Biography & Autobiography

Name: Riding Like the Wind
Brand: Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Price: 27.95 USD
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America's Social Arsonist

Gabriel Thompson

Hardcover

$29.95

John Wilkins 1614-1672

Barbara J. Shapiro

Hardcover

$95.00

Radiant Science, Dark Politics

Fritz Baltzer Translated from the German by Dorothea Rudnick

Biography of Yu-Wen Hu

Translated and Annotated by Albert E. Dien

Some Unpublished Letters of Lord Chesterfield

Lord Chesterfield Introduction by Sidney L. Gulick

Hardcover

$95.00

Thomas Jefferson as Political Leader

Dumas Malone

Hardcover

$95.00

Viscount Maua and the Empire of Brazil

Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer

Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara, with an introduction by George Lipsitz and Josh Kun

Hardcover

$95.00

A Family Sketch and Other Private Writings

Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue

Lawrence Clark Powell

Hardcover

$95.00

Wear It Proudly

William Shinji Tsuchida

Hardcover

$95.00

Roger of Salisbury, Viceroy of England

The Life and Adventures of George Nidever, 1802 - 1883

Edited by William Henry Ellison

Hardcover

$95.00

Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan

Owen Lattimore and the Loss of China

Robert P. Newman

Hardcover

$105.00

The Autobiography of an Unknown South African

Naboth Mokgatle

Hardcover

$95.00

Michele Barbi's Life of Dante

Translated and Edited by Paul G. Ruggiers

Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy

Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley

Autobiography of an Unknown Indian

Luigi Russolo, Futurist

Luciano Chessa

Hardcover

$95.00

Weill's Musical Theater

Stephen Hinton

Hardcover

$52.95

Mozart and Enlightenment Semiotics

Serial Composition and Atonality

Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Riding Like the Wind

$27.95

"This absorbing biography, written with both affection and admiration, shows Babb as one of the most indefatigable characters in American literary history."—The New Republic

This saga of a writer done dirty resurrects the silenced voice of Sanora Babb, peerless author of midcentury American literature.

In 1939, when John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath was published, it became an instant bestseller and a prevailing narrative in the nation's collective imagination of the era. But it also stopped the publication of another important novel, silencing a gifted writer who was more intimately connected to the true experiences of Dust Bowl migrants. In Riding Like the Wind, renowned biographer Iris Jamahl Dunkle revives the groundbreaking voice of Sanora Babb.

Dunkle follows Babb from her impoverished childhood in eastern Colorado to California. There, she befriended the era's literati, including Ray Bradbury and Ralph Ellison; entered into an illegal marriage; and was blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was Babb's field notes and oral histories of migrant farmworkers that Steinbeck relied on to write his novel. But this is not merely a saga of literary usurping; on her own merits, Babb's impact was profound. Her life and work feature heavily in Ken Burns's award-winning documentary The Dust Bowl and inspired Kristin Hannah in her bestseller The Four Winds. Riding Like the Wind reminds us with fresh awareness that the stories we know—and who tells them—can change the way we remember history.

Marsha Gordon

Becoming the Ex-Wife

$29.95

"Makes an excellent case for Parrott as an unjustly forgotten historical figure."—The New Yorker
"Remind[s] us of the brazenly talented women sidelined by convention."—New York Times
The riveting biography of Ursula Parrott—best-selling author, Hollywood screenwriter, and voice for the modern woman.

Credited with popularizing the label "ex-wife" in 1929, Ursula Parrott wrote provocatively about divorcées, career women, single mothers, work-life balance, and a host of new challenges facing modern women. Her best sellers, Hollywood film deals, marriages and divorces, and run-ins with the law made her a household name. Part biography, part cultural history, Becoming the Ex-Wife establishes Parrott's rightful place in twentieth-century American culture, uncovering her neglected work and keen insights into American women's lives during a period of immense social change.

Although she was frequently dismissed as a "woman's writer," reading Parrott's writing today makes it clear that she was a trenchant philosopher of modernity—her work was prescient, anticipating issues not widely raised until decades after her decline into obscurity. With elegant wit and a deft command of the archive, Marsha Gordon tells a timely story about the life of a woman on the front lines of a culture war that is still raging today.

Roland De Wolk

American Disruptor

$34.95

The rags to riches story of Silicon Valley's original disruptor.

American Disruptor is the untold story of Leland Stanford – from his birth in a backwoods bar to the founding of the world-class university that became and remains the nucleus of Silicon Valley. The life of this robber baron, politician, and historic influencer is the astonishing tale of how one supremely ambitious man became this country's original "disruptor" – reshaping industry and engineering one of the greatest raids on the public treasury for America’s transcontinental railroad, all while living more opulently than maharajas, kings, and emperors.

It is also the saga of how Stanford, once a serial failure, overcame all obstacles to become one of America’s most powerful and wealthiest men, using his high elective office to enrich himself before losing the one thing that mattered most to him – his only child and son. Scandal and intrigue would follow Stanford through his life, and even after his death, when his widow was murdered in a Honolulu hotel – a crime quickly covered up by the almost stillborn university she had saved. Richly detailed and deeply researched, American Disruptor restores Leland Stanford’s rightful place as a revolutionary force and architect of modern America.

Laszlo Somfai

Bela Bartok

$78.95

This long-awaited, authoritative account of Bartók's compositional processes stresses the composer's position as one of the masters of Western music history and avoids a purely theoretical approach or one that emphasizes him as an enthusiast for Hungarian folk music.

For Bèla Bartók, composition often began with improvisation at the piano. Làszló Somfai maintains that Bartók composed without preconceived musical theories and refused to teach composition precisely for this reason. He was not an analytical composer but a musical creator for whom intuition played a central role.

These conclusions are the result of Somfai's three decades of work with Bartók's oeuvre; of careful analysis of some 3,600 pages of sketches, drafts, and autograph manuscripts; and of the study of documents reflecting the development of Bartók's compositions. Included as well are corrections preserved only on recordings of Bartók's performances of his own works. Somfai also provides the first comprehensive catalog of every known work of Bartók, published and unpublished, and of all extant draft, sketch, and preparatory material. His book will be basic to all future scholarly work on Bartók and will assist performers in clarifying the problems of Bartók notation. Moreover, it will be a model for future work on other major composers.

Nobuko Miyamoto

Not Yo' Butterfly

$95.00

A mold-breaking memoir of Asian American identity, political activism, community, and purpose.

Not Yo’ Butterfly is the intimate and unflinching life story of Nobuko Miyamoto—artist, activist, and mother. Beginning with the harrowing early years of her life as a Japanese American child navigating a fearful west coast during World War II, Miyamoto leads readers into the landscapes that defined the experiences of twentieth-century America and also foregrounds the struggles of people of color who reclaimed their histories, identities, and power through activism and art.

Miyamoto vividly describes her early life in the racialized atmosphere of Hollywood musicals and then her turn toward activism as an Asian American troubadour with the release of A Grain of Sand—considered to be the first Asian American folk album. Her narrative intersects with the stories of Yuri Kochiyama and Grace Lee Boggs, influential in both Asian and Black liberation movements. She tells how her experience of motherhood with an Afro-Asian son, as well as a marriage that intertwined Black and Japanese families and communities, placed her at the nexus of the 1992 Rodney King riots—and how she used art to create interracial solidarity and conciliation.

Through it all, Miyamoto has embraced her identity as an Asian American woman to create an antiracist body of work and a blueprint for empathy and praxis through community art. Her sometimes barbed, often provocative, and always steadfast story is now told.

Gabriel Thompson

America's Social Arsonist

$29.95

"A good organizer is a social arsonist who goes around setting people on fire."—Fred Ross

Raised by conservative parents who hoped he would “stay with his own kind,” Fred Ross instead became one of the most influential community organizers in American history. His activism began alongside Dust Bowl migrants, where he managed the same labor camp that inspired John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. During World War II, Ross worked for the release of interned Japanese Americans, and after the war, he dedicated his life to building the political power of Latinos across California. Labor organizing in this country was forever changed when Ross knocked on the door of a young Cesar Chavez and encouraged him to become an organizer.

Until now there has been no biography of Fred Ross, a man who believed a good organizer was supposed to fade into the crowd as others stepped forward. In America’s Social Arsonist, Gabriel Thompson provides a full picture of this complicated and driven man, recovering a forgotten chapter of American history and providing vital lessons for organizers today.

John T. Blackmore

Ernst Mach

$95.00

Ernst Mach: His Work, Life, and Influence aims to bring attention to the important yet often overlooked figure of Ernst Mach, a physicist, philosopher, and psychologist whose contributions span multiple disciplines. The book seeks to provide new biographical information to help the educated public better understand Mach, emphasizing his significant influence on modern physics and philosophy of science. Not merely a physicist, Mach's work also impacted psychology and physiology, and his philosophical ideas, particularly his attempt to base modern physics on a presentationalist epistemology, remain a subject of both admiration and controversy. The book highlights how Mach's ideas, though often opposed by later scientists, laid the groundwork for key developments in science and philosophy, making him a figure deserving of recognition alongside figures like Max Planck and Albert Einstein.

The book also addresses the reasons why Mach’s legacy has remained somewhat obscure, despite his profound impact. A combination of Mach’s own reluctance for a biography and the philosophical battles surrounding his views, especially his critique of Newtonian physics, has led to his ideas being misunderstood or neglected. His intellectual life was marked by intense controversies with figures like Max Planck, Ludwig Boltzmann, and even Albert Einstein, which contributed to his personal and professional struggles. Despite his later life being marked by personal tragedy and physical decline, Mach continued to defend his ideas with remarkable tenacity. His scientific contributions, such as his work on shock waves, are still widely acknowledged today, with terms like Mach number becoming part of the scientific lexicon. However, the book argues that it is time for Mach’s full philosophical and scientific influence to be more widely recognized and understood, shedding light on his controversial yet crucial role in shaping 20th-century thought.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

Translated and Annotated by Albert E. Dien

Biography of Yu-Wen Hu

$95.00

Albert E. Dien’s Biography of Yü-Wen Hu offers a comprehensive translation and analysis of a pivotal historical figure in northern China’s sixth century. Through a detailed rendering of the Chou shu biography, this work explores the complex interplay between Confucian ideals and the governance of the Northern Chou dynasty, a state ruled by leaders of non-Chinese origin. Dien’s annotations illuminate how the historian of the Chou shu adeptly portrays the Yü-Wen rulers as fully sinified, reflecting the successful integration of Confucian moral and political norms into their administration. This biography not only captures the turbulent dynamics of the era but also reveals the broader sociocultural transition from tribal leadership to a Confucian state.

Scholars and students of Chinese history will find this volume invaluable for its rigorous attention to historical detail and sociopolitical context. Yü-Wen Hu’s rise to power as regent and his deft handling of internal court conflicts are presented as a lens to examine broader themes of authority, loyalty, and cultural transformation. Dien’s work underscores the Northern Chou’s ambitious emulation of the ancient Chou dynasty, offering a nuanced perspective on how Confucian principles shaped political legitimacy and statecraft in early medieval China. Ideal for sinologists and comparative historians, this translation bridges historical narrative and cultural analysis, making it an essential resource for understanding this transformative period in Chinese history.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1962.

Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara, with an introduction by George Lipsitz and Josh Kun

Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer

$95.00

A pioneer of Chicano rock, Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara performed with Frank Zappa, Johnny Otis, Bo Diddley, Tina Turner, and Celia Cruz, though he is best known as the front man of the 1970s experimental rock band Ruben And The Jets. Here he recounts how his youthful experiences in the barrio La Veinte of Santa Monica in the 1940s prepared him for early success in music and how his triumphs and seductive brushes with stardom were met with tragedy and crushing disappointments. Brutally honest and open, Confessions of a Radical Chicano Doo-Wop Singer is an often hilarious and self-critical look inside the struggle of becoming an artist and a man. Recognizing racial identity as composite, contested, and complex, Guevara—an American artist of Mexican descent—embraces a Chicano identity of his own design, calling himself a Chicano “culture sculptor” who has worked to transform the aspirations, alienations, and indignities of the Mexican American people into an aesthetic experience that could point the way to liberation.

Mark Twain

A Family Sketch and Other Private Writings

$25.95

This book publishes, for the first time in full, the two most revealing of Mark Twain’s private writings. Here he turns his mind to the daily life he shared with his wife Livy, their three daughters, a great many servants, and an imposing array of pets. These first-hand accounts display this gifted and loving family in the period of its flourishing.

Mark Twain began to write “A Family Sketch” in response to the early death of his eldest daughter, Susy, but the manuscript grew under his hands to become an exuberant account of the entire household. His record of the childrens’ sayings—“Small Foolishnesses”—is next, followed by the related manuscript “At the Farm.” Also included are selections from Livy’s 1885 diary and an authoritative edition of Susy’s biography of her father, written when she was a teenager. Newly edited from the original manuscripts, this anthology is a unique record of a fascinating family.

Peter Richardson

Savage Journey

$27.95

A superbly crafted study of Hunter S. Thompson’s literary formation, achievement, and continuing relevance.

Savage Journey is a "supremely crafted" study of Hunter S. Thompson's literary formation and achievement. Focusing on Thompson's influences, development, and unique model of authorship, Savage Journey argues that his literary formation was largely a San Francisco story. During the 1960s, Thompson rode with the Hell's Angels, explored the San Francisco counterculture, and met talented editors who shared his dissatisfaction with mainstream journalism. Peter Richardson traces Thompson's transition during this time from New Journalist to cofounder of Gonzo journalism. He also endorses Thompson's later claim that he was one of the best writers using the English language as both a musical instrument and a political weapon. Although Thompson's political commentary was often hyperbolic, Richardson shows that much of it was also prophetic.

Fifty years after the publication of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and more than a decade after his death, Thompson's celebrity continues to obscure his literary achievement. This book refocuses our understanding of that achievement by mapping Thompson's influences, probing the development of his signature style, and tracing the reception of his major works. It concludes that Thompson was not only a gifted journalist, satirist, and media critic, but also the most distinctive American voice in the second half of the twentieth century.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue

$26.95

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's last book is a curation of her own legacy, tracing the long history of her work for gender equality and a “more perfect Union.”

In the fall of 2019, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg visited the University of California, Berkeley School of Law to deliver the first annual Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture in honor of her friend, the late Herma Hill Kay, with whom Ginsburg had coauthored the very first casebook on sex-based discrimination in 1974. Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue is the result of a period of collaboration between Ginsburg and Amanda L. Tyler, a Berkeley Law professor and former Ginsburg law clerk. During Justice Ginsburg's visit to Berkeley, she told her life story in conversation with Tyler. In this collection, the two bring together that conversation and other materials—many previously unpublished—that share details from Justice Ginsburg's family life and long career. These include notable briefs and oral arguments, some of Ginsburg's last speeches, and her favorite opinions that she wrote as a Supreme Court Justice (many in dissent), along with the statements that she read from the bench in those important cases. Each document was chosen by Ginsburg and Tyler to tell the story of the litigation strategy and optimistic vision that were at the heart of Ginsburg's unwavering commitment to the achievement of "a more perfect Union."

In a decades-long career, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an advocate and jurist for gender equality and for ensuring that the United States Constitution leaves no person behind. Her work transformed not just the American legal landscape, but American society more generally. Ginsburg labored tirelessly to promote a Constitution that is ever more inclusive and that allows every individual to achieve their full human potential. As revealed in these pages, in the area of gender rights, Ginsburg dismantled long-entrenched systems of discrimination based on outdated stereotypes by showing how such laws hold back both genders. And as also shown in the materials brought together here, Justice Ginsburg had a special ability to appreciate how the decisions of the high court impact the lived experiences of everyday Americans. The passing of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in September 2020 as this book was heading into production was met with a public outpouring of grief. With her death, the country lost a hero and national treasure whose incredible life and legacy made the United States a more just society and one in which “We the People,” for whom the Constitution is written, includes everyone.

Hyman Weintraub

Andrew Furuseth

$95.00

Emancipator of the Seamen explores the life and impact of Andrew Furuseth, a Norwegian-born seaman who became a defining figure in the American labor movement through his dedication to the Sailors' Union of the Pacific (SUP). Arriving in San Francisco in 1880, Furuseth committed his life to improving the lives of sailors and ensuring their rights. The SUP, under his leadership, became a steadfast institution in labor history, embodying the challenges and triumphs of organized labor in America. This biography not only captures Furuseth’s contributions but also sheds light on the broader labor movement dynamics—rivalries within unions, the shaping of business unionism, the influence of labor in California and national politics, and the push for protective legislation.

Authored by Dr. Hyman Weintraub, this work brings together firsthand knowledge of the labor movement with the analytical depth of historical scholarship. Weintraub’s background as both a historian and someone with personal connections to labor provides a nuanced perspective on Furuseth’s legacy and the SUP’s enduring influence. Published by the Institute of Industrial Relations, this biography continues the Institute’s research into American labor history, following works like Dr. Grace Heilman Stimson’s Rise of the Labor Movement in Los Angeles. Emancipator of the Seamen offers readers a detailed account of Furuseth’s life and achievements while contributing to a deeper understanding of labor’s role in shaping American society.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1959.

Sally N. Vanghn

Anselm of Bec and Robert of Meulan

$95.00

This title delves into the intertwined lives of St. Anselm, the renowned theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury, and Robert of Meulan, an influential Anglo-Norman nobleman and advisor to the English crown. These two figures, representing the sacred and the secular, engaged in a lifelong adversarial relationship that spanned both Normandy and England during a pivotal period of political and ecclesiastical change. Anselm, a former abbot of Bec, came into conflict with the English monarchy over the autonomy of the church, while Robert championed the rights of the state as an advisor to multiple kings. Their disputes, particularly over the Investiture Controversy, defined a critical era in the development of English political and religious policy, revealing the tension between regnum (the realm) and sacerdotium (the church).

Despite their frequent clashes, Anselm and Robert ultimately worked toward a vision of stability for the Anglo-Norman realm. While Anselm’s legacy endures in the form of his theological contributions and sanctity, Robert’s accomplishments are less widely remembered outside of specialized historical circles. This study aims to provide a fuller picture of both men, focusing on the political, philosophical, and personal forces that shaped their lives and legacies. Through meticulous analysis of historical sources and a synthesis of previously published research, the book illuminates how the contrasting visions of Anselm and Robert for a “right order” in the Christian kingdom ultimately converged, forming a compromise that influenced the balance of church and state for generations to come.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.

Theodora Kroeber

Alfred Kroeber

$95.00

The Handbook of the Indians of California, written by Alfred Kroeber between 1916 and 1917, is the defining work by which he is widely recognized. Known beyond academic circles, the Handbook remains a primary reference for many on California's Indigenous cultures. Kroeber embraced this association with his work, considering it the “first fruits” of his career and a testament to his early fieldwork. His later explorations into broader theoretical concepts were deeply rooted in these experiences with the living cultures of Native Americans, which began on his early field trips to Wyoming and Oklahoma, and ultimately California, where he made his lifelong home.

Kroeber's westward journey marked a turning point, setting him apart from his East Coast roots. Arriving in California in 1900, he immersed himself in fieldwork, traversing the state to study Native American communities in rural areas. Known as the serious young anthropologist with his black beard and pockets full of tools and treats, he quickly became a respected figure among the Indigenous tribes he worked with, particularly the Yurok of northern California’s Klamath River and the Mohave of the Colorado River. His interest lay in California's landscapes—the rivers, bays, and coastline—which paralleled the natural surroundings of the Indigenous cultures he studied, reflecting his deep connection to the Pacific and its waterways.

Despite the powerful draw of the West, Kroeber’s formative years were shaped in New York, amidst the waterways surrounding Manhattan. He grew up in a close-knit family, with friendships that spanned his life despite geographic separation. This early foundation influenced his work and perspective, anchoring him in both his professional discipline and personal relationships. His early life on the East Coast contrasts with his later dedication to California’s Indigenous cultures, highlighting the unique, dual influence of these landscapes on his approach to anthropology and his lifelong commitment to understanding and documenting the rich cultural heritage of Native American communities.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1970.

Naboth Mokgatle

The Autobiography of an Unknown South African

$95.00

The Autobiography of an Unknown South African by Naboth Mokgatle offers a detailed and rich narrative of the author’s life and his tribal roots, providing a vivid glimpse into the customs, traditions, and history of the Bafokeng people of South Africa. Mokgatle begins with his family history, recounting the circumstances of his birth in 1911 in Phokeng, a tribal village in the Rustenburg district of the Transvaal Province. He describes the complex dynamics of his family, shaped by both African traditions and the influence of Christianity, which often created tension in their practices. The narrative reveals the traditional African values of marriage, gender roles, and the discipline instilled in children, highlighting how his father’s strict yet caring nature governed their upbringing. Through anecdotes about his siblings and the unique family circumstances, Mokgatle intertwines personal stories with broader cultural themes, demonstrating how tribal laws and Christian beliefs shaped his family’s life and the society they inhabited.

The book also delves into the historical and cultural legacy of Mokgatle’s Bafokeng tribe, tracing their migration from Lesotho to Botswana and eventually to the Transvaal. The tribe’s identity, symbolized by the crocodile, is intricately tied to their customs, including circumcision, marriage traditions, and communal living. Mokgatle recounts how the tribe split into three sections due to a dispute over chieftainship, leading to the formation of independent clans that still maintained cultural ties and a shared identity. Through vivid descriptions of agricultural practices, food preparation, and the artistry of pottery, Mokgatle portrays a self-sufficient community deeply connected to the land and its resources. He also reflects on the impact of European influence and Christianity on the tribe, which introduced both modern conveniences and challenges to traditional ways of life. This autobiography stands as both a personal memoir and a cultural archive, capturing the complexities of transitioning from traditional African society to a modern, colonized world.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1971.

Jan Caeyers

Beethoven, A Life

$34.95

The authoritative Beethoven biography, endorsed by and produced in close collaboration with the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, is timed for the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth.

With unprecedented access to the archives at the Beethoven House in Bonn, renowned Beethoven conductor and scholar Jan Caeyers expertly weaves together a deeply human and complex image of Beethoven—his troubled youth, his unpredictable mood swings, his desires, relationships, and conflicts with family and friends, the mysteries surrounding his affair with the “immortal beloved,” and the dramatic tale of his deafness. Caeyers also offers new insights into Beethoven’s music and its gradual transformation from the work of a skilled craftsman into that of a consummate artist.

Demonstrating an impressive command of the vast scholarship on this iconic composer, Caeyers brings Beethoven’s world alive with elegant prose, memorable musical descriptions, and vivid depictions of Bonn and Vienna—the cities where Beethoven produced and performed his works. Caeyers explores how Beethoven’s career was impacted by the historical and philosophical shifts taking place in the music world, and conversely, how his own trajectory changed the course of the music industry. Equal parts absorbing cultural history and lively biography, Beethoven, A Life paints a complex portrait of the musical genius who redefined the musical style of his day and went on to become one of the great pillars of Western art music.

Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley

Jack Benny and the Golden Age of American Radio Comedy

$95.00

The king of radio comedy from the Great Depression through the early 1950s, Jack Benny was one of the most influential entertainers in twentieth-century America. A master of comic timing and an innovative producer, Benny, with his radio writers, developed a weekly situation comedy to meet radio’s endless need for new material, at the same time integrating advertising into the show’s humor. Through the character of the vain, cheap everyman, Benny created a fall guy, whose frustrated struggles with his employees addressed midcentury America’s concerns with race, gender, commercialism, and sexual identity. Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley contextualizes her analysis of Jack Benny and his entourage with thoughtful insight into the intersections of competing entertainment industries and provides plenty of evidence that transmedia stardom, branded entertainment, and virality are not new phenomena but current iterations of key aspects in American commercial cultural history.

Nirad C. Chaudhuri

Autobiography of an Unknown Indian

$95.00

The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian by Nirad C. Chaudhuri is a profound and introspective account of a man's journey through early 20th-century India. The narrative weaves the personal with the historical, using the author’s life as a lens to explore the broader struggles of Indian civilization confronting British imperialism and modernity. Chaudhuri’s intention is to present not merely a memoir but a historical testimony, highlighting the intersection of individual experience with societal evolution. His unique perspective, shaped by an exceptional and unconventional path, offers a vantage point akin to an aerial view—detached yet deeply connected to the land below. Written with unflinching honesty, the book delves into themes of identity, colonialism, and the trajectory of Indian society, emphasizing the tension between the dominant national currents and the often-overlooked exceptions that resist them.

Addressing an English-speaking audience, Chaudhuri aims to provide insight into the forces that shaped India’s trajectory under British rule and beyond. While his experiences are atypical, he argues that their value lies in their ability to illuminate the broader environment through a distinct, independent lens. Chaudhuri candidly critiques both the dominant narratives of his time and the leaders who guide nations into either growth or decline. Through his reflections, he not only grapples with the complexities of India’s societal fabric but also examines the role of exceptional individuals who challenge or reinforce prevailing trends. This book stands as a bold declaration of faith in understanding history, culture, and personal identity amidst the relentless tide of change.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1968.

Joseph Horowitz

Wagner Nights

$95.00

As never before or since, Richard Wagner's name dominated American music-making at the close of the nineteenth century. Europe, too, was obsessed with Wagner, but—as Joseph Horowitz shows in this first history of Wagnerism in the United States—the American obsession was unique.

The central figure in Wagner Nights is conductor Anton Seidl (1850-1898), a priestly and enigmatic personage in New York musical life. Seidl's own admirers included the women of the Brooklyn-based Seidl Society, who wore the letter "S" on their dresses. In the summers, Seidl conducted fourteen times a week at Brighton Beach, filling the three-thousand-seat music pavilion to capacity. The fact that most Wagnerites were women was a distinguishing feature of American Wagnerism and constituted a vital aspect of the fin-de-siècle ferment that anticipated the New American Woman.

Drawing on the work of such cultural historians as T. Jackson Lears and Lawrence Levine, Horowitz's lively history reveals an "Americanized" Wagner never documented before. An entertaining and startling read, a treasury of operatic lore, Wagner Nights offers an unprecedented revisionist history of American culture a century ago.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1994.

Edward T. Cone

The Composer's Voice

$95.00

Music, we are often told, is a language. But if music is a language, then who is speaking? The Composer's Voice tries to answer this obvious but infrequently raised question. In so doing, it puts forward a dramatistic theory of musical expression, based on the view that every composition is a symbolic utterance involving a fundamental act of impersonation. The voice we hear is not that of the composer himself, but of a persona--a musical projection of his consciousness that experiences and communicates the events of the composition.

Developing his argument by reference to numerous examples ina wide variety of styles, Mr. Cone moves from song and opera through program music to absolute instrumental music. In particular, he discusses the implications of his theory for performance. According to the dramatistic view, not only every singer but every instrumentalist as well becomes a kind of actor, assuming a role that functions both autonomously and as a component of the total musical persona. In his analysis of the problems inherent in this dual nature of the performer's job, Mr. Cone offers guidance that will prove of practical value to every performing musician.

He has much to say to the listener as well. He recommends an imaginative participation in the component roles of musical work, leading to a sense of identification with the persona itself, as the path to complete musical understanding. And this approach is shown to be relevant to a number of specialized kids of listening as well--those applicable to analysis, historical scholarship, and criticism. The dance, too, is shown to depend on similar concepts.

Although The Composer's Voice involves an investigation of how music functions as a form of communication, it is not primarily concerned with determine, or interpreting, the "content" of the message. A final chapter, however, puts forward a tentative explanation of musical "meaning" based on an interpretation of the art as a coalescence of symbolic utterance and symbolic gesture. While not essential to the main lines of the argument, it suggests interesting possibilities for further development of the dramatistic theory.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

Luciano Chessa

Luigi Russolo, Futurist

$95.00

Luigi Russolo (1885–1947)—painter, composer, builder of musical instruments, and first-hour member of the Italian Futurist movement—was a crucial figure in the evolution of twentieth-century aesthetics. As creator of the first systematic poetics of noise and inventor of what has been considered the first mechanical sound synthesizer, Russolo looms large in the development of twentieth-century music. In the first English language study of Russolo, Luciano Chessa emphasizes the futurist’s interest in the occult, showing it to be a leitmotif for his life and a foundation for his art of noises. Chessa shows that Russolo’s aesthetics of noise, and the machines he called the intonarumori, were intended to boost practitioners into higher states of spiritual consciousness. His analysis reveals a multifaceted man in whom the drive to keep up with the latest scientific trends coexisted with an embrace of the irrational, and a critique of materialism and positivism.

Stephen Hinton

Weill's Musical Theater

$52.95

In the first musicological study of Kurt Weill’s complete stage works, Stephen Hinton charts the full range of theatrical achievements by one of twentieth-century musical theater’s key figures. Hinton shows how Weill’s experiments with a range of genres—from one-act operas and plays with music to Broadway musicals and film-opera—became an indispensable part of the reforms he promoted during his brief but intense career. Confronting the divisive notion of “two Weills”—one European, the other American—Hinton adopts a broad and inclusive perspective, establishing criteria that allow aspects of continuity to emerge, particularly in matters of dramaturgy. Tracing his extraordinary journey as a composer, the book shows how Weill’s artistic ambitions led to his working with a remarkably heterogeneous collection of authors, such as Georg Kaiser, Bertolt Brecht, Moss Hart, Alan Jay Lerner, and Maxwell Anderson.

Stephen Rumph

Mozart and Enlightenment Semiotics

$85.00

In this groundbreaking, historically-informed semiotic study of late eighteenth-century music, Stephen Rumph focuses on Mozart to explore musical meaning within the context of Enlightenment sign and language theory. Illuminating his discussion with French, British, German, and Italian writings on signs and language, Rumph analyzes movements from Mozart’s symphonies, concertos, operas, and church music. He argues that Mozartian semiosis is best understood within the empiricist tradition of Condillac, Vico, Herder, or Adam Smith, which emphasized the constitutive role of signs within human cognition. Recognizing that the rationalist model of neoclassical rhetoric has guided much recent work on Mozart and his contemporaries, Rumph demonstrates how the dialogic tension between opposing paradigms enabled the composer to negotiate contradictions within Enlightenment thought.

Charles Fisk

Returning Cycles

$68.95

This compelling investigation of the later music of Franz Schubert explores the rich terrain of Schubert's impromptus and last piano sonatas. Drawing on the relationships between these pieces and Schubert's Winterreise song cycle, his earlier "Der Wanderer," the closely related "Unfinished" Symphony, and his story of exile and homecoming, "My Dream," Charles Fisk explains how Schubert's view of his own life may well have shaped his music in the years shortly before his death.

Fisk's intimate portrayal of Schubert is based on evidence from the composer's own hand, both verbal (song texts and his written words) and musical (vocal and instrumental). Noting extraordinary aspects of tonality, structure, and gestural content, Fisk argues that through his music Schubert sought to alleviate his apparent sense of exile and his anticipation of early death. Fisk supports this view through close analyses of the cyclic connections within and between the works he explores, finding in them complex musical narratives that attempt to come to terms with mortality, alienation, hope, and desire.

Fisk's knowledge of Schubert's life and music, together with his astute and imaginative attention to musical detail, helps him achieve one of the most difficult goals in music criticism: to capture and verbalize the human content of instrumental music.

Klára Móricz

Jewish Identities

$85.00

Jewish Identities mounts a formidable challenge to prevailing essentialist assumptions about "Jewish music," which maintain that ethnic groups, nations, or religious communities possess an essence that must manifest itself in art created by members of that group. Klára Móricz scrutinizes concepts of Jewish identity and reorders ideas about twentieth-century "Jewish music" in three case studies: first, Russian Jewish composers of the first two decades of the twentieth century; second, the Swiss American Ernest Bloch; and third, Arnold Schoenberg. Examining these composers in the context of emerging Jewish nationalism, widespread racial theories, and utopian tendencies in modernist art and twentieth-century politics, Móricz describes a trajectory from paradigmatic nationalist techniques, through assumptions about the unintended presence of racial essences, to an abstract notion of Judaism.

Richard F. Kuisel

Ernest Mercier

$95.00

Ernest Mercier (1878-1955) was a key figure in the rise of the technical-managerial class in early 20th-century France. A businessman and technocrat, he sought to overhaul the French political and economic system through his work in modernizing the electric power industry and promoting the creation of a native petroleum industry. As head of France's largest utilities syndicate, Mercier was influential within the business and political elite, forming connections with figures like Marshals Foch and Pétain and Presidents Poincaré and Lebrun. His technocratic movement, Redressement Français (1925-1935), aimed at replacing the political establishment with a results-oriented, expert-driven system. Mercier's career, deeply intertwined with the rise of the managerial class, offers insight into the broader goals of technocrats to modernize France’s economy and society while also seeking a shift in traditional political and social values.

Mercier's story also illustrates the tensions between modernization and the political climate of the era. Despite his drive for economic transformation, his elitist tendencies and authoritarian associations, including his involvement in the Croix de Feu, demonstrate the complexities of his character. As a technocrat, Mercier aimed to make France more efficient and productive, but his belief in authoritarian methods clashed with democratic ideals. His biography is not only a study of the man himself but also of the broader technocratic movement that sought to reshape France. While his efforts to modernize the French system largely failed during his lifetime, they laid the groundwork for the technocratic influence that would grow stronger in the postwar era.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.