front cover of At the Point of a Cutlass
At the Point of a Cutlass
The Pirate Capture, Bold Escape, and Lonely Exile of Philip Ashton
Gregory N. Flemming
University Press of New England, 2015
A handful of sea stories define the American maritime narrative. Stories of whaling, fishing, exploration, naval adventure, and piracy have always captured our imaginations, and the most colorful of these are the tales of piracy. Called America’s real-life Robinson Crusoe, the true story of Philip Ashton—a nineteen-year-old fisherman captured by pirates, impressed as a crewman, subjected to torture and hardship, who eventually escaped and lived as a castaway and scavenger on a deserted island in the Caribbean—was at one time as well known as the tales of Cooper, Hawthorne, and Defoe. Based on a rare copy of Ashton’s 1725 account, Gregory N. Flemming’s vivid portrait recounts this maritime world during the golden age of piracy. Fishing vessels and merchantmen plied the coastal waters and crisscrossed the Atlantic and Caribbean. It was a hard, dangerous life, made more so by both the depredations and temptations of piracy. Chased by the British Royal Navy, blown out of the water or summarily hung when caught, pirate captains such as Edward Low kidnapped, cajoled, beat, and bribed men like Ashton into the rich—but also vile, brutal, and often short—life of the pirate. In the tradition of Nathaniel Philbrick, At the Point of a Cutlass expands on a lost classic narrative of America and the sea, and brings to life a forgotten world of ships and men on both sides of maritime law.
[more]

front cover of The Best World War I Story I Know
The Best World War I Story I Know
On the Point in the Argonne, September 26–October 16, 1918
Nimrod T. Frazer
University of Alabama Press, 2018
An astonishing account of fortitude and bravery in World War I

The Best World War I Story I Know: On the Point in the Argonne is the breath-taking story of three US Army divisions tasked with capturing the Côte de Châtillon during the Meuse-Argonne offensive in autumn 1918. Readers will first follow in the footsteps of Missouri-Kansas Guard troops who were repulsed in the opening days of the battle; their courage in the face of heavy fire was not enough to overcome poor leadership.

They were replaced by the 1st Division, the “best of the Regular Army.”  This fine unit became physically and mentally exhausted after suffering  horrendous casualties. Unable to fight on, “The Big Red One” was exchanged at the base of Côte de Châtillon, with the 42nd, the Rainbow Division. It too struggled to gain ground on the heavily-contested hill until General Douglas MacArthur’s determined 84th Brigade of “Alabama cotton pickers and Iowa corn growers” forced their way past the Germans. The Côte was finally in American hands and the war all but over.
[more]

front cover of City At The Point
City At The Point
Essays on the Social History of Pittsburgh
Samuel P. Hays
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991

An overview of scholarly research, both published and previously unpublished, on the history of a city that has often served as a case study for measuring social change. It synthesizes the literature and assesses how that knowledge relates to our broader understanding of the processes of urbanization and urbanism.

This book is especially useful for undergraduate and graduate courses on environmental politics and policy making, or as a supplement for courses on public policy making generally.

[more]

front cover of Climate Change
Climate Change
The Point of No Return
Mojib Latif
Haus Publishing, 2009
There is no doubt: climate change is happening, and mankind is increasingly to blame. Climate Change: The Point of No Return provides a solid basis for the current discussion about climate change, by addressing the arguments from both sides of the debate and offering an objective evaluation of the facts. Using the latest scientific information about the causes of the global climate change, Professor Latif presents the likely scenario that will face us if we don't dedicate ourselves to a course of sustainable development, and offers concrete options for action.
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Doubling the Point
Essays and Interviews
J. M. Coetzee
Harvard University Press, 1992

Nadine Gordimer has written of J. M. Coetzee that his ‘vision goes to the nerve-centre of being. What he finds there is more than most people will ever know about themselves, and he conveys it with a brilliant writer’s mastery of tension and elegance.’ Doubling the Point takes us to the center of that vision. These essays and interviews, documenting Coetzee’s longtime engagement with his own culture, and with modern culture in general, constitute a literary autobiography of striking intellectual, moral, and political force.

Centrally concerned with the form and content of fiction. Doubling the Point provides rigorous insight into the significance of certain writers (particularly modernists such as Kafka, Musil, and Beckett), the value of intellectual movements (from structuralism and structural linguistics on through deconstruction), and the issues of political involvement and responsibility—not only for Coetzee’s own work, but for fiction writing in general. In interviews prefacing each section of the book, Coetzee reflects on the essays to follow and relates them to his life and work. In these interviews editor David Attwell, remarkably well attuned to his subject, prompts from Coetzee answers of extraordinary depth and interest.

The result is the story of a fiction writer’s intellectual development, and of an intellectual’s literary development. It is the story of how one writer has moved through the scholarly and political trends of the last thirty years, carefully assessing their applications and limitations, and through this experience forged for himself a unique and powerful literary voice informed in equal parts by life and learning.

[more]

front cover of Excavations at Nantack Village, Point of Pines, Arizona
Excavations at Nantack Village, Point of Pines, Arizona
David A. Breternitz
University of Arizona Press, 1959
The Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona is a peer-reviewed monograph series sponsored by the School of Anthropology. Established in 1959, the series publishes archaeological and ethnographic papers that use contemporary method and theory to investigate problems of anthropological importance in the southwestern United States, Mexico, and related areas.
[more]

front cover of From Point to Pixel
From Point to Pixel
A Genealogy of Digital Aesthetics
Meredith Hoy
Dartmouth College Press, 2017
In this fiercely ambitious study, Meredith Anne Hoy seeks to reestablish the very definitions of digital art and aesthetics in art history. She begins by problematizing the notion of digital aesthetics, tracing the nineteenth- and twentieth-century movements that sought to break art down into its constituent elements, which in many ways predicted and paved the way for our acceptance of digital art. Through a series of case studies, Hoy questions the separation between analog and digital art and finds that while there may be sensual and experiential differences, they fall within the same technological categories. She also discusses computational art, in which the sole act of creation is the building of a self-generating algorithm. The medium isn’t the message—what really matters is the degree to which the viewer can sense a creative hand in the art.
[more]

front cover of Point of Pines
Point of Pines
A History of the University of Arizona Archaeological Field School
Emil W. Haury
University of Arizona Press, 1989
Recalls education and daily life at Point of Pines field school and also provides the background for the scientific papers that have resulted from the research that was undertaken there. Appendixes list contributions to Point of Pines archaeology, staff members and students, and institutions represented by attendees.
[more]

front cover of Point of Pines Pueblo
Point of Pines Pueblo
A Mountain Mogollon Aggregated Community
Tammy Stone
University of Utah Press, 2020

University of Utah Anthropological Papers No. 133

Point of Pines Pueblo has long been the center of theoretical debates in southwestern archaeology, yet detailed descriptions of the site have been lacking. Located on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in central Arizona, this large Mountain Mogollon village (about 800 rooms) dates from AD 1200 to 1400. For the first 100 years of occupation it was a multiethnic community and is often referenced in discussions of aggregation, community organization, migration, and ethnic interaction. In Point of Pines Pueblo Tammy Stone details the architectural structures and cultural materials at the site, providing a body of information never before published.

From 1947 to 1960, Point of Pines Pueblo was excavated by the University of Arizona field school under the direction of Emil Haury. Data from that work were housed at the Arizona State Museum Archives. Stone draws from those original excavation notes to present detailed descriptions of each architectural structure and extramural feature along with information on the associated artifacts, dated dendrochronology samples, and ethnobotanical samples unearthed at the site. A rich source of raw data, this book will serve as a valuable resource for years to come. 

[more]

front cover of Point of Reckoning
Point of Reckoning
The Fight for Racial Justice at Duke University
Theodore D. Segal
Duke University Press, 2021
On the morning of February 13, 1969, members of Duke University's Afro-American Society barricaded themselves inside the Allen administration building. That evening, police were summoned to clear the building, firing tear gas at students in the melee that followed. When it was over, nearly twenty people were taken to the hospital, and many more injured. In Point of Reckoning, Theodore D. Segal narrates the contested fight for racial justice at Duke from the enrollment of the first Black undergraduates in 1963 to the events that led to the Allen Building takeover and beyond. Segal shows that Duke's first Black students quickly recognized that the university was unwilling to acknowledge their presence or fully address its segregationist past. By exposing the tortuous dynamics that played out as racial progress stalled at Duke, Segal tells both a local and national story about the challenges that historically white colleges and universities throughout the country have faced and continue to face.
[more]

front cover of Point of Sale
Point of Sale
Analyzing Media Retail
Daniel Herbert
Rutgers University Press, 2020
Point of Sale offers the first significant attempt to center media retail as a vital component in the study of popular culture.  It brings together fifteen essays by top media scholars with their fingers on the pulse of both the changes that foreground retail in a digital age and the history that has made retail a fundamental part of the culture industries.  The book reveals why retail matters as a site of transactional significance to industries as well as a crucial locus of meaning and interactional participation for consumers. In addition to examining how industries connect books, DVDs, video games, lifestyle products, toys, and more to consumers, it also interrogates the changes in media circulation driven by the collision of digital platforms with existing retail institutions.  By grappling with the contexts in which we buy media, Point of Sale uncovers the underlying tensions that define the contemporary culture industries. 
 
[more]

front cover of The Point of the Needle
The Point of the Needle
Why Sewing Matters
Barbara Burman
Reaktion Books, 2023
From the pleasures of mending to the problems of fast fashion, an intimate look at the creativity, community, and deep meaning sewed into every stitch.
 
Tens of millions of people sew for necessity or pleasure every day, yet the craft is surprisingly under-appreciated. The Point of the Needle redresses the balance: this is a book that argues for sewing’s place in our lives. It celebrates not only sewing’s recent resurgence but sewists’ creativity, well-being, and community. Barbara Burman chronicles new voices of people who sew today, by hand or machine, to explore what they sew, what motivates them, what they value, and why they mend things, revealing insights into sewing’s more intimate stories. In our age of superfast fashion with its environmental and social injustices, this eloquent book makes a passionate case for identity, diversity, resilience, and memory—what people create for themselves as they stitch and make.
[more]

front cover of Point of View and the Emotional Arc of Stories
Point of View and the Emotional Arc of Stories
A handbook for writers and storytellers
Loren Niemi & Nancy Donoval
Parkhurst Brothers, Inc., 2020
A creative writing manual for high school to adult aged writers and storytellers, this volume includes the authors' philosophy regarding story creation and pointers especially related to the variety of choices regarding point of view available to writers and other story-creators or refiners.
[more]

front cover of Point of View
Point of View
Talks on Education
Edward H. Levi
University of Chicago Press, 1970
Edward H. Levi served the University of Chicago for most of his professional life, as a professor, dean of the law school, provost, and eventually president. Gathered here are fourteen talks he delivered between 1963 and 1969 that include such topics as the role of the university; the purposes of undergraduate and liberal education, professional training, and graduate research; the relations between the university and its surroundings; and the causes of student unrest. Throughout these talks, the reader will find expressions of Levi’s essential belief that “the university must stand for reason and for persuasion by reasoning.”
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
The Point of Words
Children’s Understanding of Metaphor and Irony
Ellen Winner
Harvard University Press

A small child looks at a dripping faucet and says that it is drooling." Another calls a centipede a "comb." An older child notices the mess in his younger brother's room and says, "Wow, it sure is neat in here." Children's spontaneous speech is rich in such creative, nonliteral discourse. How do children's abilities to use and interpret figurative language change as they grow older? What does such language show us about the changing features of children's minds?

In this absorbing book, psychologist Ellen Winner examines the development of the child's ability to use and understand metaphor and irony. These, she argues, are the two major forms of figurative language and are, moreover, complementary. Metaphor, which describes and sometimes explains, highlights attributes of a topic. As such, it serves primarily a cognitive function. Irony highlights the speaker's attitude toward the subject arid presupposes an appreciation of that attitude by the listener. In contrast to metaphor, irony serves primarily a social function. Winner looks in detail at the ways these forms of language differ structurally and at the cognitive and social capacities required for each.

The book not only draws on the author's own empirical studies but also offers a valuable synthesis of research in the area: it is the first account that spans the realm of figurative language. Winner writes clearly and engagingly and enlivens her account with many vivid examples from children's speech. The book will appeal to developmental psychologists, educators, psychologists of language, early-language specialists, students of literature, indeed, anyone who is delighted by the fanciful utterances of young children.

[more]

front cover of Surveying in Early America
Surveying in Early America
The Point of Beginning, An Illustrated History
Dan Patterson and Clinton Terry
University of Cincinnati Press, 2020
Living history is one of the most popular, and accessible ways for people of all ages to step back in time. From Colonial Williamsburg, to Mount Vernon, to signs along roadways identifying George Washington stopping points, living history continues to be an accessible way to learn about cultural, historical and political practice in early America.
 
In Surveying Early America: The Point of Beginning, An Illustrated History, award-winning photographer Dan Patterson and American historian Clinton Terry vividly and succinctly unpack the profession of surveying during the eighteenth century. Over 100 full color photographs exclusively shot for the book depict authentic and historically accurate reproductions of techniques and tools through the use of American reenactors from the Department of Geographer, which provide an interpretive look at surveying as a primary means to building the American nation.
 
Through the lens of Patterson’s camera and Terry’s narrative, readers see what Washington saw as he learned his trade, explored the vast American wilderness, and occasionally laid personal claim to great expanses of land. Readers are visually and intellectually immersed in the historically accurate details of the surveying practices of George Washington, Virginia’s first surveyor and his team.
 
Step-by-step, readers learn how early America, in particular the east to the Ohio River Valley was initially divided and documented. Terry characterizes both the profession and methods of land measurement and surveying in British colonial North America—techniques that did not substantially change until the invention of GPS technology 200 years later. Along the way Terry details the various tools of the trade early surveyors used.
 
Photographer Dan Patterson, working with the Department of the Geographer, restages Washington’s actual expeditions during his time with the Geographers to the Army, the technical staff department consisting of American and French soldiers, whose work in the field supported the Continental Army. Patterson brilliantly displays the processes and instruments Washington used 260 years ago.

Together Ohio based photographer and author team up to create a single story, expanding the understanding of primary source material for general readers and those with a passion for early American history.
 
[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter