Alexis de Tocqueville is more quoted than read; commentators across the political spectrum invoke him as an oracle who defined America and its democracy for all times. But in fact his masterpiece, Democracy in America, was the product of a young man's open-minded experience of America at a time of rapid change. In Tocqueville's Discovery of America, the prizewinning biographer Leo Damrosch retraces Tocqueville's nine-month journey through the young nation in 1831-32, illuminating how his enduring ideas were born of imaginative interchange with America and Americans, and...
Alexis de Tocqueville is more quoted than read; commentators across the political spectrum invoke him as an oracle who defined America and its demo...
In this richly illustrated portrait, a prize-winning biographer surveys the entire sweep of William Blake's creative work while telling the story of his life
William Blake, overlooked in his time, remains an enigmatic figure to contemporary readers despite his near canonical status. Out of a wounding sense of alienation and dividedness he created a profoundly original symbolic language, in which words and images unite in a unique interpretation of self and society. He was a counterculture prophet whose art still challenges us to think afresh about almost every aspect of...
In this richly illustrated portrait, a prize-winning biographer surveys the entire sweep of William Blake's creative work while telling the story o...
In October 1656 James Nayler, a prominent Quaker leader--second only to George Fox in the nascent movement--rode into Bristol surrounded by followers singing hosannas in deliberate imitation of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. In Leo Damrosch's trenchant reading this incident and the extraordinary outrage it ignited shed new light on Cromwell's England and on religious thought and spirituality in a turbulent period.
Damrosch gives a clear picture of the origins and early development of the Quaker movement, elucidating the intellectual foundations of Quaker theology. A number...
In October 1656 James Nayler, a prominent Quaker leader--second only to George Fox in the nascent movement--rode into Bristol surrounded by follow...
From a master biographer and leading scholar of eighteenth-century literature comes an award-winning new portrait of the greatest satirist in the English language Jonathan Swift is best remembered today as the author of Gulliver's Travels, the satiric fantasy that quickly became a classic and has remained in print for nearly three centuries. Yet Swift also wrote many other influential works, was a major political and religious figure in his time, and became a national hero, beloved for his fierce protest against English exploitation of his native Ireland. What is really...
From a master biographer and leading scholar of eighteenth-century literature comes an award-winning new portrait of the greatest satirist in the E...
