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Sisters to the King

Much has been written about Henry VIII and his six wives, but his sisters, Margaret and Mary, have had less of the limelight until Maria Perry in Sisters to the King examined their amazing lives and their influence on European history.
In the Tudor age both Margaret and Mary were thought to be more important personalities than Henry's six wives. Margaret became Queen of Scotland at the age of thirteen. Mary, Henrey's famously beautiful younger sister, was married off to the ageing king of France.
Against convention both chose their second husbands for love. Maria Perry wonderfully illuminates the characters of these two remarkable women in this engrossing study, as well as uncovering new evidence on other aspects of the Tudor age: fresh information about Henry's upbringing and his wedding n ight; and a revealing new study of Henry's 'worldly jewel', his illegitimate son the Duke of Richmond, previously a shadowy figure.
Truly groundbreaking in both depth and scope, Sisters to the King not only reveals two remarkable historical figures, but also radically alters our view of Henry VIII and Tudor history.
Sisters to the King by Maria Perry
ISBN: 0233050906

Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger by Elzbieta Ettinger

This book is the first to tell in detail the story of the passionate and secret love affair between two of the most prominent philosophers of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger. Drawing on their previously unknown correspondence, Elzbieta Ettinger describes a relationship that lasted for more than half a century, a relationship that sheds startling light on both individuals, challenging our image of Martin Heidegger as an austere and abstract thinker and of Hannah Arendt as a consummately independent and self-assured personality.
Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger met in 1924 at the University of Marburg when Hannah Arendt, an eighteen-year-old German Jew, became a student of Martin Heidegger, a thirty-five-year-old married man. They were lovers for about four years; separated for almost twenty years, during which time Martin Heidegger became a Nazi and Hannah Arendt emigrated to the United States and involved herself with issues of political theory and philosophy; resumed their relationship in 1950 and in spite of its complexities remained close friends until Hannah Arendt's death in 1975.
Elzbieta Ettinger provides engrossing details of this strange and tormented relationship. Elzbieta Ettinger shows how Martin Heidegger used Hannah Arendt but also influenced her thought, how Arendt struggled to forgive Martin Heidegger for his prominent involvement with the Nazis, and how Heidegger's love for Hannah Arendt and fascination with Nazism can be linked to his romantic predisposition. A dramatic love story and a revealing look at the emotional lives of two intellectual giants, the book will fascinate anyone interested in the complexities of the human psyche.
Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger by Elzbieta Ettinger
ISBN: 0300072546

The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject

Politics of Piety is a groundbreaking analysis of Islamist cultural politics through the ethnography of a thriving, grassroots women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt. Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. Saba Mahmood's compelling exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are indelibly linked within the context of such movements.
Not only is this book a sensitive ethnography of a critical but largely ignored dimension of the Islamic revival, it is also an unflinching critique of the secular-liberal principles by which some people hold such movements to account. The book addresses three central questions: How do movements of moral reform help us rethink the normative liberal account of politics? How does the adherence of women to the patriarchal norms at the core of such movements parochialize key assumptions within feminist theory about freedom, agency, authority, and the human subject? How does a consideration of debates about embodied religious rituals among Islamists and their secular critics help us understand the conceptual relationship between bodily form and political imaginaries? Politics of Piety is essential reading for anyone interested in issues at the nexus of ethics and politics, embodiment and gender, and liberalism and postcolonialism.
Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject by Saba Mahmood
ISBN: 0691086958

Harriet Tubman

Born into slavery on a Southern plantation, Harriet Tubman dreamed of the Promised Land to the north. After escaping slavery herself, she returned south to lead others to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Her faith and determination guided her throughout her eventful life. Did you know that Harriet Tubman: led more than 300 slaves to freedom?
Served as a Union spy and nurse during the Civil War? Suffered from a sleeping disorder? Established a home for the sick and needy in Auburn, New York? Was friends with Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony?
In Their Own Words: Harriet Tubman tells the exciting story of Tubman's life using interviews with Harriet as well as the words of her friends. Hear Tubman's story as if you were really there.
Harriet Tubman by George E. Sullivan
ISBN: 0439165849