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Alex's Wake: The Tragic Voyage of the St. Louis to Flee Nazi Germany-and a Grandson’s Journey of Love and Remembrance
by Martin GoldsmithAlex's Wake is a tale of two parallel journeys undertaken seven decades apart. In the spring of 1939, Alex and Helmut Goldschmidt were two of more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the St. Louis, "the saddest ship afloat" (New York Times). Turned away from Cuba, the United States, and Canada, the St. Louis returned to Europe, a stark symbol of the world's indifference to the gathering Holocaust. The Goldschmidts disembarked in France, where they spent the next three years in six different camps before being shipped to their deaths in Auschwitz.In the spring of 2011, Alex's grandson, Martin Goldsmith, followed in his relatives' footsteps on a six-week journey of remembrance and hope, an irrational quest to reverse their fate and bring himself peace. Alex's Wake movingly recounts the detailed histories of the two journeys, the witnesses Martin encounters for whom the events of the past are a vivid part of a living present, and an intimate, honest attempt to overcome a tormented family legacy.
Alfie
by Alfie BoeEveryone knows the now legendary story of Alfie Boe, who was discovered singing by a customer at the car factory in Blackpool where he worked. He went on to train at the Royal College of Music, the National Opera Studio and on the Royal Opera House Young Artist Programme, before being cast by Baz Luhrmann to play the lead in his Broadway version of La Boheme, for which he won a Tony Award. Principal roles at the English, Welsh and Scottish National Opera and performances at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, followed. Then in 2010 he played the role of Jean Valjean in the spectacular Les Miserables 25th anniversary show in the O2 Arena, and everything changed. Alfie is married with two children. rom car mechanic to internationally loved opera, musical and recording star: the story of Alfie Boe. . . Alfie Boe is the first official bad boy of opera: a musical superstar celebrated not only in Britain, but worldwide. This is the story of his life - the ups and the downs, from finding fame to losing his father - and, essentially, of his love affair with music. Raised in Lancashire, the youngest of nine children and with a father who played opera at home, Alfie's story is not typical of most musical stars. His dreams of singing were only ever going to be dreams until fate intervened in the form of a stranger: he was training as a car mechanic when a customer overheard him singing and told him about a London audition. Alfie tried out, got the part and has never since looked back. This is the tale of how Alfie went from car mechanic to the UK's most popular and well-known opera star, lauded by Baz Luhrman, Cameron Macintosh and Michael Parkinson as the best tenor we've produced in a generation. Now, for the first time, he has granted his millions of fans an intimate glimpse into the life of the man they adore.
Alfie: The Life and Times of Alfie Byrne
by Trevor WhiteThe first biography of the beloved long-time Lord Mayor of DublinAlfie Byrne was that rarest of things: a genuinely popular politician. He is still a figure of legend in Dublin, where he was elected Lord Mayor ten times. He was also a TD and a Senator; and only a backroom deal prevented him from contesting the race to become the first President of Ireland - a race he would have been favourite to win. Rising from inner-city Dublin to become known as the 'Lord Mayor of Ireland', he was a truly remarkable figure. And yet there has never been a biography of Alfie Byrne - until now.Trevor White's sparkling book tells the story of a man of many parts and contradictions. He was an urbane man of the world who left school at thirteen. He was a teetotal publican. He was a Parnellite who opposed violence, but he was sympathetic to the Easter rebels. His politics were fundamentally conservative, but he was deeply devoted to the poor of his native city.This is the story of an energetic young man who offered to lead his community and refused to stop governing for forty years. His ambition and charm won admirers in the great cities of the world - and in the tenements of Ireland's capital. At his best, he represented and encouraged a broader understanding of what it means to be Irish. And, through it all, he was a great personality, the living embodiment of Dublin.'Not just the definitive biography of the definitive Dubliner, Alfie is a wonderfully written social, political and cultural history of the country through the capital's most famous son through a tumultuous half century. At last, justice has been done to the legend that was Alfie Byrne.' Joe Duffy'Trevor White brings [Alfie Byrne] vividly to life in the pages of his elegant new biography' Leo Varadkar, Sunday Independent'White has found a deliciously rich seam to mine in Alfie Byrne ... Byrne's Dublin is revived in glorious Technicolor, and with much affection. It's a lively, boisterous, contradictory, occasionally maddening place, Much like the man himself, really.' Irish Times'Hugely entertaining ... This is the first proper account of his life, and it's bolstered by White's access to Byrne's family papers' Irish Independent'Peppered with delectable anecdotes ... Well researched and spryly written, this is an elegant account of one of our capital city's half-forgotten sons' Sunday Business Post'This enormously enjoyable biography doesn't seek to canonise Alfie, or to demonise him. It does what all good biographies should, which is simply to tell us the protagonist's true story; and it does what all great biographies should do, which is to make that story a delight to read.' Irish Daily Mail'Alfie could easily have been a sentimental rags-to-riches story about the son of a docker who escaped Sean O'Casey's "long haggard corridors of rottenness and ruin" to become a minor power broker among the bankers and lawyers while living in a Dublin 6 pile. Instead, White , who admires his quarry, doesn't pull punches when it comes to describing how the career of the genial Byrne eventually lost steam.' Sunday Times'Brilliantly told ... an inimitable portrait of Dublin for the forty-two years, 1914-56, that Alfie dominated the political scene' Cara'Trevor White has done today's citizenry some service in providing us with a balanced and well-researched account of the phenomenon that was Dublin's own Alfie Byrne' Dublin Review of Books
Alfie and Me: What Owls Know, What Humans Believe
by Carl SafinaA moving account of raising, then freeing, an orphaned screech owl, whose lasting friendship with the author illuminates humanity’s relationship with the world. When ecologist Carl Safina and his wife, Patricia, took in a near-death baby owl, they expected that, like other wild orphans they’d rescued, she’d be a temporary presence. But Alfie’s feathers were not growing correctly, requiring prolonged care. As Alfie grew and gained strength, she became a part of the family, joining a menagerie of dogs and chickens and making a home for herself in the backyard. Carl and Patricia began to realize that the healing was mutual; Alfie had been braided into their world, and was now pulling them into hers. Alfie & Me is the story of the remarkable impact this little owl would have on their lives. The continuing bond of trust following her freedom—and her raising of her own wild brood—coincided with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a year in which Carl and Patricia were forced to spend time at home without the normal obligations of work and travel. Witnessing all the fine details of their feathered friend’s life offered Carl and Patricia a view of existence from Alfie’s perspective. One can travel the world and go nowhere; one can be stuck keeping the faith at home and discover a new world. Safina’s relationship with an owl made him want to better understand how people have viewed humanity’s relationship with nature across cultures and throughout history. Interwoven with Safina’s keen observations, insight, and reflections, Alfie & Me is a work of profound beauties and magical timing harbored within one upended year.
Alfie's War: A Fleet Air Arm Pilot's Exciting Exploits on HMH Illustrious, and Greece and Crete
by Richard PikeThe bestselling author of Seven Seas, Nine Lives continues the remarkable experiences of Captain A.W.F. &“Alfie&” Sutton during the Second World War. Written in three parts, this book follows the harrowing adventures of Captain A.W.F. &“Alfie&” Sutton, CBE, DSC and bar, RN. During events which come as close to fiction as is imaginable, the first part describes how Alfie, badly injured and close to death during the bombing of HMS Illustrious by the Luftwaffe in January 1941, wakes to find himself laid out among the dead, but miraculously still able to help the ship on to Malta. After full recovery, part two starts with his involvement in the Allied campaign in Greece in the spring of 1941, leading to him eventually evacuating the Greek royal family in a flying boat. After numerous escapades he fights with the defenders during the German invasion of Crete in 1941. Admiral Cunningham was later to describe Sutton&’s efforts as &“an example of grand personal courage under the worst possible conditions which stands out brightly in the gloom.&” It was a struggle doomed to failure, but Alfie survived to continue his war and tell his story to author Richard Pike who relates it here with passion, pace and drama.
Alfonsín. Mitos y verdades del padre de la democracia
by Oscar MuiñoMitos y verdades del padre de la democracia. Puntero y estadista a la vez, tipificar a Raúl Alfonsín es tan difícil y fascinante como el mismo personaje. Podía tanto dialogar en pie de igualdad con Bill Clinton o con Felipe González como involucrarse en la conformación de una lista partidaria en el distrito más pequeño de la provincia de Buenos Aires. Quienes lo conocieron revelan en este libro un hombre en la intimidad familiar y en el ruedo político. Descuidado con las finanzas domésticas; audaz a la hora de trazar su propio camino partidario; decidido en l a defensa del régimen democrático; comprometido en la protección de los derechos humanos durante la dictadura. Tras levantar su voz para rechazar la recuperación de las islas Malvinas y exigir la restauración democrática luego de la caída de Puerto Argentino, derrotó por primera vez al peronismo en las urnas. Valiéndose de numerosos diálogos y testimonios de amigos, familiares, conocidos y adversarios, el periodista Oscar Muiño reconstruye la personalidad de un líder decisivo en la Argentina de las útlimas décadas del siglo pasado, cuya influencia sigue presente aun años después de su muerte.
Alfonsina Storni: Una biografía esencial (Planeta Singular Ser.)
by Josefina DelgadoRigurosa en la documentación y amena en el relato, esta biografía captacon maestría la fuerza de la mujer y el talento de la escritora, una delas más reconocidas poetisas de la Argentina y exponente de la defensade los derechos de las mujeres. Alfonsina Storni nació en el mar, a bordo del barco en el que viajabansus padres. Pionera de la liberación femenina en la Argentina,perteneció a la misma generación de Victoria Ocampo y, sin embargo, nose cruzaron nunca. En su poesía se destaca la audacia de los temas,principalmente la perspectiva femenina del amor. Pero tanto su obra comosu vida impactan por su postura indeclinable frente a losconvencionalismos de la primera mitad del siglo XX. Su final trágico lamuestra como una mujer excepcional, en la que el carácter triunfa porencima de las normas sociales.
Alfonso Reyes and Spain
by Barbara Bockus AponteAlfonso Reyes, the great humanist and man of letters of contemporary Spanish America, began his literary career just before the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He spearheaded the radical shift in Mexico's cultural and philosophical orientation as a leading member of the famous "Athenaeum Generation. " The crucial years of his literary formation, however, were those he spent in Spain (1914-1924). He arrived in Madrid unknown and unsure of his future. When he left, he had achieved both professional maturity and wide acclaim as a writer. This book has, as its basis, the remarkable correspondence between Reyes and some of the leading spirits of the Spanish intellectual world, covering not only his years in Spain but also later exchanges of letters. Although Reyes always made it clear that he was a Mexican and a Spanish American, he became a full-fledged member of the closed aristocracy of Spanish literature. It was the most brilliant period in Spain's cultural history since the Golden Age, and it is richly represented here by Reyes' association with five of its most important figures: Miguel de Unamuno and Ramón del Valle-Inclán were of the great "Generation of 98"; among the younger writers were José Ortega y Gasset, essayist and philosopher; the Nobel poet Juan Ramón Jiménez; and Ramón Gómez de la Serna, a precursor of surrealism. Alfonso Reyes maintained lifelong friendships with these men, and their exchanges of letters are of a dual significance. They reveal how the years in Spain allowed Reyes to pursue his vocation independently, thereby prompting him to seek universal values. Coincidentally, they provide a unique glimpse into the inner world of those friends-and their dreams of a new Spain.
Alfonso Soriano (Superstars of Baseball)
by Tania RodriguezAlfonso Soriano has had a great career in baseball. He has won two World Series and played in the All-Star Game seven times. He's even part of the 40-40 club for hitting 40 home runs and stealing 40 bases in one season. Not many baseball players can say they've done the things that Soriano has! Learn about Soriano's path from playing baseball in the Dominican Republic to making it in the Major Leagues. Explore the life story of one of baseball's most successful players!
Alfonso X, the Justinian of His Age: Law and Justice in Thirteenth-Century Castile
by Joseph F. O'CallaghanIn this magisterial work, Joseph O'Callaghan offers a detailed account of the establishment of Alfonso X's legal code, the Libro de las leyes or Siete Partidas, and its applications in the daily life of thirteenth-century Iberia, both within and far beyond the royal courts. O'Callaghan argues that Alfonso X, el Sabio (the Wise), was the Justinian of his age, one of the truly great legal minds of human history.Alfonso X, the Justinian of His Age highlights the struggles the king faced in creating a new, coherent, inclusive, and all-embracing body of law during his reign, O'Callaghan also considers Alfonso X's own understanding of his role as king, lawgiver, and defender of the faith in order to evaluate the impact of his achievement on the administration of justice. Indeed, such was the power and authority of the Alfonsine code that it proved the king's downfall when his son invoked it to challenge his rule. Throughout this soaring legal and historical biography, O'Callaghan reminds us of the long-term impacts of Alfonso X's legal works, not just on Castilian (and later, Iberian) life, but on the administration of justice across the world.
Alfonso XIII. El rey polémico
by Javier TusellUna biografía de Alfonso XIII resulta imprescindible porque es uno de los protagonistas fundamentales de la historia española del siglo XX. Aunque Alfonso XIII es uno de los protagonistas fundamentales de la historia española edl siglo XX, a menudo no se ha profundizado suficientemente en la figura de este monarca. Poco controvertido en la mayor parte de su reinado pero blanco de todas las críticas en la fase final, Alfonso XIII sigue siendo hoy un rey polémico, incluso con mala fama en la memoria colectiva. Mientras que la derecha le ha acusado de falta de reacción frente a un parlamentarismo inestable y estéril, la izquierda le recuerda como un monarca autoritario y clerical, responsable del desastre de Annual y del golpe de Estado de 1923. Pero ¿cómo era verdaderamente el rey y qué papel desempeñó en la política del país? ¿Cómo funcionó el sistema de la Restauración y cuáles fueron sus posibilidades de evolución? ¿En qué consistió el difícil tránsito del liberalismo a la democracia y por qué no fue viable bajo el régimen monárquico? Este libro es fruto de toda una vida de dedicación por parte de los autores a este periodo cronológico pero también de la utilización de importantes fuentes rigurosamente inéditas. A partir de éstas se ha reconstruido de forma novedosa la trayectoria personal y política de Alfonso XIII, procurando hacerlo con imparcialidad, comparando su actuación con las de los otros reyes de la época y evitando anacronismos. Se ha tratado de comprender la personalidad - tanto en su faceta humana como política - de este monarca que accedió al trono en 1902, con dieciséis años de edad, y que abandonó España en 1931, haciendo un balance de sus rasgos positivos y negativos.
Alfred and Emily
by Doris LessingI think my father's rage at the trenches took me over, when I was very young, and has never left me. Do children feel their parents' emotions? Yes, we do, and it is a legacy I could have done without. What is the use of it? It is as if that old war is in my own memory, my own consciousness.In this extraordinary book, the 2007 Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing explores the lives of her parents, each irrevocably damaged by the Great War. Her father wanted the simple life of an English farmer, but shrapnel almost killed him in the trenches, and thereafter he had to wear a wooden leg. Her mother, Emily, spent the war nursing the wounded in the Royal Free Hospital after her great love, a doctor, drowned in the Channel.In the fictional first half of Alfred and Emily, Doris Lessing imagines the happier lives her parents might have made for themselves had there been no war; a story that begins with their meeting at a village cricket match outside Colchester. This is followed by a piercing examination of their relationship as it actually was in the shadow of the Great War, of the family's move to Africa, and of the impact of her parents' marriage on a young woman growing up in a strange land."Here I still am," says Doris Lessing, "trying to get out from under that monstrous legacy, trying to get free." Triumphantly, with the publication of Alfred and Emily, she has done just that.
Alfred Bester
by Jad SmithAlfred Bester's classic short stories and the canonical novel The Stars My Destination made him a science fiction legend. Fans and scholars praise him as a genre-bending pioneer and cyberpunk forefather. Writers like Neil Gaiman and William Gibson celebrate his prophetic vision and stylistic innovations. Jad Smith traces the career of the unlikeliest of SF icons. Winner of the first Hugo Award for The Demolished Man , Bester also worked in comics, radio, and TV, and his intermittent SF writing led some critics to brand him a dabbler. In the 1960s, however, New Wave writers championed his work, and his reputation grew. Smith follows Bester's journey from consummate outsider to an artist venerated for foundational works that influenced the New Wave and cyberpunk revolutions. He also explores the little-known roots of a wayward journey fueled by curiosity, disappointment with the SF mainstream, and an artist's determination to go his own way.
Alfred C. Kinsey: A Life
by James H. JonesThe hidden life of Alfred C. Kinsey, the principal architect of the sexual revolution. In this brilliant, groundbreaking biography, twenty years in the making, James H. Jones presents a moving and even shocking portrait of the man who pierced the veil of reticence surrounding human sexuality. Jones shows that the public image Alfred Kinsey cultivated of disinterested biologist was in fact a carefully crafted public persona. By any measure he was an extraordinary man--and a man with secrets. Drawing upon never before disclosed facts about Kinsey's childhood, Jones traces the roots of Kinsey's scholarly interest in human sexuality to his tortured upbringing. Between the sexual tensions of the culture and Kinsey's devoutly religious family, Jones depicts Kinsey emerging from childhood with psychological trauma but determined to rescue humanity from the emotional and sexual repression he had suffered. New facts about his marriage, family life, and relationships with students and colleagues enrich this portrait of the complicated, troubled man who transformed the state of public discourse on human sexuality.
Alfred Cort Haddon: A Very English Savage (Anthropology's Ancestors #5)
by Ciarán WalshAn innovative account of one of the least-understood characters in the history of anthropology. Using previously overlooked, primary sources Ciarán Walsh argues that Haddon, the grandson of anti-slavery activists, set out to revolutionize anthropology in the 1890s in association with a network of anarcho-utopian activists and philosophers. He regards most of what has been written about Haddon in the past as a form of disciplinary folklore shaped by a theory of scientific revolutions. The main action takes place in Ireland, where Haddon adopted the persona of a very English savage in a new form of performed photo-ethnography that constituted a singularly modernist achievement in anthropology. From the Introduction: Alfred Cort Haddon was written out of the story of anthropology for the same reasons that make him interesting today. He was passionately committed to the protection of simpler societies and their civilisations from colonists and their supporters in parliament and the armed forces.
Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair (Jewish Lives)
by Maurice SamuelsAn insightful new biography of the central figure in the Dreyfus Affair, focused on the man himself and based on newly accessible documents On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus&’s cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting &“Death to Judas!&” In this book, Maurice Samuels gives readers new insight into Dreyfus himself—the man at the center of the affair. He tells the story of Dreyfus&’s early life in Paris, his promising career as a French officer, the false accusation leading to his imprisonment on Devil&’s Island, the fight to prove his innocence that divided the French nation, and his life of quiet obscurity after World War I. Samuels&’s striking perspective is enriched by a newly available archive of more than three thousand documents and objects donated by the Dreyfus family. Unlike many historians, Samuels argues that Dreyfus was not an &“assimilated&” Jew. Rather, he epitomized a new model of Jewish identity made possible by the French Revolution, when France became the first European nation to grant Jews full legal equality. This book analyzes Dreyfus&’s complex relationship to Judaism and to antisemitism over the course of his life—a story that, as global antisemitism rises, echoes still. It also shows the profound effect of the Dreyfus Affair on the lives of Jews around the world.
Alfred Hitchcock
by Peter AckroydA gripping short biography of the extraordinary Alfred Hitchock, the master of suspense. Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become the one of the most respected film directors of the twentieth century? As an adult, Hitch rigorously controlled the press's portrait of him, drawing certain carefully selected childhood anecdotes into full focus and blurring all others out. In this quick-witted portrait, Ackroyd reveals something more: a lugubriously jolly man fond of practical jokes, who smashes a once-used tea cup every morning to remind himself of the frailty of life. Iconic film stars make cameo appearances, just as Hitch did in his own films: Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, and James Stewart despair of his detached directing style and, perhaps most famously of all, Tippi Hedren endures cuts and bruises from a real-life fearsome flock of birds. Alfred Hitchcock wrests the director's chair back from the master of control and discovers what lurks just out of sight, in the corner of the shot.
Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light
by Patrick McgilliganIn a career that spanned six decades and more than sixty films, Alfred Hitchcock became the most widely recognized director who ever lived. His films -- including The 39 Steps, Notorious, Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds -- set new standards for cinematic invention and storytelling Élan. Since his death, Hitchcock has become crystallized in the public imagination as the macabre Englishman, the sexual obsessive, the Master of Suspense. But this remarkable biography draws on prodigious new research to restore Hitchcock the man -- the ingenious craftsman, the avid collaborator, the constant trickster, provocateur, and romantic. Like Hitchcock's best films, Patrick McGilligan's life of Hitchcock is a drama full of revelation, graced by a central love story, dark humor, and cliff-hanging suspense: a definitive portrait of the most creative, and least understood, figure in film history.
Alfred Nobel
by James RumfordDid you know the Nobel Prize is named after the man who invented dynamite? Learn all about the life of Alfred Nobel, who grew up in a desperately poor family.
Alfred Nobel: The Man Behind the Peace Prize
by Kathy-Jo WarginAlfred Nobel was the man who founded what became known as The Nobel Prizes. Nobel also invented dynamite, becoming very wealthy from his invention. Saddened by its use for harmful destruction, Nobel left his fortune to create yearly prizes for those who have rendered the greatest services to mankind.
Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work
by Victor LoweOriginally published in 1985. The second volume of Victor Lowe's definitive work on Alfred North Whitehead completes the biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential yet least understood philosophers. In 1910 Whitehead abruptly ended his thirty-year association with Trinity College of Cambridge and moved to London. The intellectual and personal restlessness that precipitated this move ultimately led Whitehead—at the age of sixty-three—to settle in America and change the focus of his work from mathematics to philosophy. Volume 2 of Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work follows Whitehead's journey to the United States and analyzes his expanding intellectual life. Although Whitehead wrote philosophy based on natural science while still in London, he began his most important work shortly after moving to Harvard in 1924. Science and the Modern World appeared in 1925, Religion in the Making in 1926, Symbolism in 1927, and Process and Reality in 1929. Discussing these and other important works, Lowe combines scholarly analysis with valuable insights gathered from Whitehead's friends and colleagues. Although Whitehead ordered that all his private papers be destroyed, Lowe was given access to letters the philosopher wrote to his son, North, and others. Never before published, the letters add a new personal dimension to Whitehead's life and thought. Photographs of the philosopher, his family, and associates provide an intimate look at a private and self-effacing man whose work has had a lasting impact on twentieth-century thought.
Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work: 1910-1947
by Victor LoweOriginally published in 1990. The second volume of Victor Lowe's definitive work on Alfred North Whitehead completes the biography of one of the twentieth century's most influential yet least understood philosophers. In 1910 Whitehead abruptly ended his thirty-year association with Trinity College of Cambridge and moved to London. The intellectual and personal restlessness that precipitated this move ultimately led Whitehead—at the age of sixty-three—to settle in America and change the focus of his work from mathematics to philosophy. Volume 2 of Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work follows Whitehead's journey to the United States and analyzes his expanding intellectual life. Although Whitehead wrote philosophy based on natural science while still in London, he began his most important work shortly after moving to Harvard in 1924. Science and the Modern World appeared in 1925, Religion in the Making in 1926, Symbolism in 1927, and Process and Reality in 1929. Discussing these and other important works, Lowe combines scholarly analysis with valuable insights gathered from Whitehead's friends and colleagues. Although Whitehead ordered that all his private papers be destroyed, Lowe was given access to letters the philosopher wrote to his son, North, and others. Never before published, the letters add a new personal dimension to Whitehead's life and thought. Photographs of the philosopher, his family, and associates provide an intimate look at a private and self-effacing man whose work has had a lasting impact on twentieth-century thought.
Alfred Raworth's Electric Southern Railway
by Peter SteerThe Southern Railway between 1923 and 1939 was the only British company to carry out a sustained programme of electrification which became known as the Southern Electric. Unlike many recent projects, each incremental step was completed on time and within budget. This successful project was more impressive as it was achieved during a period of economic stagnation (including the ‘great depression’) and despite government disapproval of the method of electrification. The driving force behind this endeavor was the railway’s general manager, Sir Herbert Walker, but at his side was his electrical engineer, Alfred Raworth, the man one journalist described as an ‘electrification genius’. Alfred Raworth’s career began working with his father the eminent consulting engineer and entrepreneur, John Smith Raworth. Following the collapse of his father’s business Alfred joined the railway industry and devised an ambitious and innovative electrification design. This was discarded when the railways of southern England were ‘grouped’ into the Southern Railway after which he took responsibility for the implementation of the electrification schemes. With Walker’s retirement in 1937, those who continued to support steam traction took the policy lead. A marginalised Raworth retired but was later to witness the fruition of many of his discarded ideas.
Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life
by Peter RabyIn 1858, Alfred Russel Wallace, aged thirty-five, weak with malaria, isolated in the Spice Islands, wrote to Charles Darwin: he had, he said excitedly, worked out a theory of natural selection. Darwin was aghast--his work of decades was about to be scooped. Within two weeks, his outline and Wallace's paper were presented jointly in London. A year later, with Wallace still on the opposite side of the globe, Darwin published On the Origin of Species. This new biography of Wallace traces the development of one of the most remarkable scientific travelers, naturalists, and thinkers of the nineteenth century. With vigor and sensitivity, Peter Raby reveals his subject as a courageous, unconventional explorer and a man of exceptional humanity. He draws more extensively on Wallace's correspondence than has any previous biographer and offers a revealing yet balanced account of the relationship between Wallace and Darwin. Wallace lacked Darwin's advantages. A largely self-educated native of Wales, he spent four years in the Amazon in his mid-twenties collecting specimens for museums and wealthy patrons, only to lose his finds in a shipboard fire in the mid-Atlantic. He vowed never to travel again. Yet two years later he was off to the East Indies on a vast eight-year trek; here he discovered countless species and identified the point of divide between Asian and Australian fauna, 'Wallace's Line.' After his return, he plunged into numerous controversies and published regularly until his death at the age of ninety, in 1913. He penned a classic volume on his travels, founded the discipline of biogeography, promoted natural selection, and produced a distinctive account of mind and consciousness in man. Sensitive and self-effacing, he was an ardent socialist--and spiritualist. Wallace is one of the neglected giants of the history of science and ideas. This stirring biography--the first for many years--puts him back at center stage, where he belongs.
Alfred Stieglitz: Taking Pictures, Making Painters (Jewish Lives)
by Phyllis RoseA fascinating biography of a revolutionary American artist ripe for rediscovery as a photographer and champion of other artists Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) was an enormously influential artist and nurturer of artists even though his accomplishments are often overshadowed by his role as Georgia O’Keeffe’s husband. This new book from celebrated biographer Phyllis Rose reconsiders Stieglitz as a revolutionary force in the history of American art. Born in New Jersey, Stieglitz at age eighteen went to study in Germany, where his father, a wool merchant and painter, insisted he would get a proper education. After returning to America, he became one of the first American photographers to achieve international fame. By the time he was sixty, he gave up photography and devoted himself to selling and promoting art. His first gallery, 291, was the first American gallery to show works by Picasso, Rodin, Matisse, and other great European modernists. His galleries were not dealerships so much as open universities, where he introduced European modern art to Americans and nurtured an appreciation of American art among American artists.