The definitive biography of the fascinating William James, whose life and writing put an indelible stamp on psychology, philosophy, teaching, and religion—on modernism itself.Often cited as the "father of American psychology," William James was an intellectual luminary who made significant contributions to at least five fields: psychology, philosophy, religious studies, teaching, and literature.A member of one of the most unusual and notable of American fami...

Illustrated with 23 maps and plans of the campaign and engagements at Chickamauga.Probably the most unpredictable variable in the "Fog of War" next to leadership, is the command and control process, comprised of three components: organizations, process, and facilities. Organizations include the formulation of staffs by the commander to accomplish the mission. Incorporated in the organization of the staffs are the roles, responsibilities, and functions. Large Civil War armies like th...

Written in Persian in the eleventh century, Omar Khayyam's quatrains, known as rubai, were written individually for an audience at court, and explored the meanings of life, love, and friendship. They were almost completely unknown in the West until Edward FitzGerald--himself a relatively obscure critic--translated and organized some one hundred of them into a unified whole that he called The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which he published anonymously in 1859. Ignored initial...

From their acclaimed biographer, a final, powerful book about how Emerson, Thoreau, and William James forged resilience from devastating loss, changing the course of American thoughtIn Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James, tells the connected stories of how these foundational American writers and thinkers dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers...

Writing was the central passion of Emerson’s life. While his thoughts on the craft are well developed in “The Poet,” “The American Scholar,” Nature, “Goethe,” and “Persian Poetry,” less well known are the many pages in his private journals devoted to the relationship between writing and reading. Here, for the first time, is the Concord Sage’s energetic, exuberant, and unconventional advice on the idea of writing, focused and distilled by the preeminent Emerson biographer at work t...

A work of staggering poetic beauty that has inspired the likes of John Ruskin, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Bly, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was written in eleventh-century Persia and was largely unknown in the West until it was translated into English by Edward FitzGerald in 1859. In FitzGerald's hands, the individual Persian quatrains of the original coalesced into one of the most moving and often-cited modern poetic statements about loss, longing, and nostalgia. As Robert D. Richar...

A comprehensive overview of America's vast poetic heritage, Three Centuries of American Poetry features the work of some 150 of our nation's finest writers. It includes selections from Anne Bradstreet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, e. e. cummings, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, and Gertrude Stein, as well as significant works of lesser-known American poets.

Recipient of the Francis Parkman Prize from the Society of American HistoriansRalph Waldo Emerson is one of the most important figures in the history of American thought, religion, and literature. The vitality of his writings and the unsettling power of his example continue to influence us more than a hundred years after his death. Now Robert D. Richardson Jr. brings to life an Emerson very different from the old stereotype of the passionless Sage of Concord. Drawi...

The two years Thoreau spent at Walden Pond and the night he spent in the Concord jail are among the most familiar features of the American intellectual landscape. In this new biography, based on a reexamination of Thoreau's manuscripts and on a retracing of his trips, Robert Richardson offers a view of Thoreau's life and achievement in their full nineteenth century context.

“A gorgeous edition” (Boston Globe) of Thoreau’s classic work, enhanced with an illuminating essay and beautiful watercolors.Originally delivered as a lecture shortly before the writer’s own death, Henry David Thoreau’s classic “Autumnal Tints” is an ode to autumn not as the season of death and decay, but of ripeness, fullness, and maturity. It is perhaps the best piece ever written on the subject of the fall color of the changing leaves. Thoreau hoped one...

This audiobook narrated by William Hope examines how Emerson, Thoreau, and William James forged resilience from devastating loss and changed the course of American thoughtIn Three Roads Back, Robert Richardson, the author of magisterial biographies of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and William James, tells the connected stories of how these foundational American writers and thinkers dealt with personal tragedies early in their careers. For Emerso...

Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America**, shows how the tumultuous events in 1606 influenced three of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies written that year—King Lear, Macbeth,** and Antony and Cleopatra. **“**The Year of Lear is irresistible—a banquet of wisdom” (