A Virginia profile, 1960-2000: Assessing current trends and problems (Commonwealth Books public policy series)

History

Moeser, John V.

Americas

Commonwealth Books

Massachusetts cities and towns: Issues and prospects (Commonwealth Books public policy series)

Politics & Social Sciences

Mullin, John R.

Social Sciences

blue cover with white shape of Ohio in the middle and blue and white text

Outlook on Ohio: Prospects and Priorities in Public Policy

Reichert, William O.

New Jersey Profiles in Public Policy

Laccetti, Silvio R.

Politics & Government

As portrayed in this colorful book, Thomas Jefferson is not quite the monument that readers learn about in school. In a new kind of nonfiction narrative, Jefferson's transformation from frontiersman and political loner into cosmopolitan political leader is taught by submerging the reader in the things that Jefferson did and saw on his travels to Paris in 1785. Featuring 168 museum-quality reproductions of period maps, Parisian scenes, and portraits of the lumieres who welcomed the untraveled American into the salons of prerevolutionary Paris, readers accompany Pierre Cabanis and his aspiring protégé to public gardens, the theatre, salons, the grain exchange, and along the bustling, stinking thoroughfares of the French capital. They accompany Jefferson as he settles into the most elegant and debauched society in the world. Because they are with Jefferson as Cabanis instructs him on the French concept of Progress, they understand how Jefferson became its agent and how his new vision of himself and his role in the world prepared the Father of the Enlightenment in America for the political contest he entered when he returned home.

Thomas Jefferson's Enlightenment: Paris 1785

Biographies & Memoirs

Thompson, James C.

Historical

A China-born daughter of American Episcopal missionaries tells a story of China that is little-known to both Chinese and Americans in this robust memoir. What were Americans doing in China in the 1920s and 30s, and how did an American child come to be born and raised there? Helen Roberts Thomas and her family were part of a vibrant international community in the Yangtze Valley in the first part of the 20th century. The community was made up of educators, missionaries, and doctors as well as technical and military advisors to the new Chinese government. Freshly topical amid the current American fascination with another new China, this coming-of-age story mingles history with culture, politics, and crossing paths with the famous. And yet it is also a family story: dedicated to the memory of her parents; dotted with sibling love, rivalry, rebellion, and achievement; and written in collaboration with her own daughter.

In the Valley of the Yangtze: Stories from an American Childhood in China (Commonwealth Memoirs)

Thomas, Helen Roberts

Granfield, Katherine P.

Community & Culture

This narrated (rather than illustrated) version of? Thomas Jefferson's enlightenment as the Minister of France reconstructs the French concept of Progress, how Jefferson became its agent, and what this means to American history. It describes the intellectual environment Jefferson entered in the fall of 1784 then introduces readers to Jefferson?s instructors, the society in which they communed, and the circumstances in which they shared their ideas with him. In France, Jefferson entered a world unlike anything he knew in America?one filled with disengaged men who reflected and theorized. Their leader was the brilliant Marquis de Condorcet. As a member of this elite circle, Jefferson embraced the marquis? implausible thesis that all of the problems of French society would be solved by replacing France?s monarchy with a constitutional government resting on a Bill of Rights. But Jefferson's aristocratic cohorts knew comparatively little about public rights and even less about constitutional government. Quite naturally, they assumed that the author of the Declaration of Independence was versed in these matters and could explain how they would work in France. Pleased to be consulted by France?s leading reformers, Jefferson took on the role of a philosophe and became an agent of Progress. When he returned to America in September of 1789, he brought with him this new view of himself and the imperative it entailed.

Few people have the energy, vision, or talent that Evelyn Swensson has. Married at age 20, she passed up an opportunity to attend the Juilliard School of Music to raise a family. But when her children went to college, she followed them. Attending nearby West Chester University, she then earned an MA in music in three years and successfully resumed her career. Over the next three decades, she sang, conducted, and composed. She completed her musical career having written a dozen children's operas, which have been performed thousands of times in the United States and abroad. While her personal accomplishments are extraordinary, the most remarkable feature of this picture-filled memoir are the notes in its concluding segment. These have been sent by the stars (now grown) of her operas. Some achieved stardom on a national stage, while some are building promising careers. Others have become scientists and professionals, while others still are in college. They all share a love and admiration for their mentor, who instilled her love of music in these remarkable members of a new generation.

Notes: My Life with Music (Commonwealth Memoirs)

Swensson, Evelyn

Humor & Entertainment

As portrayed in this colorful book, Thomas Jefferson is not quite the monument that readers learn about in school. In a new kind of nonfiction narrative, Jefferson's transformation from frontiersman and political loner into cosmopolitan political leader is taught by submerging the reader in the things that Jefferson did and saw on his travels to Paris in 1785. Featuring 168 museum-quality reproductions of period maps, Parisian scenes, and portraits of the lumieres who welcomed the untraveled American into the salons of prerevolutionary Paris, readers accompany Pierre Cabanis and his aspiring protégé to public gardens, the theatre, salons, the grain exchange, and along the bustling, stinking thoroughfares of the French capital. They accompany Jefferson as he settles into the most elegant and debauched society in the world. Because they are with Jefferson as Cabanis instructs him on the French concept of Progress, they understand how Jefferson became its agent and how his new vision of himself and his role in the world prepared the Father of the Enlightenment in America for the political contest he entered when he returned home.

Eyes of a Child. . . . is the grim story of Lena Smith, a seven-year-old girl hopelessly trapped in a waking nightmare, and Crystal Smith, a self-hating mother who torments her daughter to get even with her husband, Jim Smith, for a crime he never committed. Set in a southwest Fort Lauderdale slum, Jim Smith is in a desperate race against time to take his daughter away from her mother, whose cruelty and cunning intensify with each passing day. A nasty custody battle ensues; acts of violence occur; adultery is perpetrated; along with physical and sexual abuse of the child. 
And when it appears that Jim is in a winning position to gain full custody of Lena, Crystal's attorney, Anthony Russo, as cunning and ruthless as his client, plots with guardian ad litem Gary Pudaloff, to convince the judge to leave Lena in the hands of her mother and that Jim is the actual child abuser. Jim's attorney, Scott Armstrong, makes a lame attempt to help save Lena. 
Jim then considers kidnaping Lena to save her from the wrath of her mother but Lena refuses to abandon the cherished mother she loves and hates. As the abuse intensifies, Lena becomes even more determined to stay by her mother's side. Lena is confused and is tormented with tangled family loyalties; and with time, Crystal reveals to Lena's disbelief sadness, her own childhood trauma of sexual abuse.

Eyes of a Child

Haddad, James

Literature & Fiction

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