#Kathleen Harriman

[donospl]

Catherine Grace Katz  „Córki Jałty”

Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego / Bo Wiem, 2023   Literatura historyczna poświęcona alianckiej Wielkiej Trójce w osobach Roosevelta, Churchilla i Stalina jest niezwykle bogata. Catherine Grace Katz  znalazła jednak możliwość spojrzenia na tamte czasu z dość oryginalnej perspektywy. Amerykańska autorka opisuje konferencję jałtańską z perspektywy innej trójki znaczących osobowości –…

[joansiesbeloved]

Tribute to Ethel Kennedy shared by Kerry Kennedy on her Instagram. ♡

[dreamofstarlight]

Kathleen Hartington Kennedy Townsend (July 4, 1951)

Joseph Patrick Kennedy II (September 24, 1952)

Robert Francis Kennedy Jr (January 17, 1954)

David Anthony Kennedy (June 15, 1955 - April 25, 1984)

Mary Courtney Kennedy (September 9, 1956)

Michael LeMoyne Kennedy (February 27, 1958 - December 31, 1997)

Mary Kerry Kennedy (September 8, 1959)

Christopher George Kennedy (July 4, 1963)

Matthew Maxwell Taylor Kennedy (January 11, 1965)

Douglas Harriman Kennedy (March 24, 1967)

Rory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy (December 12, 1968)

[rocklandhistoryblog]

Today is the last day of 2023. Let's make it count!

Before you start your countdown, don't forget to make your annual gift to the Historical Society of Rockland County.

Once again, one thing in particular made this year memorable: you. The vitality of our Historical Society depends on all of our members and friends. We're looking back on 2023 with some fond memories, including:

⭐️History-themed daytrips to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and historic Thayer Hotel and Boscobel House and Gardens and Cold Spring Village, along with guided history hikes to Claudius Smith’s Den and a mystery location in Harriman State Park

⭐️The gallery exhibition "Uniquely Rockland: Important, Iconic & Oddball Objects from the HSRC Collection," highlighting handpicked items that tell stories about people, places, or things that existed (and may still exist) in our county

⭐️Special lectures with Kathleen Do, who has edited the memoirs of her father, former Rockland District Attorney Robert Meehan; the textile artist Celeste Sherry; Dr. Vincent Cookingham, a forensic specialist who solved the nearly 100-year-old Germonds family murders cold case; and Frank and Ray Eberling, whose grandfather’s New City rural delivery mail wagon the HSRC is restoring for museum display

⭐️Four new issues of the award-winning history quarterly South of the Mountains and 12 new "Crossroads of Rockland History" radio programs on WRCR

⭐️Weekly eblasts of our #FlashbackFriday feature curating interesting and elightening excerpts from historical Rockland newspapers

⭐️Traditional holiday programs, including the St. Nicholas Day family event, celebrating its 62nd year, and Candlelight Tours of the history Jacob Blauvelt farmhouse.

These memories were made possible by contributions by people just like you.

Just click here: https://www.rocklandhistory.org/page.cfm?page=1003 to make an online contribution to support our mission.

Let's bring in the New Year with a commitment to make 2024 even more invigorating than the year just past. Please make a gift to the Historical Society of Rockland County.

With gratitude,

Susan Deeks, Executive Director

P.S. If you've already made your Annual Appeal contribution, THANK YOU!

***

Your gift is greatly appreciated and deductible to the extent provided by law.

[writinginobscurity]

Obscure #NonfictionReviews “The Daughters of Yalta”

“The Daughters of Yalta″ by @Catherine_Katz (Part Three)

Parting thoughts:

A thing that I liked in this book that I thought I would leave for this section to expand a bit more on is how there was real optimism at times, toward the end of the war, that the allies would create a better world. In my opinion, at times, even the Russians felt that optimism too, which is what makes the following decades of the cold war all the more tragic. World War II’s legacy should have been how the world, despite its differences, came together to reject fascism, but—not to get too cynical here—that’s still a fight we’re struggling with even today. Sadly, World War II’s real legacy is the dawn of the nuclear age, which, again, could have been—if we were all a bit better—an age of new power sources for constructive ends. It wasn’t to be, though. Find me a person whose first thought when they hear the word “nuclear” isn’t “weapon,” and I’ll show you a liar. It genuinely becomes more and more surprising to me, the more I read history, that we didn’t contrive to annihilate ourselves in nuclear hellfire before now. There’s always tomorrow, I guess. The problem with nuclear deterrence and mutually assured destruction as doctrines are they assume that the leaders are all sane—something I’m not convinced is a prerequisite to be a world leader. I think it should be, no arguments from me on that point. I’m just saying it isn’t so, which is different. But to end this digression on a more positive note, I also believe that if people, who fought and lived through World War II, could be optimistic that the world could be better, then who are we to argue? We owe it to them to try harder, be smarter—in short—be better than we have ever been so that the next group after us can be even better. That’s the point of studying history.

Want more?

https://www.writinginobscurity.com/

[kennedysforcamelot]

RFK's 11 Children

(i am literally only making this for myself to remember or whoever else who may want to know :)

-

Kathleen Kennedy.. July 4, 1951

Joseph Kennedy ||.. September 24, 1952

Robert Kennedy Jr.. January 17, 1954

David Kennedy.. June 15, 1955-April 24,1984

Courtney Kennedy.. September 9, 1956

Michael Kennedy.. February 27, 1958-December 31, 1997

Kerry Kennedy.. September 8, 1959

Christopher Kennedy.. July 4, 1963

Max Kennedy.. January 11, 1965

Douglas Kennedy.. March 24, 1967

Rory Kennedy.. December 12, 1968

[fdrlibrary]

Author Talk Premiere: "The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War" with Catherine Grace Katz TODAY at 2PM ET Catherine Grace Katz and Library Director Paul Sparrow discuss the influential roles played by Anna Roosevelt Boettiger, Sarah Churchill, and Kathleen Harriman, the daughters of FDR, Winston Churchill, and Averell Harriman, at the most important conference of World War II. Join us on TODAY at 2PM ET. Facebook LINK: www.facebook.com/fdrlibrary/live_videos/ YouTube LINK: https://www.youtube.com/user/FDRLibrary/videos

[luther38v]

[PDF] Download The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War PDF -- Catherine Grace Katz

Read PDF The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War Ebook Online PDF Download and Download PDF The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War Ebook Online PDF Download.

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War

By : Catherine Grace Katz

  DOWNLOAD Read Online

 DESCRIPTION : The untold story of the three intelligent and glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and of the conference’s fateful reverberations in the waning days of World War II.   Tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the three young women who were chosen by their fathers to travel with them to Yalta, each bound by fierce family loyalty, political savvy, and intertwined romances that powerfully colored these crucial days. Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and daughter of U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Sarah Churchill, an actress-turned-RAF officer, was devoted to her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, chosen instead of

[sim69p]

PDF The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War PDF BY Catherine Grace Katz

Read PDF The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War Ebook Online PDF Download and Download PDF The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War Ebook Online PDF Download.

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War

By : Catherine Grace Katz

  DOWNLOAD Read Online

 DESCRIPTION : The untold story of the three intelligent and glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and of the conference’s fateful reverberations in the waning days of World War II.   Tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the three young women who were chosen by their fathers to travel with them to Yalta, each bound by fierce family loyalty, political savvy, and intertwined romances that powerfully colored these crucial days. Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and daughter of U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Sarah Churchill, an actress-turned-RAF officer, was devoted to her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, chosen instead of

[hwalterd]

Download PDF The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War BY Catherine Grace Katz

Read PDF The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War Ebook Online PDF Download and Download PDF The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War Ebook Online PDF Download.

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War

By : Catherine Grace Katz

  DOWNLOAD Read Online

 DESCRIPTION : The untold story of the three intelligent and glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and of the conference’s fateful reverberations in the waning days of World War II.   Tensions during the Yalta Conference in February 1945 threatened to tear apart the wartime alliance among Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin just as victory was close at hand. Catherine Grace Katz uncovers the dramatic story of the three young women who were chosen by their fathers to travel with them to Yalta, each bound by fierce family loyalty, political savvy, and intertwined romances that powerfully colored these crucial days. Kathleen Harriman was a champion skier, war correspondent, and daughter of U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Sarah Churchill, an actress-turned-RAF officer, was devoted to her brilliant father, who depended on her astute political mind. Roosevelt’s only daughter, Anna, chosen instead of

[perfectirishgifts]

Bob Dylan's Debt To Nashville - It's About Taxes

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/bob-dylans-debt-to-nashville-its-about-taxes/

Bob Dylan's Debt To Nashville - It's About Taxes

When I read in the Wall Street Journal that Bob Dylan had sold his entire songwriting catalog, I immediately wished that I had been in on the tax planning for that. Here is the press release from Universal Music Publishing.

Sir Lucian Grainge, Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, said, “As someone who began his career in music publishing, it is with enormous pride that today we welcome Bob Dylan to the UMG family. It’s no secret that the art of songwriting is the fundamental key to all great music, nor is it a secret that Bob is one of the very greatest practitioners of that art. Brilliant and moving, inspiring and beautiful, insightful and provocative, his songs are timeless—whether they were written more than half a century ago or yesterday. It is no exaggeration to say that his vast body of work has captured the love and admiration of billions of people all around the world. I have no doubt that decades, even centuries from now, the words and music of Bob Dylan will continue to be sung and played—and cherished—everywhere.”

Yeah, yeah that’s nice, but how much was involved and how was the deal structured? Apparently, UMG is a subsidiary of Vivendi, a French media conglomerate. I haven’t been able to find the details, although some reports seem to imply it was a cash deal. And the New York Times reports an estimate of $300 million.

From Fourth Street To Nashville

I tend to associate Dylan with Greenwich Village and folk music. I am not an envious person, but how can you not envy somebody who had a relationship with Joan Baez? Too bad I was only thirteen when they broke up in 1965. Regardless, Greenwich Village and folk is just one aspect of Dylan. In 1969 he released Nashville Skyline.

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – NOVEMBER 13: Joan Baez accepts a Lifetime Achievement Award during the 2019 … [] Latin Grammy Special Merit Awards on November 13, 2019 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images)

As a music, culture critic I make a pretty good tax researcher, so I’ll leave it there. Except. Except. It turns out that it was his Nashville friends who might be saving him tens of millions in taxes this year.

Capital Gain!

There was something that I should have known that I didn’t learn until prompted by my editor Janet Novack. Assuming this is a straight-up cash deal Dylan will get capital gains treatment on the sale. This is due to one of those odd exceptions to an exception in the Code. Code Section 1221 defines capital assets very broadly, A capital asset is “property held by the taxpayer” in other words just about everything that can be owned fits the basic definition in 1221(a), which then goes on to tell us all the things that are not capital assets.

1221(a)(3) excludes “a patent, invention, model or design (whether or not patented), a secret formula or process, a copyright, a literary, musical, or artistic composition, a letter or memorandum, or similar property, held by a taxpayer whose personal efforts created such property“. 

So there go all Dylan’s songs. Unless he was a front man for somebody whom he secretly paid to write them, they would not be capital assets. But there’s more.

1221(b)(3) gives us – Sale or exchange of self-created musical works – At the election of the taxpayer, paragraphs (1) and (3) of subsection (a) shall not apply to musical compositions or copyrights in musical works sold or exchanged by a taxpayer described in subsection (a)(3).

 According to the regulations, the taxpayer makes the election for each work on a timely filed, including extensions, return for the year of the sale. I thought that would make for an awful thick return, but the election is made by reporting the sales as capital sales. So the preparer won’t need 600 extra pages.

Why That Exception?

The exception for musical works was added by the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005 (passed in 2006). It was a temporary measure expiring on January 1, 2011, but was later made permanent. I haven’t found a lot about the rationale for the provision. There is this from an article – The History of Intellectual Property Taxation: Promoting Innovation and Other Intellectual Property Goals by Xuan-Thao Nguyen and Jeffrey A. Maine:

“Ironically, the 1950 law, which was designed to treat all copyright creators the same, was later viewed by some-particularly members of the country-music industry-as quite harsh to songwriters. Because the average annual income of songwriters was quite low and often came in spurts, some thought the taxing of gains realized from song sales should differ from the taxing of compensation earned by wage earners. In response, in 2006, Congress amended the 1950 law, creating an exception for sales of musical compositions and copyrights in musical works. Under section 1221(b)(3), songwriters can elect to pay tax at capital gain rates rather than ordinary income rates on the sales of their copyrighted songs. Although this exception was pushed to remove perceived tax inequity facing songwriters, it could more accurately be viewed as a response to assiduous lobbying efforts by the music industry.”

Joel S Newman has more in Sales And Donations of Self-Created Art, Literature, and Music in the Pittsburgh Tax Review.

“Country western songwriters were not happy with the provisions of § 1221(a)(3). In the early 2000’s, the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) lobbied the Tennessee and Kentucky Congressional delegations for a change. Congresswoman Blackburn, the head of the House Congressional Songwriters Caucus, was especially active Proposed legislation was drafted by Denise Stevens, of Loeb & Loeb in Nashville, working pro bono for the NSAI. The NSAI lobbied hard for the bill. NSAI singer-songwriter members paid their own way to Washington and took turns performing their music for members of Congress. Sometimes, at these “guitar pulls,” the members of Congress sang as well. As a result, in 2005, Congress enacted the Songwriters Capital Gains Tax Equity Act, as part of the Tax Increase Prevention of Reconciliation Act of 2005.”

Nashville music city colorful neon sign hanging on Broadway in downtown Nashville Tennessee USA

Jean Anne Naujeck had a story in the Tennessean on February 6, 2004, about forty Nashville songwriters who paid their own way to Washington to drum up support for the bill.

John Darby tells a pretty good version of how the bill came to pass in The Tall Tax Tale of Why Country Songwriters Get Capital Gain Treatment. He makes one comment that Dylan may have upended:

“The only conceivable defense for this strange and lopsided tax benefit is that the stakes appear to be quite small. Once source estimates that this tax break will cost the U.S. government just $4 million per year in lost tax revenues/ while the Joint Committee on Taxation puts the revenue loss at $29 million over the ten years from 2007 to 2016.”

Dylan may have used up more than a decade’s worth at that rate if the New York Times report that the deal was around $300 million is correct.

According to this story, the benefit might have gone away as part of TCJA, but a couple of Tennessee representatives Diane Black and Marsha Blackburn were on the ball in preventing that.

A Little Noted Dylan Cover

Dylan’s reach was really amazing. Sister Kathleen Reilly, who was a year younger than Dylan, told me that when the older nuns at the Pallotine motherhouse in Harriman, NY were upset about various things that were different from the good old days of habit wearing, the younger nuns would break into a chorus of The Times They Are A Changin‘.

You have to wonder whether anticipation of a new administration with a different view of capital gains was a spur to getting this deal done. Tim Ingham reported on a surge in interest in selling right after the election in Rolling Stone.

Recognizing an enormous capital gain is not exactly the epitome of great tax planning. So there may be something else going on. It would be really interesting if Dylan kicks the can down the road with some opportunity zone investments. It takes a lot of nerve, but I can’t help but point out that there is an OZ in the East Village that positively contains a stretch of Fourth Street.

More from Taxes in Perfectirishgifts

[bighousela]

Chantelle Albers 

www.imdb.me/chantellealbers 

Actress | ProducerSAG-AFTRA

www.chantellealbers.com

www.instagram.com/chantellealbers

Celebrity fan page pinterest:

https://www.pinterest.com/…/chantelle-albers-actressproduc…/Chantelle Albers 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBZlX4-JKEqrfRAEnoyHPZg 

PRESS & INTERVIEWS 

Chantelle Albers featured in Voyage LA Magazine 

http://voyagela.com/interview/art-life-chantelle-albers/ 

Getty Images featured photo's of Chantelle Albers 

https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/chantelle-albers… 

LA TIMES- KATHLEEN FOLEY ON CHANTELLE ALBERS 

"'Rise' focuses on the initially hilarious interaction between an agoraphobic mathematician (Troy Blendell) and a mysterious visitor (Chantelle Albers). Both actors are superb, particularly Albers, whose endearingly wacky eccentric is absolutely enchanting."TZ Element: Cover Girl Actress Chantelle Albers 

https://www.chantellealbers.com/post/tz-element 

HOLLYWOOD PROGRESSIVE ON CHANTELLE ALBERS 

Chantelle Albers strikes a sexually defiant note as a woman who insists upon living on her own terms in a “man’s world,” and may be the most captivating character of all.

”STAGE RAW ON CHANTELLE ALBERS“ 

Murrow’s mistress Pamela Churchill Harriman (carnally reincarnated by seductive Chantelle Albers)”ED RAMPELL ON CHANTELLE ALBERS 

“Enjoying this thrilling re-enactment of the politician and the broadcaster who joined forces to fight for freedom against fascism are among the finest two hours this reviewer has ever spent in a theater.” 

BIOGRAPHY 

Chantelle Albers has an extensive theatre background that includes musical theatre, summer stock, and straight plays with villainous character roles, strong leading lady, and quirky physical comedy being some of her favorite. Starting off in stage and studying in the advanced Meisner and Stausberg classes, Chantelle developed a vast array of characters and developed deep passion for both comedy and drama. After getting her B.F.A. in Theatre Performance and relocating to Los Angeles, she transitioned to film and television and began advancing her skills with stage combat and firearms. To broaden herself even further she also developed a strong passion and love for comedy, bringing a touch of love-able quirk to some of her characters for film and TV. She studied at Second City and with Leslie Kahn & Company where she honed these comedic skills even further and continued to perform in television comedies, commercials, and late night sketch comedy shows. Having a strong love for the scene study training in her B.F.A program, Chantelle began studying with Joe Palese at The Actor's Space where she found her creative home for several years. Joe and his gift of teaching and acting will forever be cherished and missed by his countless students. She also found a mentor and teacher in Carmen Argenziano at The Actor's Studio, whom she would train with for a private coaching, and will be cherished and missed dearly. Having a passion for filmmaking, Chantelle decided to expand her skills beyond acting and started producing feature films as well as plays. This is something she now loves and is very dedicated to, as Chantelle is a big advocate of artists being able to create their own art with their own artistic input. The 6th Friend was her producing debut and it's something that has sparked a wave of new opportunities in the producing world, as well as the acting world. She still has a deep love for theatre, and has been seen around Los Angeles performing at Theatre of Note's main stage, The Broadwater Theatre's Late Night Shows, and The Actor's Studio. She also is very passionate about charity work, and is a volunteer and foster for The Little Red Dog Foundation in Orange County, where dogs are rescued and brought to their forever homes. Animal rights is something Chantelle is very passionate about and it's something she would like to start a foundation for in the future. Growing up on a ranch, some of her favorite things are: western horseback riding, water tubing, swimming in a lake, hiking, the ability to create art, singing, live music, and her dog Marley and her dog Eddie whom she rescued off the street in East Hollywood. She's also an avid reader, tea drinker, and a member of SAG/AFTRA.

[dreamofstarlight]

The Etymology of the Children of Bobby and Ethel Kennedy

kathleen: pure

hartington: powerful

-

joseph: he will add

patrick: son of a noble father

-

robert: bright fame

francis: french men

-

david: beloved

anthony: priceless one

-

mary: beloved

courtney: from the court

-

michael: who is like god

lemoyne: monk

-

mary: beloved

kerry: dark

-

christopher: bearer of christ

george: farmer

-

matthew: gift of god

maxwell: mack's spring

taylor: cutter of cloth

-

douglas: black stream

harriman: servant of harry

-

rory: king

elizabeth: god is my oath

katherine: pure

[sciencespies]

Catherine the Great's Lost Treasure, the Rise of Animal Rights and Other New Books to Read

https://sciencespies.com/nature/catherine-the-greats-lost-treasure-the-rise-of-animal-rights-and-other-new-books-to-read/

Catherine the Great's Lost Treasure, the Rise of Animal Rights and Other New Books to Read

By the end of her reign, Catherine the Great had acquired more than 4,000 paintings, 38,000 books, 10,000 engraved gems, 16,000 coins and medals, and 10,000 drawings. But as writers Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees point out in The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure, this collection—which later formed the foundation of the State Hermitage Museum—could have been even greater. A cache of Dutch masterpieces acquired by the art-loving Russian empress vanished when the ship carrying them sank in 1771 with its priceless artwork aboard.

The latest installment in our series highlighting new book releases, which launched in late March to support authors whose works have been overshadowed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, explores the loss and rediscovery of Catherine the Great’s sunken merchant ship, a leader of the fledgling animal rights movement, the stories of three daughters of World War II leaders, humanity’s connection to the cosmos, and the life of “Black Spartacus” Toussaint Louverture.

Representing the fields of history, science, arts and culture, innovation, and travel, selections represent texts that piqued our curiosity with their new approaches to oft-discussed topics, elevation of overlooked stories and artful prose. We’ve linked to Amazon for your convenience, but be sure to check with your local bookstore to see if it supports social distancing-appropriate delivery or pickup measures, too.

The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure: Catherine the Great, a Golden Age Masterpiece, and a Legendary Shipwreck by Gerald Easter and Mara Vorhees

When Dutch merchant Gerrit Braamcamp died in June 1771, his executors held an estate sale featuring what Easter, a historian, and Vorhees, a travel writer, describe as “the most dazzling assemblage of Flemish and Dutch Old Masters ever to reach the auctioneer’s block.” Highlights included Paulus Potter’s Large Herd of Oxen, Rembrandt’s Storm on the Sea of Galilee and Gerard ter Borch’s Woman at Her Toilette. But one work eclipsed the rest: The Nursery, a 1660 triptych by Rembrandt student Gerrit Dou, who was—at the time—widely believed to have surpassed his teacher’s already prodigious talents.

Following an unprecedented bidding war, Catherine’s representatives secured The Nursery, as well as a number of other top lots, for the empress, a self-proclaimed “glutton for art.” The cultural trove departed Amsterdam on September 5, stowed in the cargo hold of the Saint Petersburg-bound Vrouw Maria alongside sugar, coffee, fine linen, fabric and raw materials for Russian craftsmen.

Just under a month after it left port, the merchant vessel fell afoul of a storm in the waters off of modern-day Finland. Though all of its crew members escaped unscathed, the Vrouw Maria itself sustained significant damage; over the next several days, the ship slowly sank beneath the waves, consigning its contents to the ocean floor.

The czarina’s efforts to recover her artwork failed, as did all salvage missions undertaken over the next 200 years. Then, in June 1999, an expedition led by the aptly named Pro Vrouw Maria Association located the wreck in a state of almost perfect preservation.

The Tsarina’s Lost Treasure deftly catalogs the fierce legal battles that ensued following the ship’s discovery. Buoyed by the tantalizing possibility that the vessel’s cargo remained intact, Finland and Russia both laid claim to the wreckage. Ultimately, the Finnish National Board of Antiquities decided to leave the Vrouw Maria in situ, leaving the question of the artworks’ fate unresolved. As Kirkus notes in its review of the book, “[I]t’s an entertaining yarn whose ending is yet to be written.

A Traitor to His Species: Henry Bergh and the Birth of the Animal Rights Movement by Ernest Freeberg

For most animals, life in Gilded Age America was fraught with exploitation and violence. Workers pushed horses to the limits of their endurance, dogcatchers drowned strays, and merchants transported livestock on lengthy journeys without food or water. Dog fighting, cockfighting, rat baiting and other similarly abusive practices were also common. Much of this mistreatment stemmed from the widespread belief that animals lacked feelings and were incapable of experiencing pain—a view that Henry Bergh, a wealthy New Yorker who’d previously served as a diplomat in imperial Russia, strongly contested.

Bergh launched his campaign for animal rights in 1866, establishing the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) as a nonprofit with the power to “arrest and prosecute offenders,” per Kirkus. As Ernest Freeberg, a historian at the University of Tennessee, writes in his new biography of the unlikely activist, some Gilded Age Americans responded with “a mix of applause and mockery,” while others “who resented this interference with their economic interests, comforts, or conveniences” fiercely resisted Bergh’s call to action.

One such opponent was circus magnate P.T. Barnum, who’d built his empire by exploiting animals and people alike. Pitted against Barnum and other leading figures of the period, the naturally theatrical Bergh often found himself subjected to ridicule. Critics even labeled him a “traitor to his species.” Despite these obstacles, Bergh persisted in his campaign, arguing that while humans had the right to use animals (he personally was fond of both turtles and turtle soup), they lacked the authority to abuse them. By the time of Bergh’s death in 1888, notes Kirkus, “[M]ost states were enforcing ASPCA–backed anti-cruelty laws, and [the] universal feeling that animals did not suffer had become a minority view.”

The Daughters of Yalta: The Churchills, Roosevelts, and Harrimans: A Story of Love and War by Catherine Grace Katz

The February 1945 Yalta Conference is perhaps best known for producing a photograph of three Allied leaders—U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—posing alongside each other as if they were the best of friends. In fact, these blithe smiles belied the contentious nature of the peace summit, which acted less as an affirmation of alliance than as a predecessor to the Cold War.

In The Daughters of Yalta, historian Catherine Grace Katz offers a behind-the-scenes look at the eight-day conference through the eyes of Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna; Churchill’s daughter Sarah, who was then serving in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force; and Kathleen Harriman, daughter of American ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman. Each played a key role in the meeting: Anna helped her father hide his rapidly declining health, while Sarah assumed the role of Churchill’s “all-around protector, supporter, and confidant,” according to Katz. Kathy, a competitive skier and war correspondent, actually learned Russian in order to act as Averell’s “de facto protocol officer,” notes Publishers Weekly.

An array of personal ties compounded the many political factors already at play during the conference. Churchill’s daughter-in-law Pamela was having an affair with Averell, for instance, and Kathy had had a brief affair with Anna’s married brother. But while Katz dedicates ample space to Yalta’s interpersonal intrigue, her main focus is the women’s roles as “daughter diplomats. As she explains on her website, “Their fathers could work through them to gather information, to deliver subtle but important messages that could not be explicitly expressed by a member of the government, and to give the leaders plausible deniability on thorny diplomatic issues in which they could not be directly involved.”

The Human Cosmos: Civilization and the Stars by Jo Marchant

Humans’ fascination with the night sky is as old as civilization itself, writes Smithsonian contributor Jo Marchant in The Human Cosmos. Citing case studies as varied as Ireland’s Hill of Tara, the Native American Chumash people, ancient Assyrians who associated lunar eclipses with their king’s demise, and drawings of what could be constellations at Lascaux Cave, the journalist traces the trajectory of humanity’s relationship with the stars from prehistoric times to the present, covering 20,000 years in just 400 pages.

Marchant’s overarching argument, according to Publishers Weekly, is that technology “separates people from the actual world.” By relying on GPS, computers and other modern tools, she suggests that society has created a “disconnect between humanity and the heavens.”

To correct this imbalance, Marchant prescribes a shift in perspective. As she explains in the book’s prologue, “I hope that zooming out to survey the deep history of human beliefs about the cosmos might help us probe the edges of our own worldview and perhaps look beyond: How did we become passive machines in a pointless universe? How have those beliefs shaped how we live? And where might we go from here?”

Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh

As alluded to by its title, Sudhir Hazareesingh’s latest book centers on a larger-than-life figure: Toussaint Louverture, a Haitian general and revolutionary whom the historian describes as the “first black superhero of the modern age.” Born into slavery around 1740, Louverture worked as a coachman on a plantation in Saint-Domingue (later Haiti). “[I]ntelligent, daring and athletic,” writes Clive Davis in the Times’ review of Black Spartacus, he gained his freedom in the 1770s and proceeded to embark on a number of business ventures, including renting a coffee plantation staffed by at least one enslaved individual.

In 1791, enslaved people living on Hispaniola, the French-controlled half of Saint-Domingue, revolted. Though Louverture initially stayed out of the conflict, he was eventually spurred to action by both his Catholic religion and Enlightenment belief in equality. Given command of thousands of formerly enslaved rebels, the burgeoning military man soon emerged as one of the movement’s key leaders.

Afraid that the unrest would spread to its own colony of Jamaica—and eager to cause trouble for its European neighbor—the British government sent in troops to put down the rebellion. France, faced with the possibility of defeat, sought to secure the rebels’ loyalty by abolishing slavery across its colonies. Louverture, in turn, allied with his former enemy, fighting Spanish and British colonizers on behalf of France.

By the end of the century, notes David A. Bell for the Guardian, “[H]e had outmaneuvered a series of French officials, overcome black rivals, emerged as the colony’s uncontested strongman, and brought it to the brink of independence.” In doing so, Louverture attracted the attention of newly minted French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, who sent 20,000 French troops to reassert control over the island. Though the French campaign ultimately failed, Napoleon did manage to end his rival’s grasp on power. Promised safe passage to peace talks, Louverture instead found himself arrested and imprisoned in France, ​where he died in 1803—just one year before Haiti officially won its independence.

Black Spartacus draws on archival documents housed in Britain, France, the United States and Spain to present a comprehensive portrait of an oft-mischaracterized man. “Toussaint,” writes Hazareesingh, “embodied the many facets of Saint-Domingue’s revolution by confronting the dominant forces of his age—slavery, settler colonialism, imperial domination, racial hierarchy and European cultural supremacy—and bending them to his will.”

#Nature

[writinginobscurity]

Obscure #NonfictionReviews “The Daughters of Yalta”

“The Daughters of Yalta″ by @Catherine_Katz (Part One)

Hello, obscurists! Today we’re checking out Catherine Katz’s “The Daughters of Yalta,” a nonfiction look at the lives of three young women, close to the highest echelons of power amongst the allies near the close of World War II and the conference at Yalta. That was the conference where the end of the war was discussed, and the details of the future United Nations were hammered out—roughly.

What I love about this book:

Katz shines a light on a point in history near the end of World War II that isn’t discussed much, and I didn’t know a lot about either—the Yalta conference. By telling the story from the perspectives of Kathleen Harriman, Sarah Churchill, and Anna Roosevelt, who were all present to assist their fathers, we get to see the war up close from a female perspective, which, to be frank, is often overlooked in the histories of the war.

For the meat of the book, there is a tight focus on the events immediately before, during, and around the conference. I appreciated this approach because it drives home the awkwardness of the allies meeting at Yalta. At times it feels like the allied powers preparing to take a victory lap near the conclusion of the war, and other times it feels like an odd extended family gathering. Then at other times, both of those masks fall away, and it becomes a realpolitik struggle between adversaries who barely tolerate each other. Katz captures all of that in this book.

On top of the conference’s high-level political dramatics, we get to learn about the figures involved in the conference through the eyes of their daughters. The book’s narrative is sometimes heartbreaking when you consider how Anna, finally managing to be in her father’s inner circle, has to confront the truth that her father was dying. Then there are the Churchill’s, Sarah’s own struggles in love and being so close to her father, Winston, while in the military herself. Of the daughters, though, I think I loved dynamic and fearless Kathleen the most. The fact that she basically taught herself Russian, in short order, and went to wherever she needed to be so that she could be of the greatest use—including the site of a mass grave—demonstrates the quality of the steel in her soul.

Want more? Get my full review here:

https://www.writinginobscurity.com/2020/12/the-daughters-of-yalta-by-catherine.html

[bookriot]

Why You Shouldn’t Buy a “New” Book on Amazon: Critical Linking

Sponsored by Life Detonated by Kathleen Murray Moran

Amazon, a company Jeff Bezos invented to piss off everyone in the book industry simultaneously, likes to make books as cheap as possible. To that end, this spring they moved third-party options up to the top of the page, sometimes even listing third-party sellers as the default buying option. You might see a “new” option that’s cheaper than Amazon’s actual new option. If you choose that one, here’s who misses out.

You might get tricked into buying a used or remaindered book, to sum up.

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Want to see how the novel unfolds? Just add heat. That’s the idea.

Apparently they actually have plans to market the book. When asked on Instagram, “How can I purchase one of these?,” they replied “We’re working on it! Stay tuned.”

When that day comes, please handle the book with care.

This is a neat heat-sensitive edition of Fahrenheit 451

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When F. Scott Fitzgerald penned his masterpiece The Great Gatsby, he drew inspiration from real life locations and people that filled his world. During the roaring twenties, Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda moved to Great Neck, New York. Here, rumor has it that Fitzgerald befriended Mary Harriman Rumsey, a railroad industry heiress, and it is Rumsey’s Long Island mansion that inspired the epic home of the mysterious Jay Gatsby.

Rumsey’s stunning Normandy-style home sits in Sands Point, NY, which in Gatsby’s world was known as the fictional town of East Egg. Are you eager to enter Gatsby’s world of beaucoup d’elegance? Read on to learn more about the home that inspired The Great Gatsby.

The home that inspired Gatsby’s house is for sale!