Histories For The Many

Histories for the Many examines the contribution of illustrated family magazines to Victorian historical culture. How, by whom, for whom and with which intentions was history used within this popular medium? How were class, gender, age, religion, and space debated? How were academic and popular approaches to the past linked to the materiality of the medium? The focus is set on the evangelical Leisure Hour with comparisons to the London Journal, Good Words and Cornhill. The study's approach to the serialisation of history in text and image combines periodical studies and book history with concepts from cultural studies, sociology as well as narratology.

"Kamal Salibi is the foremost living historian of Lebanon, and his new book is even more important than his earlier one because it throws light on the present and future of the country as well as its past."—Albert Hourani, author of A History of the Arab Peoples "Among Lebanese historians only Kamal Salibi has the credibility to write such a book. Its timely appearance signals a new era in Lebanese history. It will undoubtedly become a classic."—Nadim Shehadi, Director, the Centre for Lebanese Studies, Oxford

The experiences of people coming to the United States from many different lands are conveyed in the words of a contemporary young girl visiting Ellis Island and of a girl who immigrated in about 1910, as well as by quotes from early twentieth century immigrants and Ellis Island officials.

A revelatory account of early Islam’s great diversity by the world’s leading scholar of early Qur’anic manuscripts “There is no one better placed than François Déroche to write the history—and tell the story—of how the Quran went from words uttered by Muhammad to inviolable canonical scripture. This is a meticulous, lucid, and fascinating book.”—Shawkat Toorawa, Yale University According to Muslim dogma, the recited and written text of the Qur’an as we know it today scrupulously reflects the divine word as it was originally sent down to Muhammad. An examination of early Islamic sources, including accounts of prophetic sayings, all of them compared with the oldest Qur’anic manuscripts, reveal that plurality was in fact the outstanding characteristic of the genesis and transmission of the Qur’an, both textually and orally. By piecing together information about alternative wordings eliminated from the canonical version that gradually came to be imposed during the first centuries of Islam, François Déroche shows that the Qur’an long remained open to textual diversity. Not only did the faithful initially adopt a flexible attitude toward the Qur’anic text, an attitude strikingly at odds with the absolute literalism later enforced by Muslim orthodoxy, but Muhammad himself turns out to have been more concerned with the meaning than the letter of the divine message.

In contrast to the rich tradition of academic analysis and understanding of the pre-colonial and colonial history of Zambia, the trajectory of post-colonial Zambia has been all but ignored by historians. The assumptions of developmentalism, the cultural hegemony of United National Independence Party orthodoxy and its conflation with national interests, and a narrow focus on Zambia’s diplomatic role in Southern African affairs, have all contributed to a dearth of studies centring on the diverse lived experiences of Zambians.

In contrast to the rich tradition of academic analysis and understanding of the pre-colonial and colonial history of Zambia, the trajectory of post-colonial Zambia has been all but ignored by historians. The assumptions of developmentalism, the cultural hegemony of United National Independence Party orthodoxy and its conflation with national interests, and a narrow focus on Zambia’s diplomatic role in Southern African affairs, have all contributed to a dearth of studies centring on the diverse lived experiences of Zambians.

What if Earth had several moons or massive rings like Saturn? What if the Sun were but one star in a double-star or triple-star system? What if Earth were the only planet circling the Sun? These and other imaginative scenarios are the subject of Arthur Upgren's inventive book Many Skies: Alternative Histories of the Sun, Moon, Planets, and Stars. Although the night sky as we know it seems eternal and inevitable, Upgren reminds us that, just as easily, it could have been very different. Had the solar sytem happened to be in the midst of a star cluster, we might have many more bright stars in the sky. Yet had it been located beyond the edge of the Milky Way galaxy, we might have no stars at all. If Venus or Mars had a moon as large as ours, we would be able to view it easily with the unaided eye. Given these or other alternative skies, what might Ptolemy or Copernicus have concluded about the center of the solar sytem and the Sun? This book not only examines the changes in science that these alternative solar, stellar, and galactic arrangements would have brought, it also explores the different theologies, astrologies, and methods of tracking time that would have developed to reflect them. Our perception of our surroundings, the number of gods we worship, the symbols we use in art and literature, even the way we form nations and empires are all closely tied to our particular (and accidental) placement in the universe. Many Skies, however, is not merely a fanciful play on what might have been. Upgren also explores the actual ways that human interferences such as light pollution are changing the night sky. Our atmosphere, he warns, will appear very different if we have belt of debris circling the globe and blotting out the stars, as will happen if advertisers one day pollute space with brilliant satellites displaying their products. From fanciful to foreboding, the scenarios in Many Skies will both delight and inspire reflection, reminding us that ours is but one of many worldviews based on our experience of a universe that is as much a product of accident as it is of intention.

"In these pages Richard Labunski offers a dramatic account of how an unlikely hero - the shy, soft-spoken, and scholarly James Madison - almost single-handedly brought the Bill of Rights to life against daunting odds, forever shaping, and perhaps even saving, the United States."--BOOK JACKET.