In 1862 military necessity enabled Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton to pry from a hesitant President Lincoln the authority to enlist black troops in the Union army. The pioneer regiment of ex-slaves was to secure the beachhead tenuously held at Beaufort, off the South Carolina coast. Within a year, Lincoln was to hail the enlistment of black soldiers, which he had earlier resisted as "revolutionary," as the "heaviest blow yet dealt the rebellion."...

Since its publication in 1842, Dead Souls has been celebrated as a supremely realistic portrait of provincial Russian life and as a splendidly exaggerated tale; as a paean to the Russian spirit and as a remorseless satire of imperial Russian venality, vulgarity, and pomp. As Gogol's wily antihero, Chichikov, combs the back country wheeling and dealing for "dead souls"--deceased serfs who still represent money to anyone sharp enough to trade in them--we...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.

Includes index.

The Greek myths are among the best known of the world. Yet their origins were extremely diverse. Some enshrined rituals, others had a quasi-scientific meaning; some myths can be traced to ancient native religions, still others are explicable in psychological or anthropological terms. Whatever their inspiration, the tales of Zeus, Hera, Athena and other residents of Mount Olympus, as well as the deeds of Hercules, Theseus, Oedipus and the heroes...