Scientific Research Article Review Building Better...

Armand, Michel, and J-M. Tarascon. Building Better Batteries. Nature, vol. 451, no. 7179, (2008): 652-657. This article discusses how researchers must find a sustainable way of providing better batteries to match modern lifestyle changes in our present day. The main claim in this article is that researchers need to build a new battery and it must focus on being cheap and safe. This first reason they provide is lithium ion batteries need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Through research, they found out lithium ion batteries are not the best option for electric cars. They provide another reason, through scientific lab experiments, that alternatives to the lithium battery need to be explored. Through these lab experiments, the metals†¦show more content†¦With this article, I plan to provide solutions for making the battery better by car industries and government funding further research. This source works in conjunction with my other source, â€Å"How Improved Batteries Will Make Electric Car Vehicles Competitive†, and provides similar reasons as to why the electric car ba ttery needs to be improved. I plan to find more articles on ways to promote future research towards batteries. Brand, Stephan, et al. Hybrid and Electric Low-Noise Cars Cause an Increase in Traffic Accidents Involving Vulnerable Road Users in Urban Areas. International Journal of Injury Control Safety Promotion, vol. 20, no. 4, Dec. 2013, pp. 339-341. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/17457300.2012.733714. This article discusses how electric and hybrid cars cause an increase in the amount of traffic accidents in urban areas. The main claim is that if more hybrid and electrics are produced, the more traffic accidents will occur. To make this argument, they provided two reasons. The first reason is cars with engines that produce no sound leads to more accidents. To support this reason, they found out through car testing that sound coming from the engine is produced when cars travel at high speeds. These sounds serve as warning signals to those who are crossing the street, like pedestrians and bicyclists. The second reason is that older people and children are endangered. To support this reason, they provided data and surveys withShow MoreRelatedTesla Motors11843 Words   |  48 Pagesthrough each other on the same line, with a sophisticated control system that indicated to each station which parts to add to the particular car at the station. Sometimes even two completely different car models were produced on the same line. But building multiple models on the same line really challenged the production design as work would often become unbalanced; i.e., some assembly stations would have much more work than others.22 To produce a broader mix of cars required a more flexible production Read MoreSustainable Construction Of Sustainable Building2911 Words   |  12 PagesSustainable building Introduction As concerns of climate change and global warming rises, reducing the impact on environment and human health have became the priorities to consider before the construction of buildings. Therefore, the concept of sustainable building (also known as green building, green construction)was brought up, aiming to create structures which is environmentally responsible and source-efficient during its lifespan. [1] Compared to conventional buildings, sustainable buildings are advantageousRead MoreEssay about Line Follower Robot5716 Words   |  23 PagesIntroduction 4 Literature Review 4 History of mobile robots: 4 The history of the line-following robots: 5 Ongoing a most advanced projects on line-following robots or line-following based robots: 5 Aims: 6 Objectives: 6 Requirements: 6 System Decomposition 7 Group Management Structure 9 Name of the Robot 9 Mechanical Design 10 Technical Options, Critical Review and Final Design Choice 10 Option 1 10 Option 2 11 Review of the Frame 12 Review of the Wheels 12 Final DesignRead MoreWireless Technology Essay16392 Words   |  66 Pagestechnology has provided us the ability to have long range communications that would not normally happen if wires were needed. It is important to understand that wireless technology increases the chances for people to steal your information. So having a better understanding of the various types of wireless security will increase your ability to enjoy this technology with limited fear. The issue that there is no wire for people to access does provide a greater chance for security issues. When you areRead MoreEssay Strategic audit4372 Words   |  18 Pageschange the life of the people by introducing this new products that in a near future is going to turn into a â€Å"must have† product. 2. Objectives iRobotclearly specifies that: â€Å"Our objective is to expand our leadership globally in designing and building practical robots and in developing robotic technology† The objectives of iRobots are: Develop new products Coming up with new products is crucial in this type of industry. Since things are changing fast being ahead of time is very helpful. BeingRead MoreProject Report on Performance Appraisal System3377 Words   |  14 PagesManaging human resources in today’s dynamic environment is becoming more and more complex as well as important. Recognition of people as a valuable resource in the organization has led to increases trends in employee maintenance, job security, etc My research project deals with â€Å"Performance Appraisal as carried out at Bhart Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNLK)†. In this report, I have studied amp;evaluated the performance appraisal process as it is carried out in the company. The first section of my report dealsRead MoreApple Inc.: Managing a Global Supply Chain11078 Words   |  45 Pagesmeeting, in which he would go through every planned feature of the company’s flagship product, is gone. â€Å"That’s not Tim’s style at all,† said one person familiar with those meetings. ‘He delegates.’ 5 This document is authorized for educator review use only by Ken Cutright, Ohio University until March 2017. Copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. Permissions@hbsp.harvard.edu or 617.783.7860 9B14D005 rP os t Page 2 Nevertheless, it was clear to Jessica that Apple’sRead MoreVehicle Design History11340 Words   |  46 Pagesinvolved with vehicle body design and manufacturing of polymers and painted plastics. My experience in large scale injection molding, e-stat painting, and fabrication processes, as well as the business of the automotive industry, has motivated me to research the history of the automotive body design and its future. I have sought to investigate the events that produced unique vehicle designs and the trends of what the future may produce. This paper covers, in depth, the evolution of vehicle designRead MoreEth 321 Entire Course / Ethical and Legal Topics in Business6122 Words   |  25 Pagesroles of law and courts in today’s business environment. †¢ Differentiate the federal court structure with your state’s court structure. †¢ Discuss the concept of judicial review. †¢ Explain how laws or regulations affect your present job or industry. †¢ Properly cite at least two references from your reading. Cite your research and format your paper consistent with APA guidelines. ETH 321 WEEK 2 ADR Clause for Learning Team Charter Paper Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper in which you doRead MoreEssay on Eth 321 Entire Course / Ethical and Legal Topics in Business6110 Words   |  25 Pagesroles of law and courts in today’s business environment. †¢ Differentiate the federal court structure with your state’s court structure. †¢ Discuss the concept of judicial review. †¢ Explain how laws or regulations affect your present job or industry. †¢ Properly cite at least two references from your reading. Cite your research and format your paper consistent with APA guidelines. ETH 321 WEEK 2 ADR Clause for Learning Team Charter Paper Write a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper in which you do

Oranges by Gary Soto Essay - 653 Words

Oranges By Gary Soto Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952, in Fresno, California to Mexican-American parents. His grandparents emigrated from Mexico during the Great Depression and found jobs as farm laborers. Soto grew up poor in the San Joaquin Valley and learned that hard work pays off through chores, such as moving lawns, picking grapes, painting houses, and washing cars. When Gary was five his father died as the result of a factory accident, and his mother was left to raise her three children with the help of her parents. Soto describes his family as an illiterate family. They did not have books and were not encouraged to read. In fact, Gary did not start writing poetry until he was in college. He also is an author of†¦show more content†¦Brightness shows how much power the orange actually has. The references in the story build up the power of the orange. Soto talks about sacrifice, and we all go through that. What we do to please other people. The boy had to give up his orange because he didnt have enough money. He told his girlfriend that she can chose any kind of candy found in the isle, and she chose a chocolate bar that cost a dime, now the boy only had a nickel and a pair of oranges in his pocket. Instead of feeling embarrassed and cheep in front of his new girl, the boy decided to put up the nickel and an orange on the counter for the saleslady. Oranges are rare in the winter and their encounter might be precious. They convey a powerful feeling. Making fire in the hands represents that he is in love. That he feels God like, he feels tough like he can do it all when hes around his girlfriend. The tone of the poem is simple with broken down sentences. Adolescent love is simple much like childhood love. There are the sweaty hands, heavy breathing, butterflies in the stomach, but when kids fall in love, its not true love, it most likely is just a crush. The words that are used in the poem are not complex but short and meaningful. When reading between the lines, and reading the poem more than twice, it is much easier to put two and two together and have a betterShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Poem Oranges And Small Town With One Road 1372 Words   |  6 Pagesthrough passion, prior experience and multiple outer influences. Gary Soto is a famous poet who blossomed in the late 20th century. Soto used different variations of poetry tools to create expressive poems based on his own life experience. While Soto wrote many different poems, the poems â€Å"Oranges† and â€Å"Small Town With One Road† stand out and can be deeply analyzed. Both poems are strongly emphasized with his past experiences in life. Gary Soto writes poems about hope, diversity and harshness of life, becauseRead MoreGary Soto1452 Words   |  6 PagesFinal Essay: Gary Soto Gary Soto, born on April 12th, 1952 is a proud Mexican-American that grew up in a very low class neighborhood in Fresno, California with both of his parents (Gillespie, Becker 100). Soto exclaimed that he was marginal kid; this means that he could have either ended up in prison or easily graduate from college. He put forth more effort in other things than school, such as girls or work. As a child and teen Mr. Soto was never interested in his schooling but he tried hisRead MoreAnalysis Of The Poem Oranges And First Kiss 1062 Words   |  5 PagesPrompt #1: Compare and Contrast â€Å"Oranges† and â€Å"First Kiss† The poems â€Å"Oranges† by Gary Soto and Pamela Moore’s â€Å"First Kiss† share many common elements. I will examine comparable attributes of these poems such as the correlation between love and warmth or light and the poet’s ability to encourage the reader to re-experience events in their own lives. These poems also share many commonalities in their settings which are cold and wintery. The poems also offer a contrasting point of view in the differentRead More Fruits of Love Revealed in Gary Sotos Oranges Essay690 Words   |  3 PagesThe Fruits of Love Revealed in Gary Sotos Oranges  Ã‚   Imagine that its winter and cold outside. Theres nervous electricity around you, and love is a new and exciting experience. In your heart you feel warmth youve never known before. This is the moment Gary Soto captures in his poem Oranges. The feeling and power of adolescent love is created using tone, contrasting imagery, and symbolism. First, the use of tone in Oranges clearly helps to set the theme of the poem. Children oftenRead MoreMy Free Time Decoding Crosswords Essay1541 Words   |  7 Pagesallows me to form a deeper connection with not only the poem as a whole, but also the poet. The passion that projects out of Michael Lee’s voice as he performs â€Å"Pass On,† the anxious and innocent tone created by the short enjambment used by Gary Soto in â€Å"Oranges,† and the way that Mary Oliver finds peace in the beauty of nature throughout â€Å"Grass† leaves me with a countless amount of images that create a bridge connecting the personal experiences of the author to those of my own. Throughout the breathtakingRead MoreGary Soto s The San Joaquin Valley2143 Words   |  9 PagesKatelynn Pilon 11th Adv Literature Ms. Brown December 20th 2016 Gary Soto â€Å"Gary Soto was born in Fresno, California, in April, 1952, to working-class Mexican-American parents. At a young age, he worked in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley. He was not academically motivated as a child, but became interested in poetry during his high school years.† Soto uses his cultural experiences lead him to write about his character how he does and throughout all of his short stories, books, and poems heRead MoreLike Mexicans By Gary Soto935 Words   |  4 PagesIn the story, †Like Mexicans† by author Gary Soto explains how he was always told him to marry a girl from his same ethnicity, but unexpectedly fell in love and married a Japanese girl. Sotos grandmother advised him to marry a girl that fitted the stereotype of a Mexican girl. He decided to ask his mom about the issue. His mom agreed that if he were to find a righteous Mexican women to marry her. Soto decides to ask Scott as well, who happened to be a second generation okie. An okie wa s what hisRead More The Innocence of Love Essay896 Words   |  4 PagesIn Gary Soto’s â€Å"Oranges,† the speaker is describing the first time he walks with a girl. He is at the tender age of twelve and this simple act of innocence takes place on a cold, grey day in December. As the two walk together, they stop in a drugstore and, being the typical boy, the speaker â€Å"asked what she wanted† (27). When she shows him the chocolate and he realizes that he cannot afford it, he then does a quick barter with the shop lady and exchanges his lone nickel and one of his oranges forRead MoreGary Soto : A Mexican American Author2363 Words   |  10 PagesDecember 2016 Gary Soto Gary Soto, a Mexican-American author, was born in 1952 in Fresno, California. His parents were both Mexican-American. Soto did not expect a lot from his life; he imagined he would ’marry Mexican poor, work Mexican hours, and in the end die a Mexican death, broke and in despair’ (Lee). Instead, he became a great writer of poems and short stories. James Sullivan describes Soto as â€Å"one of the most important voices in Chicano literature† and Don Lee counts Soto as â€Å"one of theRead MoreGary Sotos Like Mexicans: Personal Experiences Essay1887 Words   |  8 PagesGary Sotos Like Mexicans: Personal Experiences My decision to write in response to Gary Sotos work, Like Mexicans was influenced for the most part because of the similarities between myself and Gary Soto, and our families included. Gary Soto is a Mexican American male, who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley in the industrial part of a town called Fresno. His grandparents came to this Great Valley in search of creating a better life for themselves and their families. I am also a Mexican

“Social Classes Role in Bringing About Change During the...

The industrial revolution, a period of transition and innovation, inevitably brought with it changes. Life for both rich and poor was changed. The Industrial Revolution brought about the birth of two classes: The middle class and the working class. In the article â€Å"The Communist Manifesto† (1848) by Karl Marx, it states that â€Å"Marx saw the oppression of the worker by those who owned means of production.†(1) Did the Industrial Revolution benefit both, or yet cause grievance in one and be beneficial to the other. Where everyone truly aided by the great rise in standard of living? Those are the questions to be asked when contemplating if workers from all classes successfully united to bring about radical change. In my opinion the change that†¦show more content†¦Again, not working together but instead still was benefitting the middle class. Bourgeoisie is a class where the people own means of production in a capitalist society. Proletariat is the class in which there were wage workers, no wealth except for children. These were also known as the â€Å"working class†. â€Å"The bourgeoisie society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, and new forms of struggle in a place of the old ones.†(1) Meaning that, the Industrial Revolution only made things worse for those without money, the working class was less beneficial than the middle class who were wealthier than them. â€Å"With industrialization the middle class rose in status and wealth. Increasingly money became a common denominator in society, and the middle class was in position toShow MoreRelatedAmerican and French Revolution - Essay1419 Words   |  6 PagesAmerican and French Revolutions declared that their goal was to create a new political system based on the principles of liberty and equality. However, the interpretation of those ideas by the American Founding Fathers turned out to be distinctly different from that of the French revolutionaries. How did those different interpretations of the concepts of liberty and equality affect the outcomes and the legacies of both revolutions? Analyze, compare, and contrast. The American Revolution officially beganRead MoreThe Middle Class Life During the Industrial Revolution Essay1138 Words   |  5 PagesThe Middle Class Life during The Industrial Revolution began in England around the 1780’s. It was mainly based on the cotton industry and subsequently many of the inventions that came out of this period were mainly for producing and manufacturing cotton. Another stage of the Industrial Revolution was based on inventions. This is when most of the luxury goods were produced for the public. The Industrial Revolution is seen by scholars, as noted in A History of Western Society, as basicallyRead More Karl Marxs The Communist Manifesto Essay1731 Words   |  7 Pagessociety there is a revolution. He predicts that a revolution is coming between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and calls its coming inevitable. Marx argues that the bourgeoisies are no longer fit to rule, nor is their rule sustainable, as such the proletariat will overthrow them and end all class antagonisms with the creation of a classless society. However, Marx does not give enough credit to nationalism, nor does he ascribe to the po ssibility of compromise between the classes. Due to this heRead MoreWomen During The Nineteenth Century1562 Words   |  7 Pagesboth in Europe and America during the nineteenth century were living in a society that was characterised by gender inequality (Wwnorton.com, 2015). In the early periods of the century, women were expected to remain passive and subservient to the male counterparts. They were denied many of the legal, social, or even political rights, which in the modern world we consider as a right (Wwnorton.com, 2015). Thus, generally speaking women who belonged to the middle and upper classes remained home; they wereRead MoreWomen in the Enlightenment Essay1406 Words   |  6 PagesThe Enlightenment is known as the revolution that brought to question the traditional political and social structures. This included the question of the woman’s traditional roles in society. As the public sphere relied more and more and the advances in scientific and educated thinki ng, women sought to join in with the ranks of their male counterparts. Women held gatherings known as salons where they organized intellectual conversations with their distinguished male guests. Seeking to furtherRead More Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Essay1700 Words   |  7 PagesMarx’s Communist Manifesto and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness  Ã‚     Ã‚   From social relationships to political power structures, all aspects of society were changed by the technology innovations of the industrial revolution. Manufacturing goods on a mass scale led to the development of an entirely new worker who’s success now depended on his ability to operate machines rather than his talent as a craftsman. The steam engine revolutionized modes of transportation: trains and railroads were implementedRead MoreThe Bolshevik Invention Of Class1424 Words   |  6 Pagesimagined class community yet inheriting a shattered and fragmented class structure in Russia after the revolution, found themselves obliged to invent classes on the basis of Marxist theory... in that most obvious and yet least expected place, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.† (Suny 172) The first section of Fitzpatrick’s essay discusses how Marxism was such an important part to creating classes during the Bolsheviks rule in the beginning of the 20th Century. She notes that this western belief systemRead More1 How did pollution affect London between 1700 and 1900? The development of locomotives, and1600 Words   |  7 Pagesbe sold around the globe. Families moved from the villages of their ancestors to new industrial towns and a new class of people emerged, workers who produced goods. The industrialist, the people who owned the factories, employed hundreds even thousands of people, and made enormous profits. A major concern was the growing numbers, the masses of the urban poor that arrived and settled in the city. While the industrial innovations brought wealth to some and jobs for others, it all came with a cost: pollutionRead MoreThe Origins Of The English Language1318 Words   |  6 Pageslanguage. A. The English Language begins as Old English, which was spoken from the fifth century A.D. until the eleventh century. 1. Old English is also known as Anglo- Saxon. It is named after the Germanic tribes that migrated to the British Isles during the fifth and sixth centuries. a. These Germanic tribes were known as the Angles, Saxons and Jutes who originated from parts of present-day Denmark and Germany. b. According to oxforddictionaries.com, Old English is considered a Germanic languageRead MoreComparing Different Media: Matrix, TS Eliots A Journey of the Magi and Ralph Emersons Self Reliance1058 Words   |  4 Pagesunderstand how all three works are discussing the larger social meaning requires comparing them with each other. Together, these different elements will highlight the way they are criticizing society and technological innovations that are occurring. The Matrix, Self Reliance and the Journey of the Magi In all three works, there is a focus on showing how technological advancements are making society worse off. This is because these kinds of changes are designed to take away any kind of individual creativity

Summary of 12 Years A Slave free essay sample

Solomon Northup was born a free man in Minerva, New York, in 1808. Little is known about his mother, whom his narrative does not identify by name. His father, Mintus, was originally enslaved to the Northup family from Rhode Island, but he was freed after the family moved to New York. As a young man, Northup helped his father with farming chores and worked as a raftsman on the waterways of upstate New York. He married Anne Hampton, a woman of mixed (black, white, and Native American) ancestry, on Christmas Day, 1829. They had three children together. During the 1830s, Northup became locally renowned as an excellent fiddle-player. In 1841, two men offered Northup generous wages to join a traveling musical show, but soon after he accepted, they drugged him and sold him into slavery. He was subsequently sold at auction in New Orleans. Northup served a number of masters—some brutally cruel and others whose humanity he praised. After years of bondage, he came into contact with an outspoken abolitionist from Canada, who sent letters to notify Northups family of his whereabouts. An official state agent was sent to Louisiana to reclaim Northup, and he was successful through a number of coincidences. After he was freed, Northup filed kidnapping charges against the men who had defrauded him, but the lengthy trial that followed was ultimately dropped because of legal technicalities, and he received no remuneration. Little is known about Northups life after the trial, but he is believed to have died in 1863. Twelve Years a Slave was recorded by David Wilson, a white lawyer and legislator from New York who claimed to have presented a faithful history of Solomon Northups life, as [I] received it from his lips (p. xv). Dedicated to Harriet Beecher Stowe and introduced as another Key to Uncle Toms Cabin, Northups book was published in 1853, less than a year after his liberation. It sold over thirty thousand copies. It is therefore not only one of the longest North American slave narratives, but also one of the best-selling. The first two chapters of Twelve Years a Slave relate the Northup family history, Solomons marriage to Anne, his employment as a raftsman, a farmer, and a fiddle-player, and his abduction. Promised one dollar for each days services and three dollars for every show that he played, Northup travels willingly with the two con artists to New York City and then to Washington, D. C. (p. 30). Their ruse is thorough: the men perform a vaudeville show of sorts in Albany, and they convince Northup to obtain free papers before leaving New York. However, once in Washington, the men offer him a drink that causes him to become insensible, and when Northup awakens, he is alone, in utter darkness, and in chains (p. 38). The narrative expresses his amazement at discovering a slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol! (p. 43). Northup is sold to the notorious Washington-based slave trader James H. Burch, who brutally whips him for protesting that he is a free man. While in the slave pen, he makes the acquaintance of several other slaves, including Eliza, whose sad history he relates in detail (pp. 50-54). The slaves are handcuffed and transported together via cars and steamboats to Richmond and then to New Orleans. Their experience aboard the steamboat is a miserable one: sea-sickness rendered the place of our confinement loathsome and disgusting (p. 68). Northup plans a mutiny with two of his fellow slaves, but the plan is foiled when one of them contracts smallpox and dies (pp. 69-72). Northup and the rest of Burchs gang are delivered to Theophilus Freeman, a New Orleans slave trader who informs Northup that his new name is Platt (p. 75). After surviving a bout of smallpox, Northup and Eliza are purchased by a Baptist preacher named William Ford. Touched by Elizas pleas, Ford attempts to purchase her young daughter Emily as well, but Freeman refuses to sell her. Ford proves to be a kind master; Northup writes that there never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man (p. 90). Fords plantation is located several hundred miles northwest of New Orleans, in the Great Pine Woods along Louisianas Red River. Northup is put to work stacking and chopping logs at Fords lumber mill, and he decides to reward his masters kindness. Realizing that Ford ships his lumber by land at great expense, Northup devises a set of rafts to deliver them by canal, greatly increasing Fords profits. I was the Fulton of Indian Creek, he recalls (p. 99). He also builds a loom for the plantation that worked so well, I was continued in the employment of making looms (p. 103). Despite (or perhaps because of) his value as a laborer and de facto engineer, Northup is sold in the winter of 1842 to John Tibeats, a quick-tempered carpenter to whom Ford had become indebted (p. 103). Unlike Ford, Tibeats is never satisfied, though he works his slaves from earliest dawn until late at night (p. 107). When Tibeats attempts to whip Northup for a dubious offense, Northup fights back, and with his foot on the masters neck, he whips Tibeats until my right arm ached (p. 111). When Tibeats and two associates attempt to lynch Northup, a kindly overseer (armed with pistols) intervenes and saves his life. Because he had not yet paid Ford the full amount for Northup, Tibeats is compelled to spare him for a time. Later, when he attacks Northup with a hatchet, the slave again bests the master, and this time he flees from the plantation, chased by hounds. Northup escapes by running and swimming through the Great Pacoudrie Swamp, evading water moccasins and alligators (p. 139). He makes his way back to Fords plantation, where he is protected from harm. Persuaded by William Ford that killing Northup will only bring him the condemnation of his peers as well as financial loss, Tibeats hires Northup out to cut sugarcane in the Big Cane Break farther down the Red River. Around this time, Northup learns that Eliza has died of malnourishment and grief at the loss of her daughter (pp. 159-160). Soon afterwards, Tibeats sells Northup to Edwin Epps, a repulsive and coarse cotton planter whom Northup describes as being devoid of any redeeming qualities. (p. 162). The second half of Northups narrative is chiefly devoted to describing life on a cotton plantation. He provides detailed descriptions of the processes of planting, cultivating, and picking cotton (pp. 163-168), character sketches of his fellow slaves (pp. 185-190), and gradations of punishment for various offenses (pp. 179-180). As he was periodically hired out to sugar plantations as well, Northup describes the methods of planting, harvesting, and processing the cane in similar detail (pp. 208-213). Though his account reveals the misery and despair of field slaves, like many other slave narratives, it also reflects the wry humor with which Northup endured his situation. For example, in describing the meager rations allotted for each weeks subsistence, he quips that no slave of [Edwin Eppss] is ever likely to suffer from the gout, superinduced by excessive high living (p. 169). Likewise, he begins his description of slave huts by stating that the softest couches in the world are not to be found in the log mansion of the slave (p. 170). Ironic metaphors and understatements such as these render Northups account all the more compelling, leavening the extent of his degradation with a wry and persistent sense of humor. Twelve Years a Slave occasionally ventures into nature writing and ethnography, as Northup describes southern flora, fauna, and culture from the perspective of a northern traveler. Narrating his relocation to work as a cane-clearer after his fights with Tibeats, Northup writes, we were now in the midst of trees of enormous growth, whose wide-spreading branches almost shut out the light of the sun . . . The bay and the sycamore, the oak and the cypress, reach a growth unparalleled, in those fertile lowlands (pp. 154-155). Northup seems to find the talk and behavior of Southerners equally interesting; he frequently quotes and explains colloquialisms, such as the verbs allowed (p. 153) and toted (p. 167). Remarkably, he compliments some aspects of (white) southern life: whatever their faults may be, it is certain the inhabitants [of] the interior of Louisiana are not wanting in hospitality (p. 159). He also repeatedly notes the abilities of female slaves in a manner that suggests a sort of proto-feminist sensibility. Northup praises the lumberwomen with whom he clears cane as excellent choppers who were equal to any man at piling logs (p. 156). On the cotton plantation, he observes that women plow the fields and tend their animals precisely as do the ploughboys of the North (p. 164). When it comes to picking cotton, Patsey is queen of the field, for her fingers possess a lightning-quick motion—the very dexterity that Northup lacks (p. 188). Whether his subject is the Southern landscape or the Southerners themselves, Northup frequently writes with the bemused curiosity of an intellectual tourist. Northups first attempt to write a letter home—with a duck feather and ink that he produced from white maple bark—is thwarted when the white field-laborer in whom he confides exposes the plan to Edwin Epps. However, Northup had been savvy enough to request the favor without entrusting the letter, so he is able to deny the allegation and convince his master that it is spurious. Later, he meets a Canadian carpenter (and outspoken abolitionist) named Mr. Bass, who agrees to mail several letters for him. Both men realize the significance of the act: Northup notes that my previous ill-fortune had taught me to be extremely cautious, and Bass advises him on the great necessity of strict silence and secrecy (p. 269, p. 271). Indeed, the letters that Bass writes for Northup inform the recipients that he that is writing for me runs the risk of his life if detected (p. 275). After a lengthy delay that causes Northup to despair of ever being rescued, he is found and liberated by Henry B. Northup, a member of the same white family that his father had served years before. Northup later learns the causes for the delay: first, his wife had to prove to the Governor of New York (Washington Hunt) that Solomon was a free man who had been abducted; next, Governor Hunt had appointed Henry Northup as an official state agent to rescue Solomon; Henry Northup had then negotiated with former Louisiana Senator Pierre Soule, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Nelson, and Charles M. Conrad, U. S. Secretary of War, to provide federal support for his mission (pp. 290-292). Even after all of these careful arrangements, Henry Northup still struggled to locate Solomon, because no one in Louisiana knew him by his real name. It was only a chance encounter with the carpenter Bass that revealed Solomons location—and that he was now called Platt (p. 298). With this knowledge and the help of a sympathetic sheriff, Henry Northup was able to rescue Solomon Northup. The final chapter outlines the legal proceedings that followed—in New Orleans, where the men received a legal pass to leave the state; in Charleston, South Carolina, where Henry was challenged by customs officials for not registering Solomon as a servant; and in Washington, where the two filed charges against Solomons former captors (pp. 310-319). The narrative concludes with Solomons reunion with Anne, his daughters, and a grandson whom he had never met. The childs name was Solomon Northup Staunton (p. 320).