The Hunt for History

The Hunt for History
Author: Nathan Raab
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-03-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501198920

Nathan Raab, America’s preeminent rare documents dealer, delivers a “diverting account of treasure hunting in the fast lane” (The Wall Street Journal) that recounts his years as the Sherlock Holmes of historical artifacts, questing after precious finds and determining their authenticity. A box uncovered in a Maine attic with twenty letters written by Alexander Hamilton; a handheld address to Congress by President George Washington; a long-lost Gold Medal that belonged to an American President; a note that Winston Churchill wrote to his captor when he was a young POW in South Africa; paperwork signed and filled out by Amelia Earhart when she became the first woman to fly the Atlantic; an American flag carried to the moon and back by Neil Armstrong; an unpublished letter written by Albert Einstein, discussing his theory of relativity. Each day, people from all over the world contact Nathan Raab for help understanding what they have, what it might be worth, and how to sell it. The Raab Collection’s president, Nathan is a modern-day treasure hunter and one of the world’s most prominent dealers of historical artifacts. Most weeks, he travels the country, scours auctions, or fields phone calls and emails from people who think they may have found something of note in a grandparent’s attic. In The Hunt for History, “Raab takes us on a wild hunt and deliciously opens up numerous hidden crevices of history” (Jay Winik, author of April 1865)—spotting a letter from British officials that secured the Rosetta Stone; discovering a piece of the first electric cable laid by Edison; restoring a fragmented letter from Andrew Jackson that led to the infamous Trail of Tears; and locating copies of missing audio that had been recorded on Air Force One as the plane brought JFK’s body back to Washington. Whether it’s the first report of Napoleon’s death or an unpublished letter penned by Albert Einstein to a curious soldier, every document and artifact Raab uncovers comes with a spellbinding story—and often offers new insights into a life we thought we knew.

Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton and Related Documents

Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton and Related Documents
Author: Marianne Czisnik
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2020-09-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000071685

This critical edition of Admiral Nelson’s letters to Lady Hamilton is to bring together the important letters of Nelson to Lady Hamilton that have only been published in parts over the last 200 years. Only by bringing the letters of Nelson to Lady Hamilton together is it possible to assess their relationship and to present certain insights into Nelson’s personality that are not revealed in his official correspondence. Thorough research into this side of Nelson’s personality and into the nature of his notorious and unconventional relationship with Lady Hamilton has been hampered in the past by a desire not to look too closely at Nelson’s personal morality. To a considerable extent their relationship was regarded as a challenge to traditional gender roles and it indeed did not conform to stereotypes that are usually attributed to men and women in a heterosexual relationship. Lady Hamilton was so obviously lacking in the subservience and passivity expected from women in that era that authors over the course of time started to exclude her in their accounts of the public sphere by reducing her to a private weakness of Nelson’s, who could be successful at sea, where he was far away from the enthralling influence of a manipulating woman. The letters in this edition testify how Admiral Nelson’s life at sea was not exclusively public nor was Lady Hamilton’s life ashore solely private. It also shows how the two supposedly separate spheres of male and female lives were connected. A fresh approach and a thorough discussion of this important and neglected aspect not only of Nelson’s life, but of gender history, demands this exact and scholarly edition of the primary material, which consists of about 400 letters that Nelson wrote to Lady Hamilton over the course of the last seven years of his life and about a dozen letters of her to him that have survived.

Songs, Scribes, and Society

Songs, Scribes, and Society
Author: Jane Alden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages:
Release: 2010-09-28
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0199700737

A new kind of songbook emerged in the later fifteenth century: personalized, portable, and lavishly decorated. Five closely related chansonniers, copied in the Loire Valley region of central France c. 1465-c. 1475, are the earliest surviving examples of this new genre. The Loire Valley Chansonniers preserve the music of such renowned composers as Guillaume Du Fay, Johannes Ockeghem, and Antoine Busnoys. But their importance as musical sources has overshadowed the significance of these manuscripts as artifacts in their own right. This book places the physical objects at center, investigating the means by which they were produced and the broader culture in which they circulated. Jane Alden performs a codicological autopsy upon the manuscripts and reveals the hitherto unrecognized role of scribes in shaping the transmission and reception of the chanson repertory. Alden also challenges the long-held belief that the Loire Valley Chansonniers were intended for royal or noble patrons. Instead, she argues that a rising class of bureaucrats--notaries, secretaries, and other court officials--commissioned these exquisite objects. Active as writers and participants in poetry competitions, these individuals may even have written some of the chansons' texts. The unique integration of image, text, and music found in chansonniers extends their appeal to a broad readership. But for the nineteenth-century scholars who rediscovered these manuscripts, the larger literary and visual resonances were not of primary interest. Alden documents the tangle of motivations--national identity, populist politics, and the rise of the musical masterwork--that informed the earliest writings on these books. Only now is their multifaceted structure the inspiration for a new generation of readers.