Excerpt from The Burden of Christopher A shaft of sunlight came straight down the brook, lit up the ripples, yellowed the stepping-stones, and sped shining into the air just above the slippery place where the brook gave a toss and racketed down the rocks. "This is my back yard," said young Kenyon, pressing the branch of a tree away from the path. The shaft of sunlight fell upon Agnes' yellow hair, as she crowded through the underbrush, and came out upon the gray rock overhanging the waterfall. "There ought to be a hermit sitting on the opposite bank," she said; "it's like a bit of nature out of an old romance. How queer to find the Middle Ages growing in your back yard!" "Why queer?" asked Kenyon, plainly resenting the adjective. Philip Starr, following close behind Agnes, laughed appreciatively. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This is Gagosian’s 500th book. It fittingly marks the achievement, as Chris Burden was among the first artists to work with Larry Gagosian. Chris Burden: Streetlamps is the definitive publication on Burden’s iconic series. Chris Burden: Streetlamps explores the artist’s work with antique streetlamps, which he began to amass in the early 2000s. Burden fully restored 202 streetlamps from the 1920s to create his renowned Urban Light, which was acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He realized four more major streetlamp sculptures in both public and private spaces, all of which are lavishly documented here from conception through installation.

This Reconstruction Era historical study of the Freedman’s Bureau in Texas offers a personal view of the lives, struggles and misconceptions of its agents. Formed at the close of the Civil War to provide assistance to formerly enslaved people, the Freedmen’s Bureau became the epicenter of the debate about Reconstruction. Though its agents in Texas were vitally important, historians have only recently begun to focus on their operations. Specifically addressing the historiographical debates concerning the character of the Bureau and its sub-assistant commissioners (SACs), Too Great a Burden to Bear sheds new light on the work and reputation of these agents. Focusing on the agents on a personal level, author Christopher B. Bean reveals the type of man Bureau officials believed qualified to oversee the Freedpeople’s transition to freedom. This work shows that each agent, moved by his sense of fairness and ideas of citizenship, gender, and labor, represented the agency’s policy in his subdistrict. These men further ensured the Freedpeople’s right to an education and right of mobility, rights fiercely contested by many in the South.

Moneyball meets medicine in this remarkable chronicle of one of the greatest scientific quests of our time and the visionary mastermind behind it. Medical doctor and economist Christopher Murray began the Global Burden of Disease study to gain a truer understanding of how we live and how we die. While it is one of the largest scientific projects ever attempted—as breathtaking as the first moon landing or the Human Genome Project—the questions it answers are meaningful for every one of us: What are the world's health problems? Who do they hurt? How much? Where? Why? Murray argues that the ideal existence isn't simply the longest, but the one lived well and with the least illness. Until we can accurately measure global health issues, we cannot understand what makes us sick or do much to improve it. Challenging the accepted wisdom of the WHO and the UN, the charismatic and controversial health maverick has made enemies—as well as some influential friends, including Bill Gates who gave Murray a $100 million grant. Told with novelistic verve by acclaimed journalist Jeremy N. Smith, the story of Murray's lifelong determination to understand how we live and die encompasses wars and famines, presidents and activists, billionaires and billions of people worldwide living in poverty. It shows the human side of scientific revolutions and of revolutionary scientists—their breakthroughs and setbacks, their genius and their flaws, their champions and their critics—as they strive to bring the news of their findings to the world. This transformational effort is far from over, but the story of its genesis and impact is already an epic tale.