Bombay Anna

Bombay Anna PDF

Author: Susan Morgan

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2008-07-07

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0520261631

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"Anna Leonowens has been a historical puzzle. Susan Morgan establishes a solid ground for our understanding of this intriguing writer who became famous in our time thanks to a Broadway musical. Her life and contributions as a writer, a humanist, and a 19th century feminist were far richer beyond being the 'I' with the King."—Thongchai Winichakul, author of Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation "With extraordinary detective work, Susan Morgan uncovers the real tale of a brilliant and dynamic traveler who cut ties to her past history and fabricated the story of her life that has found its way into legend. In lovely and graceful prose, she uses this story to help us understand patterns of national and international life."—Allan M. Winkler, author of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Making of Modern America "With sensitive writing and meticulous research, Bombay Anna offers the first comprehensive biography of Anna Leonowens, the 'I' in The King and I, which gave my father, Yul Brynner, his signature role. The details of her self-invention are only part of the revelation Susan Morgan provides; she also paints a masterful portrait of the Britain's Raj and its colonial hegemony in Southeast Asia. It is a fascinating read." —Prof. Rock Brynner, author of Yul: The Man Who Would Be King

Bombay Anna

Bombay Anna PDF

Author: Susan Morgan

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2008-07-07

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0520933990

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If you thought you knew the story of Anna in The King and I, think again. As this riveting biography shows, the real life of Anna Leonowens was far more fascinating than the beloved story of the Victorian governess who went to work for the King of Siam. To write this definitive account, Susan Morgan traveled around the globe and discovered new information that has eluded researchers for years. Anna was born a poor, mixed-race army brat in India, and what followed is an extraordinary nineteenth-century story of savvy self-invention, wild adventure, and far-reaching influence. At a time when most women stayed at home, Anna Leonowens traveled all over the world, witnessed some of the most fascinating events of the Age of Empire, and became a well-known travel writer, journalist, teacher, and lecturer. She remains the one and only foreigner to have spent significant time inside the royal harem of Siam. She emigrated to the United States, crossed all of Russia on her own just before the revolution, and moved to Canada, where she publicly defended the rights of women and the working class. The book also gives an engrossing account of how and why Anna became an icon of American culture in The King and I and its many adaptations.

Anna

Anna PDF

Author: R. Kannan

Publisher: Penguin Books India

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 460

ISBN-13: 0670083283

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Biography of C.N. Annadurai, 1909-1969, Tamil author and former chief minister of Tamil Nadu, India.

Masked

Masked PDF

Author: Alfred Habegger

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres

Published: 2014-06-30

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 0299298337

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A brave British widow goes to Siam and—by dint of her principled and indomitable character—inspires that despotic nation to abolish slavery and absolute rule: this appealing legend first took shape after the Civil War when Anna Leonowens came to America from Bangkok and succeeded in becoming a celebrity author and lecturer. Three decades after her death, in the 1940s and 1950s, the story would be transformed into a powerful Western myth by Margaret Landon’s best-selling book Anna and the King of Siam and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical The King and I. But who was Leonowens and why did her story take hold? Although it has been known for some time that she was of Anglo-Indian parentage and that her tales about the Siamese court are unreliable, not until now, with the publication of Masked, has there been a deeply researched account of her extraordinary life. Alfred Habegger, an award-winning biographer, draws on the archives of five continents and recent Thai-language scholarship to disclose the complex person behind the mask and the troubling facts behind the myth. He also ponders the curious fit between Leonowens’s compelling fabrications and the New World’s innocent dreams—in particular the dream that democracy can be spread through quick and easy interventions. Exploring the full historic complexity of what it once meant to pass as white, Masked pays close attention to Leonowens’s midlevel origins in British India, her education at a Bombay charity school for Eurasian children, her material and social milieu in Australia and Singapore, the stresses she endured in Bangkok as a working widow, the latent melancholy that often afflicted her, the problematic aspects of her self-invention, and the welcome she found in America, where a circle of elite New England abolitionists who knew nothing about Southeast Asia gave her their uncritical support. Her embellished story would again capture America’s imagination as World War II ended and a newly interventionist United States looked toward Asia. Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association of School Librarians Best Regional Special Interest Boosk, selected by the Public Library Reviewers

The Naval Chronicle

The Naval Chronicle PDF

Author: James Stanier Clarke

Publisher:

Published: 1799

Total Pages: 714

ISBN-13:

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Contains a general and biographical history of the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom, with a variety of original papers on nautical subjects, under the guidance of several literary and professional men.

Protestants Abroad

Protestants Abroad PDF

Author: David A. Hollinger

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-10-02

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 1400888794

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They sought to transform the world, and ended up transforming twentieth-century America Between the 1890s and the Vietnam era, many thousands of American Protestant missionaries were sent to live throughout the non-European world. They expected to change the people they encountered, but those foreign people ended up transforming the missionaries. Their experience abroad made many of these missionaries and their children critical of racism, imperialism, and religious orthodoxy. When they returned home, they brought new liberal values back to their own society. Protestants Abroad reveals the untold story of how these missionary-connected individuals left an enduring mark on American public life as writers, diplomats, academics, church officials, publishers, foundation executives, and social activists. David A. Hollinger provides riveting portraits of such figures as Pearl Buck, John Hersey, and Life and Time publisher Henry Luce, former "mish kids" who strove through literature and journalism to convince white Americans of the humanity of other peoples. Hollinger describes how the U.S. government's need for citizens with language skills and direct experience in Asian societies catapulted dozens of missionary-connected individuals into prominent roles in intelligence and diplomacy. Meanwhile, Edwin Reischauer and other scholars with missionary backgrounds led the growth of Foreign Area Studies in universities during the Cold War. The missionary contingent advocated multiculturalism and anticolonialism, pushed their churches in ecumenical and social-activist directions, and joined with Jewish intellectuals to challenge traditional Protestant cultural hegemony and promote a pluralist vision of American life. Missionary cosmopolitans were the Anglo-Protestant counterparts of the New York Jewish intelligentsia of the same era. Protestants Abroad reveals the crucial role that missionary-connected American Protestants played in the development of modern American liberalism, and how they helped other Americans reimagine their nation's place in the world.

Anna and the King of Siam

Anna and the King of Siam PDF

Author: Margaret Landon

Publisher: Open Road Media

Published: 2016-08-23

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 150403855X

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Based on the incredible true story of one woman’s journey to the exotic world of nineteenth-century Siam, the riveting novel that inspired The King and I. In 1862, recently widowed and with two small children to support, British schoolteacher Anna Leonowens agrees to serve as governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam (present-day Thailand), unaware that her years in the royal palace will change not only her own life, but also the future of a nation. Her relationship with King Mongkut, famously portrayed by Yul Brynner in the classic film The King and I, is complicated from the start, pitting two headstrong personalities against each other: While the king favors tradition, Anna embraces change. As governess, Anna often finds herself at cross-purposes, marveling at the foreign customs, fascinating people, and striking landscape of the kingdom and its harems, while simultaneously trying to influence her pupils—especially young Prince Chulalongkorn—with her Western ideals and values. Years later, as king, this very influence leads Chulalongkorn to abolish slavery in Siam and introduce democratic reform based on the ideas of freedom and human dignity he first learned from his beloved tutor. This captivating novel brilliantly combines in-depth research—author Margaret Landon drew from Siamese court records and Anna’s own writings—with richly imagined details to create a lush portrait of 1860s Siam. As a Rodgers & Hammerstein Broadway musical and an Academy Award–winning film, the story of Anna and the King of Siam has enchanted millions over the years. It is a gripping tale of cultural differences and shared humanity that invites readers into a vivid and sensory world populated by unforgettable characters.