New Releases by John Matteson

Melville''s (Dis)Orders offers a dialogical re-reading of Herman Melville as a thinker of moral, political, and existential disorder, tracing how his literary imagination confronts authority, law, violence, and ethical responsibility in modernity. Combining literary analysis with philosophical reflection, this book advances a dual-voiced, dialogical approach to Melville''s oeuvre that brings literary studies into sustained conversation with ethics, political thought, theology, and intellectual history. Moving beyond thematic interpretation, the authors read Melville as a diagnostician of modernity''s fractures--where sovereignty falters, legal order destabilizes, and moral judgment becomes precarious. Through close readings of major and lesser-known texts, the volume offers scholars a conceptually rigorous framework for understanding Melville''s relevance to debates on authority, responsibility, friendship, and post-theological ethics, while modeling dialogic scholarship as a critical method. This book is written primarily for scholars of nineteenth-century American literature, Melville studies, American Romanticism, and comparative literature, as well as philosophers, intellectual historians, and scholars of religion interested in ethics, secularization, and dialogic thought. It will also be of value to postgraduate and doctoral students, advanced undergraduates in specialized seminars, and educators seeking an interdisciplinary, research-driven resource on Melville''s ethical imagination.

Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Matteson illuminates three harrowing months of the Civil War and their enduring legacy for America. December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln’s government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country’s law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American. Guided by patriotism, driven by desire, all five moved toward singular destinies. A young Harvard intellectual steeped in courageous ideals, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. confronted grave challenges to his concept of duty. The one-eyed army chaplain Arthur Fuller pitted his frail body against the evils of slavery. Walt Whitman, a gay Brooklyn poet condemned by the guardians of propriety, and Louisa May Alcott, a struggling writer seeking an authentic voice and her father’s admiration, tended soldiers’ wracked bodies as nurses. On the other side of the national schism, John Pelham, a West Point cadet from Alabama, achieved a unique excellence in artillery tactics as he served a doomed and misbegotten cause. A Worse Place Than Hell brings together the prodigious forces of war with the intimacy of individual lives. Matteson interweaves the historic and the personal in a work as beautiful as it is powerful.

After 25 years as a piano teacher of 100 students, mostly children, I find that i continue to be impressed by their musical talent and amused by their unexpected comments. If you like kids as much as i do, you will appreciate some of their unintentional and frequently uninhibited humor. Quoting my late grandmother Velma Peterson, as she quoted a favorite early T.V. host "Kids Say the Darnest Things".

This is one of the finest trading books ever written about trading. The reason is that it comes from over twenty expert traders with multiple years of trading experience. Trading as you know is extremely difficult. It is estimated that 90% of traders lose money in the markets. To help you overcome this statistic, these traders give their ideas on trading with some of the best trading methods developed through their long time experience. Perhaps with these trading methods you may then have the conviction and the disciple to pull the trigger to buy and sell profitably. The traders in this book have through experience have the right attitude and many employ a combination technical analysis principles and many formula strategies to be successful. You can develop these also. Trading is one of the best ways to make money if you treat it as a business. The purpose of this book is to give you the best methods so that you can implement them in your own trading style and make it a business. I wish to express my appreciation to all the writers in this book who made the book possible. They have spent many hours of their time and hard work in writing their section of the book and the putting together their video presentation for the online expo.

“Psychologically rich. . . . Matteson’s book restores the heroism of [Fuller’s] life and work.”—The New Yorker A brilliant writer and a fiery social critic, Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) was perhaps the most famous American woman of her generation. Outspoken and quick-witted, idealistic and adventurous, she became the leading female figure in the transcendentalist movement, wrote a celebrated column of literary and social commentary for Horace Greeley’s newspaper, and served as the first foreign correspondent for an American newspaper. While living in Europe she fell in love with an Italian nobleman, with whom she became pregnant out of wedlock. In 1848 she joined the fight for Italian independence and, the following year, reported on the struggle while nursing the wounded within range of enemy cannons. Amid all these strivings and achievements, she authored the first great work of American feminism: Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Despite her brilliance, however, Fuller suffered from self-doubt and was plagued by ill health. John Matteson captures Fuller’s longing to become ever better, reflected by the changing lives she led.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography Louisa May Alcott is known universally. Yet during Louisa''s youth, the famous Alcott was her father, Bronson—an eminent teacher and a friend of Emerson and Thoreau. He desired perfection, for the world and from his family. Louisa challenged him with her mercurial moods and yearnings for money and fame. The other prize she deeply coveted—her father''s understanding—seemed hardest to win. This story of Bronson and Louisa''s tense yet loving relationship adds dimensions to Louisa''s life, her work, and the relationships of fathers and daughters.