The life of one of America's most renowned humorists, who paved the way for an entire generation of writer- directors in Hollywood. Illustrated with rare photos, the book includes full stage and screen chronologies.

Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, 1917-1980

Arts & Photography

Starr, S. Frederick

Music

Oxford University Press

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American original. A spellbinding piano virtuoso, he was America's first internationally recognized composer, whose "classical" works received accolades from Hector Berlioz and Victor Hugo, and whose arch-romantic melodies became for Americans the standard expressions of common emotions. Perhaps most important, his immensely popular Louisiana and Caribbean pieces--such as Danza, Pasquinade, or Bamboula--anticipated ragtime by fifty years. Indeed, the colorful and exotic textures of Gottschalk's music establish him at the head of what is today the mainstream of popular American culture. In Bamboula!, S. Frederick Starr presents an authoritatively researched, engagingly written biography of America's first authentic musical voice. Starr paints for us a striking portrait of Gottschalk's childhood in 1830s New Orleans, a city madly devoted to music, where opera companies, music halls, fiddlers and banjo-pickers, church choirs, and Army bands all contributed to what Starr calls "the most stunning manifestation of Jacksonian democracy in the realm of culture to be found anywhere in America." We meet Gottschalk's African-American nurse Sally, who regaled him with the creole songs, legends, and lore of her native Haiti, which would inform some of his finest music. We travel with Gottschalk to Paris, where he was a sensation, playing in fashionable salons for the likes of Lamartine, Gautier, and Dumas; and we join his flight from the Revolution of 1848 to a town north of Paris, where he composed his first great works--Bamboula, La Savane, Le Bananier, and Le Mancenillier--all published over the name "Gottschalk of Louisiana." Starr describes Gottschalk's successful return to New York City in the early 1850s, where he enjoyed a degree of popularity never before accorded to an American performer or composer, becoming our first homegrown concert idol. But Starr also examines the life-long struggle between the Catholic Gottschalk and earnest Protestant champions of "serious" music, a battle that pitted the austere values of northern Europe against the brighter sensibilities of Paris, Louisiana, and the West Indies. Based on extensive research, including hundreds of letters written by Gottschalk (in French, Spanish, and English) which are used here for the first time, Bamboula! illuminates an exotic but tragic life, as well as one of the most democratic phases of American cultural life, a world of bustling impresarios and America's first bohemian circle. A major biography in every sense, it will help reestablish Gottschalk's place in American musical history.

Bamboula!: The Life and Times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

A vibrant portrait of an age when Arabic enlightenment anticipated and inspired the European Renaissance, illuminated by its guiding figures and rivals, Ibn Sina and Biruni. In The Genius of their Age, S. Frederick Starr follows up his acclaimed Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age with a portrait of the Arab enlightenment and its key figures--Abu-Ali al-Husayn ibn-'Abdallah Ibn-Sina and Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni. A thousand years ago, these two intellectual giants--known as Ibn Sina and Biruni for short--achieved stunning breakthroughs in fields as diverse as medicine, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, geography, and physics. Biruni measured the earth more precisely than anyone else down to the sixteenth century, pondered a heliocentric universe, and hypothesized the existence of North and South America as inhabited continents. Ibn Sina's writing on philosophy and metaphysics enriched the writings of countless European thinkers, including St. Thomas Aquinas, while Sina's grand synthesis of medical knowledge became the standard for the next six hundred years in Europe, the Middle East, and India. They both also commented extensively on the works of ancient Greeks and earlier Muslim thinkers, whose works they aspired to synthesize--and to transcend. Contemporaries, Ibn Sina and Biruni were born within the borders of what is now Uzbekistan and spent their lives in Central Asia. They also became rivals, launching a correspondence and commentary that galvanized them despite sometimes bitter disagreement. Centuries before the West caught up with them, Ibn Sina and Biruni reflected their age's feats and its intellectual high point, persisting with their inquiries and their independence amid turmoil and rapid change. Though scholars have long dissected the works of Ibn Sina and Biruni, S. Frederick Starr focuses also on their lives and the times in which they lived. By contextualizing their work and by making the age palpable to the reader, S. Frederick Starr gives the achievements of Ibn Sina and Biruni a holistic and unforgettably human dimension.

The Genius of their Age: Ibn Sina, Biruni, and the Lost Enlightenment

Historical

"Innovating American composer, virtuoso pianist, and swashbuckling Romantic hero, Louis Moreau Gottschalk produced immensely popular works combining the French, Hispanic, and African influences of his native New Orleans. Many of his syncopated compositions anticipated ragtime by half a century. S. Frederick Starr's biography, originally published as "Bamboula!", is the most extensive chronicle available of Gottschalk's eventful life. Starr examines Gottshalk's music, his frenetic life on the road, his virtuosity as a performer, his effect on his audiences, and the scandals surrounding his romantic dalliances. He also reveals a generous and compassionate man who sponsored a host of young musicians and provided financial support for his many siblings."

Louis Moreau Gottschalk (Music in American Life)

University of Illinois Press

This pioneering study of the opulent Garden District of New Orleans is a fascinating and entertaining account of how immigrant merchants and craftsmen from throughout the United States and abroad combined efforts to create one of America's first and most elegant suburbs, a lavish and enduring symbol of southern comfort in the Victorian era. Southern Comfort is the first study of New Orleans to relate economic and social movements to the architectural face of the city, unveiling the process by which a predominantly Yankee suburb became a profoundly southern community Using New Orleans' unique notarial archive - a detailed written record of issues relating to real estate and architecture there - Starr skillfully creates an active interchange with the people who built the District. Starr introduces the architects, builders, craftsmen, servants, and retainers and recounts the colorful details of their lives. He provides a highly readable portrait of the intertwined careers of two gifted architects who worked in the Garden District - Henry Howard and Lewis Reynolds - the former among the shrewdest practitioners of the architecture of flattery. And his portrayal of the career and clientage of Thomas Sully presents a series of important discoveries. Southern Comfort shows how Anglo Saxon newcomers to the Crescent City capitalized on the boom of "King Cotton' and the possibilities posed by improved urban transportation to create a semirural village within the teeming Mississippi River metropolis. The text includes evocative photographs by Robert Brantley, as well as documentary illustrations from the rich archives of the Historic New Orleans Collection that are published here for the first time. S. Frederick Starr is President of Oberlin College. From 1982 to 1984 he was Scholar in Residence at The Historic New Orleans Collection, and he is the author of New Orleans Unmasqued. He has also written numerous books in the field of Soviet affairs and on topics ranging from art and architecture to jazz.

Southern Comfort: The Garden District of New Orleans, 1800-1900

History

Brantley, Robert S.

Americas

Mit Pr

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia--drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China.
 Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America--five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia.
 Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.

Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane

Asia

Princeton University Press

The forgotten story of Central Asia's enlightenment―its rise, fall, and enduring legacy
In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds―remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia―drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China.
Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America―five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia.
Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.

Xinjiang (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)

Eastern Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang or the New Territory, makes up a sixth of China's land mass. Absorbed by the Qing in the 1880s and reconquered by Mao in 1949, this Turkic-Muslim region of China's remote northwest borders on formerly Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Mongolia, and Tibet, Will Xinjiang participate in twenty-first century ascendancy, or will nascent Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang expand the orbit of instability in a dangerous part of the world? This comprehensive survey of contemporary Xinjiang is the result of a major collaborative research project begun in 1998. The authors have combined their fieldwork experience, linguistic skills, and disciplinary expertise to assemble the first multifaceted introduction to Xinjiang. The volume surveys the region's geography; its history of military and political subjugation to China; economic, social, and commercial conditions; demography, public health, and ecology; and patterns of adaption, resistance, opposition, and evolving identities.

Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)

Business & Money

Industries

Routledge

Eastern Turkestan, now known as Xinjiang or the New Territory, makes up a sixth of China's land mass. Absorbed by the Qing in the 1880s and reconquered by Mao in 1949, this Turkic-Muslim region of China's remote northwest borders on formerly Soviet Central Asia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Mongolia, and Tibet, Will Xinjiang participate in twenty-first century ascendancy, or will nascent Islamic radicalism in Xinjiang expand the orbit of instability in a dangerous part of the world? This comprehensive survey of contemporary Xinjiang is the result of a major collaborative research project begun in 1998. The authors have combined their fieldwork experience, linguistic skills, and disciplinary expertise to assemble the first multifaceted introduction to Xinjiang. The volume surveys the region's geography; its history of military and political subjugation to China; economic, social, and commercial conditions; demography, public health, and ecology; and patterns of adaption, resistance, opposition, and evolving identities.

This handbook is designed to help researchers, journalists, students, and business people to locate the rich array of Washington institutions and organizations that focus on issues pertaining to Central Asia and the Caucasus region, particularly in the post-Soviet period. Washington's status as a major repository of documentation on every aspect of the region is strong and growing daily. Beyond the Library of Congress, which intensively collects newspapers and other published materials from the region, and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service, which does the same for radio, there are hundreds of national and international public, non-profit, and private organizations and institutions in Washington with extensive links to Central Asia and the Caucasus, all of which maintain active archives and collections. The Guide includes more than 270 entries. It describes the structure and scholarly and technical resources of libraries, archives and manuscript repositories, museums and galleries, collections of sound and visual recordings, map and film collections, and the holdings of research centers and information agencies. Academic programs and departments of the metropolitan area's many institutions of higher learning are covered, along with international organizations, U.S. and foreign government agencies, association and advocacy groups, scientific organizations, educational and cultural organizations, corporations, technical assistance organizations, religious organizations, publications and media operations, bookstores and online resources. An index of organizations and institutions enhances the Guide's usefulness.

Scholars' Guide to Washington, D.C. for Central Asian and Caucasus Studies: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, ... (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)

Politics & Social Sciences

Martirosyan, Tigran

Maretti, Silvia

Social Sciences

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Starr, S. Frederick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Starr, S. Frederick

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Starr, S. Frederick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union, 1917-1980

Bamboula!: The Life and Times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk

The Genius of their Age: Ibn Sina, Biruni, and the Lost Enlightenment

Louis Moreau Gottschalk (Music in American Life)

Southern Comfort: The Garden District of New Orleans, 1800-1900

Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane

Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane

Xinjiang: China's Muslim Borderland (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)

Xinjiang (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)

Scholars' Guide to Washington, D.C. for Central Asian and Caucasus Studies: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, ... (Studies of Central Asia and the Caucasus)