In his last days, as in his extraordinarily fruitful life, Leo Tolstoy searched for truth. Fleeing his home in 1910 at the age of eighty-two, resentful of the turmoil he believed his wife had caused him, progressively weak and sick, he... Read More

Fernande Olivier, known mostly for being Picasso’s first major lover from 1905 until 1912, was a central figure in the Parisian art world of the early twentieth century. This version of her journal is everything an illustrated book can... Read More

Holt takes on a huge task in a slim volume, attempting to place the conundrum of race in the context of a new century. Starting with the natural jumping-off point of W. E. B. DuBois’ prediction (1903) that the problem of the twentieth... Read More

Double features at the Rialto. Teenage rites of passage at the local drive-in. Taking children to revivals of old favorites. The movies have been a staple of American leisure for generations. Stempel, a professor of film studies, has... Read More

Most people know little about John Muir. A good beginning place to remedy that is this compelling look at a complex man of contradictions, great strength of character, and an endless love of nature. Muir, Scottish by birth, spent his... Read More

Exploding traditional stereotypes, the Chinese Americans in Leong’s collection of short stories rarely see the inside of a university, let alone become computer geniuses. In the fourteen stories contained in Phoenix Eyes, Leong... Read More

“We thank Thee, O God, for all the goodness and courage which have passed from the life of thy servant, Walter Perry Chrysler, into the lives of others, and have left the world richer for his presence,” said Reverend Underwood on... Read More

Before Richard Nixon, Herbert Hoover was the president that Americans loved to hate. Clements, an environmental historian at the University of South Carolina, demonstrates that Hoover’s failed conservation policies during the... Read More