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How ordinary people use the past to shape their sense of self and community; People know who they are by fixing themselves in place and time. They keep the past in numerous ways - not simply by writing histories but also by telling stories, creating pictures, collecting memorabilia, preserving old homes, and tracing genealogies. As Michael C. Batinski shows in this imaginative study, the pastkeepers of Deerfield, Massachusetts, have long illustrated this human yearning to connect with past and p...

Bestselling true-crime author M. William Phelps, star of the new investigative television series "Dark Minds," takes readers to his own backyard in these eight bloodcurdling murder cases. Think New England is all bucolic landscapes and Robert Frost poems? Think again. In Murder, New England, Phelps explores different motives, themes, and community reactions to horrific crimes: ** Murder by Blood: The Strange Death of Rebecca Cornwell (1673, Narragansset Bay, RI). A 73-year-old widow burned to...

Here is an incisive and fully illustrated history of Harvard's architecture told by the distinguished architectural historian Bainbridge Bunting, author of Houses of Boston's Back Bay. The book examines the Federal architecture of Charles Bulfinch, H. H. Richardson's Romanesque buildings, the Imperial manner reflected in Widener Library, as well as the work of such esteemed architects as Charles McKim, Gropius, and Le Corbusier-and it shows us how they all come together to form an amazingly cohe...

From Yankee to American explores the nature of the state's reaction to the forces of urbanism, industrialism, and massive European immigration in the period between the Confederate surrender at Appomattox and the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

He and his crew spent twenty-nine days in May and June of 1605 sounding and exploring a very small area of the coast, which included an anchorage at the Georges Islands and the discovery of a "great river." Which river? This question has been an ongoing controversy, even to the present day. Our best information comes from James Rosier, who was aboard the ship Archangell as a "gentleman" employed to document the voyage. His narrative, A True Relation, gives us one of the earliest written a...

This is an indispensable reference for the lighthouse enthusiast, required reading for those interested in maritime history, and a necessity for anyone who loves Cape Cod. Step back in time and observe the lighthouses and lightships that marked the shores and guided mariners through dangerous waters surrounding Cape Cod. Experience these maritime marvels and trace through the history of these lighthouses and lightships. Archived plans describe the details of these aids to navigation with more th...

Boston has persevered through the bad old days to thrive, and more, to make a kind of statement about the good city. The good city is innovative and fun, it is prosperous, it strives for justice and sustainability, but above all, it is alive. -From the Introduction by Paul Grogan The Good City presents a vivid new profile of Boston through the work of fifteen of the city's finest writers. Robert Campbell and Jane Holtz Kay on Boston's embrace of lively urban density James Miller on the city's...

Despite being the third smallest state, Connecticut can claim more than its share of remarkable women who have made lasting social, political, and cultural contributions to both their own state and to their nation. From Prudence Crandall, Connecticut's official State Heroine, who braved imprisonment for opening a school for black girls, to Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose classic Uncle Tom's Cabin urged the nation on a path towards abolition of slavery, to Margaret Fogarty Rudkin, who changed the na...

The evolution of the most innovative square mile on the planet: the endless cycles of change and reinvention that created today’s Kendall Square. Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been called “the most innovative square mile on the planet.” It’s a life science hub, hosting Biogen, Moderna, Pfizer, Takeda, and others. It’s a major tech center, with Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple all occupying big chunks of pricey office space. Kendall Square also boasts a dense...