Written by his law partner, this portrait of Lincoln focuses on his years as an Illinois lawyer.

While Puccini wrote only twelve operas during a long life--three of them one-acters designed to be performed together--he has to be ranked today as the world's most popular composer of opera. His La Boheme and Tosca are more frequently performed in the major opera houses than works by other composers, and Madame Butterfly and Manon Lescaut rank not far behind. What is the explanation for Puccini's enormous success? How do his operas work as music and drama? What was he like to contemporaries such as Verdi, Toscanini, and Caruso? Charles Osborne, author of highly...

Acclaimed through three editions for its uniquely informative and entertaining style, this fourth edition of Stanley Green's World of Musical Comedy updates and enlarges the theatrical scope to include such recent shows as A Chorus Line, Barnum, They're Playing Our Song, and Annie. In a format that provides biographies of all the leading figures in the musical's development, Stanley Green manages to convey the spirit of the Broadway stage, its musical make-believe, and yet remain objective about the creative swings in its history and the careers of its individual...

When Jackie Robinson was penciled into the lineup for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, America's national pastime and America's future changed forever. How much is reflected in a remark Martin Luther King Jr. made to Don Newcombe: "You'll never know what you and Jackie and Roy did to make it possible to do my job." Red Barber was perfectly situated to observe this drama. Broadcaster for the Dodgers, friend of Branch Rickey--who confided in him before and during the year of decision--and keen student of the game and the behavior of its players, Red held the microphone as the story unfolded with a...

It would be no exaggeration to call Charles Mingus the greatest bass player in the history of jazz; indeed, some might even regard it as understatement, for the hurricane power of his work as a composer, teacher, band leader, and iconoclast reached far beyond jazz while remaining true to its heritage in the music of Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk. In this new biography Brian Priestley has written a masterly study of Mingus's dynamic career from the early years in Swing, to the escapades of the Bebop era, through his musical maturity in the '50s when he directed a band...

Karl Geiringer's biography of Brahms is generally regarded as the finest study of the composer ever published in any language. It is based upon the great body of material in the archives of the Viennese Society of Friends, for which Dr. Geiringer was curator from 1930-1938, and which contains more than a thousand letters written by and to Brahms. These letters, exchanged with family and with his famous contemporaries, reveal his loneliness, grim humor, loyalty, painful shyness, and enthusiasm for the music of Beethoven and Schubert--moods that the self-effacing composer did not publicly...

This is the first study of the military tactics employed by the Plains Indians and the U.S. Army in their long war for the American frontier. The Indian Wars were sloppily fought, horribly mis-matched, absurdly wasteful; commanders hunted the Sioux to the accompaniment of brass bands--this apparently to raise troop morale--and reckless charges were more highly rewarded than getting the scouts out, checking communications, or maintaining supply lines.

Theodore Roosevelt's writing has the same verve, panache, and energy as the life he lived. Perhaps no president in U.S. history--not even Jefferson--had so many opinions and intellectual interests, believed in so many causes, or worked so hard to translate his beliefs into action. A hard-headed idealist, an unabashed interventionist, a crusader on behalf of environmental preservation and against big business "trusts," he was also a writer of uncommon grace and passion with a gift for the memorable phrase. His autobiography, one of the two or three finest ever written by a U.S. president,...

The late Count Basie is one of the jazz immortals. The master of swing, whose beat was the subtlest and supplest of all the bandleaders, Basie featured some of the great soloists in jazz history while he sat unobtrusively at the piano, keeping time with his unmatched rhythm section, showing off the surging power of his brass players, and commenting wittily with a single chord or phrase. A man and musician of reserve and modesty, Basie nonetheless will always be a landmark for his won achievements and for the jazz musicians who passed through his band. In this sociable and pioneering oral...

This pioneering study documents the birth of soul music in America during the 1950s and '60s when, in response to the black community's new self-awareness and pride, musicians such as James Brown, The Impressions, Wilson Pickett, King Curtis, Stevie Wonder, and others were discovering in the urban blues, gospel, and r&b a new sound--soul--that expressed fresh musical and social ideals.