Spinning History

This collection of essays examines the history of cotton textiles at a global level over the period 1200-1850. It provides new answers to two questions: what is it about cotton that made it the paradigmatic first global commodity? And second, why did cotton industries in different parts of the world follow different paths of development?

Gandhi’s use of the spinning wheel was one of the most significant unifying elements of the nationalist movement in India. Spinning was seen as an economic and political activity that could bring together the diverse population of South Asia, and allow the formerly elite nationalist movement to connect to the broader Indian population. This book looks at the politics of spinning both as a visual symbol and as a symbolic practice. It traces the genealogy of spinning from its early colonial manifestations in Company painting to its appropriation by the anti-colonial movement. This complex of visual imagery and performative ritual had the potential to overcome labour, gender, and religious divisions and thereby produce an accessible and effective symbol for the Gandhian anti-colonial movement. By thoroughly examining all aspects of this symbol’s deployment, this book unpacks the politics of the spinning wheel and provides a model for the analysis of political symbols elsewhere. It also probes the successes of India’s particular anti-colonial movement, making an invaluable contribution to studies in social and cultural history, as well as South Asian Studies.

In this fascinating new book, bestselling author and historian Nathaniel Lande explores the Great War at the heart of the twentieth century through the prism of theater. He presents the war as a drama that evolved and developed as it progressed, a production staged and overseen by four contrasting masters: Roosevelt, Churchill, Hitler, and Stalin. Each leader used all the tools at his disposal to present his own distinctive vision of the global drama that was the Second World War. Each area of the media was fully exploited. Brilliantly conceived oratory was applied to underscore each vision. Impression management, the art of political spin, was employed to drive the message home with the careful use of black and white propaganda. Each side employed uniforms, meticulously staged events, and broadcast their messages via all media available—motion pictures, radio broadcasts, posters, leaflets, and beyond. Their ambitions were similar, but each leader had his own distinct methods, his own carefully created script for elaborately produced and often wildly successful acts and campaigns of deception to win hearts and minds on the frontlines and the home front. The result of this investigation is a wholly distinctive and often surprising work of history, a book that manages to cast a fresh light on the most obsessively studied conflict in human history.

The contributions assembled in this volume study the social function and functioning of notions and ideas about the past held by groups and individuals, with a special focus on ancient Greece but including comparative contributions on early China and on the function of the classical past in modern European culture. Special attention is devoted to the past as a foundation for collective identities and to the ways in which the goals and needs of specific groups impacted its representation and transmission. Contributions range in time from the archaic age to the Roman Empire, covering aspects such as the representation of the past in visual arts, the function of myth and its representation in literary and visual genres, the relationship of historiography to social memory, and the way that the past features in Greek religion. Monuments, literary texts, and inscriptions are investigated in order to reconstruct the rich texture of Greek social memory and its development over time.

Tillie Walden's Eisner Award winning graphic memoir Spinning captures what it’s like to come of age, come out, and come to terms with leaving behind everything you used to know. It was the same every morning. Wake up, grab the ice skates, and head to the rink while the world was still dark. Weekends were spent in glitter and tights at competitions. Perform. Smile. And do it again. She was good. She won. And she hated it. For ten years, figure skating was Tillie Walden’s life. She woke before dawn for morning lessons, went straight to group practice after school, and spent weekends competing at ice rinks across the state. Skating was a central piece of her identity, her safe haven from the stress of school, bullies, and family. But as she switched schools, got into art, and fell in love with her first girlfriend, she began to question how the close-minded world of figure skating fit in with the rest of her life, and whether all the work was worth it given the reality: that she, and her friends on the team, were nowhere close to Olympic hopefuls. The more Tillie thought about it, the more Tillie realized she’d outgrown her passion—and she finally needed to find her own voice. This title has Common Core connections. A New York City Public Library Notable Best Book for Teens A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2017 A 2018 YALSA Great Graphic Novel A 2017 Booklist Youth Editors' Choice

“A brilliant, fast-moving narrative history of the leaders who have defined the modern American presidency.”—Bob Woodward In Republic of Spin—a vibrant history covering more than one hundred years of politics—presidential historian David Greenberg recounts the rise of the White House spin machine, from Teddy Roosevelt to Barack Obama. His sweeping, startling narrative takes us behind the scenes to see how the tools and techniques of image making and message craft work. We meet Woodrow Wilson convening the first White House press conference, Franklin Roosevelt huddling with his private pollsters, Ronald Reagan’s aides crafting his nightly news sound bites, and George W. Bush staging his “Mission Accomplished” photo-op. We meet, too, the backstage visionaries who pioneered new ways of gauging public opinion and mastering the media—figures like George Cortelyou, TR’s brilliantly efficient press manager; 1920s ad whiz Bruce Barton; Robert Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower’s canny TV coach; and of course the key spinmeisters of our own times, from Roger Ailes to David Axelrod. Greenberg also examines the profound debates Americans have waged over the effect of spin on our politics. Does spin help our leaders manipulate the citizenry? Or does it allow them to engage us more fully in the democratic project? Exploring the ideas of the century’s most incisive political critics, from Walter Lippmann and H. L. Mencken to Hannah Arendt and Stephen Colbert, Republic of Spin illuminates both the power of spin and its limitations—its capacity not only to mislead but also to lead.

Virtually every government communication in a modern democracy is formulated and evaluated in the context of spin. Based on original, archival research, this book explodes the notion that information management is a recent phenomenon.

Do you know how we got to here? In "Spinning World History," Eric Burnett takes you through all the major tales, traditions and turning points of world history - not just European history, but WORLD history. You'll figure out real quick that the West might have had some crowning moments, but for the whole of human history, it's been the Persians, the Indians, the Chinese, the Muslims or some horse peoples from the steppe that have truly turned us into the clever little creatures we are today. And when most world history books fade off once the Cold War comes to a close, this sometimes cheekily-written tome just gets going. Updated to include contemporary debates over topics such as Brexit, the rise of ISIS, claims to the South China Sea, the mounting refugee crisis and the controversial presidency of Donald Trump, this second edition finishes with a distinctively comprehensive look at the 21st century challenges facing the nine major regions of today's world - Africa, Latin America, Japan, China, the Middle East, India, Russia, Europe and the United States.

This volume collects a wide-ranging sample of fresh analyses of Spider-Man. It traverses boundaries of medium, genre, epistemology and discipline in essays both insightful and passionate that move forward the study of one of the world's most beloved characters. The editors have crafted the book for fans, creators and academics alike. Foreword by Tom DeFalco, with poetry and an afterword by Gary Jackson (winner of the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize).

Ride away on a 'round-the-world adventure of a lifetime—with only a change of clothes and a pearl-handled revolver—in this trascendent novel inspired by the life of Annie Londonderry. “Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”—Susan B. Anthony Who was Annie Londonderry? She captured the popular imagination with her daring ‘round the world trip on two wheels. It was, declared The New York World in October of 1895, “the most extraordinary journey ever undertaken by a woman.” But beyond the headlines, Londonderry was really Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, a young, Jewish mother of three small children, who climbed onto a 42-pound Columbia bicycle and pedaled away into history. Reportedly set in motion by a wager between two wealthy Boston merchants, the bet required Annie not only to circle the earth by bicycle in 15 months, but to earn $5,000 en route, as well. This was no mere test of a woman’s physical endurance and mental fortitude; it was a test of a woman’s ability to fend for herself in the world. Often attired in a man’s riding suit, Annie turned every Victorian notion of female propriety on its head. Not only did she abandon, temporarily, her role of wife and mother (scandalous in the 1890s), she earned her way selling photographs of herself, appearing as an attraction in stores, and by turning herself into a mobile billboard. Zheutlin, a descendent of Annie, brilliantly probes the inner life and seeming boundless courage of this outlandish, brash, and charismatic woman. In a time when women could not vote and few worked outside the home, Annie was a master of public relations, a consummate self-promoter, and a skillful creator of her own myth. Yet, for more than a century her remarkable story was lost to history. In SPIN, this remarkable heroine and her marvelous, stranger-than-fiction story is vividly brought to life for a new generation.