Fifty years ago this week, in what was hailed as “the wedding of the century,” Hollywood icon Grace Kelly was married to Prince Rainier III of Monaco. In commemoration of the anniversary, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is now displaying, for the first time since 1997, the bride’s famous wedding
“The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.” – William Sloane Coffin, Jr. The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., a magnet for controversy, the media, and followers, and the premier voice of northern religious liberalism for more than a quarter-century, died yesterday
Columbia University recently announced the winners of the 2006 Bancroft Prize in American History. Yale University Press is pleased to announce that one of this year’s recipients is Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic by Erskine Clarke. Encompassing the years 1805 to 1869, Dwelling Place brings to life the simultaneous but
An editorial in today’s New York Times states, “[President] Bush’s decision after 9/11 that he had the power to put prisoners beyond the reach of the law at his choosing was the first attempt to suspend habeas corpus on American territory since the Civil War.” It continues: The retired Justice
It was announced this week that Erskine Clarke’s Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic, a narrative history of four generations of a plantation’s inhabitants–white and black–in Liberty County, Georgia, from 1805 to 1869, is among this year’s winners of the prestigious Bancroft Prize. The Bancroft Prize, established in 1948, is awarded
In the latest review of America at the Crossroads, Michiko Kakutani writes in the New York Times that Francis Fukuyama, “serves up a powerful indictment of the Bush administration’s war in Iraq and the role that neoconservative ideas — concerning preventive war, benevolent hegemony and unilateral action — played in
“This book is about manliness,” begins the preface of a provocative new book by Harvey C. Mansfield, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government at Harvard University. What is that? It’s best to start from examples we know: our sports heroes, too many to name; Margaret Thatcher, the British prime
(From Chapter 2 of America at the Crossroads by Francis Fukuyama) In the period leading up to and following the Iraq war, an enormous amount of ink was spilled on the subject of neoconservatives and their alleged capture of the Bush administration. The story is endlessly fascinating because it appears
“[A] beautifully conceived and penetrating book…Clarke has produced one of the finest studies of American slavery ever written.” The glowing review, courtesy of Steven Hahn in the latest issue of The New Republic, is of Erskine Clarke’s new book, Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic, a narrative history of the intimately
Thomas Eakins was misunderstood in life, his brilliant work earned little acclaim, and hidden demons tortured and drove him. Yet the portraits he painted more than a century ago captivate us today, and he is now widely acclaimed as the finest portrait painter our nation has ever produced. This book