A masterwork of observation and description by one of the most distinguished anthropologists of the 20th century. “Certain exotic words are charged with evocative power. Voodoo is one. It usually conjures up visions of mysterious deaths, secret rites—or dark saturnalia celebrated by ‘blood-maddened, sex-maddened, god-maddened’ Negroes. The picture of voodoo which this book will give may seem pale beside such images. In fact what is voodoo? Nothing more than a conglomeration of beliefs and rites of African origin, which, having been closely mixed with Catholic practice, has come to be the religion of the greater part of the peasants and the urban proletariat of the black republic of Haiti. Its devotees ask of it what men have always asked of religion: remedy for ills, satisfaction for need and the hope of survival.”

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 400 pages

“The life and legendary exploits of Frederick Townsend Ward, an American adventurer and mercenary in 19th-century China… A courageous leader who became the first American mandarin, Frederick Townsend Ward won crucial victories for the Emperor of China during the Taiping Rebellion, history’s bloodiest civil war.”

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 366 pages
Illustrated

Reveals the presence and legacy of black Africans in pre-Columbian America and their impact on the civilization they found there. Evidence includes: scores of cultural analogies; lingustic comparisons; carbon-14-dated sculptures, Arabic documents, charts, and maps; from the recorded tales of the griots to the Kings of Mali.

Publisher: Random House
Hardback: 288 pages
Illustrated

The actual life of the man that we know as Dr. Seuss was at least as interesting as anything ever concocted in his books. Born Theodore Geisel to a German immigrant brewer (and madcap inventor), he came of age in Springfield, Massachusetts, at a time when sentiments against immigrants, and Germans especially, were running high. The advent of Prohibition was jeopardizing the family’s resources at about the same time that he was starting college at Dartmouth. Snubbed by the fraternities, he set his sights on editing the campus humor magazine and became a college celebrity. In the process he formed friendships that would later serve him to advantage. He blundered his way into Oxford, met his first wife and hung out with the smart set of American expatriates in France in 1926.
What follows is an unimaginably charmed life. A cartoon published in a magazine which mentioned a certain brand of bug spray was spotted by the company owner’s wife at her hairdresser’s, leading to a lucrative 17-year advertising gig for Geisel. His first break into the book world came when he was asked to provide illustrations for a British collection of children’s sayings set to be published in America. His first solo book (Mulberry Street) had a painful six-month birthing in 1936 and was rejected by twenty-seven publishers. Geisel eventually published, but acclaim was slow in coming. During World War II, he landed in the Naval Intelligence unit working under Frank Capra. Soon he was writing scripts for military training films in Hollywood and meeting everybody who was anybody.
In 1957, The Cat In the Hat appeared with relatively little fanfare. (Geisel was already 53 by this point.) As teachers and librarians began denouncing his subversive influence, a generation of children were discovering a new way of learning to read. Geisel went on to champion the rights of children at a time before people seemed to know that they had any. He was by turns elusive, mischievous, private, social, reclusive, playful and eclectic. This book goes into enormous depth, utilizing full access to the Geisel archives. It is the sort of story that is so rich in detail and coincidence, luck and timing that were it fiction, it would seem utterly implausible. SA

Publisher: Random House
Hardback: 352 pages
Illustrated

“This is a book about the subversion of existing values, institutions, mores and taboo—East and West, left and right—by the potentially most powerful art of the century… It is the powerful impact of these brightly lit images in black space and artificial time, their affinity to trance and the subconscious, and their ability to influence masses and jump boundaries, that has forever made the cinema an appropiate target of the repressive forces in society—censors, traditionalists, the state.” Weapons of subversion include “The Power of the Visual Taboo,” “The Ultimate Secret Death,” “The Attack on God: Blasphemy and Anti-Clericalism” and “Surrealism: The Cinema of Shock.”

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 336 pages
Illustrated

Nietzsche called The Gay Science “the most personal of my books.” It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God—to which a large part of the book is devoted—and his doctrine of eternal recurrence.

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 396 pages

A selection from Nietzsche’s notebooks assembled posthumously by his sister, Elisabeth, in a topical arrangement: nihilism, art, morality, religion, the theory of knowledge, etc.

Publisher: Random House
Paperback: 575 pages