TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of March 31, 1957

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MEN TO MATCH MY MOUNTAINS
Irving Stone
Cover of MEN TO MATCH MY MOUNTAINS

MEN TO MATCH MY MOUNTAINS

by Irving Stone · Doubleday

24 wks on list

Our most acclaimed author of biographical and historical fiction has turned his magnificent talent to telling America's most colorful and exciting story-the opening of the Far West. Men to Match My Mountains is a true historical masterpiece, an unforgettable pageant of giants-men like John Sutter, whose dream of paradise was shattered by the California Gold Rush; Brigham Young and the Mormons who tamed the desert with Bible texts; and the silver kings and the miners who developed Nevada's Comstock Lode and settled the Rockies. America called for greatness ... and got it. There is nothing else in history to match the stories of these men who braved a wilderness to bring a new nation to the shores of the Pacific. Book jacket.

12
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PROFILES IN COURAGE
John F. Kennedy
Cover of PROFILES IN COURAGE

PROFILES IN COURAGE

by John F. Kennedy · Harper and Brothers

63 wks on list

The Pulitzer Prize winning classic by President John F. Kennedy, with an introduction by Caroline Kennedy and a foreword by Robert F. Kennedy. Written in 1955 by the then junior senator from the state of Massachusetts, John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage serves as a clarion call to every American. In this book Kennedy chose eight of his historical colleagues to profile for their acts of astounding integrity in the face of overwhelming opposition. These heroes, coming from different junctures in our nation’s history, include John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert A. Taft. Now, a half-century later, the book remains a moving, powerful, and relevant testament to the indomitable national spirit and an unparalleled celebration of that most noble of human virtues. It resounds with timeless lessons on the most cherished of virtues and is a powerful reminder of the strength of the human spirit. Profiles in Courage is as Robert Kennedy states in the foreword: “not just stories of the past but a book of hope and confidence for the future. What happens to the country, to the world, depends on what we do with what others have left us." Along with vintage photographs and an extensive author biography, this book features Kennedy's correspondence about the writing project, contemporary reviews, a letter from Ernest Hemingway, and two rousing speeches from recipients of the Profile in Courage Award. Introduction by John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline Kennedy, forward by John F. Kennedy’s brother Robert F. Kennedy.

13
NEW
A STUDY OF HISTORY
Arnold J. Toynbee
Cover of A STUDY OF HISTORY

A STUDY OF HISTORY

by Arnold J. Toynbee · Oxford University Press

2 wks on list

Arnold Toynbee's A Study of History has been acknowledged as one of the greatest achievements of modern scholarship. A ten-volume analysis of the rise and fall of human civilizations, it is a work of breath-taking breadth and vision. D.C. Somervell's abridgement, in two volumes, of this magnificent enterprise, preserves the method, atmosphere, texture, and, in many instances, the very words of the original. Originally published in 1947 and 1957, these two volumes are themselves a great historical achievement. Volume 1, which abridges the first six volumes of Toynbee's study, includes the Introduction, The Geneses of Civilizations, and The Disintegrations of Civilizations. Volume 2, an abridgement of Volumes VII-X, includes sections on Universal States, Universal churches, Heroic Ages, Contacts Between Civilizations in Space, Contacts Between Civilizations in Time, Law and Freedom in History, The Prospects of the Western Civilization, and the Conclusion. Of Somervell's work, Toynbee wrote, "The reader now has at his command a uniform abridgement of the whole book, made by a clear mind that has not only mastered the contents but has entered into the writer's outlook and purpose."

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.