Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery

Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery

by James Brewer Stewart

Revised to include important new scholarship, James Brewer Stewart's eloquent survey of the abolitionist movement is also a superb analysis of how the antislavery movement reinforced and transformed the dominant features of pre-Civil War America. Revealing the wisdom and na veté of the crusaders' convictions and examining the social bases for their actions, Stewart demonstrates why, despite the ambiguity of its... (more)

Gandhi

by Louis Fischer

Gandhi on Non-Violence (New Directions Paperbook)

by Gandhi

In this book, Merton has selected the basic statements of principle and interpretation which make up Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence (AHIMSA) and non-violent action (SATYAGRAHA). The Gandhi text follows that established by the Navaijivan Trust with sections dealing with "Principles of non-violence", "Non-violence, true and false", "Spiritual dimensions of non-violence". "The political scope of non-violence",... (more)

Bound for Canaan (the underground railroad and the war for the souls of america)

Bound for Canaan (the underground railroad and the war for the souls of america)

by Fergus M. Bordewich

With a historian's grasp of events and a novelist's ear for story, Fergus M. Bordewich has written a grand epic of American history -- focusing on the sixty years leading up to the Civil War, which brought to a climax the country's bitter division. But its beginnings can be traced to a clandestine alliance of both black and white abolitionists and slaves, who joined forces to lead tens of thousands of enslaved... (more)

Crusader and Feminist: Letters of Jane Grey Swisshelm, 1858-1865 (Pioneers of the Woman's Movement)Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

Crusader and Feminist: Letters of Jane Grey Swisshelm, 1858-1865 (Pioneers of the Woman's Movement)

by Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm

Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women`s Political Culture, 1830-1900

Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Women`s Political Culture, 1830-1900

by Kathryn Kish Sklar

One of America's foremost historians of women tells the story of Florence Kelley, a leading reformer in the Progressive Era. The book is also a political history of the United States during a period of transforming change, when women worked to end the abuses of unregulated industrial capitalism. This first of a two-volume series covers the first 40 years of Florence Kelley's life. 53 illustrations.

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan

by Michael Kazin

An illuminating and dramatic biography of William Jennings Bryan that restores him to his place of importance in American history – as a hero and leader of the Christian left. Bryan is remembered today mostly as the fundamentalist voice in the 1925 Scopes trial. But as Michael Kazin makes clear, he was a man of exceptional accomplishment. The most popular speaker of his time, he gained a vast and passionate... (more)

The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists (Greenwood Guides to Historic Events 1500-1900)

The Second Great Awakening and the Transcendentalists (Greenwood Guides to Historic Events 1500-1900)

by Barry Hankins

Beginning with overviews of the Second Great Awakening and Transcendentalism, Hankins details the wider impact these spiritual revolutions had on antebellum America's social, political, racial, and gender matters. Twenty-four concise and informative biographical sketches follow, along with a dozen annotated primary documents, a glossary, a bibliography, and an index.

Modern American Women: A Documentary History

Modern American Women: A Documentary History

by Susan Ware

A collection of primary source documents for the American women's history course, 'Modern American Women: A Documentary History' focuses on events and developments involving women from 1890 to the present. New material includes documents on anti-lynching activism and Indian relocation, excerpts from 'The Vagina Monologues' by Eve Ensler, expanded chapters on 'Sexuality and the Body' and 'The State of the Movement... (more)

The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism

The Politics of Meaning: Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism

by Michael Lerner

Drawing on ideas presented in the Bible, Jewish teachings, and his experience as a psychotherapist, Lerner examines the roots of the vague discontent felt by so many Americans about our political system and explains how values can be put back into these broken politics. "An important, engaging book."--The New York Times.

Men in Dark Times

by Hannah Arendt

Essays on Karl Jaspers, Rosa Luxemburg, Pope John XXIII, Isak Dinesen, Bertolt Brecht, Randall Jarrell, and others whose lives and work illuminated the early part of the century. Index.

Bearing the Cross

Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

by David J. Garrow

Winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, this is the most comprehensive book ever written about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on more than seven hundred interviews with all of King's surviving associates, as well as with those who opposed him, and enhanced by the author's access to King's personal papers and tens of thousands of pages of FBI documents,... (more)

Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America

Democracy Reborn: The Fourteenth Amendment and the Fight for Equal Rights in Post-Civil War America

by Garrett Epps

A riveting narrative of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, an act which revolutionized the U.S. constitution and shaped the nation’s destiny in the wake of the Civil War Though the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation inspired optimism for a new, happier reality for blacks, in truth the battle for equal rights was just beginning. Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s successor, argued that the... (more)

The Origins of the Equal Rights Amendment: American Feminism Between the Wars (Contributions in Women's Studies)Susan D. Becker

The Origins of the Equal Rights Amendment: American Feminism Between the Wars (Contributions in Women's Studies)

by Susan D. Becker

"Becker provides the first comprehensive study of the National Women's Party (NWP), although her major theme is the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) which that party spent many years supporting....Becker has utilized many excellent primary and secondary sources and has provided detailed footnotes and bibliography....In addition to its value for scholars of the women's movement, this volume has sufficient scope to... (more)

Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History's Greatest Scientific Discoveries

Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, and the Murder Behind One of History's Greatest Scientific Discoveries

by Joshua Gilder

Johannes Kepler changed forever our understanding of the universe. Through his efforts to chart the orbits of the planets—elliptical, not circular—Kepler became one of the most important astronomers of all time. His contributions continued as he laid the groundwork for the discovery of gravitation, setting physics on the course of revelation it follows to this day. Yet if it hadn't been for the now lesser known... (more)

Autobiography of Mother Jones

by Jones

In this classic work of American nonfiction the greatest labor organizer in US history details her three quarters century fight for labor's liberation, and her unswerving belief in industrial unionism as the key to that struggle. In steel, railroading, metal mining, textiles, and above all, the coal industry, Mother Jones fought alongside strikers. Here too is the exciting story of her crusade against child labor,... (more)

Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies)

Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (Negro American Biographies and Autobiographies)

by Ida B. Wells

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was one of the foremost crusaders against black oppression. This engaging memoir tells of her private life as mother of a growing family as well as her public activities as teacher, lecturer, and journalist in her fight against attitudes and laws oppressing blacks. "No student of black history should overlook Crusade for Justice ."--William M. Tuttle, Jr., Journal of American... (more)

The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice

The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice

by Vaclav Havel, Paul Wilson

There is no shortage of politicians who make a habit of shooting from the hip, but it is much rarer to find one who speaks from the heart. Václav Havel knows no other way to speak, or to write. Both as a dissident and as a playwright it was his sworn purpose for many years to combat evil with nothing but truth. As president of Czechoslovakia, and now of the Czech Republic, he has clung to that habit, refusing to... (more)

Three Cups of Tea

One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations... One School at a Time

by Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban’s backyard Anyone who despairs of the individual’s power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan’s treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain... (more)

Betrayed: The Assassination of Digna Ochoa

Betrayed: The Assassination of Digna Ochoa

by Linda Diebel

Despite a note beside her body addressed to other "sons-of-bitch" human rights lawyers, the Mexican government ruled Digna Ochoa's violent death "probable suicide" and slammed the case shut in July 2003. But Linda Diebel, a three-time recipient of the Amnesty International Media Award, will not let Ochoa's story die. Betrayed offers her chilling account of a cold-blooded murder and a cover-up that reaches into... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: leadership-reformers