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71-562: The University of Chicago Press is the university press of the University of Chicago , a private research university in Chicago, Illinois . It is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It publishes a wide range of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style , numerous academic journals, and advanced monographs in the academic fields. The press

142-611: A 30,000-copy first printing and as of December 1992 was in its fifth printing. It spent 14 weeks on the New York Times best sellers list and was chosen one of the nine best books of 1992 by the New York Times Book Review . It won the 1992 National Book Critics Circle award for general nonfiction. Speaking at the award ceremony in March 1993, Maclean's son John N. Maclean said that "the book has had an extraordinary effect on

213-533: A difficulty. The Publisher's Note prefacing the book states that " Young Men and Fire was where, near the end, all the lives he had lived would merge: the lives of a woodsman, firefighter, scholar, teacher, and storyteller." On the book's penultimate page, Maclean writes, "I, an old man, have written this fire report. Among other things, it was important to me, as an exercise of old age, to enlarge my knowledge and spirit so I could accompany young men whose lives I might have lived on their way to death." The book tells

284-800: A limited number of scholarly publications. Following the 17th-century work of Harvard College printer Samuel Green , William Hilliard of Cambridge, Massachusetts , began publishing materials under the name "University Press" in 1802. Modern university presses emerged in the United States in the late 19th century. Cornell University started one in 1869 but had to close it down, only restarting operations in 1930; Johns Hopkins University Press has been in continuous operation since 1878. The University of Pennsylvania Press (1890), University of Chicago Press (1891), Columbia University Press (1893), University of California Press (1893), and Northwestern University Press (1893) followed. The biggest growth came after 1945 as higher education expanded rapidly. There

355-676: A link to that month's free, downloadable e-book selection. University of Chicago Press joined The Association of American Publishers trade organization in the Hachette v. Internet Archive lawsuit which resulted in the removal of access to over 500,000 books from global readers. The Journals Division of the University of Chicago Press publishes and distributes influential scholarly publications on behalf of learned and professional societies and associations, foundations, museums, and other not-for-profit organizations. As of 2016, it publishes 81 titles in

426-552: A man's closing years; also the summation of a career in which life and literature meld." In the Washington Post Book World , reviewer Dennis Drabelle called Young Men and Fire "worthy of comparison to the masterpiece in its genre, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood ". In USA Today , reviewer Timothy Foote compared the book to James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men . Maclean stopped working on Young Men and Fire in 1987 due to ill health and left it unfinished at

497-411: A pioneer in making scholarly and scientific journals available in electronic form in conjunction with their print editions. Electronic publishing efforts were launched in 1995; by 2004, all the journals published by the University of Chicago Press were available online. In 2013, all new journal issues were also made available to subscribers in e-book format. The Distribution Services Division provides

568-546: A plan to focus increasingly on scholarly books rather than the commercial successes it had become known for, prompting a public debate about the role of university presses. In New Zealand , several universities operate scholarly presses. Auckland University Press has been operating since 1966 and Victoria University Press since the 1970s. In 2023, the Association of University Presses (AUP) has over 150 member presses. Growth has been sporadic, with 14 presses established in

639-588: A press based on the European model. In Nigeria for example, scholarly presses have played a central role in shaping and encouraging intellectual efforts and gaining international attention for scholarly production. However, the established European presses, especially Oxford University Press, have dominated the market, allowing a narrow niche for new local presses such as Ibadan University Press, now University Press Plc . In England , Cambridge University Press traces its founding to 1534, when King Henry VIII granted

710-459: A wide range of academic disciplines including the biological and medical sciences, education, the humanities, the physical sciences, and the social sciences. All are peer-reviewed journals of original scholarship, with readerships that include scholars, scientists, and medical practitioners as well as interested, educated laypeople. Since 1974, the press has published the prestigious humanities journal Critical Inquiry . The Journals Division has been

781-532: Is a story in Mann Gulch", he writes near the beginning of part 2, "it will take something of a storyteller to find it." Central to the book is the decision by the Smokejumpers' foreman R. Wagner "Wag" Dodge to light an "escape fire" ahead of the main fire that his men were trying to outrun. Dodge survived by lying down in the ashes of his fire as the main fire passed over him. Maclean set out to learn whether some of

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852-540: Is located just south of the Midway Plaisance on the University of Chicago campus. One of its quasi-independent projects is the BiblioVault , a digital repository for scholarly books. The University of Chicago Press was founded in 1890, making it one of the oldest continuously operating university presses in the United States. Its first published book was Robert F. Harper's Assyrian and Babylonian Letters Belonging to

923-606: Is recognized as a leading distributor of scholarly works, with over 100 client presses. The Books Division of the University of Chicago Press has been publishing books for scholars, students, and general readers since 1892 and has published over 11,000 books since its founding. The Books Division has more than 6,000 books in print, including such well-known works as The Chicago Manual of Style (1906); The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), by Thomas Kuhn ; A River Runs Through It (1976), by Norman Maclean ; and The Road to Serfdom (1944), by F. A. Hayek . In July 2009,

994-539: Is the second-oldest publishing house in Australia. Other Australian universities followed suit in following decades, including the University of Western Australia Press (1935), University of Queensland Press (1948) and Sydney University Press (1962). In the later part of the 20th century some of these presses closed down or were taken over by larger international presses. Some survived and built strong reputations for publishing literature, poetry and serious non-fiction. In

1065-459: Is their testimony." In 2014, the writer Kathryn Schulz published an essay in New York magazine reporting on a trip to Mann Gulch and revisiting Young Men and Fire from the perspective of climate change and evolving ideas about fire suppression: "Like many people, I went to Mann Gulch because of Young Men and Fire —because I had long loved it, but also because I had grown troubled by its role in

1136-742: The Association of American Publishers' Curtis Benjamin Award for Creative Publishing , awarded to the person whose "creativity and leadership have left a lasting mark on American publishing." Paula Barker Duffy served as director of the press from 2000 to 2007. Under her administration, the press expanded its distribution operations and created the Chicago Digital Distribution Center and BiblioVault . Editorial depth in reference and regional books increased with titles such as The Encyclopedia of Chicago , Timothy J. Gilfoyle's Millennium Park , and new editions of The Chicago Manual of Style ,

1207-520: The Boston Sunday Globe , Toronto Star , Chicago Tribune , Chicago Sun-Times , The Christian Science Monitor , and The Washington Times . In the New York Review of Books , Robert M. Adams called the book "a humane and personal memoir, scarcely less elegiac and elegantly written than the first one, A River Runs Through It ". In The Christian Century , John Ottenhoff also compared

1278-552: The Mellon Foundation , the Chicago Digital Distribution Center (CDDC) has been offering digital printing services and the BiblioVault digital repository services to book publishers. In 2009, the CDC enabled the sales of electronic books directly to individuals and provided digital delivery services for the University of Michigan Press among others. The Chicago Distribution Center has also partnered with an additional 15 presses including

1349-448: The Mellon Foundation , the Chicago Digital Distribution Center (CDDC) has been offering digital printing services and the BiblioVault digital repository services to book publishers. In 2009, the CDC enabled the sales of electronic books directly to individuals and provided digital delivery services for the University of Michigan Press among others. The Chicago Distribution Center has also partnered with an additional 15 presses, including

1420-525: The Missouri River at that time of day. Instead, they proved that the wind was traveling north, or downriver, and that the top of the ridge (which juts out as the river bends sharply to the northwest and separates Mann Gulch and Meriwether Canyon) split this downriver wind in two. These two separate smaller winds then re-converged (on the other side of the ridge) in the heart of the gulch (at right angles). This convergence combined with massive heat, produced by

1491-1081: The Turabian Manual , and The University of Chicago Spanish Dictionary. The press also launched an electronic reference work, The Chicago Manual of Style Online. In 2014, the press received The International Academic and Professional Publisher Award for excellence at the London Book Fair . Garrett P. Kiely became the 15th director of the University of Chicago Press on September 1, 2007. He heads one of academic publishing's largest operations, employing more than 300 people across three divisions—books, journals, and distribution—and publishing 81 journal titles and approximately 280 new books and 70 paperback reprints each year. The press publishes over 50 new trade titles per year, across many subject areas. It also publishes regional titles, such as The Encyclopedia of Chicago (2004), edited by James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice Reiff; The Chicagoan: A Lost Magazine of

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1562-469: The University of Illinois Press specializes in labor history , MIT Press publishes linguistics and architecture titles, Northwestern University Press publishes in continental philosophy , poetry , and the performing arts , and the Catholic University of America Press publishes works that deal with Catholic theology, philosophy, and church history. The Distribution Services Division provides

1633-537: The University of Missouri Press , West Virginia University Press , and publications of the Getty Foundation . University press Because scholarly books are mostly unprofitable, university presses may also publish textbooks and reference works, which tend to have larger audiences and sell more copies. Most university presses operate at a loss and are subsidized by their owners; others are required to break even. Demand has fallen as library budgets are cut and

1704-441: The University of Missouri Press , West Virginia University Press , and publications of the Getty Foundation . Financially, university presses have come under growing pressure. Only a few presses, such as Oxford, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale have endowments; the others depend upon sales, fundraising, and subventions (subsidies) from their sponsoring institutions. Subsidies vary but typically range from $ 150,000 to $ 500,000. Because

1775-583: The "Open-Access Toolkit", published by the OAPEN Foundation, defines as follows: These are university presses established since the 1990s, often explicitly to publish open access books. In many other respects, they are run like a university press. However, as with library publishing ... NUPs are often library-led, albeit with an academic-led steering group or editorial board. Examples of NUPs include ANU Press (Australia), Amherst College Press (USA), University of Michigan Press (USA), UCL Press (UK), and

1846-463: The 1940s, 11 in the 1950s; and 19 in the 1960s. Since 1970, 16 universities have opened presses and several have closed. Today, the largest university press in the United States is the University of Chicago Press . University presses tend to develop specialized areas of expertise, such as regional studies. For instance, Yale University Press publishes many art books, the Chicago , Duke , and Indiana University Presses publish many academic journals,

1917-503: The 1950s and 1960s. The Edinburgh University Press became the leading Scottish academic publisher. It was especially famous for publishing major books on the history and literature of Scotland, and by enlisting others in Scotland. In Australia , the University of Melbourne was the first to establish its own press: Melbourne University Press , set up to sell books and stationery in 1922, began publishing academic monographs soon after and

1988-487: The 1960s, a typical hardcover monograph would sell 1,660 copies in the five years after publication. By 1984, that average had declined to 1,003 and in after 2000 typical sales of monographs for all presses are below 500. University libraries are under heavy pressure to purchase very expensive subscriptions to commercial science journals, even as their overall budgets are static. By 1997 scientific journals were thirty times more expensive than they were in 1970. In May 2012,

2059-495: The 21st century several Australian universities have revived their presses or established new ones. Their business models and publishing approaches vary considerably. Some publish chiefly for general readers while others publish only scholarly books. Several have experimented with Open Access publishing and/or electronic-only publishing. Some supplement their publishing income by offering distribution services or operating bookshops. In January 2019 Melbourne University Press announced

2130-754: The 25th anniversary edition of Young Men and Fire , author Timothy Egan describes Maclean as "trying to shape, or at least to see, art in tragedy while acknowledging that 'tragedy is the most demanding of all literary forms.'" Reviewer John Ottenhoff notes in The Christian Century that "As in King Lear , about which Maclean had written eloquently in his career at the University of Chicago , death informs life, and compassion redeems pointless deaths." Literary scholar Lindsay Atnip argues that for Maclean to create tragedy out of catastrophe "amounts not just to explaining why things went terribly wrong, but also seeing in

2201-947: The Jazz Age (2008) by Neil Harris ; One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko (1999), a collection of columns by Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaperman Mike Royko of the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune ; and many other books about the art, architecture, and nature of Chicago and the Midwest . The press has recently expanded its digital offerings to include most newly published books as well as key backlist titles. In 2013, Chicago Journals began offering e-book editions of each new issue of each journal, for use on e-reader devices such as smartphones , iPad , and Amazon Kindle . The contents of The Chicago Manual of Style are available online to paid subscribers. The Chicago Distribution Center

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2272-533: The Kouyunjik Collections of the British Museum . The book sold five copies during its first two years, but by 1900, the University of Chicago Press had published 127 books and pamphlets and 11 scholarly journals, including the current Journal of Political Economy , Journal of Near Eastern Studies , and American Journal of Sociology . For its first three years, the press was an entity discrete from

2343-448: The Smokejumpers were killed or cut off by Dodge's fire, as some of their families alleged. In part 2, Maclean returns to Mann Gulch with the two living survivors of the fire and his research assistant Laird Robinson, himself a former Smokejumper. From his observations in Mann Gulch, the testimony of witnesses, the research of fire scientists, and his imaginative reconstruction of the dead Smokejumpers' final moments, Maclean attempts to answer

2414-401: The U.S. Forest Service forest fire investigators, Maclean and Robinson come to new conclusions on the fire's behavior: that the wind went in the opposite direction than was originally thought possible, and once the fire got started, it created its own unique weather system (which few thought possible before this research). It was always assumed that the wind was traveling south, or upstream, on

2485-503: The University of Chicago Press's customer service, warehousing, and related services. The Chicago Distribution Center (CDC) began providing distribution services in 1991, when the University of Tennessee Press became its first client. Currently the CDC serves nearly 100 publishers including Northwestern University Press , Stanford University Press , Temple University Press , University of Iowa Press , University of Minnesota Press , and many others. Since 2001, with development funding from

2556-503: The University of Chicago Press's warehousing, customer service, and related services. The Chicago Distribution Center (CDC) began providing distribution services in 1991, when the University of Tennessee Press became its first client. Currently the CDC serves nearly 100 publishers including Stanford University Press , University of Minnesota Press , University of Iowa Press , Temple University Press , Northwestern University Press , and many others. Since 2001, with development funding from

2627-409: The University of Chicago Press. He committed time and resources to lengthening the backlist, becoming known for assuming ambitious scholarly projects, among the largest of which was The Lisle Letters — a vast collection of 16th-century correspondence by Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle , a wealth of information about every aspect of 16th-century life. As the press's scholarly volume expanded,

2698-670: The University of Huddersfield Press (UK). Young Men and Fire Young Men and Fire is a 1992 non-fiction book written by Norman Maclean . It is Maclean's story of his quest to understand the Mann Gulch fire of 1949 and how it led to the deaths of 13 wildland firefighters, 12 of them members of the USFS Smokejumpers . The fire occurred in Mann Gulch in Montana's Gates of the Mountains Wilderness on August 5. The book

2769-424: The University of Missouri System announced that it would close the University of Missouri Press so that it might focus more efficiently on “strategic priorities.” Friends of the press from around the country rallied to its support, arguing that by publishing over 2,000 scholarly books the press made a major contribution to scholarship. A few months later the university reversed its decision. In 2014, Peter Berkery,

2840-477: The base of potential sales. Oxford University Press opened a South African office in 1915 to distribute its books in the region. The first South African university press was established in 1922 at Witwatersrand University . Several other South African universities established presses during the 20th century and, as of 2015, four were actively publishing. As new universities opened in Africa after 1960, some developed

2911-616: The book to A River Runs through It : "While the similarities between the two books are not obvious, Young Men and Fire echoes Maclean's earlier fiction and parallels its subtle theological explorations. Most strikingly, both books show Maclean obsessed with the question of grace: Why do some receive the grace to survive, while others die untimely, tragically?" Other critics, however, compared Young Men and Fire unfavorably with A River Runs through It or said it suffered from being unfinished. In an extensive 1994 essay drawing from her correspondence with Maclean, his friend and former student,

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2982-619: The catastrophe an intimation of certain hidden or unacknowledged conditions of human life". Young Men and Fire has been called a nonfiction novel. Reviewing the Young Men and Fire in the Times Literary Supplement , Roger Just called it "extremely difficult to classify: 'a true story of the Mann Gulch Fire' as the cover proclaims; but also a detective story; also a semi-scientific treatise on forest fires; also an autobiography of

3053-580: The executive director of the Association of University Presses stated: In the late 2010s, a number of universities began launching initiatives, often under the aegis of their libraries, to "support the creation, dissemination, and curation of scholarly, creative, and/or educational works" in a way that emulated the approach of traditional university presses while also taking into account the changing landscape of scholarly publishing. These initiatives have collectively been dubbed "new university presses", which

3124-414: The fire and the hot August afternoon. Additionally, the vegetation pattern played a part in how the fire developed and took the lives of the men. The south side of the gulch was of the mountains, with taller forested trees, but the north side of the gulch was of the plains, with smaller trees and dense grasses. This combination of contrasting vegetation, heat, air currents, and right-angle winds, would cause

3195-401: The fire to change direction instantly, trapping and killing most of the fire fighters in its path. By the end of their investigation, Maclean and Robinson conclude that Dodge's escape fire was not culpable in the Smokejumpers' deaths. Much of Young Men and Fire also concerns several of the individual Smokejumpers who parachuted into Mann Gulch that day, among them Henry J. Thol, Jr., who ran

3266-524: The fire, the testimony of the three men who fought the fire and lived, and the research and report of Robert Jansson and Harry T. Gisborne (who would suffer a fatal heart attack at Mann Gulch two months later trying to get to the bottom of the tragedy). On the day of the fire, Jansson was ranger on duty of the Helena National Forest's Canyon Ferry District, the area that included Mann Gulch. Maclean and Robinson also take Walter Rumsey and Robert Sallee,

3337-407: The furthest; Joseph B. Sylvia, whom foreman Dodge found sitting on a rock after the fire passed, soon to die of his burns; Eldon E. Diettert, the youngest, who died on his nineteenth birthday; and the three who survived the fire: Dodge, Sallee, and Rumsey. Maclean started writing Young Men and Fire in his seventy-fourth year and alludes frequently in the book to his age, both as a motivation and as

3408-425: The literary scholar and poet Marie Borroff , said of Young Men and Fire that "in the end it defeated him, at least in his own eyes.... Yet he managed to leave behind enough written materials to be edited into a book whose voice and vision are his own." Boroff judges the last twenty pages of the book a failure: "If his creative energies had lasted, he would surely have been able to contrive an ending equal in power to

3479-485: The memorable final paragraphs of A River Runs Through It ." A 2015 essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books discusses the book's history and takes up Boroff's criticism: "The closing pages of Young Men and Fire may be imperfect and strained, but that is because Maclean is trying to grasp something ultimate—the quality of 'a special kind of death', the death of the young and unfulfilled." Young Men and Fire had

3550-576: The online sales of used books undercut the new book market. Many presses are experimenting with electronic publishing. Cambridge University Press and Oxford University Press are the two oldest and largest university presses in the world. They have scores of branches around the world, especially throughout the Commonwealth of Nations . In the United States , colonial colleges required printers to publish university catalogs, ceremonial materials, and

3621-547: The only two living survivors of the fire team (as survivor Wag Dodge died in 1955), back to the scene of the fire in 1978, hoping that walking the ground again would help solve some of the missing pieces. Additionally, Maclean and Robinson use the modern Fire Lab and their mathematical analysis (advances in fire methodology not available in 1949), to search for answers to the fire. With all of these pieces, several trips to Mann Gulch, and ideas exchanged between Bud Moore, Ed Heilman, Richard Rothermel, Frank Albini, and other members of

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3692-562: The press also advanced as a trade publisher. In 1992, Norman Maclean 's books A River Runs Through It and Young Men and Fire were national best sellers, and A River Runs Through It was made into a film directed by and starring Robert Redford . In 1982, Philipson was the first director of an academic press to win the Publisher Citation , one of PEN's most prestigious awards. Shortly before he retired in June 2000, Philipson received

3763-553: The press announced the Chicago Digital Editions program, which made many of the press's titles available in e-book form for sale to individuals. As of August 2016, more than 3,500 titles are available in this format. In August 2010, the press published the 16th Edition of The Chicago Manual of Style simultaneously in print and online editions. The Books Division offers a Free E-book Of The Month program, through which site visitors may provide their e-mail address and receive

3834-715: The press first published paperback-bound books (including the Phoenix Books series) under its imprint. Of the press's best-known books, most date from the 1950s, including translations of the Complete Greek Tragedies and Richmond Lattimore's The Iliad of Homer . That decade also saw the first edition of A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature , which has since been used by students of Biblical Greek worldwide. In 1966, Morris Philipson began his 34-year tenure as director of

3905-617: The press was an established, leading academic publisher. Leading books of that era include Edgar J. Goodspeed's The New Testament: An American Translation (the press's first nationally successful title) and its successor, Goodspeed and J. M. Povis Smith's The Complete Bible: An American Translation ; Sir William Alexander Craigie's A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles , published in four volumes in 1943; John Manly and Edith Rickert's The Canterbury Tales , published in 1940; and Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations . In 1956,

3976-490: The question of Dodge's culpability and, more broadly, to give the Mann Gulch catastrophe the shape and consolation of tragedy. Part 3 is a short coda that one critic describes as "an imaginative funeral service and benediction". Maclean and Robinson, in their attempt to forensically analyze the Mann Gulch Fire, bring together multiple sources, including the official report of the United States Forest Service of

4047-416: The shapes they can find in or impress on their materials. And so he remains true to the power of his own language and his own heart. He does not lie. He finds in these young smoke jumpers the classic hubris, the heartbraking panache, with which they tackled all fires, never realizing that their very facility in keeping all little fires little was unfitting them for dealing with a big fire. He brilliantly traces

4118-569: The small details, which, as in Othello or Oedipus Rex , build to overwhelming force; he calls them "screwups", true, but they have the same dignity and terrifying force as Desdemona's handkerchief. In the Los Angeles Times Book Review , William Hauptman wrote that "Dreadful as their deaths were, the courage of these young men and Maclean's Homeric treatment leaves one with a feeling of exaltation." Enthusiastic reviews also appeared in

4189-492: The state of the university and its faculty's research, the Decennial Publications was a radical reorganization of the press. This allowed the press, by 1905, to begin publishing books by scholars not of the University of Chicago. A manuscript editing and proofreading department was added to the existing staff of printers and typesetters, leading, in 1906, to the first edition of The Chicago Manual of Style . By 1931,

4260-442: The story of an initially routine-seeming fire in which a combination of individually unlikely developments create an inferno in which most of the smoke jumpers are killed. In doing so, it presents themes of fate, misjudgment, and fickle circumstances. In his introduction to The Norman Maclean Reader , O. Alan Weltzien says that Young Men and Fire 's achievement "rests in the insistent way Maclean approaches, closely and personally,

4331-514: The subsidies are often not indexed to inflation, university press operating budgets can face a functional squeeze as inflation chips away at the value of the subsidy. Operating models vary, but host universities generally cover fixed costs like labor and fixed assets , while looking to the press to cover variable costs from the sale of books and other revenue. Sales of academic books have been declining, however, especially as University libraries cut back their purchases. At Princeton University Press in

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4402-489: The survivors, first raising anxieties and stirring old bitterness, but eventually at least for some easing the sting of that cataclysmic event more than four decades ago. In a way, the Mann Gulch never stopped burning." "The poignant beauty of Maclean's prose is consoling", wrote the sister-in-law of Stanley Reba, one of the Smokejumpers who died in Mann Gulch, in a letter to the book's publisher: "I felt that at last they had not been forgotten nor would they be. Young Men and Fire

4473-489: The time of his death in 1990. After his death, Maclean's children John N. Maclean and Jean Maclean Snyder brought the manuscript to the University of Chicago Press , publishers of Maclean's A River Runs through It and Other Stories . It was edited for publication by the University of Chicago Press with advice from William Kittredge , Wayne C. Booth , John N. Maclean, and Jean Maclean Snyder. The editing focused on repetition, inconsistencies, and fact-checking, and shortened

4544-471: The university a "letters patent", giving it the right to print its own books, and its active publishing program to 1584. Oxford University began publishing books the following year in 1585 and acquired a charter in 1632. In Scotland Archie Turnbull (1923-2003) served as the long-time director of the Edinburgh University Press , 1952-87. The British university presses had strong expansion in

4615-523: The university; it was operated by the Boston publishing house D. C. Heath in conjunction with the Chicago printer R. R. Donnelley . This arrangement proved unworkable, however, and in 1894, the university officially assumed responsibility for the press. In 1902, as part of the university, the press started working on the Decennial Publications . Composed of articles and monographs by scholars and administrators on

4686-399: The unknowable: the final minutes and seconds when the Smokejumpers are running for their lives as the towering, suffering inferno overtakes them. More generally, it rests in the way Maclean concedes and makes a theme of his uncertainty and doubt in the face of unrecoverable history." A recurring theme in the book is Maclean's wish to give a shape to the Mann Gulch disaster. In his foreword to

4757-401: The wildfire crisis we are currently experiencing. Maclean told, quite beautifully, the story of a tragedy. But also, quite tragically, he told the wrong story." She calls Young Men and Fire "the seminal text in our national war on fire. As an account of how that war is fought, it is accurate and thrilling. As an elegy for the victims, it is beautiful. But, like many such stories, it fails to ask

4828-455: The work by about 15%. The words remained Maclean's. "Black Ghost", a story about Maclean visiting the still-burning Mann Gulch fire about a week after the blow-up, was not part of Maclean's manuscript but was added by the publisher as "a fitting prelude". A reviewer would later characterize "Black Ghost" as a "Shakespearean 'argument', or overture", that "contains all the elements of forest fire in general and Mann Gulch in particular". The book

4899-487: Was a leveling off after 1970. By the time of independence in 1947, India had a well-established system of universities, and several leading ones developed a university press. The main areas of activity include monographs by professors, research papers and theses, and textbooks for undergraduate use. However, the basic problem faced by scholarly publishers in India is the use of multiple languages , which splintered and reduced

4970-424: Was a national bestseller and won the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for general non-fiction. Young Men and Fire is structured in three parts. In part 1, Maclean gives a minute-by-minute account of the unusual "blowup" that trapped the Smokejumpers in Mann Gulch. Part 2 tells of Maclean's attempt to find meaning in the disaster by understanding the Smokejumpers' decisions and the fire's behavior: "If there

5041-521: Was published with a selection of photographs, including two by Peter Stackpole that originally appeared in an August 22, 1949, Life magazine feature on the Mann Gulch Fire. Young Men and Fire received strong pre-publication reviews in Kirkus and Booklist . Upon publication, the book was reviewed enthusiastically on the front page of the New York Times Book Review by James R. Kincaid : He does what great artists have always done: refuse to give up on

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