Nonfiction

“Barsky has managed to pull together the strands of a complex life with warmth, humor, and archival research of unusual depth. Harris emerges in this book not only as one of the giants of a golden age for linguistics in the United States, but also as a political activist and thinker of great subtlety. Barsky lucidly explicates Harris’s fearfully complex ideas on language as well as recreates the lively debates and utopian brio of the Zionist organization, Avukah. With this book a new member joins the pantheon of American originals.”

“Drawing from his own legal background, Penegar deftly blends his discussion of personalities and events into a narrative that will entertain general readers while providing the nuances that scholars of the American colonial and revolutionary periods will appreciate. Although he does not conclusively solve the mystery of how Franklin got access to the letters, Penegar examines the evidence and offers possible solutions. This work is an important contribution to scholarship, and I have no doubt that it will long remain the key explication of this important historic event.”

“Benjamin Franklin Cooling has produced a triumphant third volume to his definitive study of Tennessee and Kentucky in the Civil War. Like his first two volumes, this one perfectly integrates the home front and battlefield, demonstrating that civilians were continually embroiled in the war in intense ways comparable to and often surpassing the violence experienced by soldiers on the battlefield. The impacts of armies, guerrillas, and other military forces on civilians was continual, terrifying, and brutal in nearly all parts of the Confederacy’s Heartland.”