Matthew Josephson

Regarded as the classic standard biography on Thomas Edison. It is the only biography written in the last 40 years to be recommended by the official voice of the caretakers of the Edison Laboratory National Monument in New Jersey which houses all of Edison's original records, sketches, notes, correspondence and memoranda. Depicts Edison as a pivotal figure in America's economic and industrial revolution success and at the same time as a human being, including his exploitative and, at times, crude qualities.

John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick . . . their names carry a powerful historical ring, still echoing today in the countless institutions that are part of their legacy, from universities to museums to banks. But who were the people behind the legends, and how did they rise to their positions of vast wealth and influence in the latter half of the nineteenth century? The Robber Barons is a classic work on the financiers and industrialists of the Gilded Age, who shaped their own era as well as the future of the United States—“not a mere series of biographies but a genuine history” (The New York Times Book Review).

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Dopo gli studi universitari e la frequentazione della bohème del Greenwich Village, oppresso dal provincialismo del suo paese, Matthew Josephson fugge in Europa e inizia un lungo sodalizio con i surrealisti e le altre avanguardie. I «ruggenti anni Venti» a Parigi sono i veri protagonisti del l’emigrazione letteraria nordamericana, la febbre dei fondatori di riviste, i dibattiti tra scrittori che diventano comizi, quella che Gertrude Stein battezza come la «generazione perduta».Campeggiano sulla scena Tristan Tzara, Louis Aragon, André Breton, mentre James Joyce sta emergendo ed Ezra Pound sorveglia gli esordi di T.S. Eliot ed Ernest Hemingway.Attore e spettatore di quegli anni, Matthew Josephson rievoca la cronaca, il pittoresco, ma anche la sostanza, di un’avanguardia che ha posto le premesse, ancora attive, di tanta arte d’oggi.«C’erano T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings, Paul Éluard, Jean Cocteau, Ezra Pound, Charlie Chaplin, André Breton,Giorgio de Chirico... Josephson fa risorgere il decennio più irriverente e inimitabile del ventesimo secolo». Kirkus Review

Out of print for decades, The Politicos , Matthew Josephson’s sequel to his instant classic, The Robber Barons , is even more resonant indeed, cautionary a historical account today than it was when first published seventy years ago. Written during the most desperate time in twentieth-century America, this biting chronicle of the Gilded Age confirmed in most Americans minds why they had voted overwhelmingly for FDR and had embraced the New Deal’s reforms. In his insightful introduction to this volume, Michael Kazin notes that Josephson was able to convince readers living through the worst of the Great Depression that the roots of their calamity could be traced to the power and greed so notorious at the end of the last century. The eminent American historians Richard Hofstadter and C. Vann Woodward both lauded Josephson’s book. Hofstadter called it by far the most illuminating book on the politics of the entire period, while Woodward described it as masterly. For a contemporary reader, however, what is most disturbing about Josephson’s work is how closely it seems to be related to the alarming facts of American life in the first decade of the twenty-first century. At a time when income inequality in the United States is by every measure the worst it has been since the Great Depression, it is clear why Thomas Frank writes that The Politicos is "the volume of history with the most to teach us about the present."

With trenchant realism and profound understanding, Matthew Josephson presents in VICTOR HUGO the realistic biography of a great romantic who wrote Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Name, among others. Of tremendous sweep and scope, it is a penetrating analysis of a literary titan, who as a political pamphleteer, playwright, novelist, and romantic lover, dominated his time, influenced his peers, and moved the hearts of men. Matthew Josephson, whose Stendhal, Zola, The Robber Barons, and Rousseau defined him as a master of the art of biography, has given us in VICTOR HUGO a highly readable account of this vigorous, zestful, and fruitful career. VICTOR HUGO is the final and definitive work on "France's prince of poets and lord of language." EARLIER BOOK REVIEWS "Matthew Joseph's third full-blown biography of a great French writer.is the best. There is more color and drive in it .because the materials are so rich." New York Times Book Review (1942) "Victor Hugo's varied and colorful career offered Josephson a perfect opportunity to display again his gift for spirited narrative and keen characterization. He skillfully traces Hugo's conversion from literary great to political hero. Along the way he adds texture to his portrait by interweaving the fascinating components of Hugo's personal life -his marriage to Adèle Foucher, his fifty-year liaison with Juliette Drouet, and his friendship and betrayal by Sainte-Beuve.Victor Hugo's life was a success story without parallel, and it provided an apotheosis of Josephson's point about the duty of writers in times of social and political crisis. The critics again praised Josephson's talents as a biographer." - David E. Shi, Matthew Bourgeois Bohemian, Yale University Press, 1981

Freshly examined and balanced if admiring account of Smith, his background, political development from ward politician to New York governor and presidential candidate, legislative and administrative contributions, unhappy close of his political career, and his person and personality.

“The study of human nature, ‘the observation of the human heart and its passions,’ was his constant preoccupation. But where could he study the passions better than in himself? Though he lived exuberantly, submitting himself to experience... he went on incessantly writing down everything that happened to him just as it happened… he even led to perform some remarkable experiments upon himself…He laid claim to having been a soldier, a man of fortune, a great lover, a society wit, a diplomat, a traveler, and even, sometimes, a revolutionary conspirator… “Fifty years after his death he becomes one of the demigods of the world’s letters, taking his place in the ranks of the great social writers who appeared toward the end of the last century… his manner of life itself has fascinated whole regiments of literary scholars in France, Italy and Germany in the last forty years.” —Matthew Josephson, From the Introduction (1946) “Stendhal is best known for his masterpieces The Red and the Black (1830) and The Chartreuse of Parma (1839), sharp and passionate chronicles of the intellectual and moral climate of France after Napoleon's defeat.”

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Infidel in the Temple A Memoir of the Nineteen-Thirties was written by Matthew Josephson, published by Alfred A. Knopf and was printed in 1967 in a Hardcover binding.

In this well written book taken from a series of 5 articles originally written for the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. You will find a short and concise history of Pan Am. It does include a very small history of Juan Trippe before Pan AM but not really anything like a short bio. This book covers Juan's involvement in Pan Am. Most of what is written about is how Pan Am was founded and increased its world markets through the shipping of mail in which Pan Am won most of the government contracts. This allowed them to make money when air travel was just in the beginning stages. It also tells how closely the airlines worked with the government and the CAB in order to keep a stranglehold on the markets allowing it to have a virtual monopoly with the help of the government. (Amazon customer)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau French author and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) published The Social Contract,Discourse of Inequality, Émile and many other great works and ideas that have profoundly influenced modern education, politics and psychology theories. The passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very remarkable change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and giving his actions the morality they had formerly lacked. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762 JJ Rousseau broke away from the authoritarianism and rationalism of his day to champion inborn human rights and native intuition. Lowell Bair Translator of French literature His works as a political philosopher influenced and fascinated minds as different as those of Hume, Kant, Goethe, Byron, Shiller and in recent times John Dewey and Claude Levi-Strauss. Mathew Josephson. The Essential Rousseau. Plume Books 1974 About the Author Since his early life Matthew Josephson (1899-1978) showned extreme he wrote poetry, extensive biographies (Zola, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Stendhal and Edison) essays on political issues, newspaper articles, personal chronicles (Life Among the A Memoir) . Today he is best known as the author of The Robber Barons, He was also an experienced and successful Wall Street broker and businessman. Josephson's chief concerns were nineteenth-century French literature and twentieth-century American capitalism. In the 1920's he lived in Paris and Berlin where he became acquainted with the European Dadaists and Surrealists suchas Paul Eluard, André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Max Ernst. David E. Shi. Matthew Josephson, Bourgeois Bohemian, Yale University, 1981

The first book by this interesting literary figure whose chief works were in biography and economic history, but who is perhaps best revered for his bohemian memoir, LIFE AMONG THE SURREALISTS. His highly experimental poetry, influenced by his time hobnobbing with Dadaists in Paris, was published in a series of modernist magazines, including Broom, which he edited with Alfred Kreymborg.

Statesman of American labor

VG (Some writing throughout). White cloth over boards; BW pictorial dj.; Clear plastic wrap over dj.; 403 pp.; 26 bw figures

“The best, the liveliest and most illuminating” account of John D. Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie, E. H. Harriman, Jay Gould, Henry Clay Frick and the other men who seized American economic power after the Civil War.“Not a mere series of biographies but a genuine history.” —The New York Times Book Review