Posts tagged ‘17th century’
Weekly Book Special: Ultimate Coffee Guide, Now 30 Percent Off
Weekly Book Special: August 24th-August 30th
This is the last week for our hardworking research intern Laura, who, as a globetrotting coffee connoisseur, chose this week’s book special:
Coffee:
Follow a Bean from Tree to Cup
and Learn the Art of Preparing Good Coffee
by Philippe Boe, Paperback, 125 pages
List Price: $14.00, OUR PRICE: $9.95
This concise book tells you everything about coffee: its journey from its native Ethiopia to the 17th-century coffee houses of Europe; facts, figures and quotes to whet your appetite; how coffee is manufactured, the perfect cup, storage and utensils; coffee’s effects on the body; and recipes for coffee and for dishes using coffee.
You will also learn about the 73 species of coffee tree, only two of which are cultivated — arabica and canephora; coffee and the economies of the developing world; how to appreciate coffee like wine; and useful web sites addresses.
Beautiful color images show coffee drinkers around the world, from Italy to Vienna and Colombia to Colorado. Translated from the French edition.
Laura’s favorite section is “Coffee Around the World” (click to enlarge):
“I like this book because it has a wide range of recipes, photos and fun facts — it’s more than just a cookbook,” Laura says. “I just spent the semester in Florence, and you have to know the proper coffee to drink during the day. This book has those kinds of details, and more.”
This book is discounted only through August 30th. Purchase it for $9.95 (list price $14.00):
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In addition, let your loved one, relative or friend choose a unique gift from our extensive selection of nearly 40,000 hard-to-find books and prints. Give a gift certificate in any amount. |  |
Acta Germanopolis: Records of the Corporation of Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1691-1707 (Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania)
Acta Germanopolis:
Records of the Corporation of
Germantown, Pennsylvania, 1691-1707
by J. M. Duffin (Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania)
(Hardcover, 700 pages, 2008, ISBN: 9780615217659, $75.00)
This 700-page volume contains the full text of Germantown’s 17th and 18th century town records in both their original languages and in English translation.
It also includes extensive appendices on the naturalization records of the first residents of Germantown and their landholdings through the year 1714.
This book is the product of 15 years of labor by J. M. Duffin, a distinguished Fellow of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania (GSP). Mr. Duffin has edited the book and also contributed a comprehensive Introduction, while Professor Don Yoder of the University of Pennsylvania (and another Fellow of the GSP) has written an informative Foreword on Germantown’s role in the history of Pennsylvania and German immigration to America.
A Guide to Christ Church, Philadelphia by Julia Leisenring and Patricia Forbes
A Guide to Christ Church, Philadelphia
by Julia B. Leisenring and Patricia A.S. Forbes
Old Christ Church Preservation Trust
(Paperback, 16 pages, 1984, ISBN: 1422365344, $10.00)
This booklet provides an introduction to Christ Church in Philadelphia, a majestic building that gives testimony to vision, faith and courage.
Read the 
of this book before you purchase it.
In 1695, these qualities led 39 pilgrims to start an Anglican parish in a Quaker city. In 1727, the small congregation transformed their small building into the most beautiful, majestic and grand sanctuary in the colonies, and that vision, courage and faith assures that the church still stands.
In 1754, master builder Robert Smith constructed the highest structure in the colonies in the church’s majestic steeple. Contents: The Building of Christ Church; The Steeple and The Tower Room; Historic and Symbolic Objects Belonging to the Church; Christ Church in the 18th Century; Christ Church in the 20th Century; Bishop White; Rectors of Christ Church; The Church Library; Early Church Archives; Graveyard and Signers of the Declaration of Independence; Christ Church Preservation Trust; and Dates in the History of Christ Church. Illustrations.
Sporting with the Classics: The Latin Poetry of William Dillingham: American Philosophical Society Transactions, Vol. 100, Part 1. (ISBN: 9781606180013)
Sporting with the Classics:
The Latin Poetry of William Dillingham:
American Philosophical Society Transactions
Vol. 100, Part 1.
by Estelle Haan (American Philosophical Society, ISBN: 9781606180013)
(Paperback, 123 pages, 2010, $35.00)
This study focuses on the original Latin poetry of William Dillingham, a 17th-century editor, anthologist, and Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University.
It does so in an attempt to disprove claims that Dillingham’s talent lay in criticism rather than in original composition, and that his Latin verse shows his complete independence of the old school of classical imitation.
This study has the twofold aim of highlighting both the classical and the contemporary intertexts with which this hitherto neglected poetry engages.
It argues that far from constituting the leisurely product of a gentleman in rustic retirement, this is highly talented verse that “sports” with the classics in several ways: first in its self-consciously playful interaction with the Latin poets of Augustan Rome, chiefly Virgil and Ovid; second in its appropriation of a classical world and its linguistic medium to describe such 17th-century sports or pastimes as bowling, horticulture, and bell-ringing.
It also foregrounds the pseudoromanticism surprisingly inherent in the work of a late-17th-century poet, who, it is argued, discovered in his twilight years a neo-Latin inspirational Muse.
About the Author
Estelle Haan is Professor of English and Neo-Latin Studies at the Queen’s University of Belfast. Her research interests lie mainly in links between English and neo-Latin poetry of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in particular the Latin poetry of English poets.
Previously with the APS, she authored: “Classical Romantic: Identity in the Latin Poetry of Vincent Bourne” (2007), “Vergilius Redivivus: Studies in Joseph Addison’s Latin Poetry” (2005) and “From Academia to Amicitia: Milton’s Latin Writings and the Italian Academies (1998).
To Do Justice to Him and Myself: Evert Wendell’s Account Book of the Fur Trade with Indians in Albany, New York, 1695-1726 (includes cd-rom with original Dutch text) (ISBN: 1606189123)
To Do Justice to Him and Myself:
Evert Wendell’s Account Book of the Fur Trade with Indians in Albany, New York, 1695-1726
by Kees-Jan Waterman (American Philosophical Society, ISBN: 1606189123)
(Paperback, 310 pages and CD-ROM with original Dutch text, 2008, $50.00)
This translated Dutch account book of the fur trade with Indians yields essential data for understanding workings of intercultural fur trade in colonial North America.
It contains accounts of hundreds of Indians, many listed with their own names, who purchased merchandise on credit from Evert Wendell (1681-1750) and his relatives in Albany, NY. Over 2,000 credit transactions and payments are recorded. This book has been praised as a major addition to the literature on the fur trade which challenges many widely held interpretations.
Illustrations. Tables. The book also includes a CD-ROM with transcription of the Dutch manuscript (searchable).
“The introductory essay and the tables put together from Waterman’s detailed reading of the account suggest an active trade between the Evert family and a wide range of Indians from many different tribal groupings,” writes Ann M. Carlos in the Journal of Economic History (70:2). “One has to be particularly impressed with the level of detail extracted from the accounts after looking at the photographs of the original documents.
“Waterman argues that these accounts with about 300 different individuals give us an unprecedented glimpse into intercultural exchanges in the upper Hudson River valley. He points to the role played by women in this trade; to the nature of the goods exchanges; to the range of different tribal groupings; to the mention of “white” and “black” individuals and to the descriptions of naming practices and tattoos or lack of same.
“Not too many family account books from the early eighteenth century exist. This one documents commercial exchanges between an important Dutch trading family and native traders. Waterman provides an incredible level of detail about the people in these transactions [in this] interesting primary source.”
Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes (American Philosophical Society Memoir 259, ISBN: 0871692597)
Renaissance Vision from Spectacles to Telescopes
(American Philosophical Society Memoir 259, ISBN: 0871692597)
by Vincent Ilardi (Hardcover no dustjacket, 305 pages, 2007, $85.00)
This book deals with the history of eyeglasses from their invention in Italy ca. 1286 to the appearance of the telescope three centuries later.
“By the end of the 16th century eyeglasses were as common in western and central Europe as desktop computers are in western developed countries today.” Eyeglasses served an important technological function at both the intellectual and practical level, not only easing the textual studies of scholars but also easing the work of craftsmen/small businessmen.
Read the of this book before you purchase it.
An important subthesis of this book is that Florence, rather than Venice, seems to have dominated the commercial market for eyeglasses during the 15th century, when two crucial developments occurred: the ability to grind convex lenses for various levels of presbyopia and the ability to grind concave lenses for the correction of myopia. As a result, eyeglasses could be made almost to prescription by the early 17th century. Illustrations.
“Ilardi has produced the definitive history of spectacles – aided in part by economic historians and others who over the decades sent him relevant records discovered in Florentine, English, and other European archives,” writes Pamela O. Long in a review for the Medieval Academy of North America’s Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies (April 2009). [PDF]
“At a time when many historians of technology and of material culture conceive their work contextually or in terms of cultural meaning, this study is resolutely focused on the empirical evidence for spectacles as it has been found for various times and places.
“Ilardi has done more than expand our knowledge of a particular area of history. Over the decades during which he carried out his investigation and with the warmly appreciated help of scholars in other archives, most importantly the Florentine, he has created a substantial history of eyeglasses that had not existed before.”
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