In 1900, hardly anyone in America had heard of Sigmund Freud, but by 1920 nearly everyone had. This is the story of the translators, editors, journalists, publishers, promoters and booksellers who first brought Freud to American readers. They included scientists and scoundrels, reckless risk-takers and buttoned-down businessmen, puritans and libertines, anarchists and capitalists, passionate freedom fighters and racist bigots. "American publishers," Freud wrote to one colleague, "are a dan...

On the occasion of the Capitol’s centennial in 2017, this book tells the remarkable story of the building—in all its incarnations—and the people who made history beneath its dome. The book covers the creation of the territorial capitol in 1837, the construction of the second capitol in the 1860s (and the fire that almost completely destroyed it in 1904), the eleven-year construction project that completed the third capitol in 1917, and the extensive conservation project of the 1990s that r...

The north is a treasure trove of folklore. From magical creatures of the old country to legends of the mysterious and macabre, such lore is a fascinating record of the stories people held on to and the customs, foods, and cures that filled their lives. Collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers’ Program, a Depression-era works project, these are the stories of Norwegian and Swiss immigrants, Native American medicine men and storytellers, and pioneers with memories of the earlies...

A dynamic account of ornithological history in America’s heartland.Today, more than fifty million Americans traipse through wetlands at dawn, endure clouds of mosquitoes, and brave freezing autumn winds just to catch a glimpse of a bird. The human desire to connect with winged creatures defies age and generation. In the Midwest, humans and birds have lived together for more than twelve thousand years. Taking Flight explores how and why people have worshipped, feared, studied, hunte...

Risking Everything: A Freedom Summer Reader documents the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, when SNCC and CORE workers and volunteers arrived in the Deep South to register voters and teach non-violence, and more than 60,000 black Mississippians risked everything to overturn a system that had brutally exploited them.In the 44 original documents in this anthology, you’ll read their letters, eavesdrop on their meetings, shudder at their suffering, and admire their cour...

A governor who saw ghosts, an incorrigible horse thief, a husband and wife who each stood over seven feet tall, an American Indian chief who defied forced removal, and the first woman to practice law before the Supreme Court: these are just some of the remarkable characters whose lives influenced and defined the state of Wisconsin. Authors Michael Edmonds and Samantha Snyder plumbed the depths of the Wisconsin Historical Society’s collections to research and compose lively portraits of eig...

Over one hundred and fifty years after it began, the Civil War still fascinates us—the vast armies marching to war, iconic leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee, the drama of a nation divided. But the Civil War was also about individuals, the hundreds of thousands of ordinary men and boys who fought and died on either side and the families and friends left at home.This Wicked Rebellion: Wisconsin Civil War Soldiers Write Home tells this other side of the story. Drawing fro...

Every American has heard of the lumberjack hero Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox. For 100 years his exploits filled cartoons, magazines, short stories, and children's books, and his name advertised everything from pancake breakfasts to construction supplies. By 1950 Bunyan was a ubiquitous icon of America's strength and ingenuity. Until now, no one knew where he came from—and the extent to which this mythical hero is rooted in Wisconsin.Out of the Northwoods presents the cu...

"It takes true brilliance to lift the arid tellings of lexicographic fussing into the readable realm of the thriller and the bodice-ripper….David Skinner has done precisely this, taking a fine story and honing it to popular perfection."—Simon Winchester, New York Times bestselling author of The Professor and the MadmanThe Story of Ain't by David Skinner is the captivating true chronicle of the creation of Merriam Webster's Third New Internation...

"Bisexuality is about three centuries overdue . . . nevertheless, here it is: a learned, witty study of how our curious culture has managed to get everything wrong about sex."-Gore Vidal

The controversies that surround Sylvia Plath's life and work mean that her poems are more read and studied now than ever before. This Companion provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of Sylvia Plath's poetry, prose, letters and journals and of their place in twentieth-century culture. These essays by leading international scholars represent a spectrum of critical perspectives. They pay particular attention to key debates and to well-known texts such as Ariel and the The Bell J...

A portrait of the brilliant and flawed analyst who was Sigmund Freud's colleague, impresario, biographer—and who rescued him from the Nazis.The saturation of the English-speaking world with psychoanalytic concepts was due largely to one brilliant analyst, Ernest Jones. As Freud's disciple, he led the international psychoanalytic movement, shifting its vortex from Vienna to London and spreading its influence to Toronto, New York, and Boston.While negotiating...