"Reveals the grisly conditions in which the mentally ill were kept . . . [and] harrowing details of the inhumane and gruesome treatment of these patients."— Daily MailIn the first half of the nineteenth century, treatment of the mentally ill in Britain and Ireland underwent radical change. No longer manacled, chained and treated like wild animals, patient care was defined in law and medical understanding, and treatment of insanity developed.Focusin...

The history of 19th and early 20th century Great Britian's medical and judicial systems in diagnosing and trying the criminally insane.Following an assassination attempt on George III in 1800, new legislation significantly altered the way the criminally insane were treated by the judicial system in Britain. Madness, Murder and Mayhem explores these changes and explains the rationale for purpose-built criminal lunatic asylums in the Victorian era.Sp...

In their famous debates, Lincoln and Douglas struggled with how to behave when an ethical conflict like slavery strained democracy’s commitment to rule by both consent and principle. What conscience demands and what it can persuade others to agree to are not always the same. Ultimately, this tragic limitation of liberalism led Lincoln to war.

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2014Transnational Tolstoy renews and enhances our understanding of Tolstoy's fiction in the context of "World Literature," a term that he himself used in What is Art? (1897). It offers a fresh perspective on Tolstoy's fiction as it connects with writers and works from outside his Russian context, including Stendhal, Flaubert, Goethe, Proust, Lampedusa and Mahfouz.Foster provides an interlocking series of cross-cultural read...

Despite Vladimir Nabokov's hostility toward literary labels, he clearly recognized his own place in cultural history. In a fresh approach stressing Nabokov's European context, John Foster shows how this writer's art of memory intersects with early twentieth-century modernism. Tracing his interests in temporal perspective and the mnemonic image, in intertextual "reminiscences," and in individuality amid cultural multiplicity, the book begins with such early Russian novels as Mary, ...

From a National Jewish Book Award–winning author: The "revelatory and shocking" investigation into the CIA's liberation of Nazi war criminals ( Kirkus Reviews).How did Gen, Karl Wolff, one of the highest-ranking members of the Nazi Party's Waffen-SS, who personally oversaw the deportation of three hundred thousand Jews to the Treblinka extermination camps, escape prosecution at the Nuremberg trials? As revealed in this groundbreaking investigation—culled fr...

In the first-ever Seven Seas history of the world's female buccaneers, Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas tells the story of women, both real and legendary, who through the ages sailed alongside—and sometimes in command of—their male counterparts. These women came from all walks of life but had one thing in common: a desire for freedom. History has largely ignored these female swashbucklers, until now. Here are their stories, from an...

The inspiration for the iconic film, this memoir by the father of a prodigy reflects on chess, competition, and childhood.Fred Waitzkin fell in love with chess during the Cold War–era showdown between Russian champion Boris Spassky and young American superstar Bobby Fischer. Twelve years later, Waitzkin's own son, Joshua, discovered chess in Washington Square Park and began displaying the telltale signs of a prodigy. Soon, crowds gathered to watch the six-year-old, ...

A British officer recounts his harrowing years as a POW in Thailand, including his time as the camp commandant, in this WWII memoir.Colonel Cary Owtram served with the 137th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, and the 11th Indian Infantry Division in Malaysia. After being captured by the Japanese in Singapore, he was transported to the infamous Burma railway. He went on to spend the next three and a half years in grueling captivity in Thailand, first in Ban Pong Camp a...

For Readers of Ray Kurzweil and Michio Kaku, a New Look at the Cutting Edge of Artificial IntelligenceImagine a robotic stuffed animal that can read and respond to a child’s emotional state, a commercial that can recognize and change based on a customer’s facial expression, or a company that can actually create feelings as though a person were experiencing them naturally. Heart of the Machine explores the next giant step in the relationship between humans ...

In the late fall of 1095 Pope Urban II gave a speech in Clermont, France and set all of Europe into motion. As many as a hundred and fifty thousand people eventually responded to the call, leaving everything they knew behind to undertake what appeared to be a fool’s mission: marching several thousand miles into enemy territory to reconquer Jerusalem for Christendom. Against all odds they succeeded, creating a Christian outpost in the heart of the Islamic world that lasted for the better pa...

MAKING MICHAEL delves deep inside the career of one of the most successful, enigmatic and controversial entertainers of all time: Michael Jackson. Side-stepping sensationalism, journalist Mike Smallcombe enters unchartered territory as he takes you behind the scenes to reveal the real Jackson, a man few people ever got to know. Interviewing over sixty of Jackson's associates including managers, lawyers, music executives, producers, musicians and engineers - many of whom are speaking about ...