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The Time Ship: A Chrononautical Journey by Enrique Gaspar. Middletown. 2012. Wesleyan University Press. 9780819572936. Translated and introduced by Yolanda Molina-Gavilán and Andrea L. Bell. Early Classics of Science Fiction. 52 illus. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2". 240 pages . paperback.

9780819572936 DESCRIPTION - “…[The Time Ship] inaugurates one of science fiction’s most potent subgenres, and for this alone, it deserves to be remembered and honored. Moreover, the period illustrations by Francesc Soler are exceptionally charming. ”—Michael Dirda, The Washington Post. Globe-trotting scientists pursue immortality and love in the world’s first time machine. H. G. Wells wasn’t the only nineteenth-century writer to dream of a time machine. The Spanish playwright Enrique Gaspar published El anacronópete—“He who flies against time”—eight years before Wells’s influential work appeared. The novel begins at the 1878 Paris Exposition, where Dr. Don Sindulfo unveils his new invention—which looks like a giant sailing vessel. Soon the doctor embarks on a voyage back in time, accompanied by a motley crew of French prostitutes and Spanish soldiers. The purpose of his expedition is to track down the imprisoned wife of a third-century Chinese emperor, believed to possess the secret to immortality. A classic tale of obsession, high adventure, and star-crossed love, The Time Ship includes intricately drawn illustrations from the original 1887 edition, and a critical introduction that argues persuasively for The Time Ship’s historical importance to science fiction and world literature. Reviews: “…a jolly romp with considerable humour and sly digs at both Spanish and French pretensions. ” —Nick Caistor, Times Literary Supplement. “As the first English Translation of this humorous and important work, this book belongs on the shelf along with more famous works of science fiction from the late 19th century, as a reminder of the contributions of less-known but still important Spanish writers to this genre. Recommended”—P. J. Kurtz, Choice. “This is a lovely little slice of genre history. …The Time Ship makes for an entertaining—and in places gleefully subversive—read. Thanks are due to Wesleyan University Press for supporting its publication, and to all involved for bringing it back to light for modern SF fans. ”—Nic Clarke, Strange Horizons. Endorsements: “What an amazing discovery! A time machine before H. G. Wells, and lively and witty romps through history before Doctor Who. Add Enrique Gaspar to the list of inventors of science fiction, and place him high. ”—Andy Sawyer, Science Fiction Foundation Collection, University of Liverpool Library. “Gaspar’s novel takes us back to science fiction’s infancy, when emotion and intelligence were enough to evoke a sense of wonder, creating pure adventure without needing to resort to rivers of blood or extreme violence. Reading it is a surprising experience as well because, though almost 125 years old, The Time Ship proves that many of the themes we think of as current were already a concern to our great-grandparents. ”—Daína Chaviano, author of The Island of Eternal Love.

Gaspar Enrique AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Enrique Lucio Eugenio Gaspar y Rimbau (2 March 1842 in Madrid – 7 September 1902 in Oloron) was a Spanish diplomat and writer, who wrote many plays (zarzuelas), and one of the first novels involving time travel with a time machine, El anacronópete. Enrique Gaspar y Rimbau was born to parents who were well known actors. Upon the death of his father, Juan, he moved to Valencia with his mother and two siblings. He studied humanities and philosophy, though he never finished his studies, leaving to work in the commercial bank of the marqués of San Juan. He had already written his first zarzuela by the age of 13, and at 14 he was writer at the La Ilustración Valenciana. When he was 15 his mother put on a performance of his first comedy. He moved to Madrid when he was 21 to dedicate himself to writing. His peak years as a writer were 1868 to 1875, when he wrote operas for the consumption of the bourgeoisie rather than the aristocracy. During this time, he also wrote historical dramas, and he became a pioneer of social theatre in Spain. He had huge success for his comedies, but his real passion was social commentary, promoting the education of women and meaningful marriage. These plays were less successful because they were before their time. When he was 23, Gaspar y Rimbau married Enriqueta Batllés y Bertán de Lis, a beautiful aristocrat, to the displeasure of her parents. After the birth of their second child, he entered the diplomatic corps, at the age of 27. He spent time in Greece and France, then Madrid, and eventually served as consul in China, first in Macau, and then in Hong Kong. During this time, he continued to write and mount operas, in addition to writing for El Diario de Manila. Upon his return to Europe, he moved to Oloron, in the South of France, though his family lived in Barcelona, where he put on an opera in Catalan. Later, he lived in various locations in the south of France. His wife died in Marseille, where he was consul. In poor health himself, he retired to Oloron with his daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren. He died there in 1902 at the age of 60. YOLANDA MOLINA-GAVILÁN is a professor of Spanish at Eckerd College. ANDREA L. BELL is a professor of Spanish and Latin American studies at Hamline University. Molina-Gavilán and Bell are the coeditors of Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain.

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Kindred by Octavia Butler. New York. 1979. Doubleday. 0385150598. 264 pages. hardcover.

kindred doubleday 1979 DESCRIPTION - Kindred (1979) is a novel by American writer Octavia E. Butler that incorporates time travel and is modeled on slave narratives. Widely popular, it has frequently been chosen as a text by community-wide reading programs and book organizations, and for high school and college courses. The book is the first-person account of a young African-American writer, Dana, who is repeatedly transported in time between her Los Angeles, California home in 1976 with her white husband and an early 19th-century Maryland plantation just outside Easton. There she meets some of her ancestors: a proud, free Black woman and a white planter who forces her into slavery and concubinage. As Dana stays for longer periods in the past, she becomes intimately entangled with the plantation community. Dana makes hard choices to survive slavery and to ensure her return to her own time. Kindred explores the dynamics and dilemmas of antebellum slavery from the sensibility of a late 20th-century Black woman, who is aware of its legacy in contemporary American society. Through the two interracial couples who form the emotional core of the story, the novel also explores the intersection of power, gender, and race issues, and speculates on the prospects of future egalitarianism. While most of Butler's work is classified as science fiction, Kindred crosses genre boundaries and is also classified as African-American literature. Butler categorized the work as "a kind of grim fantasy."

Butler Octavia AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 - February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction writer. A recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, Butler was one of the best-known African-American women in the field. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Fellowship nicknamed the Genius Grant. Butler was born and raised in Pasadena, California. Since her father Laurice, a shoeshiner, died when she was a baby, Butler was raised by her grandmother and her mother (Octavia M. Butler), who worked as a maid in order to support the family. Butler grew up in a struggling, racially mixed neighborhood. According to the Norton Anthology of African American Literature, Butler was ‘an introspective, only child in a strict Baptist household' and ‘was drawn early to [science fiction] magazines such as Amazing, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Galaxy and soon began reading all the science fiction classics.' Octavia Jr., nicknamed Junie, was paralytically shy and a daydreamer, and was later diagnosed as being dyslexic. She began writing at the age of 10 ‘to escape loneliness and boredom'; she was 12 when she began a lifelong interest in science fiction. ‘I was writing my own little stories and when I was 12, I was watching a bad science fiction movie called Devil Girl from Mars,' she told the journal Black Scholar, ‘and decided that I could write a better story than that. And I turned off the TV and proceeded to try, and I've been writing science fiction ever since.'

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The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. New York. 2001. Penguin Books. 9780141185415. Introduction by Barry Langford. PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS. 256 pages. paperback.

9780141185415 DESCRIPTION - When Bill Masen wakes up blindfolded in hospital there is a bitter irony in his situation. Carefully removing his bandages, he realizes that he is the only person who can see: everyone else, doctors and patients alike, have been blinded by a meteor shower. Now, with civilization in chaos, the triffids - huge, venomous, large-rooted plants able to 'walk', feeding on human flesh - can have their day. The Day of the Triffids, published in 1951, expresses many of the political concerns of its time: the Cold War, the fear of biological experimentation and the man-made apocalypse. However, with its terrifyingly believable insights into the genetic modification of plants, the book is more relevant today than ever before. John Wyndham was born in 1903. After a wide experience of the English preparatory school he was at Bedales from 1918 to 1921. Careers which he tried included farming, law, commercial art, and advertising, and he first started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. During the war he was in the Civil Service and afterwards in the Army. In 1946 he began writing his major science fiction novels including "The Kraken Wakes", "The Chrysalids" and "The Midwich Cuckoos".

Wyndham John AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Wyndham was born in 1903 in the Midlands. After leaving school, he tried his hand at several careers, including farming, law and advertising, before starting to write stories in 1925. During the war he worked as a censor in the Ministry of Information and afterwards served in the Army. The Day of The Triffids was published in 1951, and was followed by many other famous works of science fiction, including The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos. Wyndham died in 1969.

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Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson. New York. 1998. Warner Books/Aspect. 0446674338. Paperback Original. 250 pages. paperback. Cover Illustration by Linda Messier.

0446674338 DESCRIPTION - The rich and the privileged have fled the city, barricaded it behind roadblocks, and left it to crumble. The inner city has had to rediscover old ways - farming, barter, herb lore. But now the monied need a harvest of bodies, and so they prey upon the helpless of the streets. With nowhere to turn, a young woman must open herself to ancient truths, eternal powers, the tragic mystery surrounding her mother and grandmother. She must bargain with gods, and give birth to new legends. Nalo Hopkinson is a novelist whose life ranges over a hemisphere, and whose experience encompasses enduring traditions of word and story, whose voice authentically reaches to those who are aliens in their own lands, and whose vision touches the essence of history, society, science fiction, and myth.

Hopkinson Nalo AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - NALO HOPKINSON was born on December 20, 1960 in Jamaica and grew up in Guyana, Trinidad, and Canada. The daughter of a poet/playwright and a library technician, she has won the Ontario Arts Council Foundation Award for Emerging Writers, and her most recent book, the award-winning short fiction collection SKIN FOLK, was selected in 2002 for the New York Times Summer Reading List and was one of the New York Times Best Books of the Year. She is also the author of BROWN GIRL IN THE RING and MIDNIGHT ROBBER and editor of MOJO: CONJURE STORIES. Hopkinson lives in Toronto.

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Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor. New York. 2021. Tordotcom. 9781250772800. 159 pages. hardcover. Jacket art by Greg Ruth. Jacket design by Christine Foltzer.

9781250772800 DESCRIPTION - An alien artifact turns a young girl into Death's adopted daughter in Remote Control, a thrilling sci-fi tale of community and female empowerment from Nebula and Hugo Award-winner Nnedi Okorafor. “She’s the adopted daughter of the Angel of Death. Beware of her. Mind her. Death guards her like one of its own.” The day Fatima forgot her name, Death paid a visit. From hereon in she would be known as Sankofa - a name that meant nothing to anyone but her, the only tie to her family and her past. Her touch is death, and with a glance a town can fall. And she walks - alone, except for her fox companion - searching for the object that came from the sky and gave itself to her when the meteors fell and when she was yet unchanged; searching for answers. But is there a greater purpose for Sankofa, now that Death is her constant companion?

Okorafor Nnedi Nnedi Okorafor was born in the United States to two Igbo (Nigerian) immigrant parents. She holds a PhD in English and was a professor of creative writing at Chicago State University. She has been the winner of many awards for her short stories and young adult books, and won a World Fantasy Award for Who Fears Death. Nnedi's books are inspired by her Nigerian heritage and her many trips to Africa.

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Strange Things Happen Here: 26 Short Stories and a Novel by Luisa Valenzuela. New York. 1979. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 0151857822. Translated from the Spanish by Helen Lane. 220 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Bascove. Type design by Paul Gamarello.

0151857822 DESCRIPTION - In this second book of fiction Luisa Valenzuela propels the reader on a shattering journey from the cafes of Buenos Aires to a house of prostitution in Barcelona, from the sinister corridors of the Ministry of the Interior to a lonely table of torture. Here is modern Argentina - the site of strange happenings - absurd violence, political repression, bizarre personal relationships. In Valenzuela's world the extraordinary marks the normal course of events. Children are murderers and psychiatrists are transvestites and celery munchers are criminals. Bombs are hidden in briefcases but they never explode, the bodies of lovers serve as maps of the city, neighborly offerings of food disguise the smell of burning flesh, mirrors reflect masked images. Innocence and evil are exquisitely united. Political repression assumes the form of sexual curiosity delirium inspires myth, victims are more powerful than their tormentors. Like the aborted child in ‘He Who Searches' Valenzuela's products, her creatures, have neither name nor sex nor line of conduct. There is comedy in Liliana's shotgun wedding to the cross-eyed Nicolás, there is tragedy in the murder of a harmless old man, and finally there is hope in a single thistle springing from acres of rock, in a writer who slowly and painfully types at night to record the history of her people. ‘There is true brilliance, there is true love, there is true freedom and liberty in each one of her pages' - Julio Cortázar . . . ‘Valenzuela's are the best stories to come out of Latin America in some time. Her style is original, her dialogue superb' - Gregory Rabassa.

Valenzuela Luisa

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Luisa Valenzuela (born November 26, 1938, in Buenos Aires, Argentina) is a post-'Boom' novelist and short story writer. Her writing is characterized by an experimental, avant-garde style which questions hierarchical social structures from a feminist perspective. She is best known for her work written in response to the dictatorship of the 1970s in Argentina. Works such as Como en la guerra (1977), Cambio de armas (1982) and Cola de lagartija (1983) combine a powerful critique of dictatorship with an examination of patriarchal forms of social organization and the power structures which inhere in human sexuality and gender relationships.

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Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany. New York. 1966. Ace Books. Ace Double Edition - Packaged With THE TREE LORD OF IMETEN by Tom Purdom. 102 pages. paperback. M-139. Cover art by Jack Gaughan.

empire star m 139 DESCRIPTION - EMPIRE STAR - On the infinity route . . . Comet Jo had a body that was brown and slim and looked like a cat's, and on his left hand were sharp brass claws with which he had already killed three wild kepards and a boy his own age. He also had a propensity for wandering, and this was to lead him on an adventure spanning uncounted light-years of space and incalculable spans of time, to free a race of beings upon whom the civilization of the stars depended. Along the way he would meet: the strange multiplex consciousness called Jewell; the beautiful, soul-burdened space traveler San Severina; a creature known as the Lump, who was half-alien, half-machine; Ni Ty Lee, the suicidal ppoet of the stars, who lived everyone's life but his own; a young princess of the Galactic Empire, fresh from Miss Perrypicker's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies. . . And finally he would meet - himself. A thousand times, or perhaps more. . . THE TREE LORD OF IMETEN - Delta Pavonis II . . . far from the sphere of Earth-colonized worlds where a tiny human colony kept a miserable toehold alone on a high plateau of that unexplored planet. Delta Pavonis II . . . where two people, Harold and Joanne, were driven from the colony, unarmed, into the terrors of the unknown jungle. Delta Pavonis II . . . where two intelligent races fought a bitter no-holds-barred battle in which the human intruders proved to be the decisive factor that would throw the world to one species or the other! Tom Purdom's THE TREE LORD OF IMETEN is a saga of high adventure and scientific ingenuity.

Delany Samuel R Samuel Ray Delany, Jr., also known as ‘Chip’, is an American author, professor and literary critic. His work includes a number of novels, many in the science fiction genre, as well as memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society. His science fiction novels include BABEL-17, THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967 respectively), NOVA, DHALGREN, and the RETURN TO NEVÈRŸON series. After winning four Nebula awards and two Hugo awards over the course of his career, Delany was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2002. Between 1988 and 1999 he was a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Between 1999 and 2000 he was a professor of English at SUNY Buffalo. Since January 2001 he has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he is Director of the Graduate Creative Writing Program.

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Triton by Samuel R. Delany. New York. 1976. Bantam Books. 370 pages. paperback. Y2567.

bantam triton y2567 DESCRIPTION - Interplanetary war. Capture and escape. Diplomatic intrigues that topple worlds. All the color, invention and romance of classic science fiction in a futuristic novel for today. TROUBLE ON TRITON. The human race has colonized the outer satellites. One of them is Triton, moon of Neptune, where the ideals of universal prosperity are possible, Yet Earth threatens war. Within this strange climate of complete utopia and certain doom, BRON HELSTROM seeks passion and purpose in a gypsy woman whose wisdom and power will forever reverse his life. THE SPIKE: The woman he loves - a wandering playwright ganymede. SAM: The man he admires - the handsome, astute chief foreign officer crippled by the responsibility of vast power. LAWRENCE: His confessor - the master of strategic games. CHARO and WINDY: The players - cosmic minstrels of the far future.

Samuel Ray Delany, Jr., also known as ‘Chip’, is an American author, professor and literary critic. His work includes a number of novels, many in the science fiction genre, as well as memoir, criticism, and essays on sexuality and society. His science fiction novels include BABEL-17, THE EINSTEIN INTERSECTION (winners of the Nebula Award for 1966 and 1967 respectively), NOVA, DHALGREN, and the RETURN TO NEVÈRŸON series. After winning four Nebula awards and two Hugo awards over the course of his career, Delany was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2002. Between 1988 and 1999 he was a professor of comparative literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Between 1999 and 2000 he was a professor of English at SUNY Buffalo. Since January 2001 he has been a professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he is Director of the Graduate Creative Writing Program.

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Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany. New York. 1975. Bantam Books. Paperback Original. 880 pages. paperback. Y8554.

bantam dhalgren y8554 DESCRIPTION - THE SUN HAS GROWN DEADLY. . . The world has gone mad, society has perished, savagery rules over all. All that was known is over, all that was familiar is strange and terrible. Today and yesterday collide with tomorrow. In these dying days of earth, a young drifter enters the city. When this richly written novel first appeared in 1975, Samuel R. Delany began to sweep up what would eventually exceed a million readers with his tale of Bellona, a city at the center of the United States, shaken by a catastrophe that has unhinged the very structure of reality. Skies darkened by smoke from burning buildings, population reduced to youth gangs, drifters, prophets, and perverts, Bellona is a city where a young man known only as the Kid - poet, lover, and finally a leader of the volatile "scorpions" - tries to create a life for himself and those around him in a landscape where two moons can suddenly shine through the night clouds or a sun thousands of times larger than any ever seen before may rise - and set - in a day. Dhalgren is a novel that interrogates a range of inchoately American oppositions: black and white, male and female, gay and straight, sane and mad.

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The Lizard's Smile by Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro. New York. 1994. Atheneum. 0689121253. Translated from the Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers. 357 pages. hardcover. Jacket illustration by Marc Burckhardt. Jacket design by Mary Schuck.

0689121253 DESCRIPTION - THE LIZARD'S SMILE is the first novel in five years from the internationally acclaimed Brazilian novelist João Ubaldo Ribeiro. A best-seller in his native land, it is a suspenseful, spirited, and very funny novel about a truly serious subject-the hazards of genetic engineering-that confirms Ribeiro's reputation as one of the masters of the Latin American novel. Set on an island off the coast of Bahia in northeast Brazil, THE LIZARD'S SMILE centers on one João Pedroso, a disenchanted biologist who has given up his profession to become a fishmonger. Kindly if a bit enigmatic, given to drink and rumination, João has recently been disturbed by a vague but pervasive sense 0f evil, manifesting itself chiefly among the island's animal family. Arrayed around him are such figures as the Secretary of Health for Bahia, Dr. Angelo Marcos Barreto, a fastidious, compulsive, and corrupt millionaire who has been diagnosed as having cancer, his much younger wife, Ana Clara, who has developed an appetite for her husband's medicinal stash 0f marijuana, for the seemingly irresistible João, and for a pseudonymous journal in which she records her adventures in high style . Father Monteirinho, the local priest, who finds it increasingly hard to be confidant and drinking partner to his parishioners while exercising his churchly duties, and Dr. Lücio NemEsio, surgeon and director 0f the island's new, state-of-the-art hospital, an older man, easily worried by the behavioral tics he is beginning to witness around him.

Ribeiro Joao Ubaldo AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - JOAO UBALDO RIBEIRO was born on the island of Itaparica (in the middle of All Saints Bay and is part of the state of Bahia, Brazil), and spent much of his childhood in the neighboring state of Sergipe. He went to law school at the Federal University of Bahia ‘because it was the thing to do for intellectuals such as I fancied myself to be.' Ubaldo Ribeiro then went to the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, graduating as a Master of Public Administration with a minor in Political Science. In 1972-1973 was a guest of the University of Iowa International Writing Program. His first novel, SETEMBRO NAO TEM SENTIDO (September Has No Meaning), brought him early critical acclaim. He worked as a journalist and a teacher in Salvador, the capital of Bahia, but decided he wanted to be a full-time writer and ‘fish occasionally.' Ubaldo Ribeiro has been married three times and has four children. After living in Salvador, Portugal, and Rio de Janeiro, he returned to live in Itaparica. Of AN INVINCIBLE MEMORY he says: ‘I kept making up the story as I went along. The rest is Brazilian history as was taught to me in school, and I didn't believe a word of it. My grandfather was a historian of sorts and used to talk to me about our island all the time. It took me longer to translate it into English (about two years) than to write (about a year and a half).' He is also the author of SERGEANT GETULIO (1978), which was hailed as ‘an astounding success' (The Atlantic). In 1971 SERGEANT GETULIO was published and won Brazil's prestigious Jabuti Prize for best novel of the year. It has been in published in Portugal and (in translation) in France. Joao Ubaldo Ribeiro currently lives in Salvador, Brazil, where he is editor in chief of the Tribuna da Bahia. In the English speaking world his An Invincible Memory has been highly praised. Several of his books and short tails have been turned into movies and TV series in Brazil.

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The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells. New York. 1988. Signet/New American Library. 0451521919. Afterword by Brian Aldiss. 145 pages. paperback. CE2191. Signet Classic original.

0451521919 DESCRIPTION - A lonely island in the Pacific . . . The sinister scientist who rules it . . . And the strange beings who dwell there . . . This is the scenario for H.G. Well's haunting classic, one of his most intriguing and visionary fictions. Living in the late nineteenth century and facing the impact of Darwin's theory of evolution, Wells wrote this chilling masterpiece about the blurring characteristics of beasts as they turn into men. Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for his cruel vivisection experiments, finds an isolated island that gives him the freedom to continue tortuous transplantations and create hideous creatures with manlike intelligence. But as the cruelly enforced order on Moreau's island dissolves, the true consequences of his meddling emerge. His new creations revert to beasts more shocking than any nature could devise. Today, when gene splicing and bio-engineering are already accepted scientific procedures, Wells's dark visionary fables serves as a compelling reminder of the horrors reckless experiments with nature can produce.

Wells H G AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Herbert George ‘H. G.' Wells (21 September 1866 - 13 August 1946) was an English writer, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing textbooks and rules for war games. Wells is sometimes called ‘The Father of Science Fiction', as are Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback. His most notable science fiction works include The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The Island of Doctor Moreau. Wells's earliest specialised training was in biology, and his thinking on ethical matters took place in a specifically and fundamentally Darwinian context. He was also from an early date an outspoken socialist, often (but not always, as at the beginning of the First World War) sympathising with pacifist views. His later works became increasingly political and didactic, and he sometimes indicated on official documents that his profession was that of ‘Journalist.' Most of his later novels were not science fiction. Some described lower-middle class life (Kipps; The History of Mr Polly), leading him to be touted as a worthy successor to Charles Dickens, but Wells described a range of social strata and even attempted, in Tono-Bungay (1909), a diagnosis of English society as a whole.

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The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham. Middlesex. 1960. Penguin Books. 240 pages. paperback.

penguin kraken wakes 1075 DESCRIPTION - The Kraken Wakes is an apocalyptic science fiction novel by John Wyndham, originally published by Michael Joseph in the United Kingdom in 1953, and first published in the United States in the same year by Ballantine Books under the title Out of the Deeps as a mass market paperback. The title is a reference to Alfred Tennyson's sonnet The Kraken. The novel describes escalating phases of what appears to be an invasion of Earth by aliens, as told through the eyes of Mike Watson, who works for the English Broadcasting Company (EBC) with his wife and co-reporter Phyllis. A major role is also played by Professor Alastair Bocker - more clear-minded and far-sighted about the developing crisis than everybody else, but with the habit of telling brutally unvarnished and unwanted truths. Mike and Phyllis are witness to several major events of the invasion, which proceeds in a series of drawn-out phases; it in fact takes years before the bulk of humanity even realise that their world has been invaded. In the first phase, objects from outer space land in the oceans. Mike and Phyllis happen to see five of the "fireballs" falling into the sea, from the ship where they are sailing on their honeymoon. Eventually the distribution of the objects' landing points - always at ocean depths, never on land - implies intelligence. The aliens are speculated to come from a gas giant, and thus can only survive under conditions of extreme pressures in which humans would be instantly crushed. The deepest parts of the oceans are the only parts of Earth in any way useful to them, and they presumably have no need or use for the dry land or even the shallower parts of the seas. Bocker puts forward the theory that the two species could co-exist indefinitely, hardly noticing each other's presence. Humanity nevertheless feels threatened by this new phenomenon - particularly since the newcomers show signs of intensive work to adapt the ocean deeps to their needs. A British bathysphere is sent down to investigate, and is destroyed by the aliens with the loss of two lives. The British government responds by exploding a nuclear device in the same location. As it turns out, the aliens have more means of getting at the humans than the other way around; a similar American attempt ends in disaster. Moreover, humanity is not united in the face of the mounting threat - the Cold War between West and East is well under way, with the two sides often suspiciously attributing the effects of the alien attacks to their human opponents, or refusing to co-operate because of their different political ideals. Phase two of the war starts when ships all over the globe begin to be attacked by unknown weapons and are rapidly sunk, causing havoc to the world economy. Shortly after, the aliens also start "harvesting" the land by sending up biological "sea tanks", which capture humans from coastal settlements, for reasons that are never made clear; the Watsons witness one of these assaults on a Caribbean island. These attacks are eventually met with sufficiently strong retaliation from humanity that they become far less frequent. And so, in the final phase, the aliens begin melting the polar ice caps, causing sea levels to rise. London and other ports are flooded (the government relocates to Harrogate), causing widespread social and political collapse. The Watsons cover the continuing story for the EBC until the radio (and organised social and political life in general) ceases to exist, whereupon they can only try to survive and escape a flooded London, relocating to a Cornwall holiday cottage which due to the floods now exists on an island in its own right. Other coastal countries are also disastrously affected - there is a reference to masses of Dutch refugees fleeing into Germany, having "lost their centuries-long war with the sea". Ultimately, scientists in Japan develop an underwater ultrasonic weapon that kills the aliens. However, the global population has been reduced to between a fifth and an eighth of its pre-invasion level, and the world's climate has been changed permanently. Up to the end, humans have no clear idea what their opponents looked like. The most they have is some protoplasm which floated to the surface of the sea after the ultrasonic weapon was used. As stated in the book by the protagonist, the book aims to demonstrate that an alien invasion of Earth could take a very different form from that in The War of The Worlds; publication of the book coincided with the release of 1953 film The War of the Worlds, an adaptation of H. G. Wells' classic work which was both a critical and box office success Depending on the book's printed origin there are several changes to the plot: In the US edition almost an entire chapter on how the Watsons gained possession of The Midge yacht, and their aborted attempt to use a dinghy to get to Cornwall is cut, instead simply stating that Freddie Whittier "found it" one day. In the US epilogue, the Watsons are tracked down by Bocker via helicopter and he explains a great deal of what has happened to the world while Mike and Phyllis have been isolated - even describing the Japanese ultrasonic device in some detail. In the UK edition they are instead approached by a neighbour in a rowing boat, who gives them only a brief overview of what has happened in the world - excluding much of the detail and just mentioning that the Japanese have developed an ultrasonic device. He tells them that their names have been broadcast on radio, and that a "Council For Reconstruction" has been formed. The UK edition is less bleak than the US version, implying that humanity has already begun to rebuild, and that civilisation survives - albeit at a lesser level than before. There are several changes for a US audience in terms of language and phraseology.

Wyndham John AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris (10 July 1903 - 11 March 1969) was an English science fiction writer best known for his works written using the pen name John Wyndham, although he also used other combinations of his names, such as John Beynon and Lucas Parkes. Many of his works were set in post-apocalyptic landscapes. His best known works include The Day of the Triffids (1951) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), the latter filmed twice as Village of the Damned.

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Gray Matters by William Hjortsberg. New York. 1971. Simon & Schuster. 0671209760. 160 pages. hardcover.

0671209760 DESCRIPTION - Unrest simmers in a dystopian future where disembodied brains are kept alive in tanks, waiting to earn a new body. At twelve years old, Skeets Kalbfleischer is returning from a ski vacation when a lightning strike knocks his plane out of the sky, killing everyone else on board. Although his body is destroyed, a radical procedure preserves Skeets's brain, which spends twenty-five years in a fish tank before mankind realizes the implications of his second life. A key to immortality has been found. Four centuries later, it has become commonplace for the minds of the dead to be preserved. While warehoused in a massive storage facility tended by robots, the brains pass time watching old film clips, learning about bees, and meditating their way to a higher state of being. But for the facility's overseers, Skeets presents a problem. A twelve-year-old for all eternity, their most famous resident still wants to be a cowboy. To remedy this embarrassment, his handlers concoct a solution that will push humanity even farther past nature's wildest dreams.

Hjortsberg William

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - William 'Gatz' Hjortsberg William "Gatz" Hjortsberg (February 23, 1941 - April 22, 2017) was a novelist and screenwriter best known for writing the screenplays of the movies Legend and Angel Heart. His novel Falling Angel was the basis for the film Angel Heart (1987).

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I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. New York. 1956. Signet/New American Library. 192 pages. paperback. S1282.

signet i robot s1282 DESCRIPTION - Man-like machines rule the world! Fascinating tales of a strange tomorrow. TOMORROW'S WEIRD WORLD - Where Man Is Obsolete! Here is a whole panorama of strange and thrilling tales about the Earth in the years ahead when robots - man-like machines - threaten to control the world. Here are the headline stories of tomorrow when Robots help Man reach the stars, run for political office, out-think humans, rule the world, revolt against their HUMAN MASTERS.

Asimov Isaac

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Isaac Asimov, an outstanding imaginative writer, was also a biochemist and teacher at the Boston University School of Medicine. Mr. Asimov is the author of The Currents of Space (Signet #1082), The Caves of Steel (Signet # S 1245), and many other stories. l, Robot was originally published by Gnome Press.

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The Day Before Tomorrow by Gerard Klein. New York. 1972. DAW/New American Library. Translated from the French by P. J. Sokolowski. A DAW Books Original. 128 pages. paperback. UQ1011. Cover painting by Josh Kirby.

daw day before tomorrow uq1011 DESCRIPTION - The federation considered itself a technological Utopia-and the innumerable planets under its sway were guaranteed stability by virtue of the time-change teams. For whenever a planetary historian located evidence in the past of any newly found world that it might evolve into a possible menace, a team of seven would be sent to tamper with that world's history.But the seven men that went to Ygone encountered a fate no theorist had projected. They met with immediate ambush, they met with a strangely peaceful culture that could not be fathomed, and they finally were confronted with all the contradictions and temporal knots that the whole system of time-change had to imply.

Klein Gerard AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Gérard Klein (born 1937), known also as Gilles , is a French science fiction writer with sociological entrenamiento. He is the editor of the prestigious science fiction series Ailleurs et Demain published by Robert Laffont and of the Le Livre de Poche science-fiction imprint.In his novella Les virus ne parlent pas ("The viruses do not speak"), he imagines that viruses have created all living beings in the same fashion that human beings have created computers, and for the same reason: to improve eir efficiency. Gérard Klein used the pseudonym "Gilles d'Argyre" for his novels published by Editions Fleuve Noir for their series Anticipation. Several of his novels were published in translation by DAW Books in the United States.

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Adam the Creator: A Comedy in Six Scenes & an Epilogue by Karel Capek and Josef Capek. London. 1929. Allen & Unwin. Translated from the Czech by Dora Round. 187 pages. hardcover.

adam the creator no dw DESCRIPTION - Adam the Creator is a play from 1927 from the brothers Capek (1927), which shows man endeavouring to rebuild the world destroyed by robots. Adam, an unacknowledged philosopher and inventor, destroys the world using a cannon of negation, and for that he is punished by God who orders him to create a new human kind. In his work, the author shows the absurdity of extreme revolutionism, which refutes values without being able to create new values.

Capek Karel and Capek Josef AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Karel Capek (January 9, 1890 - December 25, 1938) was one of the most influential Czech writers of the 20th century. Capek was born in Male Svatonovice, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic). He wrote with intelligence and humour on a wide variety of subjects. His works are known for their interesting and precise descriptions of reality, and Capek is renowned for his excellent work with the Czech language. He is perhaps best known as a science fiction author, who wrote before science fiction became widely recognized as a separate genre. He can be considered one of the founders of classical, non-hardcore European science fiction, a type which focuses on possible future (or alternative) social and human evolution on Earth, rather than technically advanced stories of space travel. However, it is best to classify him with Aldous Huxley and George Orwell as a speculative fiction writer, distinguishing his work from genre-specific hard science fiction. Many of his works discuss ethical and other aspects of revolutionary inventions and processes that were already anticipated in the first half of 20th century. These include mass production, atomic weapons, and post-human intelligent beings such as robots or intelligent salamanders. In addressing these themes, Capek was also expressing fear of impending social disasters, dictatorship, violence, and the unlimited power of corporations, as well as trying to find some hope for human beings. Josef Čapek (23 March 1887 - April, 1945 ) was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word robot, which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek.

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R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots): A Fantastic Melodrama by Karel Capek. Garden City/New York. 1923. Doubleday Page & Company. Translated from the Czech by Paul Selver. The Theatre Guild Version, with four illustrations from photographs of the Theatre Guild production. 187 pages. hardcover.

rur 1923 no dw DESCRIPTION - R.U.R. - written in 1920 - garnered worldwide acclaim for its author and popularized the word ‘Robot.' Mass produced, efficient, and servile labor, Capek's robots remember everything, but lack creative thought, and the Utopian life they provide ultimately lacks meaning. When the robots revolt, killing all but one of their masters, they must attempt to learn the secret of self-duplication. But their attempts at replication leave them with nothing but bloody chunks of meat. It is not until two robots fall in love and are christened ‘Adam' and ‘Eve' by the last surviving human that Nature emerges triumphant. ‘It is time to read Capek again for his insouciant laughter, and the anguish of human blindness that lies beneath it.' - Arthur Miller.

In a more recent translation from Penguin Classics:

R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Capek. New York. 2004. Penguin Books. 0141182083. Translated from the Czech by Claudia Novack. Introduction by Ivan Klima. 84 pages. paperback. . Cover photograph by Bob Elsdale.

Capek Karel AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Karel Capek (January 9, 1890 - December 25, 1938) was one of the most influential Czech writers of the 20th century. Capek was born in Male Svatonovice, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now Czech Republic). He wrote with intelligence and humour on a wide variety of subjects. His works are known for their interesting and precise descriptions of reality, and Capek is renowned for his excellent work with the Czech language. He is perhaps best known as a science fiction author, who wrote before science fiction became widely recognized as a separate genre. He can be considered one of the founders of classical, non-hardcore European science fiction, a type which focuses on possible future (or alternative) social and human evolution on Earth, rather than technically advanced stories of space travel. However, it is best to classify him with Aldous Huxley and George Orwell as a speculative fiction writer, distinguishing his work from genre-specific hard science fiction. Many of his works discuss ethical and other aspects of revolutionary inventions and processes that were already anticipated in the first half of 20th century. These include mass production, atomic weapons, and post-human intelligent beings such as robots or intelligent salamanders. In addressing these themes, Capek was also expressing fear of impending social disasters, dictatorship, violence, and the unlimited power of corporations, as well as trying to find some hope for human beings.

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Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. London. 1977. Panther/Granada. 0586036059. 183 pages. paperback. Front cover illustration by Peter Goodfellow.

0586036059 DESCRIPTION - BOUNTY HUNTER, 1992 A.D. World War Terminus had left the Earth devastated. Through its ruins Rick Decard, bounty hunter, stalked in search of his renegade android prey. When he wasn't 'retiring' them with his laser gun, he dreamed of owning a live animal - the ultimate status symbol in a world all but bereft of non-human life. Then, one bleak January day, Rick got his chance. He was assigned to kill six Nexus-6 androids, representing a total bounty of six thousand dollars. But in Rick's world, things were never that simple. His assignment quickly turned into a nightmare kaleidoscope of subterfuge, deceit - and the threat of death for the hunter rather than the hunted. 'The most consistently brilliant SF writer in the world' - JOHN BRUNNER. 'Dick is quietly producing serious fiction in a popular form and there can be no greater praise' - MICHAEL MOORCOCK.

Dick Philip K Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states. In his later works Dick's thematic focus strongly reflected his personal interest in metaphysics and theology. He often drew upon his own life experiences in addressing the nature of drug abuse, paranoia, schizophrenia, and transcendental experiences in novels such as A Scanner Darkly and VALIS. The novel The Man in the High Castle bridged the genres of alternate history and science fiction, earning Dick a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, a novel about a celebrity who awakens in a parallel universe where he is unknown, won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel in 1975. ‘I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards,’ Dick wrote of these stories. ‘In my writing I even question the universe; I wonder out loud if it is real, and I wonder out loud if all of us are real.’ In addition to 44 published novels, Dick wrote approximately 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his lifetime. Although Dick spent most of his career as a writer in near-poverty, ten popular films based on his works have been produced, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, and The Adjustment Bureau. In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the one hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923. In 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.

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Now Wait For Last Year by Philip K. Dick. New York. 1981. DAW Books. 0879976543. 205 pages. paperback. UE1654. Cover art by Michael Mariano.

0879976543 DESCRIPTION - In a war-torn world, Dr. Eric Sweetscent was caught between his dope-addicted wife and the world leader who was trying to stave off global catastrophe. Gino Molinari (known as The Mole) was the ultimate authority over the lives of billions. He possessed the strange ability to die over and over again, and yet be brought back to life by the wizardry of future medicine. As The Mole came to rely more and more on his personal suicides as the political tool to save the rest of humanity, he grew into a grand and tragic figure. Through his close relationship with Molinari, Eric gradually came to achieve the total vista of a world-spanning viewpoint — and with that came the ability to understand at last the aims of the incredible Mole.

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To the Ends of the Earth: The Selected Travels of Paul Theroux. New York. 1991. Random House. 0679402462. 342 pages. hardcover.

0679402462 DESCRIPTION - ‘Travel writing at its best.' THE HOUSTON POST Author and travel writer Paul Theroux does what no one else can: he travels to the isolated, unusual, and fascinating spots of the world, and creates an elegy to them that makes readers feel they are traveling with him. Evocative, breathtaking, intriguing, here is the armchair traveler's guide to the sites of the world he makes us feel we know.

Theroux Paul AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Paul Edward Theroux (born April 10, 1941) is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar (1975). He has published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast. He is the father of British authors and documentary makers Louis Theroux and Marcel Theroux, the brother of authors Alexander Theroux and Peter Theroux, and uncle to the American actor and screenwriter Justin Theroux.

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The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia by Paul Theroux. Boston. 1975. Houghton Mifflin. 0395207088. 342 pages. hardcover. Cover collage by Joe Hendrick.

0395207088 DESCRIPTION - The Orient Express, The Khyber Pass Local, The Frontier Mail, The Golden Arrow to Kuala Lumpur, The Mandalay Express, The Ozora Limited - a Grand Tour by train, a journey from London to Tokyo and back with as many mishaps as detours. Paul Theroux, novelist and railway lover, set out one day from Victoria Station, bent on boarding every eastbound train that chugged into sight, eventually returning from Japan on the Trans-Siberian Express. The trains he took in his parabola through Asia prove that, in spite of supersonic jets and package tours, travel can still be a serendipitous adventure. He sought trains; he found passengers - any number of travelers eager to unburden themselves to the attentive writer. They ranged from the unfortunate Duffill, destined always to miss his connection, to the admirable Bernard, preserving in the middle of Burma the outmoded ways of British imperialism; and from Mr. Radia, who intoned Hindi songs through his nose, to the mysterious, gun-toting Mr. Pensacola with his stories of opium smuggling. In this unique and vastly entertaining railway odyssey, Paul Theroux's sharp eye catches the telling details of landscape and character that have consistently distinguished his novels. The Great Railway Bazaar is a sometimes hilarious, sometimes shocking report on Asia. It is also the fascinating record of one intrepid traveler's mind as he traversed two continents - through the deserts of Iran, the war zone of Vietnam, the snowfields of Japan and Siberia - on the trains with the wonderful names. ‘In the fine old tradition of travel for fun and adventure compulsive reading.' - Graham Greene.

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The Imperial Way by Paul Theroux. Boston. 1985. Houghton Mifflin. 0395393906. Photos by Steve McCurry. 143 pages. hardcover.

DESCRIPTION - Paul Theroux has been here before and has described it memorably in THE 0395393906 GREAT RAILWAY BAZAAR. On his revisit, he began in Peshawar, up near the Khyber Pass, full of Afghan refugees and guerrilla warriors; journeyed through Islamabad and Lahore to India and Simla, the Himalayan foothill town of Kipling's stories; through New Delhi and then Agra where the Taj Mahal stands; through the high-country tea plantations of Darjeeling; on to Calcutta; and finally into flooded Chittagong on the Bay of Bengal. Theroux describes a present day India at once as lovely and forbidding as in THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN and A PASSAGE TO INDIA. THE IMPERIAL WAY comes to life with Theroux's prose and Steve McCurry's superb, prize-winning photographs.

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The Education of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906-1960 by W. E. B. Du Bois. Amherst. 1973. University of Massachusetts Press. Edited by Herbert Aptheker. 171 pages. hardcover.

education of black people u of massachusetts 1973 DESCRIPTION - W. E. B. Du Bois was pre-eminently an educator. In his expansive view education ‘is by derivation and in fact a drawing out of human powers.' His constant purpose, as enunciated in 1906, was to ensure that ‘just so far as the race can afford it we must give our youth a training designed above all to make them men of power, of trained and cultivated taste; men who know whither civilization is tending and what it means.' As shown in this volume Du Bois's focus on education did not stray throughout his long and immensely productive career as teacher, scholar, publicist, agitator and reformer. Included here are incisive and authoritative statements ranging over six decades and a wide spectrum of concerns: from particular institutional controversies to general principles and beliefs to philosophical inquiries into the nature and application of truth. The ‘primal and baffling problem of education' Du Bois wrote in 1933, is ‘how shall men teach. . . that which they themselves do not know, or transmit a philosophy or religion that is already partly disbelieved and partly untrue.' These essays, originally presented as speeches, were courageous as well as controversial. Du Bois did not hesitate to confront both the white South, where most of the speeches were delivered, and the Black educational establishments, to whom most were addressed. He was never more forceful nor more eloquent than when speaking to this central concern of the educational needs of his people. The book contains seven critiques of Negro education edited by Du Bois for publication in 1940. To them he added introductory notes and commentaries on their reception and after-effects. Three later essays selected and introduced by Dr. Aptheker ‘complete the presentation of Du Bois's views on education, and represent, it is believed, the fullest expression of those views as they developed in the last quarter century of his life.' Significant sections of the book, most notably a 1908 essay on Galileo, have not been previously published. The remainder of the speeches appeared in limited circulation periodicals and have been virtually unobtainable. In addition, significant changes which Du Bois made in 1940 in the original versions now appear for the first time. To complete the work the editor has compiled and appended an extensive annotated bibliography of Du Bois's published writings on education.

Du Bois W E B AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was internationally renowned as a writer, scholar, and activist. Among his published works are THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLKS, JOHN BROWN, and BLACK RECONSTRUCTION: AN ESSAY TOWARD A HISTORY OF THE PART WHICH BLACK FOLK PLAYED IN THE ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, 1860 - 1880. He also wrote other major fiction, including DARK PRINCESS. Dr. Herbert Aptheker, Du Bois's friend and colleague for many years, is a well known and prolific historian of the Afro-American experience. Among his best known writings in that field are AMERICAN NEGRO SLAVE REVOLTS (1943) and the DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF THE NEGRO PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES (1951). He edited the posthumously published AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF W. E. B. DU BOIS (1968) and is presently preparing two volumes of the Selected Correspondence as well as some forty volumes of Du Bois's published works. Dr. Aptheker is director of the American Institute for Marxist Studies in New York City and a member of the history department at Bryn Mawr College.

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Blackwater: Historical Studies in Race, Class Consciousness, and Revolution by Marable. Manning. Niwot. 1993. University Press of Colorado. 0870812742. 215 pages. paperback.

0870812742 DESCRIPTION - BLACKWATER is a monumental historical study of the Afro-American Liberation Movement from slavery through the 1980s and beyond. Marable's latest work provides an overview of black religion, slave revolts, black economic underdevelopment, modern political struggles, and black culture. Included in BLACKWATER are detailed assessments of the 1980 Miami Rebellion, the foundation of Marable's theory of the racist/capitalist state, and a speculative critique on the, prospects for social revolution in America. Uncompromising in vision and historical in scope, BLACKWATER is the most important contribution to black socialist thought since the late Walter Rodney's classic, HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA.

Marable Manning AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Manning Marable was M. Moran Weston and Black Alumni Council Professor of African American Studies and professor of history and public affairs at Columbia University. He was founding director of African American Studies at Columbia from 1993 to 2003. Since 2002, he has directed Columbia's Center for Contemporary Black History. The author of fifteen books, Marable was also the editor of the quarterly journal Souls. Manning Marable died in April 2011.

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The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson. New York. 2023. Penguin Books. 9780143137467. Introduction by Jarvis R. Givens. Edited by Henry Louis Gates. 187 pages. paperback. Cover art: Patrick Dougher with image reference of Carter G. Woodson courtesy of Scurlock Studio.

9780143137467 DESCRIPTION - The most influential work by “the father of Black history”, reflecting the long-standing tradition of antiracist teaching pioneered by Black educators. The Mis-education of the Negro (1933) is Woodson’s most popular classic work of Black social criticism, drawing on history, theory, and memoir. As both student and teacher, Woodson witnessed distortions of Black life in the history and literature taught in schools and universities. He identified a relationship between these distortions in curriculum and the violence circumscribing Black life in the material world, declaring, “There would be no lynching if it did not start in the schoolroom.” Woodson’s primary focus was the impact dominant modes of schooling had on Black youth. This systematic process of mis-education undermined Black people’s struggles for freedom and justice, and it was an experience that scholars before and after Woodson recognized and worked to challenge. Woodson argued that students, teachers, and leaders needed to be educated in a manner that was accountable to Black experiences and lived realities, both past and present. This edition includes an appendix of selected letters and articles by Woodson, and Suggestions for Further Reading.

Woodson Carter G AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Carter Godwin Woodson (December 19, 1875 - April 3, 1950) was an African-American historian, author, journalist and the founder of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. Woodson was one of the first scholars to study African-American history. A founder of The Journal of Negro History in 1915, Woodson has been cited as the "father of black history". In February 1926 he launched the celebration of "Negro History Week", the precursor of Black History Month.

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Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe: From the Ancien Régime to the Collapse of Communism by Sheri Berman. New York. 2019. Oxford University Press. 9780199373192. 512 pages. hardcover.

9780199373192 DESCRIPTION - At the end of the twentieth century, many believed the story of European political development had come to an end. Modern democracy began in Europe, but for hundreds of years it competed with various forms of dictatorship. Now, though, the entire continent was in the democratic camp for the first time in history. But within a decade, this story had already begun to unravel. Some of the continent's newer democracies slid back towards dictatorship, while citizens in many of its older democracies began questioning democracy's functioning and even its legitimacy. And of course it is not merely in Europe where democracy is under siege. Across the globe the immense optimism accompanying the post-Cold War democratic wave has been replaced by pessimism. Many new democracies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia began backsliding, while the Arab Spring quickly turned into the Arab winter. The victory of Donald Trump led many to wonder if it represented a threat to the future of liberal democracy in the United States. Indeed, it is increasingly common today for leaders, intellectuals, commentators and others to claim that rather than democracy, some form dictatorship or illiberal democracy is the wave of the future. In Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe, Sheri Berman traces the long history of democracy in its cradle, Europe. She explains that in fact, just about every democratic wave in Europe initially failed, either collapsing in upon itself or succumbing to the forces of reaction. Yet even when democratic waves failed, there were always some achievements that lasted. Even the most virulently reactionary regimes could not suppress every element of democratic progress. Panoramic in scope, Berman takes readers through two centuries of turmoil: revolution, fascism, civil war, and -- finally -- the emergence of liberal democratic Europe in the postwar era. A magisterial retelling of modern European political history, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe not only explains how democracy actually develops, but how we should interpret the current wave of illiberalism sweeping Europe and the rest of the world.

Berman Sheri

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Sheri Berman is Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. She has written extensively on democracy, authoritarianism, populism, fascism, the history of the left, and European politics for both scholarly and non-scholarly publications.

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