Best of
World-History

1976

Gifts of Unknown Things: A True Story of Nature, Healing, and Initiation from Indonesia's Dancing Island


Lyall Watson - 1976
    Magical feats, extrasensory perception, and psychic healing are commonplace in this land where the natural and the supernatural coexist and challenge our beliefs about reality. At once a scientific exploration and an imaginative adventure, Dr. Watson's astonishing and life-transforming journey becomes our own, challenging many of our fixed beliefs about the "real world."

My Life and Ethiopia's Progress: The Autobiography of Emperor Haile Sellassie I Volume One: 1892-1937


Haile Selassie I - 1976
    Indeed, a remarkable and outstanding world leader. Got to read it. First time ever in paperback.

A Family of Kings: The Descendants of Christian IX of Denmark


Theo Aronson - 1976
    The beauty, grace and charm of Prince Christian's daughter had prevailed over the Queen's intense dislike of the Danish royal house, and had even persuaded the embarrassingly difficult Bertie to agree to the match. Thus began the fairy-tale saga of a family that handed on its good looks, unaffectedness, and democratic manners to almost every royal house of modern Europe. For, in the year that Alexandra became Princess of Wales, her brother Willie was elected King of the Hellenes ; her father at last succeeded to the Danish throne; her sister Dagmar was soon to become wife of the future Tsar Alexander III of Russia; and her youngest sister Thyra later married the de jure King of Hanover. A Family of Kings is the story of the crowned children and grandchildren of Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark, focusing on the half-century before the First World War. It is an intimate, domestic study of a close-knit family, the individual personalities, and the courts to which they came. Without doubt, the chic and beautiful Alexandra epitomized the spectacular flowering of the Danish dynasty; and just as she brought an unprecedented popularity to the sobriety of the English court, so her brothers and sisters helped enliven the staid European scene. The outstanding success of Theo Aronson's previous book, Grandmama of Europe, confirms his reputation as a chronicler of the fortunes of Europe's ruling houses. A Family of Kings bears the hallmark of the author's remarkable talent, and provides a fascinating evocation of the splendour and extravagance, and not infrequent tragedy, of nineteenth and twentieth century royalty.

The New Penguin History of The World


J.M. Roberts - 1976
    Completely updated and revised by preeminent historian J. M. Roberts, this volume features ninety up-to-date maps, new sections, and extremely well-written and accessible articles throughout. Truly global and comprehensive, it succeeds in conveying the staggering diversity of the human experience across a vast range of climates and conditions. This is the one book for anyone interested in the variety and grandeur of history’s march.

Choose Life: A Dialogue


Arnold Joseph Toynbee - 1976
    This epic, multi-volume work offered a grand synthesis of world history from the global perspective of the rise and fall of civilizations, rather than concentrating on the history of nation-states or of ethnic groups. For Time magazine Toynbee was 'an international sage' and certainly in the same bracket as 'Einstein, Schweitzer or Bertrand Russell'. Daisaku Ikeda is a figure of global stature, the spiritual leader of a worldwide lay Buddhist organisation devoted to the promotion of education, culture and peace. Between 1971 and 1974 Toynbee and Ikeda discussed many of the vital issues which confronted their societies in the early 1970s, all of which remain current and significant. Indeed, topics such as the problems of pollution, dwindling natural resources, conflict and war, the role of religion, and population growth, are even more pressing than they were thirty years ago. In this volume - which still reads as freshly as it did when it was first published, and which is now reissued for a new generation of readers - the inspiring challenge issued by both men is framed as follows: will humankind choose to salvage its destiny by a revolution in thinking and morals? Or will disaster ensue if it pursues its present course towards self-destruction and the despoliation of the environment? While recognising that our survival is threatened by the imbalance between human immaturity and technological achievement, the optimistic message of this classic Dialogue is that man-made evils have a man-made cure.

A History of Modern Poetry, Volume I: From the 1890s to the High Modernist Mode


David Perkins - 1976
    By the end of the period covered, Eliot's The Waste Land, Lawrence's Birds, Beasts and Flowers, Stevens's Harmonium, and Pound's Draft of XVI Cantos had been published, and the first post-Eliot generation of poets was beginning to emerge.More than a hundred poets are treated in this volume, and many more are noticed in passing. David Perkins discusses each poet and type of poetry with keen critical appreciation. He traces opposed and evolving assumptions about poetry, and considers the effects on poetry of its changing audiences, of premises and procedures in literary criticism, of the publishing outlets poets could hope to use, and the interrelations of poetry with developments in the other arts--the novel, painting, film, music--as well as in social, political, and intellectual life. The poetry of the United States and that of the British Isles are seen in interplay rather than separately.This book is an important contribution to the understanding of modern literature. At the same time, it throws new light on the cultural history of both America and Britain in the twentieth century.

Prisoner of Mao


Bao Ruo-Wang - 1976
    He was a prisoner from 1957–1964, including 15 months of interrogation that led to a 700 page confession."I would defy any man, Chinese or not, to hold out against them. Their aim is not so much to make you invent nonexistent crimes, but to make you accept your ordinary life, as you led it, as rotten and sinful and worthy of punishment." — Prisoner of Mao

The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea


I.C.B. Dear - 1976
    It brings together more than 2,600 entries on every imaginable aspect of the seas and the vessels that sail on them, from shipbuilding, yachting, diving, and marine mammals, to tidal power, piracy, and the literature and language of the sea. This second edition provides significant new material on topics that have come to prominence in recent times, such as oceanography and marine archaeology: key contributions on these subjects from marine expert Dr Martin Angel at Southampton Oceanography Centre include climate change, environmental issues, marine pollution, and marine wildlife. Among the many brand new entries to this edition are up-to-the-minute articles on underwater vehicles, tsunamis, warfare at sea, marine pollution, the Economic Exclustion Zone, and ship preservation. This Companion also includes authoritative and fascinating entries on maritime history: its naval battles, including Pearl Harbour and Trafalgar; its great ships, from Noah's Ark and the Bounty to the Titanic and the Mary Rose; and its most famous individuals, both real and fictional, including Christopher Columbus, Horatio Nelson, and Robinson Crusoe. Entries are fully cross-referenced, and the text is illustrated with over 260 detailed drawings, making it more accessible than ever before.

Wind in the Tower: Mao Tsetung & The Chinese Revolution, 1949-1975


Han Suyin - 1976
    (From the cover)

The Last European War: September 1939 - December 1941


John Lukacs - 1976
    Eminent historian John Lukacs presents an extraordinary narrative of these two years, followed by a detailed sequential analysis of the lives of the peoples and then of the political, military, and intellectual relations and events. “Lukacs’s book is consistently interesting, surprising, and provocative.”—James Joll, New York Times Book Review“This dispassionate, humorous, serious, and brilliantly written book marks an important step forward in our understanding of a past that is still within living memory.”—Economist“An excellent, valuable, and highly readable book. . . . It makes both fascinating and extraordinarily valuable reading. It is a major contribution to historical scholarship.”—Joseph G. Harrison, Christian Science Monitor“A brilliant, original study of what this era meant--socially, politically, artistically, intellectually--in the lives of the peoples of Europe. . . . [Lukacs’s] grasp of emotional as well as intellectual history is commanding.”—New Yorker“Deserves to be widely read, seriously considered, and vigorously debated.”—Gordon Wright, American Historical Review

Trade Unions in the Epoch of Imperialist Decay: Featuring "trade Unions: Their Past, Present, and Future" by Karl Marx


Leon Trotsky - 1976
    In this book, two central leaders of the modern communist workers movement outline the fight for this revolutionary perspective.

James I: The Fool as King


Otto Scott - 1976
    James Stuart, the tyrannical king of England.

Science and Civilisation in China, Volume 5: Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 3: Spagyrical Discovery and Invention: Historical Survey from Cinnabar Elixirs to Synthetic Insulin


Joseph Needham - 1976
    The volume as a whole covers the subjects of alchemy, early chemistry, and chemical technology (which includes military invention, especially gunpowder; paper and printing; textiles; mining and metallurgy; the salt industry; and ceramics).

Myth, Literature and the African World


Wole Soyinka - 1976
    The ways in which the African world perceives itself as a cultural entity, and the differences between its essential unity of experience and literary form and the sense of division pervading Western literature, are just some of the issues addressed. The centrality of ritual gives drama a prominent place in Soyinka's discussion, but he deals in equally illuminating ways with contemporary poetry and fiction. Above all, the fascinating insights in this book serve to highlight the importance of African criticism in addition to the literary and cultural achievements which are the subject of its penetrating analysis.

The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages


Mario Andrew Pei - 1976
    Dust jacket shiney and bright with edge wear especially at spine, not price clipped. Black boards with silver title on spine without bumping. Binding tight. Book has had little use. Pages clean, no names, marks or highlights. Proceeds benefit the Oro Valley Library.