A Postcard View of Hell: One Doughboy’s Souvenir Album of the First World War

Frank Jacob, Nord University, Norway and Mark D. Van Ells, Queensborough Community College (CUNY)

September 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-451-1
Availability: In stock
176pp. ¦ $57 £45 €50

For many the postcard may seem trivial, little more than a mundane souvenir or a way to keep in touch with friends and relatives while on vacation. But if we look carefully, postcards offer valuable insights into the time periods in which they were created and the mentalities of those who bought or sent them. Frank Marhefka, while serving in the U.S. Army Motor Transportation Corps during the First World War, amassed a collection of more than 150 postcards and photographs while in France, and bound them into a souvenir album. Marhefka’s collection provides a diverse and vivid look into a period of history that – in many soldiers’ accounts – is not usually visualized with all its cruelties. Emphasizing the pictorial turn of the Great War, this album offers personal insight into a conflict that caused so much death and destruction. The book begins with an introduction providing a history of postcards and their extensive use by soldiers during the Great War. Then, after a biography of Marhefka, his postcard collection is presented in its entirety. Accompanying the images are brief texts that place them into historical context, as well as suggestions for further reading. As a visual artifact of the First World War and the perspective of one U.S. soldier, this book is aimed at students, scholars, postcard collectors, and general readers alike who have an interest in military history and popular culture.

Merrimack, The Biography of a Steam Frigate

Stephen Chapin Kinnaman

October 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-448-1
Availability: In stock
394pp. ¦ $69 £53 €60

Merrimack is the biography of a warship, the U.S. Steam Frigate Merrimack. Her name has long been linked to the first duel of ironclads, an epic Civil War battle fought at Hampton Roads between the Monitor and Merrimack. But over time the myth of the Merrimack—actually the C.S.S. Virginia—displaced the memory of a magnificent antebellum U.S. Navy warship. The steam frigate Merrimack lost her identity. Nearly forgotten is the story of the original Merrimack, the namesake of a class of six powerful war steamers. When built she was the largest vessel in the U.S. Navy, the nation’s first screw-propelled frigate and the earliest major warship to be armed entirely with shell-firing guns. Her first commission took her on a tour of the principal naval stations of Europe. During her second commission, she served as flagship of the Navy’s Pacific Squadron, cruising the shores of Chile, Peru, Panama, Hawaii, Mexico and Nicaragua. Through the copious use of Merrimack’s deck logs, official correspondence, contemporary newspapers and journals, and original construction plans, the author’s research illuminates the mechanical issues and human interactions that indelibly shaped Merrimack’s brief career. The author provides an unparalleled glimpse into the day-to-day events that defined the life of an active antebellum warship. But Merrimack offers more than just a summary of the ship’s operational life. The author, a professional naval architect and marine engineer, dissects the origins of her design and compares the Merrimack class steam frigates to contemporary U.S. and British warships. He also examines the controversy surrounding her troubled engines, documenting their performance using archived drawings and steam log data. In summary, Merrimack embraces the many threads of a bygone era—history, biography, geography and technology—and has woven them together in telling of the story of the U.S. Steam Frigate Merrimack.

Merrimack, The Biography of a Steam Frigate

Stephen Chapin Kinnaman

October 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-449-8
Availability: In stock
394pp. [Color] ¦ $103 £80 €89

Merrimack is the biography of a warship, the U.S. Steam Frigate Merrimack. Her name has long been linked to the first duel of ironclads, an epic Civil War battle fought at Hampton Roads between the Monitor and Merrimack. But over time the myth of the Merrimack—actually the C.S.S. Virginia—displaced the memory of a magnificent antebellum U.S. Navy warship. The steam frigate Merrimack lost her identity. Nearly forgotten is the story of the original Merrimack, the namesake of a class of six powerful war steamers. When built she was the largest vessel in the U.S. Navy, the nation’s first screw-propelled frigate and the earliest major warship to be armed entirely with shell-firing guns. Her first commission took her on a tour of the principal naval stations of Europe. During her second commission, she served as flagship of the Navy’s Pacific Squadron, cruising the shores of Chile, Peru, Panama, Hawaii, Mexico and Nicaragua. Through the copious use of Merrimack’s deck logs, official correspondence, contemporary newspapers and journals, and original construction plans, the author’s research illuminates the mechanical issues and human interactions that indelibly shaped Merrimack’s brief career. The author provides an unparalleled glimpse into the day-to-day events that defined the life of an active antebellum warship. But Merrimack offers more than just a summary of the ship’s operational life. The author, a professional naval architect and marine engineer, dissects the origins of her design and compares the Merrimack class steam frigates to contemporary U.S. and British warships. He also examines the controversy surrounding her troubled engines, documenting their performance using archived drawings and steam log data. In summary, Merrimack embraces the many threads of a bygone era—history, biography, geography and technology—and has woven them together in telling of the story of the U.S. Steam Frigate Merrimack.

Dealing With Differences

Chuck Grose

August 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-440-5
Availability: In stock
206pp. ¦ $59 £44 €50

Dealing with Differences is a pervasive issue everyone is faced with, yet our responses are not always just and mutually enriching. This book argues that our ability for empathy can become an internal lens to overcome the fear of differences. Dealing with Differences begins with the reader’s experience, introspection and problem solving, and the book often includes references to current events. Within each chapter readers develop their own stories on dealing with difference. This includes journaling about changing feelings and thoughts, and applying chapter information to everyday experience. Readers use empathy to address privilege, race, gender/sexuality, violence and other realities. The pursuit of justice is encouraged. Every reader can do something, sometime, somewhere to effectively deal with differences.

Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene

Edited by Julie Reiss, Christie’s Education, New York

September 2018 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-436-8
Availability: In stock
172pp. [Color] ¦ $73 £55 €62

Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene contributes to the growing literature on artistic responses to global climate change and its consequences. Designed to include multiple perspectives, it contains essays by thirteen art historians, art critics, curators, artists and educators, and offers different frameworks for talking about visual representation and the current environmental crisis. The anthology models a range of methodological approaches drawn from different disciplines, and contributes to an understanding of how artists and those writing about art construct narratives around the environment. The book is illustrated with examples of art by nearly thirty different contemporary artists.