Best of
World-History

1981

1587: A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline


Ray Huang - 1981
    First published by Yale University Press in 1981,[1] it examines how a number of seemingly insignificant events in 1587 might have caused the downfall of the Ming empire. The views expressed in the book follow the macro history perspective.

Greece and Rome at War


Peter Connolly - 1981
    These are the best and most accurate representation of how the soldiers from these formidable military empires appeared. Making use of fresh archaeological evidence and new material on the manufacture and use of the weapons of the period, the author presents an attractive and impressive scholarly volume.

The Last Courts of Europe: Royal Family Album 1860-1914


Robert K. Massie - 1981
    s/t: A Family Album of Royalty at Home & Abroad 1860-1914

India Discovered


John Keay - 1981
    How this extraordinary change in perception came about is the subject of this fascinating book. The story, here reconstructed for the first time, is one of painstaking scholarship primed by a succession of sensational discoveries. The excitement of unearthing a city twice as old as Rome, the realization that the Buddha was not a god but a historical figure, the glories of a literature as rich as anything known in Europe, the drama of encountering a veritable Sistine chapel deep in the jungle, and the sheer delight of categorizing ‘the most glorious galaxy of monuments in the world’ fell, for the most part, to men who were officials of the British Raj. Their response to the unfamiliar – the explicitly sexual statuary, the incomprehensible scripts, the enigmatic architecture – and the revelations which resulted, revolutionized ideas not just about India but about civilization as a white man’s prerogative.A companion volume by the author of the highly praised India: A History and The Great Arc.

Vanished Civilizations


Reader's Digest Association - 1981
    To paraphrase Mark Twain, however, news of the demise of bioremediation may have been exaggerated; there is still a widespread belief that bioremediation remains a viable and promising technology. Among the many topics addressed in this book, three are of particular significance. The first concerns the development of suitable toxicological tests to be used in conjunction with bioremediation strategies. Traditional reliance on chemical analysis to understand the direction and extent of treatment in a bioremediation process has been found to be inadequate. Whereas the goal of bioremediation is toxicity reduction, few direct, reliable measures of this process are as yet available. Another area of intense discussion is the assessment of market forces contributing to the acceptability of bioremediation. Finally, another important component is a series of lectures and lively exchanges devoted to practical applications of different bioremediation technologies.

No Fist Is Big Enough to Hide the Sky: The Liberation of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, 1963-74


Basil Davidson - 1981
    

Political Pilgrims: Western Intellectuals in Search of the Good Society


Paul Hollander - 1981
    Shaw to J.P. Sartre, and. closer to home, from Edmund Wilson to Susan Sontag- admire various communist systems, often in their most repressive historical phases? How could Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, or Castro's Cuba appear at one time as both successful modernizing societies and the fulfillments of the boldest dreams of social justice? Why, at the same time, had these intellectuals so mercilessly judged and rejected their own Western, liberal cultures? What Impulses and beliefs prompted them to seek the realization of their ideals in distant, poorly known lands? How do their journeys fit into long-standing Western traditions of looking for new meaning In the non-Western world?These are some of the questions Paul Hollander sought to answer In his massive study that covers much of our century. His success is attested by the fact that the phrase "political pilgrim" has become a part of intellectual discourse. Even in the post-communist era the questions raised by this book remain relevant as many Western, and especially American intellectuals seek to come to terms with a world which offers few models of secular fulfillment and has tarnished the reputation of political Utopias. His new and lengthy introduction updates the pilgrimages and examines current attempts to find substitutes for the emotional and political energy that used to be invested in them.

Everest: A Mountaineering History


Walt Unsworth - 1981
    This complete history tells the truth about many of those who have attempted to climb to the roof of the world.

Leonardo da Vinci: The Marvellous Works of Nature and Man


Martin Kemp - 1981
    Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo, takes us on a mesmerizing journey through the whole span of the great man's life, painting a fully integrated picture of his artistic, scientific, and technological achievements. Kemp shows how Leonardo's early training inFlorence provided a crucial foundation in the science of art, particularly perspective and anatomy, while his period in the service of the Sforzas of Milan enlarged his outlook to embrace a wide range of natural sciences and mathematics, as he searched for scientific rules governing both man andthe universe. It was these rules, Kemp argues, which provided the basis for his imaginative reconstruction of nature in masterworks such as the Last Supper, The Mona Lisa, and St. John, which reveal his increasingly complex vision of man in the context of nature. And towards the end of his life, Leonardo became fascinated with the mathematics underlying the design of nature, behind which lay the ultimate force of the prime mover, as manifested with supreme power in his Deluge drawings. Covering every aspect of Leonardo's achievement, generously illustrated, and now including a new introductory chapter setting Leonardo's work in its historical context, this fully updated edition provides unparalleled insight into the mind of this central figure in western art

Mr. Kipling's Army: All the Queen's Men


Byron Farwell - 1981
    The battles it fought are household words, but the idiosyncracies and eccentricities of its soldiers and the often appalling conditions under which they lived have gone largely unrecorded. Byron Farwell explores here the lives of officers and men, their foibles, gallantry, and diversions, their discipline and their rewards.

Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada


Ian Angus - 1981
    It is a story too little known, and Angus, to his credit, has done much to rectify that imbalance."-William Rodney, author of Soldiers of the International, in The Globe & MailCanadian communism did not spring out of the ground suddenly at the end of World War I, and it was not smuggled into the country by Russian agents. The men and women who built the new movement were long-time socialist and labour militants in Canada. Inspired by the Russian Revolution and by their own experiences as leaders of the post-war labour revolt in Canada, they set about to create a new kind of party, one that could lead the fight for workers' power.The new Communist Party, formed between 1919 and 1921, quickly became the largest party on the left, with strong roots and influence in the unions and basic industry. Its members led heroic strikes. They fought for labor unity, and engaged in united electoral activity with other currents in the workers movement. They were in the forefront of the struggle for democratic rights.Ten years later, the party was destroyed. Most of its founding leaders were expelled, and three quarters of its membership dropped out. The Communist Party abandoned the program it had adopted in its early years, and turned its back on its principles.The organization still called itself Communist, but it was now "Tim Buck's Party." It had been transformed from a revolutionary party into an agent of the new ruling caste in Moscow. In Canadian Bolsheviks, Ian Angus describes and explains the first attempt to build a Leninist party on Canadian soil, showing why it succeeded so well at first, and why it ultimately failed. The Second Edition of a book that has been widely hailed as a path breaking work, "the best yet to appear" on the origins of Canadian communism.

Revolutionary Empire: The Rise of the English-Speaking Empire from the Fifteenth Century to the 1780s


Angus Calder - 1981
    Calder interweaves English, Irish, Scottish and colonial events into a single pattern. He concerns himself with social and intellectual history, as well as with political and economic developments.

Turkish Nationalism and Western Civilization: Selected Essays of Ziya Gokalp


Ziya Gökalp - 1981
    

The Vivid Air, the Lafayette Escadrille


Philip M. Flammer - 1981
    A unique and elite squadron since its inception, the unit was destined for world renown even before it flew its first mission. Their role as the "vanguard of American volunteers" and the remarkably high caliber of the Lafayette Escadrille pilots easily set them apart and ignited the admiration of the world. The idealized glamour of aviation in the Great War, a direct consequence of the grim, heroless contest on the ground, highlighted combat flying and gave pilots a special place in the public imagination.Yet when the war came to its tragic end, widespread appreciation for crusading idealism lay buried in the ruins, and with it the true story of the Lafayette Escadrille. Philip Flammer's clear, fully documented study is the first complete scholarly account of this singular volunteer fighting unit, based on extensive research in Europe and the United States.

A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals


Juliet Clutton-Brock - 1981
    This new second edition of A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals explores recent progress in understanding the origins of domestication and its spread, both biologically and culturally, across the world. The author includes current archaeological evidence for the earliest dating of domestication of each species, reflecting the recent growth of such studies. This second edition is printed in full color throughout.

A Residence of Twenty-One Years in the Sandwich Islands: A Civil, Religious & Political History


Hiram Bingham - 1981
    

The Roman Empire and the Dark Ages


Giovanni Caselli - 1981
    Traces the history of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages which followed through a description of common objects, tools, clothes, dwellings, food, and day-to-day activities of the people in both the cities and in the country.

Pillars in Ethiopian Hist


Joseph E. Harris - 1981
    Harris Taken from William Leo Hansberry's private papers the four essays in Volume I, better described as narrative histories, decipher and remove from the entanglement of myth, legend and spurious historical documentation the pillars of Ethiopia's unity. The editor, Joseph Harris, is the former chairman of the Department of History at Howard University. AFRICA AND AFRICANS AS SEEN BY CLASSICAL WRITERS, The William Leo Hansberry African History Notebook Volume II Edited by Joseph E. harris volume II of the William Leo Hansberry Notebook interprets, classical comments about Africa and Africans. William Leo Hansberry is considered by many to be the father of African Studies in the United States. During the thirty-seven years that Hansberry taught at Howard University, he laid the foundations for the systematic study of African History culture and politics.

November 1918: The Last Act of the Great War


Gordon Brook-Shepherd - 1981