An elegantly designed, beautifully composed volume of personal letters from famous American men and women that celebrates the American Experience and illuminates the rich history of some of America’s most storied families. Posterity is at once an epistolary chronicle of America and a fascinating glimpse into the hearts and minds of some of history’s most admired figures and storied families. Spanning more than three centuries, these letters contain enduring lessons—in life, love, character and compassion—that will surprise and enlighten. Included here are letters from Thomas Jefferson to his daughter, warning her of the evils of debt; General Patton on D-Day to his son, a cadet at West Point, about what it means to be a good soldier; W.E.B. Du Bois to his daughter about character beneath the color of skin; Oscar Hammerstein about why, after all his success, he doesn’t stop working; Woody Guthrie, writing from a New Jersey asylum, to nine-year-old Arlo about universal human frailty; Eleanor Roosevelt chastising her grown son for his Christmas plans; and Groucho Marx as a dog to his twenty-five-year-old son. Here are renowned Americans in their own words and in their own times, seen as they were seen by their children. Here are our great Americans as mothers and fathers.

Living in Posterity, presented to Bart Westerweel on his retirement as Professor of Early Modern English literature at the University of Leiden, brings together thirty-nine essays on a wide variety of subjects and themes. The contributors, scholars from the Netherlands end abroad, have drawn inspiration from the many dualities that are characteristic of Westerweel's work, such as word/image, Anglo/Dutch, familiar/other, traditional/modern, and form/function. The result is a colourful mosaic of essays on history, culture, art and literature from the first century to the modern era. The binding theme of this richly diverse book lies in the idea of the continuity between the past and the present, the cohesion between what was and what is. As such, Living in Posterity is part of the larger project of the humanities to engage sympathetically with the past - to speak with the dead and keep history alive.

This is an interdisciplinary study of the state funerals that were celebrated in France between the French Revolution and the death of François Mitterand. Its aim is to explain how the funerals of such prominent figures as Voltaire, Napoleon, Gambetta, Hugo, and de Gaulle became major public events that helped to mould the national memory. Combining the insights of anthropologists and sociologists with a historical analysis, it argues that the dual character of the ceremony, a political festival and final rite of passage, turned the state funeral into a gripping event to which few French people could remain indifferent. The book focuses on the republican tradition of state funerals, which emerged in the French Revolution and has continued through the Fifth Republic. Whether in power or in opposition, the republicans used the funerals of their leaders and militants to educate the masses and mobilize public support. This book, the first comprehensive analysis of French state funerals, is also a major contribution to the study of republican culture.