|
 Welcome.
 |
Be the first to hear about our weekly specials, publication highlights and new government reports on our blog |
|
Receive the latest updates by following us on Twitter |

 |
Nova Caesarea: A Cartographic Record of the Garden State 1666-1888 Including the First Maps, Wall Maps & County Atlases as well as Past & Current Views Commemorating the 350th Anniversary of the Naming of New Jersey
|
|
What Ever Happened to the U.S. Congress's Portraits of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette? Retracing the Events that Led to the Conflagration of the Capitol and the Loss of the Pictures on 24-25 August 1814: Tran. of the American Philosophical Society V
|
|
|
|
|
This volume, issued for the 350th anniversary (1664-2014) of the naming of New Jersey, reproduces historic maps that both memorialize the past and orient the future. Supporting the maps are illustrations from atlases and, where possible, recent photographs of the same structures and areas for the purpose of historical contrast. An important source has been utilized: Thomas F. Gordon’s Gazetteer of the State of New Jersey, the state’s first gazetteer, published in 1834. Gordon’s notes on every village, hamlet, and creek provide interesting textual references to the visual features of the maps. Includes an 1828 map of New Jersey in a pocket inside the back cover. There is also a special edition available of 350 volumes bound in cloth, numbered and signed by author and designer, including a separate folder of large facsimiles of the first wall maps of New Jersey’s 21 counties, with both book and folder housed in a custom slipcase.
|
One of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American political culture is what became of the United States Congress’s state portraits of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette during the British invasion of the Capitol, Washington, D.C., on the night of 24–25 August 1814. Conceived by Benjamin Franklin during a diplomatic mission, requested by the American delegates at the height of the War of Independence, and granted by the French king after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, these official full-length images of the French monarchs arrayed in ceremonial magnificence were recently identified as atelier copies after Antoine-François Callet’s Louis XVI and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun’s Marie-Antoinette (both 1783) and traced through Congress’s successive assembly rooms at New York City (1785), Philadelphia (1790), and Washington (1800). The fate of the royal portraits has been difficult to determine due to the incomplete documentary record and conflicting eyewitness accounts. Larkin initially takes a telescopic approach to the problem, moving from British and French production of state portraits to assert political claims in North America and despoliation of Western European countries of their art treasures, to show British and American interests at stake in the practice of looting and incendiary warfare waged across the Great Lakes and the Chesapeake Bay prior to the destruction of the public buildings in Washington, D.C. He then pursues a microscopic approach, analyzing period documents, letters, images, and plans to test the viability of two theories—that the royal portraits were burned by British troops during their occupation of the capital or looted by American scavengers during the chaotic aftermath. While physical evidence of the portrait artifacts remains elusive, this study of the images as objects of desire, danger, and loss breaks new ground for scholars desirous of constituting an art and material history for the War of 1812. <br><br> T. Lawrence Larkin is Professor of Seventeenth- to Nineteenth-Century European Art at Montana State University, Bozeman. He has published on aspects of early modern French and American art and culture, with a two-fold interest in the portrait patronage and mythical permutations of Queen Marie-Antoinette and the trans-Atlantic diplomatic gifts and political culture of French, British, and American governments during the Revolutionary and Imperial Eras. His books include a monograph, In Search of Marie-Antoinette: Stefan Zweig, Irving Thalberg, and Norma Shearer (Palgrave-Macmillan), and an edited volume, Politics & Portraits in the United States & France during the Age of Revolution (Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press), both published in 2019.
|
|
Lunar Calendars of the Pre-Columbian Maya: Transactions, APS (Volume 109, Part 1)
|
|
Wright's Ferry Mansion, 2 Volume Set: Volume 1: The House; Volume 2: The Collection
|
|
|
|
|
Pre-Columbian Maya interest in the waxing and waning of the Moon is well documented. This rare example of interdisciplinary scholarship brings together a deeply penetrating knowledge of positional astronomy and Maya hieroglyphic writing, two highly disparate areas of study, and synthesizes them into a thorough interpretation of the relationship between astronomical concepts in the Maya codices and monumental inscriptions. Prompted by the recent discovery of the Xulum 10K-2 lunar table, this volume is a logical follow-up to work published in 2011 by the Brickers, “Astronomy in the Maya Codices.” It is a comprehensive study of the Maya lunar calendar. Illus.
|
A jewel of early 18th-century house museums, Wright’s Ferry Mansion is also Pennsylvania’s best-kept secret, tucked away along the banks of the Susquehanna River in Columbia, PA. Built in 1738 for the dynamic English Quaker Susanna Wright, the house has been restored and furnished by The von Hess Foundation. These beautiful volumes tell the fascinating history of the house and its original owner Susanna Wright, who was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and other luminaries of early Pennsylvania. It is the only Pennsylvania English Quaker house furnished exclusively to the first half of the 18th century. The collection includes important Philadelphia William and Mary and Queen Anne furniture and English ceramics, metals, glass, and needlework, all pre-dating 1750. The appendix contains the original text of numerous letters, wills, inventories, poems, and two treatises by Susanna Wright and her brother James. Author and art historian Elizabeth Meg Schaefer has been curator of the mansion since 1982. 2-volume hardcover set in slipcase. Vol. 1 describes the house and furnishings; Vol. 1 describes each item in detail. Color photos.
|
|
The Tower of the Winds in Athens: Greeks, Romans, Christians, and Muslims: Two Millennia of Continual Use: Memoirs, APS (Vol. 270)
|
|
William Lewis, Esquire: Enlightened Statesman, Profound Lawyer, and Useful Citizen
|
|
|
|
|
The Tower of the Winds has stood in the shadow of the Acropolis in Athens for more than 2,100 years. This tall octagonal building, one of the best preserved monuments from the classical period, was built by the architect-astronomer Andronikos of Kyrrhos as a horologion for keeping time. Almost all its features have been attributed to the period of construction by the Greeks or renovations made by the Romans. The building, however, was in use almost continuously for two millennia, which includes Byzantine and Ottoman phases. Pamela Webb, a classical archaeologist, examines the Tower throughout its entire functional existence. A series of appendices helps to put the Tower in broader context for the post-classical periods. Winner of the 2016 John Frederick Lewis Award. Illus.
|
Lewis (1752-1819) was a prominent Philadelphia lawyer, Federalist and abolitionist. His descendant Esther Ann McFarland spent years locating records by and about Lewis and compiling this study. “History buffs will be fascinated by this authentic account of the role a leading Phila. lawyer played in shaping the character of our nation while we transitioned from colonial to post-revolutionary times. As an advisor to our Founding Fathers, a champion of individual rights, a strong advocate for abolition of slavery, a state legislator, an inaugural officer of the Phila. Bar Assoc. and Pennsylvania’s first U.S. Attorney and second fed. judge, William Lewis had a major impact on the development of our laws and the balance achieved by our fed. and state governments.” Illus.
|
|
|
 |

Today's Super Deal! |
|

Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson
|
Our Price: $15.00 Sale Price: $10.00 You save $5.00!
|
|
|
The Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society, by Patrick Spero, With research assistance by Abigail Shelton and John Kenney.
|
|
|
|
 |



|