For Beginners

A profusely illustrated, popularly-written volume with original comic art, FDR AND THE NEW DEAL FOR BEGINNERS will shed new light upon a story now regaining visibility thanks to the recent economic crisis and prominent reformer, President Obama, in the White House.

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you're dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing.” – Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790   Benjamin Franklin would seem to be the teller – and quite arguably the protagonist – of the Great American Success Story.

Jane Austen's novels are classics.  They have never been out of print, and have continuously been turned into countless movies and TV series, yet her works still remain largely misunderstood.  On their surface, Austen's novels all involve characters from provincial communities in rural England, far removed geographically and thematically from greater social movements, war, industry, colonization, ...

WOMEN'S HISTORY FOR BEGINNERS offers a lively, revealing, and provocative overview of this important (and controversial) academic field. Who are the great women of history, and why don't we know more about them? You don't need to be a scholar to notice that men's history dominates everything we learn in school; yet a quick tour of the past reveals dynamic female role models at every turn.

DANTE FOR BEGINNERS takes the reader on a trip starting in hell and ending in heaven. The reader gets a quick introduction to Dante and his times. Next, the reader meets a sweet lass named Beatrice and samples a bit of his other literary offerings, such as the great feast, the Convivio. But then it's on to the big one, the Commedia, and a canto by canto description of the entire work.

In a combination of witty text and illustrations U.S. CONSTITUTION FOR BEGINNERS take a tongue-in-cheek look at America's most critical legal document. Author and lawyer Steve Bachmann has written a text that touches on the document's history beginning with the Magna Carta.

Marshall McLuhan was one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of the 20th century. He was so far ahead of his time that he predicted the future and offered a critique of human behavior in a media saturated world that is perhaps more valuable in today's Internet age than it was in his own time.

Carl Gustav Jung merged Eastern mysticism with Western psychology, brought scientific respectability to religion, laid the foundation for 'the New Age,' and is second only to Freud in influence and importance in the world of psychoanalysis. Many consider him a genius, but many others disagree.

Do you appreciate your forty-hour, five-day workweek? Appreciate having a safe working environment? Unions made this all possible in one way or another. Unions bring value to all sectors of a society. As the champion of people power versus corporate power, unions help to spread the benefits of production throughout a society.

Paul Robeson, despite being one of the greatest Renaissance figures in American history, still remains in relative anonymity. An exceptional scholar, lawyer, athlete, stage and screen actor, linguist, singer, and civil rights and political activist, he performed brilliantly in every professional enterprise he undertook.

THE HISTORY OF OPERA FOR BEGINNERS is an illuminating book that starts with the radical assumption that opera is simply music, rather than the highbrow, inaccessible art form that many assume it to be. Not fluent in German or Italian? No worries—author Ron David explains the differences between Italian and German Opera and why you don't have to study a new language to enjoy it.

There is no greater symbol of the American presidency than Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln himself, his personality, the sources of his dedication and his idealism, remain very much a mystery. The sudden rise to world stature of a hard-travelling lawyer from the frontier, with no prominent family or social connections to back him, was a wonder of the age.

Would there be a Western civilization without the Greek myths?  Would we be able to define our civilization and ourselves without some reference to the grand, violent, and venal doings of those denizens of Mount Olympus?

Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé! “Arise children of the Fatherland, the day of glory has arrived!” These opening lines to La Marseillaise, France's famously stirring and evocative national anthem, capture perfectly the passion, fear and frenetic energy of Republicanism's sanguinary birth on French soil.

Music history is nearly as old as human civilisation itself and while it has permeated the arts and popular culture for centuries, it still has a mystifying aura surrounding it. But fear not - it's not as complicated as it seems and anyone can learn the origins and history of Western classical music.

Charles Bukowski, novelist, short-story writer, poet, journalist and cult figure of the dissident and rebellious, was born in Germany in 1920 and died in the USA in 1994. During his life he was hailed as "laureate of American lowlife" by Time Magazine and literary critic, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker, wrote: "the secret of Bukowski's appeal. . .

PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX FOR BEGINNERS is a graphic narrative project that attempts to distill the fundamental components of what scholars, activists and artists have identified as the Mass Incarceration movement in the United States.