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The Tower of the Winds in Athens: Greeks, Romans, Christians, and Muslims: Two Millennia of Continual Use: Memoirs, APS (Vol. 270)
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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
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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.
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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.
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Against Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939 (Transactions 105, Part 1)
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Robert Burns Woodward: Architect and Artist in the World of Molecules
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Johannes Höber left Nazi Germany for America in November 1938.
His
wife Elfriede was unable to leave for another year, after the outbreak of World
War II. Fifty years later, their son discovered the letters this brilliant
couple exchanged during the tumultuous months they were separated. Against
Time: Letters from Nazi Germany, 1938-1939 collects those letters with an
introduction, notes and an epilogue that set the letters in the context of
their time. Together, the letters portray the intense relationship of a
fascinating couple in a critical period in world history.
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Robert Burns Woodward was the star of 20th-century organic chemistry. An MIT graduate by age 19, Woodward's ingenious notions about organic synthesis and his artful methodology were astounding. He is most famed for his synthesis of vitamin B12,which he undertook with Albert Eschenmoser, and for the orbital symmetry rules he developed with Roald Hoffmann. This volume presents Woodward's most celebrated papers and lectures--including the famous Cope lecture. Insightful commentaries and rarely seen photographs are also included.
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Lunar Calendars of the Pre-Columbian Maya: Transactions, APS (Volume 109, Part 1)
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Letters of Rowland Whyte (1595-1608) : Memoir 268
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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.
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Provides the first complete edition, annotated and with modernized spelling, of these important late-Elizabethan letters, written by Rowland Whyte as the personal agent and advisor at court of Robert Sidney, Viscount Lisle and first Earl of Leicester. His series of 292 surviving letters to Sidney, written between September 1595 and December 1602, were partly intended as intelligence documents, keeping Sidney fully briefed on court affairs and gossip. This edition also includes a shorter sequence of Whyte’s surviving letters to Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, concerning the marriage of Talbot’s daughter, Lady Mary, to Robert Sidney’s rich and increasingly powerful nephew, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. A useful resource for the last years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. Illus.
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Today's Super Deal! |
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Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson
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Our Price: $15.00 Sale Price: $10.00 You save $5.00!
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The Other Presidency: Thomas Jefferson and the American Philosophical Society, by Patrick Spero, With research assistance by Abigail Shelton and John Kenney.
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