Author: Mutlu Konuk Blasing Lyric poetry has long been regarded as the intensely private, emotional expression of individuals, powerful precisely because it draws readers into personal worlds. But who, exactly, is the I in a lyric poem, and how is it created? In Lyric Poetry, Mutlu Blasing argues that the individual in a lyric is only a virtual entity and that lyric poetry takes its power from the public, emotional power of language itself. In the first major new theory of the lyric to be put forward in decades, Blasing proposes that lyric poetry is a public discourse deeply rooted in the mother tongue. She looks to poetic, linguistic, and psychoanalytic theory to help unravel the intricate historical processes that generate speaking subjects, and concludes that lyric forms convey both personal and communal emotional histories in language. Focusing on the work of such diverse twentieth-century American poets as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and Anne Sexton, Blasing demonstrates the ways that the lyric I speaks, from first to last, as a creation of poetic language.

Author: Karen Ordahl Kupperman The five hundredth anniversary of Columbus's first transatlantic voyage has provoked an outpouring of scholarship on how European exploration and colonization affected America. This book of eleven essays from leading scholars in the fields of intellectual and cultural history reverses that trend by focusing on the ways in which contact with the Americas transformed European thought. The result of an international conference sponsored by the John Carter Brown Library, this collection addresses the impact of Spanish, French, and English experiences in the New World. The essays consider whether and how knowledge of America changed the mental world of European thinkers as reflected in their understanding of history, literature, linguistics, religion, and the sciences. In assessing the process by which Europeans sought to understand America, this volume responds to issues raised by Sir John Elliott nearly a generation ago, and the collection concludes with an essay in which Elliott reflects on the scholarship of the last twenty-five years on this subject. The contributors are David Armitage, Peter Burke, Luca Codignola, J. H. Elliott, Christian Feest, Roland Greene, John M. Headley, Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Henry Lowood, Sabine MacCormack, David Quint, and Richard C. Simmons.

Author: Manuel P. Teodoro Political scientists and public administration scholars have long recognized that innovation in public agencies is heavily dependent on entrepreneurial bureaucratic executives. But unlike their commercial counterparts, public administration entrepreneurs do not profit from their innovations. What motivates enterprising public executives? How are they created? Manuel Teodoros theory of bureaucratic executive ambition explains why pioneering leaders arent the result of serendipity, but rather arise out of predictable institutional design. Teodoro explains the systems that foster or frustrate entrepreneurship among public executives. Through case studies and quantitative analysis of original data, he shows how psychological motives and career opportunities shape administrators decisions, and he reveals the consequences these choices have for innovation and democratic governance. Tracing the career paths and political behavior of agency executives, Teodoro finds that when advancement involves moving across agencies, ambitious bureaucrats have strong incentives for entrepreneurship. Where career advancement occurs vertically within a single organization, ambitious bureaucrats have less incentive for innovation, but perhaps greater accountability. This research introduces valuable empirical methods and has already generated additional studies. A powerful argument for the art of the possible, Bureaucratic Ambition advances a flexible theory of politics and public administration. Its lessons will enrich debate among scholars and inform policymakers and career administrators.

Author: Edited by Robert F. Engs and Randall M. Miller. Afterword by James M. McPherson The period from 1850 to 1876 was the most transformative era in American history. During the course of this tumultuous quarter century Americans fought a bloody civil war, tried to settle the issue of state versus central government power, recognized the dominance of the new industrial economy over the older agricultural one, and ended slavery, long the shame of the nation. At the same time, a major political realignment occurred with the collapse of the second American party system and the emergence of a new party, the Republicans.But the defeat of slaverythe chief catalyst for the birth of the Republican partywas at best a limited success. The Constitution had been rewritten to abolish slavery and guarantee equal protection under the law, but social equality for African Americans and expanding freedom for others remained elusive throughout the nation. For these triumphs and enduring tragedy, the Republican party, which became in time and memory the party of Abraham Lincoln, bore primary responsibility.This collection of six original essays by some of America's most distinguished historians of the Civil War era examines the origins and evolution of the Republican party over the course of its first generation. The essays consider the party in terms of its identity, interests, ideology, images, and individuals, always with an eye to the ways the Republican party influenced midnineteenth-century concerns over national character, political power, race, and civil rights.The authors collectively extend their inquiries from the 1850s through the 1870s to understand the processes whereby the second American party system broke down, a new party and politics emerged, the Civil War came, and a new political and social order developed. They especially consider how ideas about freedom in the 1850s coalesced during war and Reconstruction to produce both an expanded call for political and civil rights for the ex-slaves and a concern over expanded federal involvement in the protection of those rights. By observing the transformation of a sectional party born in the 1850s into the Grand Old Party by the 1870s, the authors demonstrate that no modern political party, even the one that claims descent from Lincoln, has surpassed the accomplishments of the first generation of Republicans.ContributorsJean H. Baker, Professor of History at Goucher College, Maryland, is author of Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography.Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is author of Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877, winner of the Bancroft Prize.Michael F. Holt, Langbourne M. Williams Professor of American History at the University of Virginia, is author of The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War.James M. McPherson, Professor of History at Princeton University, is author of Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history.Mark E. Neely, Jr., McCabe-Greer Professor in the American Civil War Era at Pennsylvania State University, is author of The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history.Phillip Shaw Paludan, Naomi Lynn Professor of Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois at Springfield, is author of The Presidency of Abraham Lincoln, winner of the Lincoln Prize.Brooks D. Simpson, Professor of History at Arizona State University, is author of Ulysses S. Grant: Triumph over Adversity, 1822-1865.Published in cooperation with The Library Company of Philadelphia.