Books published by publisher University of Tennessee Press

University Press returns with another short and captivating portrait of one of history’s most compelling figures, Eleanor Roosevelt.Eleanor Roosevelt was an iconic figure. Best known for being First Lady of the United States during the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, she conquered shyness and marital betrayal and used her quiet power to knock down barriers of race and gender in the United States and promote human rights around the world.After her husband died, Eleanor went on to become chair of the United Nations Human Rights Commission where she formulated, presented, and worked to secure global implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – words that are now written into national constitutions around the globe. This short book tells the intensely human story of a woman who changed the world in a way that no one else could.

Winner of the Stubbendieck Great Plains Distinguished Book Prize America's Great Plains once possessed one of the grandest wildlife spectacles of the world, equaled only by such places as the Serengeti, the Masai Mara, or the veld of South Africa. Pronghorn antelope, gray wolves, bison, coyotes, wild horses, and grizzly bears: less than two hundred years ago these creatures existed in such abundance that John James Audubon was moved to write, "it is impossible to describe or even conceive the vast multitudes of these animals."In a work that is at once a lyrical evocation of that lost splendor and a detailed natural history of these charismatic species of the historic Great Plains, veteran naturalist and outdoorsman Dan Flores draws a vivid portrait of each of these animals in their glory--and tells the harrowing story of what happened to them at the hands of market hunters and ranchers and ultimately a federal killing program in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Great Plains with its wildlife intact dazzled Americans and Europeans alike, prompting numerous literary tributes. American Serengeti takes its place alongside these celebratory works, showing us the grazers and predators of the plains against the vast opalescent distances, the blue mountains shimmering on the horizon, the great rippling tracts of yellowed grasslands. Far from the empty "flyover country" of recent times, this landscape is alive with a complex ecology at least 20,000 years old--a continental patrimony whose wonders may not be entirely lost, as recent efforts hold out hope of partial restoration of these historic species.Written by an author who has done breakthrough work on the histories of several of these animals--including bison, wild horses, and coyotes--American Serengeti is as rigorous in its research as it is intimate in its sense of wonder--the most deeply informed, closely observed view we have of the Great Plains' wild heritage.

In the hell that was World War II, the Eastern Front was its heart of fire and ice. Gottlob Herbert Bidermann served in that lethal theater from 1941 to 1945, and his memoir of those years recaptures the sights, sounds, and smells of the war as it vividly portrays an army marching on the road to ruin.A riveting and reflective account by one of the millions of anonymous soldiers who fought and died in that cruel terrain, In Deadly Combat conveys the brutality and horrors of the Eastern Front in detail never before available in English. It offers a ground soldier's perspective on life and death on the front lines, providing revealing new information concerning day-to-day operations and German army life. Wounded five times and awarded numerous decorations for valor, Bidermann saw action in the Crimea and siege of Sebastopol, participated in the vicious battles in the forests south of Leningrad, and ended the war in the Courland Pocket. He shares his impressions of countless Russian POWs seen at the outset of his service, of peasants struggling to survive the hostilities while caught between two ruthless antagonists, and of corpses littering the landscape. He recalls a Christmas gift of gingerbread from home that overcame the stench of battle, an Easter celebrated with a basket of Russian hand grenades for eggs, and his miraculous survival of machine gun fire at close range. In closing he relives the humiliation of surrender to an enemy whom the Germans had once derided and offers a sobering glimpse into life in the Soviet gulags. Bidermann's account debunks the myth of a highly mechanized German army that rolled over weaker opponents with impunity. Despite the vast expanses of territory captured by the Germans during the early months of Operation Barbarossa, the war with Russia remained tenuous and unforgiving. His story commits that living hell to the annals of World War II and broadens our understanding of its most deadly combat zone.Translator Derek Zumbro has rendered Bidermann's memoir into a compelling narrative that retains the author's powerful style. This English-language edition of Bidermann's dynamic story is based upon a privately published memoir entitled Krim-Kurland Mit Der 132 Infanterie Division. The translator has added important events derived from numerous interviews with Bidermann to provide additional context for American readers.

“[An] exceptionally interesting and intimate oral history . . . Against a background of motels and all-night cafés and strikes, the high relief in which the characters stand out is truly fascinating. Jacques Levy’s biography of Chavez has unforgettable descriptive passages and fine photographs.” —The Nation Mexican-American civil rights and labor activist Cesar Chavez (1927–1993), comes to life in this vivid portrait of the charismatic and influential fighter who boycotted supermarkets and took on corporations, the government, and the powerful Teamsters Union. Jacques E. Levy gained unprecedented access to Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union in writing this account of one of the most successful labor movements in history which can also serve as a guidebook for social and political change. “[The] definitive work. The book’s major contribution lies in its portrait of the man himself—deeply religious in an almost mystical fashion; a dedicated battler, but not a dedicated hater; a leader who not only will not ask, but will not allow his followers to make the sacrifices he has made.” —Publishers Weekly “One of the heroic figures of our time.” —Senator Robert F. Kennedy Jacques E. Levy (1927–2004), a prize-winning journalist, spent six years with Cesar Chavez researching and writing this book. Fred Ross Jr. is a spokesperson for the Service Employees’ International Union and the son of Fred Ross, Chavez’s mentor. Jacqueline Levy is the daughter of Jacques E. Levy and a high school science teacher in Sonoma County, California.

University Press returns with another short and captivating portrait of one of history’s most compelling figures, Alexander Hamilton.Alexander Hamilton was an orphan from a remote island in the Caribbean. Yet he went on to become one of the elite Founding Fathers of the United States, and, as America’s first Treasury Secretary, the founder of the nation’s financial system. A man of honor, conviction, and genius, Alexander was still not immune to scandal and conflict. His extra-marital affair deeply hurt his beloved wife and brought him ridicule from his political opponents. And his dispute with Vice President Aaron Burr resulted in their famous duel – and in Hamilton’s violent and premature death.This short book tells the intensely human story of a man who changed the world in a way that no one else could.

The Thousand-Mile War, a powerful story of the battles of the United States and Japan on the bitter rim of the North Pacific, has been acclaimed as one of the great accounts of World War II. Brian Garfield, a novelist and screenwriter whose works have sold some 20 million copies, was searching for a new subject when he came upon the story of this "forgotten war" in Alaska. He found the history of the brave men who had served in the Aleutians so compelling and so little known that he wrote the first full-length history of the Aleutian campaign, and the book remains a favorite among Alaskans.The war in the Aleutians was fought in some of the worst climatic conditions on earth for men, ships, and airplanes. The sea was rough, the islands craggy and unwelcoming, and enemy number one was always the weather--the savage wind, fog, and rain of the Aleutian chain. The fog seemed to reach even into the minds of the military commanders on both sides, as they directed men into situations that so often had tragic results. Frustrating, befuddling, and still the subject of debate, the Aleutian campaign nevertheless marked an important turn of the war in favor of the United States.Now, half a century after the war ended, more of the fog has been lifted. In the updated University of Alaska Press edition, Garfield supplements his original account, which was drawn from statistics, personal interviews, letters, and diaries, with more recently declassified photographs and many more illustrations.

"Here at last is an accurate and enjoyable rendering of Lu Xun's fiction in an American English idiom that masterfully captures the sardonic wit, melancholy pathos, and ironic vision of China's first truly modern writer." -Michael S. Duke, University of British ColumbiaThe inventor of the modern Chinese short story, Lu Xun is universally regarded as twentieth century China’s greatest writer. This long awaited volume presents new translations of all Lu Xun’s stories, including his first, “Remembrances of the Past,” written in classical Chinese. These new renderings faithfully convey both the brilliant style and the pungent expression for which Lu Xun is famous.Also included are a substantial introduction by the translator and sufficient annotation to make the stories fully accessible, enabling readers approaching Lu Xun for the first time to appreciate why these stories occupy a permanent place not only in Chinese literature but in world literature as well.

The Vietnam War has been depicted by every available medium, each presenting a message, an agenda, of what the filmmakers and producers choose to project about America's involvement in Southeast Asia. This collection of essays, most of which are previously unpublished, analyzes the themes, modes, and stylistic strategies seen in a broad range of films and television programs. From diverse perspectives, the contributors comprehensively examine early documentary and fiction films, postwar films of the 1970s such as The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now, and the reformulated postwar films of the 1980s--Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, and Born on the Fourth of July. They also address made-for-television movies and serial dramas like China Beach and Tour of Duty. The authors show how the earliest film responses to America's involvement in Vietnam employ myth and metaphor and are at times unable to escape glamorized Hollywood. Later films strive to portray a more realistic Vietnam experience, often creating images that are an attempt to memorialize or to manufacture different kinds of myths. As they consider direct and indirect representations of the war, the contributors also examine the power or powerlessness of individual soldiers, the racial views presented, and inscriptions of gender roles. Also included in this volume is a chapter that discusses teaching Vietnam films and helping students discern and understand film rhetoric, what the movies say, and who they chose to communicate those messages. ExcerptRead an excerpt from Chapter 1 (pdf).ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction - Michael Anderegg 1. Hollywood and Vietnam: John Wayne and Jane Fonda as Discourse - Michael Anderegg 2. "All the Animals Come Out at Night": Vietnam Meets Noir in Taxi Driver - Cynthia J. Fuchs 3. Vietnam and the Hollywood Genre Film: Inversions of American Mythology in The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now - John Hellmann 4. "Charlie Don't Surf": Race and Culture in the Vietnam War Films - David Desser 5. Finding a Language for Vietnam in the Action-Adventure Genre - Ellen Draper 6. Narrative Patterns and Mythic Trajectories in Mid-1980s Vietnam Movies - Tony Williams 7. Rambo's Vietnam and Kennedy's New Frontier - John Hellmann 8. Gardens of Stone, Platoon, and Hamburger Hill: Ritual and Remembrance - Judy Lee Kinney 9. Primetime Television's Tour of Duty - Daniel Miller 10. Women Next Door to War: China Beach - Carolyn Reed Vartanian 11. Male Bonding, Hollywood Orientalism, and the Repression of the Feminine in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket - Susan White 12. Vietnam, Chaos, and the Dark Art of Improvisation - Owen W. Gilman, Jr. 13. Witness to War: Oliver Stone, Ron Kovic, and Born on the Fourth of July - Thomas Doherty 14. Teaching Vietnam: The Politics of Documentary - Thomas J. Slater Selected Bibliography Selected Filmography and Videography The Contributors IndexAbout the Author(s)Michael Anderegg is Professor of English at the University of North Dakota, and author of two other books: William Wyler and David Lean.Contributors: Cynthia J. Fuchs, John Hellman, David Desser, Ellen Draper, Tony Williams, Judy Lee Kinney, Daniel Miller, Carolyn Reed Vartanian, Susan White, Owen W. Gilman, Jr., Thomas Doherty, Thomas J. Slater, and the editor.

In 1940, for the first time since America’s founding, a sitting president sought a third term in office. But this was only one remarkable aspect of that year’s election, which was, as John Jeffries makes clear in his new book, one of the most interesting and important elections in American history.Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to pack the Supreme Court had failed; in the wake of a recent recession, his New Deal had hardened support and opposition among both parties; and the German advance across Europe, along with Japanese aggression in Asia, was stirring fierce debate over America’s role in the world. Adding to the moment of profound uncertainty was FDR’s procrastination over whether to run again. Jeffries explores how these tensions played out and what they meant, not just for the presidential election but also for domestic politics and policy generally, and for state and local contests. In the context of the Roosevelt Coalition and the New Deal party system, he parses the debates and struggles within both the Democratic and Republican parties as Roosevelt deliberated over running and Wendell Wilkie, a businessman from Indiana and New York City, got the nod from Republicans over a field including the rising moderate Thomas E. Dewey, the conservative Michigan senator Arthur Vandenburg, and the isolationist Ohio senator Robert Taft.A Third Term for FDR reveals how domestic policy more than international events influenced Roosevelt’s decision to run and his victory in November. A detailed analysis of the results offers insights into the impact of the year’s events on voting, and into the election’s long-term implications and ramifications—many of which continue to this day.

When Hiram Bingham, a historian from Yale University, first saw Machu Picchu in 1911, it was a ruin obscured by overgrowth whose terraces were farmed a by few families. A century later, Machu Picchu is a UNESCO world heritage site visited by more than a million tourists annually. This remarkable transformation began with the photographs that accompanied Bingham's article published in National Geographic magazine, which depicted Machu Picchu as a lost city discovered. Focusing on the practices, technologies, and materializations of Bingham's three expeditions to Peru (1911, 1912, 1914–1915), this book makes a convincing case that visualization, particularly through the camera, played a decisive role in positioning Machu Picchu as both a scientific discovery and a Peruvian heritage site.Amy Cox Hall argues that while Bingham's expeditions relied on the labor, knowledge, and support of Peruvian elites, intellectuals, and peasants, the practice of scientific witnessing, and photography specifically, converted Machu Picchu into a cultural artifact fashioned from a distinct way of seeing. Drawing on science and technology studies, she situates letter writing, artifact collecting, and photography as important expeditionary practices that helped shape the way we understand Machu Picchu today. Cox Hall also demonstrates that the photographic evidence was unstable, and, as images circulated worldwide, the "lost city" took on different meanings, especially in Peru, which came to view the site as one of national patrimony in need of protection from expeditions such as Bingham's.

Gagana Samoa is a modern Samoan language resource. Designed for both classroom and personal use, it features a methodical approach suitable for all ages; an emphasis on patterns of speech and communication through practice and examples; 10 practical dialogues covering everyday social situations; an introduction to the wider culture of fa‘asamoa through photographs; more than 150 exercises to reinforce comprehension; a glossary of all Samoan words used in the coursebook; oral skills supplemented with audio files available on a separate CD or for download or streaming on the web:

Following on the phenomenal success of Remembering the Kanji, the author has prepared a companion volume for learning the Hiragana and Katakana syllabaries of modern Japanese. In six short lessons of about twenty minutes, each of the two systems of "kana" writing are introduced in such a way that the absolute beginner can acquire fluency in writing in a fraction of the time normally devoted to the task.Using the same basic self-taught method devised for learning the kanji, and in collaboration with Helmut Morsbach and Kazue Kurebayashi, the author breaks the shapes of the two syllabaries into their component parts and draws on what he calls "imaginative memory" to aid the student in reassembling them into images that fix the sound of each particular kana to its writing. Now in its third edition, Remembering the Kana has helped tens of thousands of students of Japanese master the Hiragana and Katakana in a short amount of time . . . and have fun in the process.