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Empire And Catastrophe: Decolonization And Environmental Disaster In North Africa And Mediterranean France Since 1954, Spencer D. Segalla

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Empire and Catastrophe examines natural and anthropogenic disasters during the years of decolonization in Algeria, Morocco, and France and explores how environmental catastrophes both shaped and were shaped by struggles over the dissolution of France’s empire in North Africa. Four disasters make up the core of the book: the 1954 earthquake in Algeria’s Chélif Valley, just weeks before the onset of the Algerian Revolution; a mass poisoning in Morocco in 1959 caused by toxic substances from an American military base; the 1959 Malpasset Dam collapse in Fréjus, France, which devastated the town’s Algerian immigrant community but which was blamed on …

A Civil Society: The Public Space Of Freemason Women In France, 1744–1944, James Smith Allen

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

A Civil Society explores the struggle to initiate women as full participants in the masonic brotherhood that shared in the rise of France’s civil society and its “civic morality” on behalf of women’s rights. As a vital component of the third sector during France’s modernization, freemasonry empowered women in complex social networks, contributing to a more liberal republic, a more open society, and a more engaged public culture.

James Smith Allen shows that although women initially met with stiff resistance, their induction into the brotherhood was a significant step in the development of French civil society, including the promotion of …

The Real Lincoln: A Portrait, Jesse W. Weik

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Originally published in 1922, The Real Lincoln is an in-depth look at Abraham Lincoln the man, not the public figure. Acclaimed at the time as an excellent, impartial source book, The Real Lincoln was compiled by Jesse W. Weik through a series of letters and interviews with people who knew the sixteenth president personally as well as their descendents. This is an examination of Lincoln without the weight of history, looking at him as a dynamic figure and illuminating aspects of his life before his presidency. His childhood, his marriage to Mary Todd, his law practice, the way he spent …

Dispatches From Lincoln’S White House: The Anonymous Civil War Journalism Of Presidential Secretary William O. Stoddard, William O. Stoddard

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

William O. Stoddard's memoirs as President Abraham Lincoln's third secretary reveal a perspective of the president rarely viewed. In this collection of 120 weekly dispatches submitted to the New York Examiner under the pseudonym "Illinois," Stoddard sheds new light on Lincoln and his era.

These documents provide commentary on Lincoln's personal circumstances as well as events in Washington and on military, diplomatic, economic, and political developments. Although historians at times differ with Stoddard's accounts, he offers valuable descriptions of Lincoln, insight into the president's thoughts, and commentary on contemporary opinion.

Inside The White House In War Times, William O. Stoddard

University of Nebraska Press: Sample Books and Chapters

Of the three secretaries who assisted President Abraham Lincoln—John G. Nicolay, John Hay, and William O. Stoddard—only Stoddard wrote an extended memoir about his time in the Executive Mansion. First published in 1890, the book vividly depicts the president’s agonizing reaction to the defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the difficulties encountered (and presented) by Mary Lincoln, the president’s relations with George B. McClellan and other generals, and the anxiety preceding the Merrimack’s epic battle with the Monitor.

In 1866 Stoddard also penned thirteen “White House Sketches” about his time in Lincoln’s service. Originally published in an obscure New York newspaper, …