When Mark Twain was spinning his tales of life on the mighty Mississippi, steamboat travel was high-tech and high class. Fifty to sixty vessels a day would land at the thriving New Orleans docks, ferrying passengers and cargo from the... Read More

A magazine ad campaign once ran the following: “Bill Shakespeare, screenwriter. Discuss.” If that is the question, then Shakespeare in the Movies is the answer. An informed, lively commentary on all films using Shakespeare’s plays... Read More

Cults, sects and esoteric truth-propounders are a constant in American history. While communal groups such as Puritans, Quakers, Shakers and others have earned general approval, prophet-led cults such as the Jonestown host, the Branch... Read More

“Science Fiction.” The term conjures up images of Star Trek, Star Wars, campy Flash Gordon movie serials and famous authors such as Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury and Ursula K. LeGuin. In its broader meaning, “SF,” as it is known... Read More

As the future of literature and the humanities at the university level are crucial to the independent thinker, Carl Woodring’s Literature is an important book for those, such as independent booksellers and publishers, whose livelihoods... Read More

War leaves nothing untouched. This is made obvious in Jefferson Davis’s Generals, a collection of essays from eight renowned Civil War historians that illustrates, primarily, how war affects personal relationships in the military... Read More

A cogent and engrossing social history of the evolving Medieval attitudes toward civic and erotic love, virtue and spiritual friendship, Ennobling Love draws upon a rich tradition of texts to exhume a historical sensibility. From an... Read More

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and Ideal Grace. This classic sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning is the apex... Read More