Ignatius of Loyola: Founder of the Jesuits (Library of World Biography Series)
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This biography highlights the life of Saint Ignatius of...)
This biography highlights the life of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and his work founding the Jesuit order during the Reformation Era.
The titles in the new Library of World Biography series make ideal supplements for World History survey courses or other courses in the history curriculum where figures in history are explored. Paperback, brief and inexpensive, each interpretative biography in this series focuses on a figure whose actions and ideas significantly influenced the course of World history, and relates the life of its subject to the broader themes and developments of the times.
Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century (Dystopian Classics)
(Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century is a no...)
Caesar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century is a novel by Ignatius Donnelly, famous as the author of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World. Dystopian Classic Editions publishes works of dystopian literature that have survived through the generations and been recognized as classic works of literature. A dystopian society is an imagined society in which the people are oppressed, however the government propagandizes the society as being a utopia or a perfect society. Typical themes in dystopian literature include public mistrust, police states, and overall unpleasantness for the citizens. Authors of dystopian works strive to present a worst-case scenario and negative depiction of the way things are in the story so as to make a criticism about a current situation in society and to call for a change. Each Dystopian Classic Edition selected for publication presents such a story.
The Destruction of Atlantis: Ragnarok, or the Age of Fire and Gravel
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This book had a tremendous impact on readers in the lat...)
This book had a tremendous impact on readers in the late 1800s. Written by Ignatius Donnelly, a farmer-politician with no scientific training, it developed a strikingly original themethat a comet passed close to or struck Earth in ancient times, causing catastrophic changes that later were vaguely recalled in mythologies and biblical tales. Throughout most of the book, Donnelly supports his ideas with convincing geological, archeological, and astronomical arguments. This reprint presents Donnelly's theory of the comet that impacted Earth tens of thousands of years ago, producing layers of gravel (which contemporary scientists attributed to glaciation) and the destruction of an advanced civilization (Atlantis), followed by a years-long cloud cover and extreme cold. A remarkable concept that has also been mentioned in ancient Arabic writings, this theoryand the book in which it is presentedwill appeal to readers in many areas of interest: occult enthusiasts, fantasy buffs, and perhaps even some members of the scientific community.
(This is the full 412 page book, presented as it was writt...)
This is the full 412 page book, presented as it was written. In Ragnarok, Donnelly argues that an enormous comet hit the earth 12,000 years ago, resulting in widespread fires, floods, poisonous gases, and unusually vicious and prolonged winters. The catastrophe destroyed a more advanced civilization, forcing its terrified population to seek shelter in caves. As cave-dwellers, they lost all knowledge of art, literature, music, philosophy, and engineering.
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World: Fully Illustrated
(This book is the first scholarly study of the actual exis...)
This book is the first scholarly study of the actual existance of the Lost Continent of Atlantis. Ignatius Donnelly, former U.S. Senator, a progressive thinker and early supporter of equal rights, Donnelly spent years researching the scientific evidence; archeological, anthropological and linguistic, plus comparitive mythology worldwide, to build a compelling and lasting argument for the actual existence of an advanced,lost civilization, which ultimately formed the foundation of all major civilizations from around the world. This edition is heavily illustrated with original illustrations.
Ignatius Loyola Donnelly was a well-known American politician during the late nineteenth century and the author of an interesting group of works, ranging from pseudoscientific treatises to novels. With a breadth of talents and interests, Donnelly also worked as a lawyer, farmer, lecturer, and newspaper editor.
Background
Ignatius Donnelly was born on November 3, 1831, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, to Irish parents. Donnelly was the son of Philip Carrol Donnelly, an Irish Catholic immigrant who had settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Donnelly's mother was Catherine Gavin, a second generation American of Irish ancestry. The writer Eleanor C. Donnelly was his sister.
Education
Ignatius Donnelly attended the free public schools and read law in Philadelphia. He graduated from the Central High School in Philadelphia in 1849. He studied law under Benjamin Harris Brewster. Philip also studied medicine at the Philadelphia College of Medicine.
While serving in the U.S. Congress during the post-Civil War period, Donnelly became a prominent reform advocate. When his political career stumbled, he turned to other pursuits including writing. A talented orator, his persuasive skills translated well in this new role. His most notable writings are Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1882), which theorized that the legendary continent did indeed exist; The Great Cryptogram (1888), was an effort to prove that Francis Bacon was the true author of Shakespeare’s plays; and Caesar’s Column (1891), depicted the evils America would suffer in the distant future if social and economic reforms were not enacted.
After reading law under the future U.S. attorney general Benjamin Harris Brewster, Donnelly practiced law in Pennsylvania for a few years. But the young man saw a better chance of success in the booming town of St. Paul, Minnesota, and moved there in 1856 with his wife, Katherine. Soon thereafter he and partner John Nininger founded Nininger City, some seventeen miles south of St. Paul on the Mississippi River, with the hope of becoming wealthy as land speculators. The panic of 1857, however, nearly ruined Donnelly and, still living in Nininger City, he became a wheat farmer and politician.
Originally active as a Democrat in Pennsylvania, Donnelly had joined the new Republican party by 1857. Just two years later, he was elected lieutenant governor of Minnesota under govenor “Bluff Alec” Ramsay, a post he filled for two terms. Elected to the U.S. Congress as a radical Republican, Donnelly served in Washington for three terms (1863-1869) and established himself as a reformer. After revealing abuses in the Indian Office, he turned his attention to issues including the establishment of a national education bureau, promoting black suffrage in Minnesota, and opposing protective tariffs.
This last issue would push Donnelly out of the Republican party because of its impact on his constituents, the western farmers. He ran for Congress in 1870 as an independent and lost. Donnelly also joined the briefly-lived liberal Republican movement and tried unsuccessfully to create a new party that united the interests of farmers and laborers. After leaving office, Donnelly worked in Washington as a lobbyist for the railroads and as correspondent for the St. Louis Dispatch. Next, he served in the Minnesota state senate from 1874 to 1878 and edited a weekly newspaper, the Anti-Monopolist, before attempting a return to Congress as a Greenback-Democrat. Later, from 1891 till 1894 he also was a member of the Minnesota Senate.
Discouraged with politics, Donnelly turned to his family, his farms, and to writing. In 1882 he published Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, a carefully crafted argument—rather than scientific study—supporting the idea that the ancient continent of Atlantis was not a fable. He used literary references, folklore, and religion to support his thesis that civilization had originated in Atlantis. The work was received enthusiastically by publisher Harper and Brothers and by the reading public, generating twenty-three American and twenty-six English printings. Donnelly’s next book, Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel (1883) was similar in style. It proposed that the earth had been struck by a comet, or nearly so, which had created the sand, gravel, and clay on the earth’s surface.
The earnings from these books allowed Donnelly to pursue research on a literary topic, a supposed cipher used in Shakespeare’s plays. Donnelly, among others, believed that the plays were in fact written by Francis Bacon; he further asserted that he had a system that decoded messages from Bacon in the plays. In 1888 he published The Great Cryptogram, which generated considerable public notice. Although the book did not sell well, Donnelly traveled to England to participate in debates at Oxford and Cambridge. Despite the fact that he lost at both of these events, the author never stopped defending his Baconian ideas.
Donnelly made another attempt to return to Congress in 1884, but lost by fewer than one thousand votes. Two years later he gained a seat in the Minnesota state legislature supported by the Farmers’ Alliance.
He was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives two times - from 1887 till 1888, and from 1897 till 1898.
During 1888-89, he made three unsuccessful attempts to reach office: an aborted campaign to become governor, a loss in a state legislature race, and a rejection trying for the U.S. Senate. In 1892 Donnelly lost in another bid for governor of Minnesota. During the early part of this year, he had become a key figure in the new Populist party, writing a speech that became their manifesto. The party platform asserted that a few wealthy Americans were robbing the masses and that banks and railroads should be nationalized, senators should be elected directly, and income tax should be graduated.
Donnelly’s political losses caused him to look for another outlet for his political and economic views. He turned now to writing novels that illustrated the problems he saw in America. His first novel was Caesar’s Column (1890), in which he drew a picture of America in 1988. Donnelly envisioned a technically advanced but morally corrupt society where common workers and farmers were victimized and exploited by the rich. This evil “Plutocracy” and the violent revolt that erupts are vividly described in the letters of a young man visiting from another country. The novel was a popular success in the United States and Great Britain. But as Stephen C. Brennan noted in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, “Caesar’s Column is not an artistic success. Donnelly, as might be expected of a natural orator, lards his work with long philosophic discussions, punctuated at every turn with literary quotations ... At times however, Donnelly’s prose achieves a true nightmare quality fitting to his theme.”
The author’s subsequent novels, Doctor Huguet (1891) and The Golden Bottle (1892), also used fantastical approaches to examine social and economic issues. Doctor Huguet promotes racial equality in a story where a white man and a black man exchange bodies. Huguet is a prominent Southern physician who silently sympathizes with blacks in the post-Reconstruction period. The Golden Bottle, was written to show the positive effects of an ample supply of currency, one of the Populists’ main goals. However, neither Dr. Huguet nor The Golden Bottle were popular successes.
In 1893, Donnelly started a weekly newspaper, the St. Paul Representative, as a new forum for political discussions. He also published The American People’s Money (1895) in conjunction with the presidential candidacy of Populist William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Donnelly’s last attempt to reach public office came in 1900, as vice presidential candidate for an offshoot of the failing Populist party, the Middle-of-the-Road Populists.
Donnelly quit the Catholic Church some time in the 1850s, and thereafter was never active in any religious group.
Politics
Donnelly entered politics to help promote the organization of the Republican party. As the Republican party moved toward conservatism, Donnelly joined the protesters in the Liberal Republicans, the Grangers, and the Greenbackers successively.
Donnelly had joined the new Republican party by 1857.
Elected lieutenant governor of Minnesota in 1859, Donnelly was a tireless and fighting politician. He served three terms in the House of Representatives (1863 - 1869), where he strongly supported the Civil War and Reconstruction programs of the Republican party.
As president of the Farmers' Alliance in Minnesota, Donnelly was actively involved in the establishment of the Populist, or People's, Party.
Connections
Donnelly was first married to Katherine McCaffrey. His wife Katherine died in 1894. In 1898, he married his secretary, Marian Hanson, who was his 21-year-old stenographer, who assisted him in publishing a newspaper, the Representative. He had three children from the first marriage.