The goal is to record most books written or edited by the Department of History faculty, instructors, and students.There is a WMU Authors section in Waldo Library, where most of these books can be found in print.
With a few exceptions, we do not have the rights to put the full text of the book online, so there will be a link to a place where you can purchase the book.
If you are a faculty member and have a book you would like to include in the WMU book list, please contact wmu-scholarworks@wmich.edu/
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African American Settlements in West Africa: John Brown Russwurm and the American Civilizing Efforts
Amos J. Beyan
John Brown Russwurm and African American Settlement in West Africa examines Russwurm's intellectual accomplishments and significant contributions to the black civil rights movement in America from 1826 - 1829, and more significantly explores the essential characteristics that distinguished his thoughts and endeavours from other black leaders in America, Liberia and Maryland in Liberia. Not surprisingly, the most controversial of Russwurm's ideas was his unwavering support of the American Colonization Society (ACS) and the Maryland State Colonization Society (MSCS), two organizations that most civil rights activists found racist and pro-slavery. Beyan probes the social and intellectual sources, underlying motives and the legacies of Russwurm's thoughts and endeavours, all in an attempt to dissect why Russwurm acted and made the choices that he did.
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Letters to America
Guntram Bischoff
Published here without alteration, Letters to America: Translated, Edited, and Retold is a manuscript finished by Guntram G. Bischoff shortly before his death in 1988. The work consists of two separate parts. In the first part, Bischoff translated and edited eighty-four letters written between 1882 and 1904 to Heinrich Arndsmann of Quincy, Illinois, by the parents, brother, and sister whom the young German immigrant had left behind. In the second part, Bischoff sought to recreate, through a commentary on these letters, the mental world of a young Heinrich Arndsmann as he endeavored to maintain familial ties across the broad expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Sports in American History: From Colonization to Globalization, 3rd Edition
Linda Borish, Gerald Gems, and Gertrude Pfister
Sports in American History: From Colonization to Globalization, Third Edition With HKPropel Access, helps students grasp the compelling evolution of American sporting practices. This text examines sports history as a social and cultural phenomenon, generates a better understanding of current practices in sport, and considers future developments in American sport. This comprehensive resource explores sport through various historical periods--including premodern America, colonial times, and the modern era. Sports in American History, Third Edition, features critical new content that will provide a framework for understanding how and why sport intersects with many facets of American society: Examination of how women, racial minorities, and ethnic and religious groups have influenced U.S. sporting culture Highlights of contemporary issues affecting sport in the twenty-first century, including the Covid-19 pandemic; social justice movements; changes in name, image, and likeness policy; and sports technology Reorganized content about sporting experiences in early America that highlight the most influential moments Updated People and Places features and International Perspective sidebars that introduce key figures in sports history to provide a global understanding of sport Full-length articles from the scholarly journal Sport History Review , delivered online through HK Propel , that supplement the article excerpts and associated discussion questions found in the text Sports in American History, Third Edition, is unique in its level of detail, broad time frame, and focus on the evolving definitions of physical activity and games. Primary documents--including newspaper excerpts, illustrations, photographs, historical writings, quotations, and posters--provide firsthand accounts that will not only inform and fascinate students but also provide a well-rounded perspective on the historical development of American sport. Time lines of major milestones in sport and society provide context in each chapter, and an extensive bibliography features primary and secondary sources in American sports history. A starting point into the intriguing field of sports history, this book will help students better understand the complexities of sport in the American experience and grasp how cultural factors and historical events have shaped sport differently in the United States than in other parts of the world.
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The Routledge History of American Sport
Linda Borish, David K. Wiggins, and Gerald R. Gems
The Routledge History of American Sport provides the first comprehensive overview of historical research in American sport from the early Colonial period to the present day. Considering sport through innovative themes and topics such as the business of sport, material culture and sport, the political uses of sport, and gender and sport, this text offers an interdisciplinary analysis of American leisure. Rather than moving chronologically through American history or considering the historical origins of each sport, these topics are dealt with organically within thematic chapters, emphasizing the influence of sport on American society.
The volume is divided into eight thematic sections that include detailed original essays on particular facets of each theme. Focusing on how sport has influenced the history of women, minorities, politics, the media, and culture, these thematic chapters survey the major areas of debate and discussion. The volume offers a comprehensive view of the history of sport in America, pushing the field to consider new themes and approaches as well.
Including a roster of contributors renowned in their fields of expertise, this ground-breaking collection is essential reading for all those interested in the history of American sport.
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Your Fyre Shall Burn No More
Jose Antonio Brandao
Why were the Iroquois unrelentingly hostile toward the French colonists and their Native allies? The longstanding "Beaver War" interpretation of seventeenth-century Iroquois-French hostilities holds that the Iroquois’ motives were primarily economic, aimed at controlling the profitable fur trade. José António Brandão argues persuasively against this view. Drawing from the original French and English sources, Brandão has compiled a vast array of quantitative data about Iroquois raids and mortality rates. He offers a penetrating examination of seventeenth-century Iroquoian attitudes toward foreign policy and warfare, contending that the Iroquois fought New France not primarily to secure their position in a new market economy but for reasons that traditionally fueled Native warfare: to replenish their populations, safeguard hunting territories, protect their homes, gain honor, and seek revenge.
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Nation Iroquoise: A Seventeenth-Century Ethnography of the Iroquois
José António Brandão
Nation Iroquoise presents an intriguing mystery. Found in the Bibliotheque Mazarine in Paris and in the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa, the unsigned and undated manuscript Nation Iroquoise is an absorbing and informative eyewitness account of the daily life and societal structure of the Oneida Iroquois in the seventeenth century. The Nation Iroquoise manuscript is arguably one of the earliest known comprehensive descriptions of an Iroquois group. Rich in ethnographic detail, the work is replete with valuable information about the traditional Oneidas: the role of women in tribal councils; mortuary customs; religious beliefs and rituals; warfare; the function of the clan system in tribal governance; the impact of alcohol; and the topography, flora, and fauna of the Oneida territory. It also offers important information about the famed Iroquois Confederacy during the 1600s. Drawing on multiple strands of evidence and following a trail of clues within the Nation Iroquoise manuscript and elsewhere, José António Brandão presents the results of a fascinating and convincing piece of detective work. He explains who might have written the manuscript as well as its contribution to our understanding of the Iroquois and their culture. The book includes the original French transcription and its English translation. Brandão also provides an illuminating overview of Iroquois culture and of Iroquois-French relations during the period in which the Nation Iroquoise manuscript was likely written.
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Historiography : Ancient, Medieval, & Modern
Ernst Breisach
In this pioneering work, Ernst Breisach presents an effective, well-organized, and concise account of the development of historiography in Western culture. Neither a handbook nor an encyclopedia, this up-to-date third edition narrates and interprets the development of historiography from its origins in Greek poetry to the present, with compelling sections on postmodernism, deconstructionism, African-American history, women’s history, microhistory, the Historikerstreit, cultural history, and more. The definitive look at the writing of history by a historian, Historiography provides key insights into some of the most important issues, debates and innovations in modern historiography.
Praise for the first edition: “Breisach’s comprehensive coverage of the subject and his clear presentation of the issues and the complexity of an evolving discipline easily make his work the best of its kind.”—Lester D. Stephens, American Historical Review -
On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath
Ernst Breisach
What does postmodernism mean for the future of history? Can one still write history in postmodernity? To answer questions such as these, Ernst Breisach provides the first comprehensive overview of postmodernism and its complex relationship to history and historiography. Placing postmodern theories in their intellectual and historical contexts, he shows how they are part of broad developments in Western culture. Breisach sees postmodernism as neither just a fad nor a universal remedy. In clear and concise language, he presents and critically evaluates the major views on history held by influential postmodernists, such as Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and the new narrativists. Along the way, he introduces to the reader major debates among historians over postmodern theories of evidence, objectivity, meaning and order, truth, and the usefulness of history. He also discusses new types of history that have emerged as a consequence of postmodernism, including cultural history, microhistory, and new historicism. For anyone concerned with the postmodern challenge to history, both advocates and critics alike, On the Future of History will be a welcome guide.
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"Face Zion Forward": First Writers of the Black Atlantic, 1785-1798
Joanna Brooks, John Saillant, and Richard Yarborough
At the close of the Revolutionary War, more than 3,000 black Loyalists, many liberated from slavery by enlisting in the British army, made exodus in 1783 from New York to Nova Scotia in search of land and freedom. Almost half of the emigrants settled an independent black community at Birchtown, Nova Scotia, where, despite extraordinarily harsh conditions, they established their own churches and schools, and cultivated a shared sense of themselves as a chosen people. A majority of the population emigrated once again in 1791, this time setting sail for Sierra Leone to fulfill what they perceived to be their prophetic destiny. This circuit of gathering, exodus, and diaspora was grounded in a unique black Atlantic theology focused on redemption and Zion that was conceptualized and shaped by the charismatic black evangelists of diverse Protestant faiths who converged in the Nova Scotia settlements. "Face Zion Forward" now brings together the remarkable writings of these early authors of the black Atlantic. This collection of memoirs, sermons, and speeches, many of which are based on the Birchtown experience, documents how John Marrant, David George, Boston King, and Prince Hall envisioned the role of Africa and African American communities in black liberation. The volume demonstrates that these men were both collaborators and contestants in the construction of modern post-slavery black identities, and shows how the frameworks of Christian theology and Freemasonry influenced ideas about emancipation and communal independence. The centerpiece of the work is The Journal of John Murrant, published here in its entirety for the first time since 1790. Marrant's missionary diary not only illuminates the intricacies of eighteenth-century African American Christianity, but also presents a richly detailed account of everyday life in Birchtown. "Face Zion Forward" provides an informed reconstruction of the major ideological and theological conversations that occurred among North American blacks after the American Revolution and illustrates the disparate and complex underpinnings of the modern black Atlantic. In addition, the work presents invaluable insights into African American literary traditions and the development of Ethiopianist and black nationalist discourses.
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Teaching History in the Digital Classroom
D. Antonio Cantu and Wilson J. Warren
While many methods texts have an add-on chapter on technology, this book integrates the use of technology into every phase of the teaching profession. Filled with decision-making scenarios and reflective questions that help bring the material to life, it covers the development of teaching technologies, developing lesson plans, and actual instructional models in history and social studies. An appendix provides sample lessons, sample tests, a list of resources, and other practical materials.
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Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War: An Oral History of Korean War POWs
Lewis H. Carlson
The Korean War POW remains the most maligned victim of all American wars. For nearly half a century, the media, general public, and even scholars have described hundreds of these prisoners as "brainwashed" victims who uncharacteristically caved in to their Communist captors or, even worse, as turncoats who betrayed their fellow soldiers. In either case, these boys apparently lacked the "right stuff" required of our brave sons.
Here, at long last, is a chance to hear the true story of these courageous men in their own words-- a story that, until now, has gone largely untold. Dr. Carlson debunks many of the popular myths of Korean War POWs in this devastating oral history that's as compelling and moving as it is informative. From the Tiger Death March to the paranoia here at home, Korean POWs suffered injustices on a scale few can comprehend. More than 40 percent of the 7,140 Americans taken prisoner died in captivity, and as haunting tales of the survivors unfold, it becomes clear that the goal of these men was simply to survive under the most terrible conditions.
Each survivor's story is a unique and personal experience, from missionary teacher Larry Zeller's imprisonment in the death cells of P'yongyang and his first encounter with the infamous killer known as The Tiger, to Rubin Townsend's daring escape from a death march by jumping off a bridge in a blinding snowstorm. From capture to forced marches, isolation, permanent camps, and torture, Remembered Prisoners of a Forgotten War is one of the most fascinating and disturbing books on the Korean War in years-- and a brutally honest account of the Korean POW experience, in the survivors' own words.
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Second Thessalonians: Two Early Medieval Apocalyptic Commentaries
Steven R. Cartwright and Kevin L. Hughes
Apocalyptic speculation, in one form or another, is as persistent at the turn of this millennium as it was at the last. The commentaries of Haimo of Auxerre and Thietland of Einsiedeln offer glimpses of two links in [the] unbroken chain of the apocalyptic tradition.
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Articles of War: Winners, Losers and Some Who Were Both in the Civil War
Albert Castel
The American Civil War is filled with fascinating characters. This collection of biographical essays on the "winners and losers" of the Civil War covers some of the most intriguing: Ulysses S. Grant, Sam Houston, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and William Clarke Quantrill, to name just a few. The articles represent a broad cross-section of the scholarship of noted author Albert Castel; most were written over a fifty-year period for publication in national "popular history" magazines such as American Heritage, Civil War History, and Civil War Times Illustrated.
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Victors in Blue: How Union Generals Fought the Confederates, Battled Each Other, and Won the Civil War
Albert E. Castel and Brooks Simpson
Make no mistake, the Confederacy had the will and valor to fight. But the Union had the manpower, the money, the matriel, and, most important, the generals. Although the South had arguably the best commander in the Civil War in Robert E. Lee, the Norths full house beat their one-of-a-kind. Flawed individually, the Unions top officers nevertheless proved collectively superior across a diverse array of battlefields and ultimately produced a victory for the Union. Now acclaimed author Albert Castel brings his inimitable style, insight, and wit to a new reconsideration of these generals. With the assistance of Brooks Simpson, another leading light in this field, Castel has produced a remarkable capstone volume to a distinguished career. In it, he reassesses how battles and campaigns forged a decisive Northern victory, reevaluates the generalship of the victors, and lays bare the sometimes vicious rivalries among the Union generals and their effect on the war. From Shiloh to the Shenandoah, Chickamauga to Chattanooga, Castel provides fresh accounts of how the Union commanders-especially Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Meade but also Halleck, Schofield, and Rosecrans-outmaneuvered and outfought their Confederate opponents. He asks of each why he won: Was it through superior skill, strength of arms, enemy blunders, or sheer chance? What were his objectives and how did he realize them? Did he accomplish more or less than could be expected under the circumstances? And if less, what could he have done to achieve more-and why did he not do it? Castel also sheds new light on the war within the war: the intense rivalries in the upper ranks, complicated by the presence in the army of high-ranking non-West Pointers with political wagons attached to the stars on their shoulders. A decade in the writing, Victors in Blue brims with novel, even outrageous interpretations that are sure to stir debate. As certain as the Union achieved victory, it will inform, provoke, and enliven sesquicentennial discussions of the Civil War.
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The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride
Julia C. Collins, William L. Andrews, and Mitch Kachun
In 1865, The Christian Recorder, the national newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, serialized The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride, a novel written by Mrs. Julia C. Collins, an African American woman living in the small town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania. The first novel ever published by a black American woman, it is set in antebellum Louisiana and Connecticut, and focuses on the lives of a beautiful mixed-race mother and daughter whose opportunities for fulfillment through love and marriage are threatened by slavery and caste prejudice. The text shares much with popular nineteenth-century women's fiction, while its dominant themes of interracial romance, hidden African ancestry, and ambiguous racial identity have parallels in the writings of both black and white authors from the period.
Begun in the waning months of the Civil War, the novel was near its conclusion when Julia Collins died of tuberculosis in November of 1865. In this first-ever book publication of The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride, the editors have composed a hopeful and a tragic ending, reflecting two alternatives Collins almost certainly would have considered for the closing of her unprecedented novel. In their introduction, the editors offer the most complete and current research on the life and community of an author who left few traces in the historical record, and provide extensive discussion of her novel's literary and historical significance. Collins's published essays, which provide intriguing glimpses into the mind of this gifted but overlooked writer, are included in what will prove to be the definitive edition of a major new discovery in African American literature. Its publication contributes immensely to our understanding of black American literature, religion, women's history, community life, and race relations during the era of United States emancipation.
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Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood: Dealing with the Powers That Be
Janet Coryell
In a time when most Americans never questioned the premise that women should be subordinate to men, and in a place where only white men enjoyed fully the rights and privileges of citizenship, many women learned how to negotiate societal boundaries and to claim a share of power for themselves in a male-dominated world.
Covering the early nineteenth through the early twentieth centuries, Negotiating Boundaries of Southern Womanhood describes the ways southern women found to advance their development and independence and establish their own identities in the context of a society that restricted their opportunities and personal freedom.
They confronted, cooperated with, and sometimes were co-opted by existing powers: the white and African American elite whose status was determined by wealth, family name, gender, race, skin color, or combinations thereof. Some women took action against established powers and, in so doing, strengthened their own communities; some bowed to the powers and went along to get along; some became the powers, using status to ensure their prosperity as well as their survival. All chose their actions based on the time and place in which they lived.
In these thought-provoking essays, the authors illustrate the complex intersections of race, class, and gender as they examine the ways in which southern women dealt with "the powers that be" and, in some instances, became those powers. Elitism, status, and class were always filtered through a prism of race and gender in the South, and women of both races played an important role in maintaining as well as challenging the hierarchies that existed.
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A History of Women in America
Janet L. Coryell and Nora H. Faires
A History of Women in America integrates the stories of women in America into the national narrative of American history. By weaving women's lives into the heart of the country's narratives, readers will see women where they were, rather than having them appear as appendages to events controlled largely by men. Coryell and Faires use accessible language, telling stories that will attract beginning scholars to the field of history. Major ethnic groups are incorporated, from Native American and African women who appear earliest in the text, to the major immigrant groups, such as Hispanic, Latina, Chicana, and Asian women, who occupy increasingly larger roles throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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Beyond Image and Convention
Janet L. Coryell, Martha H. Swain, Sandra Gioia Treadway, and Elizabeth Hayes Turner
Despite their prevailing image and stereotype, southern women have often gone "beyond convention," living on their own terms within a society that revered tradition and compliance. Spanning the colonial era to the mid-twentieth century, Beyond Image and Convention documents women from widely varied social, economic, religious, and ethnic backgrounds who acted outside the accepted gender boundaries of their day. Reflecting the quality and breadth of current scholarship in the field of southern women's history, this collection of essays relies upon previously untapped documentary evidence and, in the process, crafts provocative new interpretations of our collective past. The essays explore the historical experience of black and white southern women across nearly three centuries, including a white woman's sexual misconduct in colonial North Carolina, one slave woman's successful attempt to carve out an autonomous existence in southwestern Virginia, an ex-slave's fight for freedom in postbellum Missouri, and the civil rights activism of two white southern women--Sarah Patton Boyle of Virginia and Alice Norwood Spearman of South Carolina. Breaking new ground in the study of women's history, Beyond Image and Convention provides valuable insights for both specialists and general readers.
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Horace Holley: Transylvania University and the Making of Liberal Education in the Early American Republic
James Cousins
Outspoken New England urbanite Horace Holley (1781–1827) was an unlikely choice to become the president of Transylvania University―the first college established west of the Allegheny Mountains. Many Kentuckians doubted his leadership abilities, some questioned his Unitarian beliefs, and others simply found him arrogant and elitist. Nevertheless, Holley ushered in a period of sustained educational and cultural growth at Transylvania, and the university received national attention for its scientifically progressive and liberal curriculum. The resulting influx of wealthy students and celebrated faculty―including Constantine Samuel Rafinesque―lent Lexington, Kentucky, a distinguished atmosphere and gave rise to the city's image as the "Athens of the West."
In this definitive biography, James P. Cousins offers fresh perspectives on a seminal yet controversial figure in American religious history and educational life. The son of a prosperous New England merchant family, Holley studied at Yale University before serving as a minister. He achieved national acclaim as an intellectual and self-appointed critic of higher education before accepting the position at Transylvania. His clashes with political and community leaders, however, ultimately led him to resign in 1827, and his untimely death later that year cut short a promising career.
Drawing upon a wealth of previously used and newly uncovered primary sources, Cousins analyzes the profound influence of westward expansion on social progress and education that transpired during Holley's tenure. This engaging book not only illuminates the life and work of an important yet overlooked figure, but makes a valuable contribution to the history of education in the early American Republic.
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Days of Gold: Klondike Gold Rush adventure
Ardyce Czuchna-Curl
A Klondike Gold rush adventure for young readers.
The year is 1897. Twelve-year-old Marianne and her fourteen-year-old brother Thomas find themselves alone in Seattle at the beginning of the great Klondike Gold Rush. With some food from the family grocery store, but little money and no wilderness experience, the bold pair head for the Yukon, determined to find their father who is prospecting there. But Pa hasn't been heard from for a year. Will they find him alive? Will they win their race against the threatening arctic winter? During their quest, Marianne and Thomas face danger from challenging mountains, raging rapids and unscrupulous adults. They also encounter kindness and generosity, and discover courage and endurance they didn't know they had.
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LBJ and Grassroots Federalism
Robert H. Duke
LBJ and Grassroots Federalism: Congressman Bob Poage, Race, and Change in Texas reveals the local ramifications of federal policy. Three case studies in the rising career of Lyndon B. Johnson show this in action: LBJ's formative experience as a New Dealer directing the National Youth Administration (NYA) in Texas; his key role as senate majority leader in breaking the deadlock to secure funds for the Lake Waco dam project; and the cumulative effect of his Great Society policies on urban renewal and educational reform among the Mexican American community in Waco. In each of these initiatives, Bob Poage—though far more politically conservative than Johnson—served as a conduit between LBJ and citizen activists in Poage’s congressional district, affirming the significance of grassroots engagement even during an era usually associated with centralization. Robert Harold Duke's careful analysis in LBJ and Grassroots Federalism also offers a unique insight into a transformational period when the federal government broke down barriers and opened doors to the engagement of African Americans and Mexican Americans in community planning processes and social policy.
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Historical Dictionary of Liberia
Elwood D. Dunn, Amos J. Beyan, and Carl Patrick Burrowes
Originally formed to harbor freed slaves and Americans returning to Africa, Liberia once was a land of hope. That was shattered by a long Civil War that shook its very foundation. Today's Liberia is glimpsed in this second edition.
Building on the first edition, this updated volume focuses on the personalities, from the founders of Liberia, to the soldiers who are responsible simultaneously for destruction and the hope of stability. Along with these people, various social and ethnic groups, political parties and labor movements, economic entities and natural resources are profiled in this updated work.
A new chronology of Liberia is included, and a selected bibliography suggests further readings for the scholar.
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The New Monastery: Texts and Studies on the Earliest Cistercians
E. Rozanne Elder
'A mirror for the diligent, a gad-fly for the indolent', one Benedictine called the Cistercians of his day. Although cistercian studies have flourished over the past quarter century, most attention has been directed to events and literature of the second generation, the Age of Saint Bernard. Here, in commemoration of the nine-hundredth anniversary of the foundation of 'the new monastery' in1098, documents from and studies on the earliest cistercian years have been assembled to introduce readers to the 'first founders of this church' at Citeaux.
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Piccola storia dei Longobardi di Benevento
Erchemperto and Luigi Andrea Berto
Luigi Andrea Berto - Editor and Translator
Language: Italian