by Frederick Douglass, Frances Harper, and more“Very, very good. . . . Reconstruction conveys the struggle for racial equality better than many other anthologies documenting the era.” —The Wall Street JournalFew periods in American history are more consequential but less un...

The essential history of the extraordinary year in which American democracy and American slavery emerged hand in hand in Virginia“If anyone today knows colonial Virginia, it is James Horn.” —Wall Street JournalAlong the banks of the James River, during an oppressively hot spell in the middle of summer 1619, two events occurred within a month of one another that would profoundly shape the course of history. At the end of July, the G...

"[A] call to arms that takes on a range of social and political problems in America—from racism and misogyny to climate change and Donald Trump" ( Poets & Writers).National Book Award LonglistWinner of the Kirkus Prize for NonfictionWinner of the Foreword INDIE Editor's Choice Prize for NonfictionRebecca Solnit is the author of more than twenty books, including the international bests...

One of America’s most beloved naturalists reflects on the “fallibility of science, the mystery of evolution, and the surprise of life” in this fascinating essay collection (Time)Weaving together memoir, philosophical reflection, and his always keen observations of the natural world, Loren Eiseley’s essays in The Night Country explore those moments, often dark and unexpected, when chance encounters disturb our ordinary understandings of the univers...

A landmark gathering of McCullers’ shorter works, including all her published stories, plays, essays, poems, and an unfinished autobiographyCelebrated worldwide for her masterly novels, Carson McCullers was equally accomplished, and equally moving, when writing in shorter forms. This Library of America volume brings together for the first time her twenty extraordinary stories, along with plays, essays, memoirs, and poems. Here are the indelible tales “Madame Zilens...

Experience the creative explosion that transformed American art—in the words of the artists, writers, and critics who were thereIn the quarter century after the end of World War II, a new generation of painters, sculptors, and photographers transformed the face of American art and shifted the center of the art world from Paris to New York. Signaled by the triumph of abstraction and the ascendancy of painters such as Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning, and Kline, this revo...

"Thomas writes with precision and grace (and a lovely lack of jargon) about ten cases that established the full reach and scope of Title VII." ― The Boston GlobeBest known as a monumental achievement of the civil rights movement, the 1964 Civil Rights Act also revolutionized the lives of America's working women. Title VII of the law made it illegal to discriminate "because of sex." But that simple phrase didn't mean much u...

**20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION: Discover the pioneering classic of history, anthropology, and post-colonial studies—now with a new foreword by renowned scholar Hazel Carby.Part of the HBO docuseries Exterminate All the Brutes, written and directed by Raoul Peck**Placing the West’s failure to acknowledge the Haitian Revolution—the most successful slave revolt in history—alongside denials of the Holocaust and the debate over the Alamo, Michel-Rolph Trouillot offers a stu...

The foundational teachings of Buddhism—presented here in volume one of Chögyam Trungpa's magnum opus, which offers a systematic overview of the entire path of Tibetan BuddhismThis three-volume collection presents in lively, relevant language the comprehensive teachings of the Tibetan Buddhist path of the hinayana, mahayana, and vajrayana. Considered Chögyam Trungpa’s masterpiece, The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma will resonate with new and senio...

Charles Eisenstein explores the history and potential future of civilization, tracing the converging crises of our age to the illusion of the separate self. In this limited hardcover edition of Eisenstein's landmark book, he argues that our disconnection from one another and the natural world has mislaid the foundations of science, religion, money, technology, economics, medicine, and education as we know them. It has fired our near-pathological pursuit of technological Utopias even as we ...