Martin Duberman: Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left (2012)

“Howard Zinn was perhaps the best-known and most widely celebrated popular interpreter of American history in the twentieth century, renowned as a bestselling author, a political activist, a lecturer, and one of America’s most recognizable and admired progressive voices.

His rich, complicated, and fascinating life placed Zinn at the heart of the signal events of modern American history—from the battlefields of World War II to the McCarthy era, the civil rights and the antiwar movements, and beyond. A bombardier who later renounced war, a son of working-class parents who earned a doctorate at Columbia, a white professor who taught at the historically black Spelman College in Atlanta, a committed scholar who will be forever remembered as a devoted “people’s historian,” Howard Zinn blazed a bold, iconoclastic path through the turbulent second half of the twentieth century.

For the millions who were moved by Zinn’s personal example of political engagement and by his inspiring “bottom up” history, here is an authoritative biography of this towering figure—by Martin Duberman, recipient of the American Historical Association’s 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award. Given exclusive access to the previously closed Zinn archives, Duberman’s impeccably researched biography is illustrated with never-before-published photos from the Zinn family collection. Howard Zinn: A Life on the Left is a major publishing event that brings to life one of the most inspiring figures of our time.”

Publisher The New Press, 2012
ISBN 1595586784, 9781595586780
365 pages

Review (Michael Kammen, Los Angeles Review of Books)
Review (David Greenberg, New Republic)

Publisher

EPUB

Thomas P. Hughes: Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930 (1983)

“A unique comparative history of the evolution of modern electric power systems. Networks of Power not only provides an accurate representation of large-scale technological change but also demonstrates that technology itself cannot be understood or directed unless placed in a cultural context. For Thomas Hughes, both the invention of the simplest devices (like the lightbulb itself) and the execution of the grandest schemes (such as harnessing the water power of the Bavarian Alps) fit into an overarching model of technological development. His narrative is an absorbing account of the creative genius, scientific achievements, engineering capabilities, managerial skills, and entrepreneurial risks behind one of the most commonplace amenities of the modern age.” (from the back cover)

The book was awarded the Dexter Prize by the Society for the History of Technology.

Publisher The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993
ISBN 0801846145, 9780801846144
474 pages

Review (John Neufeld, EH.net)
Review (Barry Barnes, Social Studies of Science)
Review (ZH, Innovation Group CNS UCSB)
Review (Stephen H. Cutcliffe, Technology and Culture)
Review (Mercedes Arroyo, Biblio 3W, in Spanish)

Publisher
Google books

PDF (updated on 2013-9-16 to OCR’d version)

François Cusset: French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States (2003–) [FR, EN]

“During the last three decades of the twentieth century, a disparate group of radical French thinkers achieved an improbable level of influence and fame in the United States. Compared by at least one journalist to the British rock ‘n’ roll invasion, the arrival of works by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari on American shores in the late 1970s and 1980s caused a sensation.

Outside the academy, “French theory” had a profound impact on the era’s emerging identity politics while also becoming, in the 1980s, the target of right-wing propagandists. At the same time in academic departments across the country, their poststructuralist form of radical suspicion transformed disciplines from literature to anthropology to architecture. By the 1990s, French theory was woven deeply into America’s cultural and intellectual fabric.

French Theory is the first comprehensive account of the American fortunes of these unlikely philosophical celebrities. François Cusset looks at why America proved to be such fertile ground for French theory, how such demanding writings could become so widely influential, and the peculiarly American readings of these works. Reveling in the gossipy history, Cusset also provides a lively exploration of the many provocative critical practices inspired by French theory. Ultimately, he dares to shine a bright light on the exultation of these thinkers to assess the relevance of critical theory to social and political activism today—showing, finally, how French theory has become inextricably bound with American life.”

Publisher La Découverte, Paris, 2003
ISBN 2707146730
373 pages

English edition
Translated by Jeff Fort, With Josephine Berganza and Marlon Jones
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2008
ISBN 0816647321, 9780816647323
388 pages

Reviews: Jennifer Ferng (Leonardo), Juliet J. Fall (Foucault Studies), Ethan Kleinberg (NPDR), Bridie Lonie (Junctures, FR).

Publisher (FR)
Publisher (EN)

French Theory: Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze & Cie et les mutations de la vie intellectuelle aux États-Unis. (French)
French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States. (English)