Welcome
New Publication: "Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual" by Lauren Coodley
Had Upton Sinclair not written a single book after The Jungle, he would still be famous. But Sinclair was a mere twenty-five years old when he wrote The Jungle, and over the next sixty-five years he wrote nearly eighty more books and won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He was also a filmmaker, labor activist, women’s rights advocate, and health pioneer on a grand scale. This new biography of Sinclair underscores his place in the American story as a social, political, and cultural force, a man who more than any other disrupted and documented his era in the name of social justice.
Reviews:
“Lauren Coodley’s perceptive account should awaken fresh interest in one of the twentieth century’s more fascinating cultural figures and his extraordinary—sadly, mostly forgotten—body of work.”—Julie Salamon, author of Wendy and the Lost Boys
“Upton Sinclair traversed the first half of the twentieth
century like a rogue star. His prodigious writing and activism
in the service of social justice perturbed the status quo,
awakening millions to everything from appalling working
conditions, poisoned food, and media bias to the rise of fascism
and environmental decline. Yet his determination to lead a
balanced and healthy life led some biographers to disparage him
as less than a full man. Lauren Coodley rescues Sinclair from
such critical condescension and reminds us of the many lives
that he packed into one even as he moved the lives of both the
common and the great.”—Gray Brechin, author of Imperial San
Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin
(available Sept 2013 : pre-order here Upton Sinclair - University of Nebraska Press )
Also coming available in September 2013 : Napa Valley Chronicles published by the History Press
Napa Valley Farming
(available now from Arcadia Publishing)
Napa, California
Napans tend more than grapevines. The area's diverse soil and mild climate make possible a generous yield of agricultural products. This book traces the cultivation of these products through a chronology of Napa's farming history, from indigenous food plants to the orchards that were planted to feed gold miners -- orchards that would soon function as both therapy and sustenance for the patients in the newly created Asylum. Immigrants from Italy and Germany and Japan and China joined newly emancipated slaves and Mexican citizens who had settled here before the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Together they cultivated the land, picked the fruit, nuts, and hops, cut the wheat, kept bees, and tended livestock on dairy farms and cattle ranches. Each chapter begins with a poem inspired by farming or a recipe reflecting the valley's bounty. The scents of peaches, apples, cherries, pears, prunes, and honey linger in the imaginations of thousands of locals, while the trees, hives, and vines continue to thrive wherever placed.
