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Tag Archives: military

Book of the Week — A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes Under the Auspices of the United Stated Governement

07 Monday Aug 2017

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Albert Einstein, Army Corps of Engineers, atomic energy, electromagnetism, fission, Franklin D. Roosevelt, General Leslie R. Groves, Henry De Wolf Smyth, Hiroshima, isotopes, Japan, Manhattan Project, Metallurgical Laboratory, military, Nagasaki, neutrons, nuclear weapon, physics, Princeton, science, Smyth Report, United States, United States War Department, University of Chicago, uranium, war, weapons

UF767-S52-1945-cover

“These questions are not technical questions; they are political and social questions, and the answers given to them may affect all mankind for generations. In thinking about them the men on the project have been thinking as citizens of the United States vitally interested in the welfare of the human race. It has been their duty and that of the responsible high government officials who were informed to look beyond the limits of the present war and its weapons to the ultimate implications of these discoveries. This was a heavy responsibility. In a free country like ours, such questions should be debated by the people and decisions must be made by the people through their representatives. This is one reason for the release of this report. It is a semi-technical report which it is hoped men of science in this country can use to help their fellow citizens in reaching wise decisions. The people of the country must be informed if they are to discharge their responsibilities wisely”
— Henry De Wolf Smyth

A GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF METHODS OF USING ATOMIC ENERGY FOR MILITARY PURPOSES UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, 1940-1945
Henry De Wolf Smyth (1898- 1986)
Washington, D. C: U. S. Govt. Print. Off., 1945
First edition

On August 6, 1945 the United States government dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. One week later, after a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, the United States War Department issued an official account of the Manhattan Project which produced the bombs, written by Princeton physicist Henry D. Smyth.

The program to develop a nuclear weapon had its origins in 1939, when a group of scientists, including Albert Einstein, apprised President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the vast destructive power that could be unleashed by the recently-discovered fission of uranium. By mid-1942 a top-secret program had been instituted under the Army Corps of Engineers’ Manhattan District. Smyth’s involvement began with his research at Princeton, where he headed the physics department, on electromagnetic methods of separating uranium isotopes. In 1943 he was appointed associate director of the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, working on the production of the heavy water needed to regulate the speed of neutrons in a chain reaction.

In April 1944 General Leslie R. Groves, chief of the Manhattan Project, asked Smyth to prepare a report on the project for release after the expected deployment of the bomb. The press release became known simply as the “Smyth Report.”

UF767-S52-1945-foreword

UF767-S52-1945-preface

UF767-S52-1945-pg165

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Book of the Week — Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ kamā kataba Mār Mattay waḥid min ithnay ‘ashar min talāmīdhihi

19 Monday Jun 2017

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Accademia del Disgno, Aleppo, Alessio dra Saggeto, Antonio Tempesta, Antonius Sionita, arabesque, Arabic, Armenian, Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ, bi-lingual, Book of Hours, borders, Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, Christian, College of Sapienza, colophon, Eastern Orthodox Church, Europe, European, Flemish, Florence, font, French, frescoes, gilt, Giorgio Vasari, Giovanni Battista Raimondi, Gospels, Hebrew, Hungarian, Ibrahim Muteferrika, illustrations, Islam, Islamic, Istanbul, Joannes Stradanus, Latin, Leonardo Parasole, mathematics, Matthew, Medici, military, Mohamedan, morocco, movable type, Muslim, Near East, Orientalist, Ottomon Empire, Palazzo Vecchio, peace, Persian, political, Pope Gregory XIII, printing, religious, Robert Granjon, Romae, Roman Catholic Church, Roman type, Rome, Santi di Tito, science, scripture, sprinkled calf, stamps, Sultan Ahmed III, sword, Syrian, translation, typographer, Typographia Medicea, Vatican, Villa Farnese, Waqf, woodcuts

BS315-A66-1591-title
“Ne arbitremini quod ego uenetim ut mitterem super terram pacem; non ueni ut mitterem pacem, sed gladium (“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.)” — Matthew 10:34

Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ kamā kataba Mār Mattay waḥid min ithnay ‘ashar min talāmīdhihi
Romae: in Typographia Medicea, MDXCI
Edicio princeps
BS315 A66 1591

Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ, the first printed edition of the Gospels in Arabic, is the first production by the Typographia Medicea press, a printing house established by Pope Gregory XIII and Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in order to promote and distribute Christian scripture to the Near East. Two issues of this work were printed, apparently simultaneously. One had Arabic-only text and was printed in an edition of 4,000 copies. The other, here, was printed in Arabic with interlinear Latin, in an edition of 3,000 copies. The Arabic-only edition has the date 1590 on the title-page, but 1591 in the colophon. Allegedly, a few of the bi-lingual copies were published with a preliminary leaf stating, “Sanctum Dei evangelium arab.-lat.” No known copies of this half-title are known to exist and this leaf may never have existed.

With a Latin translation ascribed to one Antonius Sionita, the book was edited by Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1540-ca. 1614), an esteemed Orientalist and professor of mathematics at the College of Sapienza in Rome. Raimondi travelled extensively in the Near East and was knowledgeable, if not fluent, in Arabic, Armenian, Syrian and Hebrew. His fame rests with the editorship of the Typographica Medicea. He and French typographer Robert Granjon, who created the Arabic font used in this work, were both recognized then and now for the earliest and best attempts to print Arabic in Europe.

Illustrated with 149 woodcuts, printed from 68 blocks, engraved by Leonardo Parasole (ca. 1587-ca. 1630). The artist, Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630), studied under Santi di Tito and Flemish artist Joannes Stradanus at the Accademia del Disgno. Tempesta later worked with Stradanus and Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) on the interior decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Tempesta then travelled to Rome, where he fulfilled several commissions, including frescoes for Pope Gregory XIII in the Vatican and panel paintings for the Villa Farnese. Many of the woodcuts are signed with the initials “AT” (Antonio Tempesta) and “LP” (Leonardo Parasole). The illustrations in Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ are excellent examples of Tempesta’s work, noteworthy for their clear composition and narrative of the episodes depicted.

Be that as it may, the illustrations may have played a part in the failure of this book to reach, let alone convince, its intended Islamic audience. Islam forbade religious illustration and these may have made the Gospels appear less than sacred, if not sacrilegious, to Arab Muslim readers.

To be fair, the Christian church had a long tradition of presenting their message with religious illustrations. As far back as the sixth century, Pope Gregory defended the value of such imagery, arguing that pictures were useful for teaching the faith to the unconverted and for conveying sacred stories to the illiterate. According to Bede, St. Augustine introduced Christianity to the heathen King Ethelbert of Kent, upon landing on the British Isles, by presenting a picture of Christ painted on a wooden panel. He then began to preach.

The Pope seems also to have denied the fact that more Christians lived in the Ottoman Empire than in any other European state. The first printed book in Arabic was a Book of Hours, probably intended for export to Syrian Christians. But these Christians were adherents to the Eastern Orthodox Church, not the Pope’s Roman Catholic Church. Christianity was hardly unknown in the predominantly Muslim Ottoman and Persian Empires. The Ottomans were, however, Christian Europe’s major military and political concern.

In addition to printing the Gospels in Arabic, Ferdinando de’ Medici charged Raimondi with printing “all available Arabic books on permissable human science which had no religious content in order to introduce the art of printing to the Mohamedan community.” Despite the superb quality — textually, typographically, and artistically — of its work, the Medici press was an economic failure and went bankrupt in 1610. The fact is that Raimondi displayed little understanding of Islamic culture. Although Raimondi’s selection of publications was not aimed at European scholars, his choices stimulated a study of the Near East in Europe.

It would be more than a century after the Medici Press closed that Ibrahim Muteferrika, a Hungarian convert to Islam, was given permission by Sultan Ahmed III (1673-1736) to open his printing house in Istanbul, in 1729. This was not the first printing press established in the Near East, but it was the first Eastern press to print in Arabic using movable type.

Arabic and small roman type text within double-ruled borders. Colophon and printer’s note to reader in Latin. Colophon decorated with large woodcut arabesque.

Rare Books copy bound in full, eighteenth century, sprinkled calf, with a gilt spine containing two burgundy morocco labels, and decorative gilt borders on the covers. The first leaf is shaved and reinserted on contemporary paper. This leaf contains four Waqf stamps, indicating the authentication of the Arabic translation. As in most copies, our copy lacks a title page. A former owner’s penciled inscription, “Alessio Dra Saggeto/en Aleppo 1871,” is on the free front end paper. Another signature, in ink, is at the top of the back free end paper.

For more on the woodcuts, see Field, Richard S. Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks and Woodcuts for the Medicean 1591 Arabic Gospels, NE662 T45 F54 2001, in the rare book collections.

BS315-A66-1591-colophon

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Book of the Week — Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant

20 Monday Feb 2017

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American Civil War, bankruptcy, cancer, Catholic, editor, Gertrude Stein, Jew, Julius Caesar, Mark Twain, memoirs, military, New York, peace, politics, President, Protestant, Samuel Clemens, stenographer, Ulysses S. Grant, Union, veterans, war, Webster

E672-G67-1885-v.1-portrait

“‘Let us have peace.’ The expressions of these kindly feelings were not restricted to a section of the country, nor to a division of the people. They came from individual citizens of all nationalieties; from all denominations — the Protestant, the Catholic, and the Jew; and from the various societies of the land — scientific, educational, religious, or otherwise. Politics did not enter into the matter at all.”

PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF U. S. GRANT
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)
New York: C. L. Webster & Co., 1885-86
First edition
E672 G76 1885

An ineffectual, if not disastrous, president, ruined by bankruptcy after being defrauded of his estate, and dying of throat cancer, Ulysses S. Grant, Union hero of the American Civil War, agreed to publish his memoirs. He needed the money to try to secure an economically stable future for his family.

Samuel Clemens, whose pen name was Mark Twain, served as his editor. In the last month of his life, Grant struggled to dictate his notes to a stenographer and managed to finish his memoirs shortly before his death. For Clemens, witnessing the tenacity of the dying man, Grant became, once more, a heroic figure.

The memoirs focused almost entirely on the old general’s actions during the war. Still considered among the greatest of military memoirs, the two volume set became an immediate bestseller, praised for its high literary qualities. Grant’s style was straightforward and compelling. Clemens compared the book to Julius Caesar’s Commentaries. Gertrude Stein admired the book and said that she could not think of Grant without weeping.

His Memoirs were a financial and critical success. Thousands of war veterans and their families made a ready market for the book. Grant’s family, who received seventy-five percent of the royalties, quickly re-established their fortune, receiving nearly a half million dollars from the book.

E672-G76-1885-v.2-Portrait

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Looking forward to Book Arts Program workshop, “All Shook Up: Text & Image in Flag Books”

01 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by rarebooks in Recommended Workshop

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1954, American, Anchorage Museum of History and Art, artist, artists' books, Book Arts Studio, Brooklyn Museum, Canadian Bookbinders & Artists' Guild, Center for Book Arts, Designer Bookbinders (US), digital printing, flag book structure, Florence, Florida Atlantic University, Fogg Museum of Art, Glenview, Graceland, Guild of Book Workers, Harvard University, Hedi Kyle, history, Illinois, image, Italy, J. Willard Marriott Library, jig, Karen Hanmer, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Les Amis de la Reliure d'Art du Canada, Library of Congress, military, New York City, non-adhesive, photograph, Photoshop, politics, science, Tate Britain, text, UCLA, University of West England Bristol

Text & Image in Flag Books
Karen Hanmer, instructor

July 7
Thursday, 9:00–5:00
Book Arts Studio, J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 4
Application for this workshop is closed.

The foundation of Hedi Kyle’s deceptively small and simple book flag book structure is an accordion folded spine. Flaps attached to both sides of each of the spine’s mountain folds allow the artist to fragment and layer a number of complementary or contrasting images and narratives. When the flag book spine is pulled fully open, the fragmented images on the flaps come together to create a large, panoramic image. Participants experiment with complementary and contrasting text and images and discuss the effects of different spine and page dimensions, direction of motion, and which images are most successful. Students learn a tidy, non-adhesive method of covering boards and use a jig to facilitate quicker, more precise assembly. While this is not a computer class, digital printing and setting up Photoshop templates for pages, covers and spines is demonstrated.
– – – – –
Karen Hanmer’s artists’ books are physical manifestations of personal essays intertwining history, culture, politics, science and technology. She utilizes both traditional and contemporary book structures, and the work is often playful in content or format. Hanmer exhibits widely, and her work is included in collections ranging from Tate Britain and the Library of Congress to UCLA and Graceland. Solo exhibition venues include Florida Atlantic University, University of the West of England Bristol, and the Center for Book Arts (NYC). Curated exhibition venues include the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Brooklyn Museum, Harvard University’s Fogg Museum of Art, the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft; and traveling exhibitions sponsored by the Guild of Book Workers (US), Designer Bookbinders (UK) the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists’ Guild, and Les Amis de la Reliure d’Art du Canada.

Rare Books is proud to support the Book Arts Program with its collections.

N7433.4-H357-L48-2004-front N7433.4-H357-L48-2004-back

Letter Home
Karen Hanmer
Glenview, IL: K. Hanmer, 2004
N7433.4 H357 L48 2004

Hedi Kyle flag book structure. One side of each flag has text, the other side of each flag has a color image which is part of a family photograph. The family photograph becomes whole when the accordion folds are stretched and the pages fall open. Text is from a letter written from Italy in 1954 by a military wife to her relatives. Upper and lower boards are covered in reproduction of a photograph of an American woman [the artist’s mother] on a balcony overlooking Florence, Italy. Issued in an artist-made phase box of green map folder stock with fabric hook-and-loop fasteners.

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Daily Utah Chronicle Article – WWI Exhibit Revels in History at the Library

06 Thursday Nov 2014

Posted by rarebooks in Chronicle, Physical Exhibitions

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Afghanistan, Daily Utah Chronicle, exhibition, J. Willard Marriott Library, military, rare books, Special Collections, Special Collections Gallery, Special Collections Reading Room, University of Utah, WWI, WWII

The Special Collections exhibition, “Here and Over There: The Great War, 1914-1918,” was featured in an article in the Daily Utah Chronicle, the University of Utah’s student newspaper.

WWI Exhibit Revels in History at the Library

Margaret Keller, a visitor at the exhibit, came because of her family’s ties to the military.

“My father served in WWI, my husband in WWII, and my great-grandson in Afghanistan,” she said. “As a military family, I think it’s important to revel in these experiences.”

The exhibition is on display through Sunday, December 7, in the Special Collections Gallery and the Special Collections Reading Room, Level 4, J. Willard Marriott Library.

alluNeedSingleLine

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