She knew everyone and everyone knew her. A wealthy belle, married to prominent legislator, Clement Clay, she became one of Washington, D.C.'s great hostesses. This is as witty, gossipy, fashionable, and gritty a tale of antebellum Washington as you'll ever read. As her biographical researcher stated: "I have come upon no record of any other woman of her time who has filled so powerful a place politically, whose belleship has been so long sustained, or whose magnetism and compelling fascinations have swayed others so universally as have those of Mrs. Clay-Clopton." When the American Civil War came, however, she and her husband transferred their loyalty, services, and her "belleship" to the south. She describes in wonderful detail her life in Washington, the sorrows and privations of the war, and her husband's incarceration after the war during his life-threatening illness. Once the war was over, Virginia Clay was right back in the midst of high society in Washington. She took her plea for her husband's release personally to Secretary of War Stanton, Lieutenant-General Grant, and right into the office of President Andrew Johnson. Old northern friends embraced her warmly and she was astonished to be welcomed back into social circles. This volume is Abridged and Annotated. For less than you'd spend on gas going to the library, this long out-of-print volume is available as an affordable, well-formatted book for e-readers and smartphones. Be sure to LOOK INSIDE by clicking the cover above or download a sample.

An examination of American expansionism and diplomacy during Pierce's administration.

Scholars of international relations and international communications view the extent of media freedom from country to country as a key comparative indicator either by itself or in correlation with other indices of national political and economic development. This indicator serves as a bellwether for gauging the health and spread of democracy. Historical Guide to World Media Freedom brings together comprehensive historical data on media freedom since World War II, providing consistent and comparable measures of media freedom in all independent countries for the years 1948 to the present. The work also includes country-by country summaries, analyses of historical and regional trends in media freedom, and extensive reliability analyses of media freedom measures. The book’s detailed information helps researchers connect historical measures of media freedom to Freedom House’s annual Freedom of the Press survey release, enabling them to extend their studies back before the 1980s when Freedom House began compiling global press freedom measures. Key Features: A-to-Z, country-by-country summaries of the ebb and flow of media freedom are paired with national media freedom measures over time. Introductory chapters discuss such topics as the theoretical premises behind the nature and importance of media freedom, historical trends, and the challenges of coding for media freedom in a way that ensures consistency for comparison. Concluding material covers the historical patterns in media freedom, how media freedom tracks with other cross-national indicators, and more. Accessible to students and scholars alike, this groundbreaking reference is essential to collections in political science, international studies, and journalism and communications.

Tourism promoters strive to brand their destinations in anticipation of what they think travellers hope to experience. In turn, travel writers react in part to destinations in line with their expectations. While several scholars have documented such patterns elsewhere, these have remained understudied in the case of Quebec despite the frequency with which the province was branded and rebranded and its status as a major North American travel destination in the decades leading up to Expo 67. The first comprehensive history of Quebec tourism promotion and travel writing, From Old Quebec to La Belle Province details changing marketing strategies and shows how these efforts consistently mirrored and strengthened French Quebec's evolving national identity. Nicole Neatby also takes into account the contentious role of English-speaking promoters in Montreal, belying the view that Quebec was unvaryingly represented and appreciated for being "old." Taking a comparative approach, Neatby draws on books and a wide array of newspapers, popular and specialized magazines, and written and visual sources from outside the tourist genre to reveal how the distinct national and cultural identities of English Canadians, Americans, and French Quebecers profoundly shaped their expectations and reactions to the province. From Old Quebec to La Belle Province traces and explains shifting promotional priorities for tourism and travel writers' varying reactions over the course of four decades, and how these attitudes harmonized with evolving national identities.

This volume provides a multifaceted approach to how meanings of space are created and how they impact individuals’ perceptions, sense of belonging, identity, actions and ideologies. It brings together various contributions that shed light on the multiplicity of voices and narratives on space, on their co-existence and forms of interactions, and on the ways in which they emerged from, and reshaped, relations of power.

In an in-depth community study of women in the civil rights movement, Christina Greene examines how several generations of black and white women, low-income as well as more affluent, shaped the struggle for black freedom in Durham, North Carolina. In the city long known as "the capital of the black middle class," Greene finds that, in fact, low-income African American women were the sustaining force for change. Greene demonstrates that women activists frequently were more organized, more militant, and more numerous than their male counterparts. They brought new approaches and strategies to protest, leadership, and racial politics. Arguing that race was not automatically a unifying force, Greene sheds new light on the class and gender fault lines within Durham's black community. While middle-class black leaders cautiously negotiated with whites in the boardroom, low-income black women were coordinating direct action in hair salons and neighborhood meetings. Greene's analysis challenges scholars and activists to rethink the contours of grassroots activism in the struggle for racial and economic justice in postwar America. She provides fresh insight into the changing nature of southern white liberalism and interracial alliances, the desegregation of schools and public accommodations, and the battle to end employment discrimination and urban poverty.