Most Popular Books by Lee Miller

Fashion model, photographer, friend of the Surrealists, war correspondent: the remarkable Lee Miller had a varied career. Her superb photographic work is now being rediscovered, and it forms the basis for the major touring exhibition that this book accompanies. In the 1920s Lee Miller, already a successful fashion model in New York, set off for Paris to pursue her growing interest in working behind the camera. Armed with an introduction from Steichen, she sought out the Surrealist photographer Man Ray, and announced herself as his new pupil. Together they developed the technique of solarization, and Miller went on to establish herself as a photographer in her own right. In the early thirties, in New York, she broke new ground by taking models out of the studio and photographing them on location in city streets. She returned to Paris and during the war years served as an acccredited war correspondent for Vogue. She was the only photographer on hand during the invasion of St. Malo, and was the frist photojournalist to report the horrors of Dachau. After the war, Miller married the Surrealist painter and writer Roland Penrose and settled in England. She gradually withdrew from commercial work, but she continued to photograph the friends who came to visit -- Picasso, Miro, Noguchi, Max Ernst, and Braque among them. Here is a rich selection of Lee Miller''s finest photographs, one that will ensure her place among the great photographers of the twentieth century.

November 1587. A report reaches London that Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition, which left England months before to land the first English settlers in America, has foundered. On Roanoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina, a tragedy is unfolding. Something has gone very wrong, and the colony—115 men, women, and children, among them the first English child born in the New World, Virginia Dare—is in trouble. But there will be no rescue. Before help can reach them, all will vanish with barely a trace. The Lost Colony is America’s oldest unsolved mystery. In this remarkable example of historical detective work, Lee Miller goes back to the original evidence and offers a fresh solution to the enduring legend. She establishes beyond doubt that the tragedy of the Lost Colony did not begin on the shores of Roanoke but within the walls of Westminster, in the inner circle of Queen Elizabeth’s government. As Miller detects, powerful men had reason to want Raleigh’s mission to fail. Furthermore, Miller shows what must have become of the settlers, left to face a hostile world that was itself suffering the upheavals of an alien invasion. Narrating a thrilling tale of court intrigue, spy rings, treachery, sabotage, Native American politics, and colonial power, Miller has finally shed light on a four-hundred-year-old unsolved mystery.

William Lee Miller’s ethical biography is a fresh, engaging telling of the story of Lincoln’s rise to power. Through careful scrutiny of Lincoln’s actions, speeches, and writings, and of accounts from those who knew him, Miller gives us insight into the moral development of a great politician — one who made the choice to go into politics, and ultimately realized that vocation’s fullest moral possibilities. As Lincoln’s Virtues makes refreshingly clear, Lincoln was not born with his face on Mount Rushmore; he was an actual human being making choices — moral choices — in a real world. In an account animated by wit and humor, Miller follows this unschooled frontier politician’s rise, showing that the higher he went and the greater his power, the worthier his conduct would become. He would become that rare bird, a great man who was also a good man. Uniquely revealing of its subject’s heart and mind, it represents a major contribution to our understanding and of Lincoln, and to the perennial American discussion of the relationship between politics and morality.

In his acclaimed book Lincoln''s Virtues, William Lee Miller explored Abraham Lincoln''s intellectual and moral development. Now he completes his "ethical biography," showing how the amiable and inexperienced backcountry politician was transformed by constitutional alchemy into an oath-bound head of state. Faced with a radical moral contradiction left by the nation''s Founders, Lincoln struggled to find a balance between the universal ideals of Equality and Liberty and the monstrous injustice of human slavery. With wit and penetrating sensitivity, Miller brings together the great themes that have become Lincoln''s legacy—preserving the United States of America while ending the odious institution that corrupted the nation''s meaning—and illuminates his remarkable presidential combination: indomitable resolve and supreme magnanimity.

This book offers an unprecedented insight into one of the most fascinating artistic relationships of the 20th century.

There is the raw edge of combat portrayed at the siege of St. Malo and in the bitterly fought Alsace campaign, and the disbelief and outrage Miller describes on witnessing the victims of Dachau. The war''s horror is relieved by the spirit of post-liberation Paris, where she indulged in frivolous fashions and recorded memorable conversations with Picasso, Cocteau, Eluard, Aragon, and Colette. The book ends with Miller''s on-the-scene report giving a sardonic description of Hitler''s abandoned house in Munich and the looting and burning of his alpine fortress at Berchtesgaden, which marked a symbolic end to the war.

Pete the Red Bull was off like a shot out of a cannon, and before the tip of his tail had crossed the starting line, he had already gone around the world once and had caught up with his own tail.

In "a chilling documentary history of America''s above-ground nuclear tests conducted during the 1950s and early 1960s, Miller takes on the subject and universalizes it, at the same time giving it the flavor of a Dos Passos novel" ("Kirkus Reviews").

Lee Miller retrieves the voices of Indian people over five centuries and weaves them into an alternate history of the continent, while introducing us to the grandeur and diversity of the 500 nations who held this land before the first European set foot on it. Here, collected in one volume, is the testimony of more than 250 Indian civilizations—of the Aztec king Moctezuma, the Seminole leader Osceola, Tecumseh, Cochise, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Sara Winnemucca. Through their eyes, we see the shaping events of the past in a radically different light, one that is tragic yet shows courage in the face of adversity. “Extraordinarily moving. . . . A haunting and eloquent anthology that serves as a testament to the courage and the nobility of Native Americans in the face of physical and spiritual genocide.” —Booklist

Straight-talking advice on success from the choreographer, instructor, and star of Dance Moms. Ultimate "Tiger Mom" Abby Lee Miller—the passionate, unapologetically outspoken, tough-as-nails star of Lifetime''s phenomenal hit Dance Moms and Abby''s Ultimate Dance Competition—offers inspirational, tough love guidance for parents who want to help their children succeed and for readers of all ages striving to become the best they can be. If you want to help your kid reach the top, you can find no better coach than Abby. While some may criticize her methods, no one argues with her results. Her kids excel, her teams win, and her alumni go on to Broadway careers. Organized by "Abbyisms," her unique and effective philosophies on hard work, competition, and life, this straight-talking guide provides clear and proven advice for achieving success, from figuring out your child''s passion to laying the groundwork for an exciting future career. Abby answers tough questions from real moms, shares all the stories fans want to hear, and includes vignettes from shining alums who give their take on her unique approach and how it helped them make their dreams come true.

Grace Lee calls her granddaughter, Judith, with a dying wish…for Judith to travel from Los Angeles to Nashville to come visit her. But there’s a catch. Judith must make the journey by bus. The award-winning novel Finding Grace shares Judith Lee’s transformative, cross-country journey, revealing what truly matters. Each day of Judith’s journey becomes a story on its own, as the people she meets and places she visits along the way challenge her to rethink her life. Finding Grace is about Judith’s transformation back into the real world during this journey as a result of the people she meets on the bus, how she deals with the imminent passing of her grandmother, and how all this changes her life’s future plans. There are tears and laughter throughout, with interesting characters whom readers would recognize from their own lives. Today, more people are reflecting on what is and is not important. Finding Grace provides food for thought on many levels.

`A comprehensive, balanced and judicious treatment of biographical methods in social research, made all the more useful to students by its careful delineation of the practicalities involved′ - Raymond M Lee, Royal Holloway, University of London Specifically designed for those carrying out biographical, life history or family history research, this concise guide covers the methods and issues involved. The author demonstrates that biographical research is a distinctive way of conceptualizing social activity. The three main approaches to biographical and family history research are covered: - Realist - focused around grounded-theory techniques of interviewing; - Neo-positivist - more structured interview techniques; - Narrative - with emphasis on the active construction of life stories through the interplay between interviewer and interviewee. An invaluable introduction to the field, which contains much that will be of interest to the experienced practitioner, the book will be ideal for researchers in sociology, psychology, political science, social policy or anthropology.

In the 1830s slavery was so deeply entrenched that it could not even be discussed in Congress, which had enacted a "gag rule" to ensure that anti-slavery petitions would be summarily rejected. This stirring book chronicles the parliamentary battle to bring "the peculiar institution" into the national debate, a battle that some historians have called "the Pearl Harbor of the slavery controversy." The campaign to make slavery officially and respectably debatable was waged by John Quincy Adams who spent nine years defying gags, accusations of treason, and assassination threats. In the end he made his case through a combination of cunning and sheer endurance. Telling this story with a brilliant command of detail, Arguing About Slavery endows history with majestic sweep, heroism, and moral weight. "Dramatic, immediate, intensely readable, fascinating and often moving."--New York Times Book Review

From William Lee Miller, the highly regarded biographer of Abraham Lincoln, a riveting dual examination of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower that explores the similarities and equally striking differences of two remarkable men in the context of mid-twentieth-century American culture and politics. Two Americans weaves together the life stories of Truman and Eisenhower, showing how these future presidents, born six years apart from each other in small farming towns, were emblematic of their Midwestern upbringings and their generation. Miller also shows how their markedly different life experiences during World War I and between the world wars would shape their choices and the roles they played in the politics of the time, as Truman became the quintessential politician, and Eisenhower, the thoroughgoing anti-politician. Their personalities come alive in vividly described scenes of their collaboration during the war-torn 1940s; their dual, but different, roles in bringing the war to an end and shaping the postwar world; their growing disapproval of each other; and, finally, in 1952, the hostile bickering and maneuvering that characterized the passing of presidential power from one to the other.

Hot Horse Harry lived up to his name, mad at the world, especially at flies. Then one day, he overreacted and ended up with his hooves stuck in a cloud. Of course, when he finally got unstuck, the cloud leaked like crazy, and Hot Horse Harry nearly drowned. After getting into a position where thinking was inevitable, he became a changed horse, and Hot Horse was no longer an adequate name for him. He spent the rest of his life teaching other horses that it was not worth it to become angry at the world.