Out today, Light on Fire: The Art and Life of Sam Francis is the first in-depth biography of Sam Francis, the legendary American abstract painter who broke all the rules in his personal and artistic life. The following passage is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Light on Fire: The Art and Life of Sa
September 27th, 2021 marks the 200-year anniversary of the day Mexico achieved independence. In honor of the date, we reached out to Silvia Marina Arrom to discuss her new book, La Güera Rodríguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine. María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco y Osori
By Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, author of The Abbe Gregoire and the French RevolutionThis post is an adapted excerpt from The Abbe Gregoire and the French Revolution, and was originally posted on The Age of Revolutions.The history of the world is but the biography of great men.–Thomas Car
Ludwig van Beethoven was born in December, and while the exact date of his birth is not known, that has not kept the world from celebrating his life and work for the 250th anniversary of his birth in 2020. Published to coincide with this momentous moment—and available in English for the first time—t
By Dr. Joanne Cormac, guest-editor of 19th-Century Music's new special issue "Music and Biography."On the day the great piano virtuoso and composer Franz Liszt was born it was reported that gypsies camping nearby saw a comet in the sky. They interpreted it as a sign that a “great one” had be
This post is part of our AMS 2020 conference blog series. Check out our virtual exhibit page for more.As a conductor of Beethoven’s music, what draws you to this composer’s life and works?Beethoven’s music fascinates like no other, as it stimulates in equal measure both the head and
We are deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Robert D. Richardson Jr. at age 86. Obituaries and announcements have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe.UC Press is honored to have published his highly acclaimed and widely cited biographies, Henry Thoreau:
Excerpted from American Disruptor: The Scandalous Life of Leland Stanford by Roland De WolkThe origins of the Stanford campus and the Silicon Valley it has incubated, borne, and sustained could not have had a more unlikely birthplace: a frontier bar called the Bull’s Head tavern in the b
Author Maxine Gordon continues her extensive tour of speaking engagements and presentations around the release of Sophisticated Giant: The Life and Legacy of Dexter Gordon, the highly-praised official biography of her late husband."Maxine Gordon astutely frames the fiery daring of Dexter Gor
