Books published by Cosimo Classics

Immediately after the war legislation enacted in the South made severe provision with reference to vagrancy. Negroes were arrested on the slightest pretexts and their labor as that of convicts leased to landowners or other business men. When, a few years later, Negroes, dissatisfied with the returns from their labor on the farms, began a movement to the cities, there arose a tendency to make the vagrancy legislation still more harsh, so that at last a man could not stop work without technically committing a crime. Thus in all its hideousness developed the convict lease system.-from "The Negro in the New South"This 1921 volume offers a new examination of the history of black people in America in light of the new flowering of cultural interest-on the part of whites as well as blacks-in the post-World War I period. A highly readable and tremendously informative foundational overview of the grand and terrible story of Africans in the New World, this work explores:. the role of the Negro in the Spanish exploration of America. the development of the slave trade. the difficult social positions of the Indian, the mulatto, and the free Negro. early slave insurrections. the Negro in the American Revolution. first steps toward abolition. Negroes in the West. the impact of Nat Turner and the Amistad case. Sojourner Truth and the influence of the women's suffrage movement. the Civil War and Emancipation. the problems of enfranchisement. Mob violence and election troubles at the turn of the 20th century. Negro migration around America. the place of the Negro in American life. and much more.African-American author and educator BENJAMIN GRIFFITH BRAWLEY (1882-1939) wrote extensively on black culture, including Women of Achievement (1919).

In spite of long truces and temporary agreements, Christianity and the State had become two rival powers striving for the mastery of the world, and until the close of the final contest under Diocletian there could be no real peace between them. The Church was herself fully prepared for the struggle. During the first century of her existence she had perfected her organization, and her leaders, the bishops, had obtained unquestioned authority. -from "The Conquest of Heathenism by Christianity: A.D. 161-A.D. 313" With equal measures of reverence and erudition, this classic 1891 history of Christianity offers a succinct survey of the Church, from its pre-Christian foundations in Israel through its ascendency to an absolute force for cultural and religious power during the Dark Ages. In crisp, readable prose, Foakes-Jackson, a respected and prolific Biblical scholar, discusses: . how Jewish synagogues forged the path to churches . the rise of the family of Herod . the societal impact of Jesus during his lifetime . the work of the apostles in the decades after the Crucifixion . clashes between the Roman government and the Church . the origins and principles of Gnosticism . Christian thought in the early centuries of the Church . the organization of the Church . the influence of Constantine . and much more. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Foakes-Jackson's A Brief Biblical History: Old Testament. British theologian FREDERICK JOHN FOAKES-JACKSON (1855-1941) was a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and a professor of Christian institutions at New York City's Union Theological Seminary. Among his many works are An Introduction to the History of Christianity, A.D. 590¬-1314 (1921), Josephus and the Jews: The Religion and History of the Jews as Explained by Flavius Josephus (1930), and Peter: Prince of Apostles: A Study in the History and Tradition of Christianity (1927).

Escaped from bondage, questing every sort of knowledge and experience, [woman] has for the moment ethically and culturally outstripped her companion, man... -from "The New Image" Though known primarily as an architect and, later, as a stage designer, Claude Bragdon dabbled in mysticism and the philosophical discipline of theosophy, and here, in this 1925 volume, he turns his charming outlook on Jazz Age society on the fairer sex. These twelve essays, about "the predicament of woman in the modern world, and the changed relation between the sexes by reason of her so-called emancipation," explore: . the "psychic sensitivity" of women . the "eternal feminine" symbolism in Christianity . new attitudes about the "cosmic hunger" for sex . the flowering of women's "unsuspected strengths and latent finesesses" . and more. Other works by Bragdon available from Cosimo Classics: The Beautiful Necessity, More Lives Than One, The Beautiful Necessity, Architecture and Democracy, and A Primer of Higher Space (The Fourth Dimension). American architect, stage designer, and writer CLAUDE FAYETTE BRAGDON (1866-1946) helped found the Rochester Architectural Club, in the city where he made his greatest mark as a building designer with structures including Rochester Central Station, Rochester Institute of Technology, and the First Universalist Church; he also designed Peterborough Bridge in Ontario. In later life, Bragdon worked on Broadway as scenic designer for 1930s productions of Cyrano de Bergerac and Hamlet, among others.