Author: Alvin Johnson
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
“This is the story of a long and brilliant career in American education... [Johnson] writes with humor, modesty, and what seems to be total recall, a fascinating report of a useful life.” — Bruce Bliven, The New York Times “Alvin Johnson has written a first-rate life history, but by that fact he has also written a good deal more. For he has told his life in a way that shows how it holds in microcosm all the dominant themes of our American history and society... [Johnson] must have been a bewildering paradox for his more solemn academic colleagues — a Nebraska farmer who knew the dead languages and most of the European living ones, an economist who knew literature and anthropology and the ‘new’ psychology, an original thinker who was at ease in the columns of the New Republic, an irreverent man who refused to follow the latest revolutionary dogmas but was merciless in knocking the sawdust out of the stuffy orthodoxies... [Johnson] can believe in other men because he has a quiet fortress of strength in himself. Lytton Strachey remarked that it is harder to write a good life than to lead one. Alvin Johnson has done both.” — Max Lerner, The American Scholar “This autobiography is remarkable for the long and fruitful span of life which it records, for the rich and varied contents, and for the humor which the author plays upon every chapter... every chapter bears witness to the honesty of the author’s statement: ‘Never in all my life have I given a hoot for personal security.’“ — George M. Stephenson, The American Historical Review “This American success story is refreshingly different from the usual rags-to-riches one. Alvin Johnson is the best kind of man that America produces, and his autobiography, both in the writing and the story that is told, is one of the best books of the year.” — The Providence Journal “It is necessary for any thoughtful American to take Pioneer’s Progress in hand. You can pick it up, lay it down, come back to it at any odd moment, even on the subway, with pleasure and profit. It is as various in content as a good meal.” — Dorothy Canfield Fisher “What you will remember is the Nebraska boy applying his farmbred wisdom and his father’s courage to all the questions that fate tossed his way.” — New York Herald Tribune “Alvin Johnson’s biography ought to be required reading, both here and abroad, for anyone who wants to understand American government, and the American spirit.” — Adolf A. Berle, Jr. “A fine and mellow autobiography by the father of adult education in this country... His book is alive with anecdotes on everything from life on a remote Nebraska farm to pioneering in the field of the social sciences... Education’s man of action, in a self-portrait which is permeated with a homespun charm and humor and invigorated by the character of the man and his impressive influence.” — Kirkus Reviews “This book relates the interesting life story of a great American liberal and intellectual leader... The reader of Pioneer’s Progress is constantly amazed at the versatility of a man who is able to cram so many good works into one lifetime. Yet, his book is written with such simplicity, modesty, and self-deprecating humor that one cannot help but like as well as admire him.” — L. S. Curtis, Journal of Negro History “[A] lively story which the more-or-less-retired president of the New School has written about his activities up to now... a man’s record of his own life... Among the causes which this man helped turn into movements were land reclamation, rescue of scholars from destruction (by Hitler, Mussolini, and the Communists), peace, and racial justice. But adult education is his great consuming passion. Of this the New School for Social Research, whose founding president he was, is living testimony... To Alvin Johnson, all causes — racial justice, peace, better farming and better health, what have you — are one with adult education. One learns by reading, by observing, by arguing, by acting, by interacting with other people... And perhaps this is the important thing about the man; he would not be confined... And it is in the story of the New School that we learn what the man Johnson really is... This man is strictly a public entrepreneur.” — Everett C. Hughes, Commentary Magazine “Despite the sophistication of the higher reaches of learning and academic endeavor that form a large part of Johnson’s story, he never completely leaves the soil, or the West. The Nebraska beginnings so charmingly chronicled in the early part of the book seem tied intimately to later chapters that related his adventures in land reclamation and his theories on sugar beets, Danish farmers, even Montana Indian reservations. All these serve to demonstrate convincingly that the western roots of Alvin Johnson grew deep indeed.” — Carl Ubbelohde, Montana: The Magazine of Western History “All through his long years of active life Alvin Johnson has fought against bigotry and pettiness of spirit. He is always the free spirit who puts reasoned enlightenment and imaginative and creative thinking against academic stuffiness and oppressive intolerance. But he is never satisfied with mere verbal expression; he always seeks to concretize his reactions into living institutions. His autobiography is, therefore, not only a moving and inspiring story of his own spiritual development but also a chronicle of American cultural institutions during the past 50 years.” — Koppel S. Pinson, Jewish Social Studies “One’s first response to Dr. Johnson’s autobiography is of pride: that so useful, so various, and, what one ventures to call so American a life should belong to us... this autobiography, with its spontaneous combination of concepts and concerns, offers most interesting materials for the student of our national development in modern times.” — Louis Filler, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review
Author: Alvin Saunders Johnson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Author: Michael Cardew
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 9780713659450
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
When he went to West Africa in the 1940s, Michael Cardew found himself in a land where the potter's art had been flourishing for centuries without the use of wheels, or kilns, or glazes. This book grew out of his desire to share all that he had learned from the African pioneers of pottery.
Author: Elizabeth Blackwell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
Elizabeth Blackwell, though born in England, was reared in the United States and was the first woman to receive a medical degree here, obtaining it from the Geneva Medical College, Geneva, New York, in 1849. A pioneer in opening the medical profession to women, she founded hospitals and medical schools for women in both the United States and England. She was a lecturer and writer as well as an able physician and organizer. -- H.W. Orr.
Author: Alice H. Cook
Publisher: Feminist Press at CUNY
ISBN: 9781558612570
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 372
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Book Description
"This book is both graceful autobiography and perceptive social history that will be of lasting value." --Library Journal
Author: Sevastia Qiriazi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780993424847
Category : Albania
Languages : sq
Pages : 334
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Author: Robert Cochran
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803222645
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
Louise Pound (1872 1958) was a distinguished literary scholar, renowned athlete, accomplished musician, and devoted women s sports advocate. She is perhaps best remembered for her groundbreaking work in the field of linguistics and folklore and for her role as the first woman president of the Modern Language Association. A member of a distinguished Nebraska family that included her brother, the prominent legal scholar Roscoe Pound, Louise completed her undergraduate education at the University of Nebraska. When American universities wouldn t admit her for graduate study, she went on to obtain a PhD in Heidelberg, Germany. She returned to the University of Nebraska Lincoln to teach in the English department for the next forty-five years. As a scholar Louise crusaded for the serious study of American English and founded the field s leading journal, demolished a powerfully defended approach to the study of American folk song, and fought tirelessly to open athletic and professional opportunities for women. She was, in short, what one admirer called a universal wonder. She befriended and played an influential role in the life of the young Willa Cather during Cather s years at the University of Nebraska; H. L. Mencken praised her extravagantly; and scholars of literature, folklore, and dialect studies elevated her to the presidency of their professional societies. Readers of varied interests will find her story compelling.
Author: Judith Friedlander
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231542577
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 787
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Book Description
The New School for Social Research opened in 1919 as an act of protest. Founded in the name of academic freedom, it quickly emerged as a pioneer in adult education—providing what its first president, Alvin Johnson, liked to call “the continuing education of the educated.” By the mid-1920s, the New School had become the place to go to hear leading figures lecture on politics and the arts and recent developments in new fields of inquiry, such as anthropology and psychoanalysis. Then in 1933, after Hitler rose to power, Johnson created the University in Exile within the New School. Welcoming nearly two hundred refugees, Johnson, together with these exiled scholars, defiantly maintained the great traditions of Europe’s imperiled universities. Judith Friedlander reconstructs the history of the New School in the context of ongoing debates over academic freedom and the role of education in liberal democracies. Against the backdrop of World War I and the first red scare, the rise of fascism and McCarthyism, the student uprisings during the Vietnam War and the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe, Friedlander tells a dramatic story of intellectual, political, and financial struggle through illuminating sketches of internationally renowned scholars and artists. These include, among others, Charles A. Beard, John Dewey, José Clemente Orozco, Robert Heilbroner, Hannah Arendt, and Ágnes Heller. Featured prominently as well are New School students, trustees, and academic leaders. As the New School prepares to celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary, A Light in Dark Times offers a timely reflection on the legacy of this unique institution, which has boldly defended dissident intellectuals and artists in the United States and overseas.
Author: Richard D. Alba
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
“[A] clear, sympathetic, but not sentimental description of Italian-American experience from the roots in Italy to settlement in the United States, describing the cultural patterns which crossed the ocean with the emigres and the vicissitudes as well as the progress of the integration of the immigrants and their culture into American society... [an] excellent book... the scholarship and readability of this book make it stand out among others of its kind and it is a contribution to both public understanding and intellectual inquiry.” — Francis A. J. Ianni, Political Science Quarterly “[A] lucid analysis of the twilight of ethnic separateness for Italian-Americans.” — Sandra Schoenberg Kling, American Journal of Sociology “Richard Alba has written an important book... With clarity and precision Alba traces the history and sociology of Italian Americans over the course of the past century and concludes that whereas Italian descent was once a major impediment to inclusion in American social life, it is no longer such an obstacle. Offering a detached, scholarly view of his subject, Alba maintains that ethnic-revival protagonists have misread what in fact was taking place: structural assimilation.” — Salvatore J. Lagumina, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science “This short book delivers more than it promises... One might expect an overview of Italian-Americans’ experiences, addressing their origins, migration, reception, and adaptation patterns, in a form appropriate for undergraduate courses on ethnic relations. These predictable subjects are indeed covered, in a readable, accurate account as comprehensive as possible in less than two hundred pages. But what is notable for sociologists outside of the classroom is that this volume does significantly more... the book’s thematic concern is assimilation.” — Eric Woodrum, Social Forces “[A] brief and lucid account of Italian Americans.” — Dino Cinel, The Journal of American History
Author: Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831407
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 500
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Book Description
The emigration of mathematicians from Europe during the Nazi era signaled an irrevocable and important historical shift for the international mathematics world. Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany is the first thoroughly documented account of this exodus. In this greatly expanded translation of the 1998 German edition, Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze describes the flight of more than 140 mathematicians, their reasons for leaving, the political and economic issues involved, the reception of these emigrants by various countries, and the emigrants' continuing contributions to mathematics. The influx of these brilliant thinkers to other nations profoundly reconfigured the mathematics world and vaulted the United States into a new leadership role in mathematics research. Based on archival sources that have never been examined before, the book discusses the preeminent emigrant mathematicians of the period, including Emmy Noether, John von Neumann, Hermann Weyl, and many others. The author explores the mechanisms of the expulsion of mathematicians from Germany, the emigrants' acculturation to their new host countries, and the fates of those mathematicians forced to stay behind. The book reveals the alienation and solidarity of the emigrants, and investigates the global development of mathematics as a consequence of their radical migration. An in-depth yet accessible look at mathematics both as a scientific enterprise and human endeavor, Mathematicians Fleeing from Nazi Germany provides a vivid picture of a critical chapter in the history of international science.
