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Welcome to the July 2008 edition of The Promethean!
In this issue, we celebrate Americana in honor of the birth month of our country. We first take a look at the origins of favorite expressions unique to our country. Next, we consider hundreds of intriguing facts about living in the USA. Then we move on to the operational military history of the first three years of America's Civil War. Finally, we finish with an introduction to our Bill of Rights Series.
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Chewing the Fat: Where Did Americans Learn to Talk Like That?
 Ever wonder what going on the wagon has to do with drinking? Why some behavior takes the cake? And did pocket change ever really include wooden nickels? Think for a moment about common expressions we Americans may take for granted, such as chew the fat or the very popular and oft-overused business expression think outside the box. Most of us don't stop to consider how these popular American phrases originated. The fascinating and surprising history of these expressions is illuminated in Let's Talk Turkey: The Stories Behind America's Favorite Expressions ($18.95, June 2008). Let's Talk Turkey gets to the roots of--or the likely explanations behind--more than one hundred and fifty familiar figures of speech, all distinctly American.
Linguistics expert and author Rosemary Ostler looks at these phrases with a historical fondness, "These metaphors grew out of the places, people, and events that captured the American imagination. They add zest to the language and contribute greatly toward giving American English its own unmistakable character," she says.
Homegrown metaphors sprang up on American soil almost as fast as the colonists' first bean crop. Just as they learned new farming skills and adjusted to an unfamiliar diet, they shaped their language to fit their new situation. Expressions like to play possum and bury the hatchet are uniquely American--they would hardly have made sense in the old country, where possums didn't exist and where hatchets were used only for splitting firewood. Ostler explains the rich history of figures of speech that grew out of the landscape and culture of North America. For example, did you know that the phrase at the drop of a hat originated with the American frontier practice of dropping a hat as a signal for a fight to begin?
So much more than a list of phrases and definitions, this is a "delightful and very readable collection of interesting tidbits of American expressions, both historical and modern," according to David K. Barnhart, Editor of The Barnhart Dictionary Companion and The Barnhart New-Words Concordance, and coauthor of America in So Many Words. Let's Talk Turkey is a lively and enjoyable exploration of how Americans developed their own inimitable style of speech. Expressions are arranged by cultural categories. These include some of our most bountiful sources for metaphor--the great outdoors, business, entertainment, politics, cops and robbers, food and drink, and doing chores. The thoroughly researched entries reveal the latest etymological discoveries, along with charming and illustrative quotes.
As Randall M. Miller, Professor of history at Saint Joseph's University, and coauthor of Unto a Good Land: A History of the American People puts it, "readers will be surprised and delighted with the many and sundry facts about expressions drawn variously from politics and barnyards, households and poker tables, theater and playing fields, and more. With a sure hand in digging up the roots of the terms, Ostler also shows how an American vernacular developed that transformed the King's English into the people's speech. You can bet your bottom dollar that this book will inform and amuse and be the beeswax in any conversation about who we are and what we mean to say." Well said.
Let's Talk Turkey presents a capsule history of each listed expression, tracing a trajectory from the phrase's first known appearance in print to its modern usage. The back-stories thus revealed offer fascinating slices of Americana--United States history viewed from a different angle. |
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Bet You Didn't Know: Hundreds of Intriguing Facts about Living in the USA
 Tired of droning pundits and politicians, or the almost daily tirades on the radio, TV, and in print? Ever wonder what the facts are behind so many diverse opinions on such a variety of topics? Statistics maven Cheryl Russell--editorial director of New Strategist Publications and the former editor-in-chief of American Demographics magazine--has spent a career tracking down the facts that many pundits in the media avoid, don't know, or don't care to know. In her upcoming book Bet you Didn't Know: Hundreds of Intriguing Facts about Living in the USA ($18.95, August 2008), a fast-paced adventure in trend spotting, she separates facts from fantasy and applies a hefty dose of common sense to provide a deeper understanding of the processes at work in American society.
For example, what is the percentage of mothers under age 45 who have born a child out-of-wedlock? 42. What is the percentage of women under age 45 who think it is ok for an unmarried woman to have a child? 70.
Russell knowingly focuses her perceptive eye on America's top obsessions:
- Our bodies--health, weight, food, sex, drugs
- Families--relationships and children
- Money--earnings, spending, debt, poverty, and wealth
- Jobs--school, work, and retirement
- Luxuries and Stuff--homes, cars, and everything else
- Free Time--sports, TV, the Internet, and more
- Big Issues--religion, politics, and national phobias
- Our Country--race, immigration, regions, and cities
In each case, she spotlights the most significant facts and then offers pithy, illuminating commentary to provide a rational perspective and a full-blown reality check.
Whether you're planning to look for a job, invest in the stock market, get married, have children, buy a house, vote, run for political office, or are just looking for some luscious tidbits to drop at your party, you'd better check Russell's book first to get your facts straight. And you are guaranteed to be amazed by what you find!
But you don't have to take our word for it. Tom Parker, Author of Rules of Thumb calls Bet You Didn't Know "the who, what, where, when, and how of the trends that shape your life." |
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America's Civil War--An Analysis From the Battlefield
 In 1861, when the Confederate States of America seceded from the Union and the Civil War broke out between the North and the South, few people had much idea of the scale, intensity, and duration of the conflict they were about to enter. Politicians, generals, and common folk on both sides blithely assumed that the conflict would be over quickly and were naively convinced of the superiority of the leadership and the forces at their disposal. Three years later, after many horrendous battles and huge loss of life, the tragic realities of this war had begun to sink in. Stalemate had led to great frustration and suggested a protracted conflict with no end in sight.
In America's Civil War: The Operational Battlefield, 1861-1863 ($34.95, August 2008), a successor volume to his acclaimed Origins of the American Civil War (1996), Civil War historian Brian Holden Reid examines in depth the operational military history during the first three years of America's Civil War. In particular, he focuses on generalship, command decisions, strategy, and tactics, as well as the experiences of ordinary soldiers. Besides lack of experience among generals, Holden Reid reveals that for the first few years of the war there was considerable indecisiveness in the North, a hesitancy to punish the South, and a fruitless hope that the Confederacy would agree to some form of reconciliation. He highlights certain important political and social developments during the course of the war that had an effect on Union soldiers and shows how their views became a catalyst in hardening the attitudes in the North toward the South.
This important analysis makes a major contribution to Civil War military history within the larger context of a turbulent political and social climate. It will be followed by another work covering the final eighteen months of the conflict. |
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Prometheus Books Announces the Launch of Its New Bill of Rights Series
 Abortion; the death penalty; school prayer; the pledge of allegiance; torture; surveillance; tort reform; jury trials; preventative detention; firearm registration; censorship; privacy; police misconduct; birth control; school vouchers; prison crowding; taking property by public domain. These issues, torn from the headlines, cover many, if not most, of the major public disputes arising today, in the dawn of the twenty-first century. Yet they are resolved by our courts based on a document fewer than five hundred words long, drafted in the eighteenth century, and regarded by many at the time of its drafting as unnecessary. The Bill of Rights, the name we give the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, is our basic source of law for resolving these issues.
Prometheus Books is pleased to announce the recently launched Bill of Rights Series, edited by David B. Oppenheimer, Associate Dean, Golden Gate University School of Law. The series is intended to help us improve our understanding of the debates that gave rise to these rights, and of the continuing controversy about their meaning today. David B. Oppenheimer's intent is to select the very best essays from law and history and the most important judicial opinions and to edit them, making the leading views of the framers' intentions and of how we should interpret the Bill of Rights accessible to today's reader. If you find yourself passionately agreeing with some of the views expressed, angrily disagreeing with others, and appreciating how the essays selected have examined these questions with depth and lucidity, he will have succeeded.
The Advisory Board for the Bill of Rights Series includes:
- Erwin Chemerinsky, Duke University School of Law
- Jesse Choper, University of California at Berkeley, School of Law
- Sheila Foster, Fordham Law School
- Cheryl Harris, UCLA Law School
- Marjorie Heins, Brennan Law Center, New York University
- Kevin R. Johnson, University of California, Davis, School of Law
- Carrie Menkle-Meadow, Georgetown University Law School
- Robert Post, Yale University School of Law
- john powell, Ohio State University College of Law
- Deborah L. Rhode, Stanford Law School
- Stephanie M. Wildman, Santa Clara University School of Law Eric
- Ken Yamamoto, University of Hawaii School of Law
The first two titles in the series--The Establishment of Religion Clause: The First Amendment: Its Constitutional History and the Contemporary Debate, edited by Alan Brownstein (January 2008) and The Free Exercise of Religion Clause: The First Amendment: Its Constitutional History and the Contemporary Debate, edited by Thomas C. Berg (February 2008)--address the historical debate surrounding the original understanding of the constitutional provision of the Religion Clause, and present key excerpts from a range of scholarship issues concerning free exercise of religion, respectively.
Future titles will include Freedom of the Press: The First Amendment: Its Constitutional History and the Contemporary Debate, edited by Garrett Epps (October 2008) and Freedom of Speech: The First Amendment: Its Constitutional History and the Contemporary Debate, edited by Vikram David Amar (December 2008).
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*Correction: In the June issue of The Promethean, Ronald A. Lindsay, author of Future Bioethics: Overcoming Taboos, Myths, and Dogmas, was incorrectly identified. | |
We hope this edition of The Promethean has inspired you to celebrate our American heritage, history, and culture during this 232nd anniversary of the birth of our great country. Hopefully reading some of the above has rekindled your interest in all things as American as, well, apple pie.
Feel free to send us any suggestions, comments, or questions you may have. Email us:
marketing@prometheusbooks.com
Best wishes,
The Marketing Department
Prometheus Books, Publishers
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