Best of
World-History

1997

The Rape of Nanking


Iris Chang - 1997
    This book tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved many.

Africa: A Biography of the Continent


John Reader - 1997
    . . a masterly synthesis." --The New York Times Book Review"Deeply penetrating, intensely thought-provoking and thoroughly informed . . . one of the most important general surveys of Africa that has been produced in the last decade." --The Washington PostIn 1978, paleontologists in East Africa discovered the earliest evidence of our divergence from the apes: three pre-human footprints, striding away from a volcano, were preserved in the petrified surface of a mudpan over three million years ago. Out of Africa, the world's most ancient and stable landmass, Homo sapiens dispersed across the globe.  And yet the continent that gave birth to human history has long been woefully misunderstood and mistreated by the rest of the world.In a book as splendid in its wealth of information as it is breathtaking in scope, British writer and photojournalist John Reader brings to light Africa's geology and evolution, the majestic array of its landforms and environments, the rich diversity of its peoples and their ways of life, the devastating legacies of slavery and colonialism as well as recent political troubles and triumphs. Written in simple, elegant prose and illustrated with Reader's own photographs, Africa: A Biography of the Continent is an unforgettable book that will delight the general reader and expert alike.  "Breathtaking in its scope and detail." --San Francisco Chronicle

The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin's Russia


David King - 1997
    On Stalin's orders, purged rivals were airbrushed from group portraits, and crowd scenes were altered to depict even greater legions of the faithful. In one famous image, several Party members disappeared from an official photograph, to be replaced by a sylvan glade. For the past three decades, author and photohistorian David King has assembled the world's largest archive of photographs, posters, and paintings from the Soviet era. His collection has grown to more than a quarter of a million images, the best of which have been selected for The Commissar Vanishes. The efforts of the Kremlin airbrushers were often unintentionally hilarious. A 1919 photograph showing a large crowd of Bolsheviks clustered around Lenin, for example, became, with the aid of the retoucher, an intimate portrait of Lenin and Stalin sitting alone, and then, in a later version, of Stalin by himself. The Commissar Vanishes is nothing less than the history of the Soviet Union, as retold through falsified images, many of them published here for the first time outside Russia. In each case, the juxtaposition of the original and the doctored images yields a terrifying - and often tragically funny - insight into one of the darkest chapters of modern history.

Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941


David C. Evans - 1997
    This landmark study chronicles the Imperial Navy's instrumental role in Japan's rise from an isolationist feudal kingdom to a potent military empire.

A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History


Manuel DeLanda - 1997
    A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History sketches the outlines of a renewed materialist philosophy of history in the tradition of Fernand Braudel, Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari, while engaging — in an entirely unprecedented manner — the critical new understanding of material processes derived from the sciences of dynamics. Working against prevailing attitudes that see history merely as the arena of texts, discourses, ideologies, and metaphors, De Landa traces the concrete movements and interplays of matter and energy through human populations in the last millennium. The result is an entirely novel approach to the study of human societies and their always mobile, semi-stable forms, cities, economies, technologies, and languages.De Landa attacks three domains that have given shape to human societies: economics, biology, and linguistics. In each case, De Landa discloses the self-directed processes of matter and energy interacting with the whim and will of human history itself to form a panoramic vision of the West free of rigid teleology and naive notions of progress and, even more important, free of any deterministic source for its urban, institutional, and technological forms. The source of all concrete forms in the West’s history, rather, is shown to derive from internal morphogenetic capabilities that lie within the flow of matter—energy itself.A Swerve Edition.

Ernie Pyle's War: America's Eyewitness to World War II


James Tobin - 1997
    To millions, the loss of this American folk hero seemed nearly as great as the loss of the wartime president.If the hidden horrors and valor of combat persist at all in the public mind, it is because of those writers who watched it and recorded it in the faith that war is too important to be confined to the private memories of the warriors. Above all these writers, Ernie Pyle towered as a giant. Through his words and his compassion, Americans everywhere gleaned their understanding of what they came to call “The Good War.” Pyle walked a troubled path to fame. Though insecure and anxious, he created a carefree and kindly public image in his popular prewar column—all the while struggling with inner demons and a tortured marriage. War, in fact, offered Pyle an escape hatch from his own personal hell. It also offered him a subject precisely suited to his talent—a shrewd understanding of human nature, an unmatched eye for detail, a profound capacity to identify with the suffering soldiers whom he adopted as his own, and a plain yet poetic style reminiscent of Mark Twain and Will Rogers. These he brought to bear on the Battle of Britain and all the great American campaigns of the war—North Africa, Sicily, Italy, D-Day and Normandy, the liberation of Paris, and finally Okinawa, where he felt compelled to go because of his enormous public stature despite premonitions of death. In this immensely engrossing biography, affectionate yet critical, journalist and historian James Tobin does an Ernie Pyle job on Ernie Pyle, evoking perfectly the life and labors of this strange, frail, bald little man whose love/hate relationship to war mirrors our own. Based on dozens of interviews and copious research in little-known archives, Ernie Pyle's War is a self-effacing tour de force. To read it is to know Ernie Pyle, and most of all, to know his war.

A Short History of Byzantium


John Julius Norwich - 1997
    . . . All of this he recounts in a style that consistently entertains." --The New York Times Book Review In this magisterial adaptation of his epic three-volume history of Byzantium, John Julius Norwich chronicles the world's longest-lived Christian empire. Beginning with Constantine the Great, who in a.d. 330 made Christianity the religion of his realm and then transferred its capital to the city that would bear his name, Norwich follows the course of eleven centuries of Byzantine statecraft and warfare, politics and theology, manners and art.In the pages of A Short History of Byzantium we encounter mystics and philosophers, eunuchs and barbarians, and rulers of fantastic erudition, piety, and degeneracy. We enter the life of an empire that could create some of the world's most transcendent religious art and then destroy it in the convulsions of fanaticism. Stylishly written and overflowing with drama, pathos, and wit, here is a matchless account of a lost civilization and its magnificent cultural legacy."Strange and fascinating . . . filled with drollery and horror."                          --Boston Globe

Ghost Liners: Exploring the World's Greatest Lost Ships


Robert D. Ballard - 1997
    Robert Ballard, one of the discoverers of the sunken Titanic, now retells the story of that great calamity and goes on to describe the sinking of four other seagoing giants. Showing readers what it's like to dive down to a gigantic wreck, he tells the story of the Empress of Ireland, which sank with more loss of life than was experienced on the Titanic; the Lusitania, whose sinking helped propel the United States into World War I; the Britannic, the sister ship of the Titanic, which was sunk by German submarines; and most recently the Andrea Doria, stuck and sunk off the coast of Massachusetts in 1956. With superb and thrilling illustrations by Ken Marschall, this is a book for whose interest in sea disasters has been whetted by the enormous attention the Titanic has recently received.

Ancient Egypt


David P. Silverman - 1997
    200+ color photos, maps, and charts.

Kundun: A Biography of the Family of the Dalai Lama


Mary A. Craig - 1997
    Kundun is a story of reincarnation, coronation, heartbreaking exile, and finally, the tenacious efforts of a holy man to save a nation and its people. This is the first work to focus on the Dalai Lamas family--his parents, four brothers, and two sisters. Particularly compelling are Mary Craigs portraits of the Dalai Lamas siblings, who have negotiated with China on behalf of their country, enlisted the aid of international allies to spearhead Tibetan Resistance, and worked tirelessly to help thousands of sick and starving refugee children. This remarkable book opens in 1933 with the death of the thirteenth Dalai Lama and the frantic effort among Tibetan authorities to find his reincarnation. In their search for a baby boy displaying the characteristic marks of a Dalai Lama--tiger striped legs, wide eyes, large ears, and palms bearing the pattern of a sea shell--officials were led to a tiny village in northeastern Tibet, home of Lhamo Dhondup, a smart, stubborn toddler already k

Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History


Susan Meiselas - 1997
    Today the Kurds, who live on land that straddles the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, are by far the largest ethnic group in the world without a state.Renowned photographer Susan Meiselas entered northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to record the effects of Saddam Hussein’s campaigns against Iraq’s Kurdish population. She joined Human Rights Watch in documenting the destruction of Kurdish villages (some of which Hussein had attacked with chemical weapons in 1988) and the uncovering of mass graves. Moved by her experiences there, Meiselas began work on a visual history of the Kurds. The result, Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, gives form to the collective memory of the Kurds and creates from scattered fragments a vital national archive.In addition to Meiselas’s own photographs, Kurdistan presents images and accounts by colonial administrators, anthropologists, missionaries, soldiers, journalists, and others who have traveled to Kurdistan over the last century, and, not to forget, by Kurds themselves. The book’s pictures, personal memoirs, government reports, letters, advertisements, and maps provide multiple layers of representation, juxtaposing different orders of historiographical evidence and memories, thus allowing the reader to discover voices of the Kurds that contest Western notions of them. In its layering of narratives—both textual and photographic—Kurdistan breaks new ground, expanding our understanding of how images can be used as a medium for historical and cultural representation.A crucial repository of memory for the Kurdish community both in exile and at home, this new edition appears at a time when the world’s attention has once again been drawn to the lands of this little-understood but historically consequential people.

Killing Rage


Eamon Collins - 1997
    This book is the true account of the small-town violence and terror which lies behind the headlines.

Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South’s Ancient Chiefdoms


Charles M. Hudson - 1997
    Until now, his path has been one of history's most intriguing mysteries. With Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun, anthropologist Charles Hudson offers a solution to the question, "Where did de Soto go?" Using a new route reconstruction, for the first time the story of the de Soto expedition can be laid on a map, and in many instances it can be tied to specific archaeological sites.Arguably the most important event in the history of the Southeast in the sixteenth century, De Soto's journey cut a bloody and indelible swath across both the landscape and native cultures in a quest for gold and personal glory. The desperate Spanish army followed the sunset from Florida to Texas before abandoning its mission. De Soto's one triumph was that he was the first European to explore the vast region that would be the American South, but he died on the banks of the Mississippi River a broken man in 1542.Abundantly illustrated, Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun is a clearly written narrative that unfolds against the exotic backdrop of a now extinct social and geographic landscape. Hudson masterfully chronicles both De Soto's expedition and the native societies he visited. A blending of archaeology, history, and historical geography, this is a monumental study of the sixteenth-century Southeast.

India's rebirth: Out of the Ruins of the West


Sri Aurobindo - 1997
    

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies


Jared Diamond - 1997
    one of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years."Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: the global account of the rise of civilization that is also a stunning refutation of ideas of human development based on race.In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed writing, technology, government, and organized religion—as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war—and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history.Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal

An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1600


Halil İnalcık - 1997
    The authors provide a richly detailed account of the social and economic history of the Ottoman region, from the origins of the Empire around 1300 to the eve of its destruction during World War One. The breadth of range and the fullness of coverage make these two volumes essential for an understanding of contemporary developments in both the Middle East and the post-Soviet Balkan world.

Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts


Samuel Totten - 1997
    The book assembles a group of international scholars to discuss the causes, results, and ramifications of these genocides: from the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire; to the Jews, Romani, and the mentally and physically handicapped during the Holocaust; and genocides in East Timor, Bangladesh, and Cambodia.The second edition has been fully updated and features new chapters on the genocide in the former Yugoslavia and the mass killing of the Kurds in Iraq, as well as a chapter on the question of whether or not the situation in Kosovo constituted genocide. It concludes with an essay concerning methods of intervention and prevention of future genocide.

The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought


William R. Everdell - 1997
    Louis, and St. Petersburg. William Everdell offers readers an invigorating look at the unfolding of an age.

Russia: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution


Ted Grant - 1997
    

Where the Hell Are the Guns?: A Soldier's View of the Anxious Years, 1939-44


George Blackburn - 1997
    This volume – which completes Blackburn’s award-winning trilogy, extending its coverage to the entire war – brings wartime Canada and England to life in captivating, often comic, detail. With the skill of a novelist and the instincts of a seasoned reporter, this gifted storyteller traces the evolution of Canada’s 4th Field Regiment from a motley assortment of ill-equipped recruits to the cream of the Allied artillery, more than ready to distinguish itself in the maelstrom of the battle for Normandy.The Second World War comes to a generation of Canadians one sunny September weekend in 1939. It is a Canada woefully unprepared for conflict, and 4th Field Regiment is rapidly assembled from a grab-bag of volunteers from all walks of life – many of them mavericks and misfits from a depression-ravaged land. The regiment passes its first year in Canada in makeshift accommodation, including hastily converted stables and pigsties in the exhibition grounds of Ottawa and Toronto. For the first few months the soldiers must wear incomplete and moth-eaten uniforms from the Great War, and their early training is conducted using obsolete equipment or no equipment at all. One year into the war, the regiment arrives in England without weapons or vehicles, and a month later, with Britain moving toward the greatest crisis in her history, the regiment is finally equipped with guns – French ones with wooden wheels, dating from 1898.From these inauspicious beginnings, the regiment slowly evolves – with mishap and occasionally mayhem along the way – into a proud and polished regiment, which in 1942 is declared “the best field regiment in Britain.” By the time the Allied troops land on the beaches in Normandy, the boys of 4th Field are more than ready to go to war.From the Hardcover edition.

Trail of Hope: Story of the Mormon Trail


William W. Slaughter - 1997
    Mostly poor, they traveled on ships, canal boats, trains, and riverboats, and then came on foot, in wagon trains and in handcart companies. Their story is told by two archivists with the LDS Church History Department in this beautiful book, filled with fascinating photographs.

Land of the Tiger: A Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent


Valmik Thapar - 1997
    Marked by dramatic extremes of climate and terrain, it is home to black bears, snow leopards, elephants, and flying lizards, and it is the only place in the world where both lions and tigers reside.After a lifetime devoted to the study and conservation of the tiger, Valmik Thapar turns his attention to the plants and animals that share the tiger's domain. How have so many species survived on such a crowded continent, where twenty percent of the world's population exerts intense pressure on the environment? Thapar links the region's tremendous diversity to the reverence shown to nature by Eastern religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. But fifty years after India's independence, modern and urban values are seriously eroding the subcontinent's ecosystems.Thapar's careful natural history is enriched by his personal anecdotes and musings on spirituality and culture. His own reverence for the wildlife and landscape he encounters and his brilliant photographs make this book an enthralling read, and it is also a moving argument for more vigilant nature conservation on the Indian subcontinent.

The Little Ships: The Heroic Rescue at Dunkirk in World War II


Louise Borden - 1997
    Weak and wounded, they needed aid. Help came in the form of countless small craft, steered by brave young men, in the legendary armada of "little ships" that sailed aross the English Channel. Many people wanted to be a part of the rescue mission. Here is the story of a girl who was so determined to help that she disguised herself as a boy to blend in with the men as they sailed toward Dunkirk.

Shipwreck (Eyewitness Books)


Richard Platt - 1997
    From antiquity to the modern age, this engrossing guide looks at the causes of shipwrecks, rescue technology, the exploration of shipwrecks, and restoration attempts. With fascinating facts about the bounties these underwater graves may hold, Shipwreck is a treasure-trove of information for aspiring, as well as armchair, underwater archaeologists.

Guinness Book of the Century (Guinness)


David Gould - 1997
    Over 800 photographs. Each year of the century covered in an interesting and compelling format. Political and historical events as well as popular culture that defined the year are profiled. Fascinating facts. Politics, people, science, pop culture, and everyday life are featured and profiled. Facts and data regarding births, deaths, discoveries etc. Defining events of the century.

Texts and Traditions: A Source Reader for the Study of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism


Lawrence H. Schiffman - 1997
    In new condition

The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960


Martti Koskenniemi - 1997
    He combines legal analysis, historical and political critique and semi-biographical studies of key figures, including Hersch Lauterpacht, Carl Schmitt and Hans Morgenthau. Finally, his discussion of legal and political realism at American law schools ends in a critique of post-1960 instrumentalism. This wide-ranging study provides a unique reflection on the future of critical international law.

Behind the Scenes: Domestic Arrangements in Historic Houses


Christina Hardyment - 1997
    To reconstruct the ingenious methods used by earlier generations to make a house a home and to keep themselves warm and well-fed, she squirmed through drains, poked around sculleries and cellars, and clambered into icehouses and up chimneys. The result of her explorations is an informative, amusing text that recounts not only the history of the kitchen, the bathroom, and the laundry, but also investigates bakehouses and breweries, dairies and dovecotes, the lamp room and the larder. Accompanying Hardyment's descriptions of what she found in great mansions, humble cottages, medieval castles and Victorian townhouses are archival documents and accounts and a wealth of color photographs, many taken especially for this book.

A Brutal Friendship: The West and The Arab Elite


Said K. Aburish - 1997
    Aburish traces the true origins of the region's present turmoil to the manner in which corrupt Arab rulers have subordinated the welfare of their subjects to their cultivation of cozy relationships with the West. Using direct evidence from his unrivaled range of Arab sources, he describes how the West -- mostly the CIA -- sponsored Islamic fundamentalism in the 1950s and '60s in an effort to contain Nasser and thwart Soviet designs on the region, how American and British leaders have turned a blind eye to repressive governments when they suit their interests (and toppled them when they do not), and how it is these very machinations that set Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on his bloody road to power.

More Tales From Malgudi: Mr Sampath-The Printer of Malgudi,The Financial Expert, Waiting for the Mahatma and The World of Nagaraj


R.K. Narayan - 1997
    K. Narayan's famous series based in the imaginary Indian town of Malgudi: The World of Nagaraj, Mr Sampath-Printer of Malgudi, Waiting for the Mahatma and The Financial Expert. Each of these novels demonstrates Narayan's rare talent and extraordinary gifts and are confirmed of his status as a major international writer.

American Women in World War I: They Also Served


Lettie Gavin - 1997
    Drawing heavily from interviews, diaries, letters, and memoirs, describes service in the Navy, Marines, Signal Corp, Red Cross, Salvation Army, YMCA; and as Army Nurses, reconstruc

Scalp Dance: Indian Warfare on the High Plains 1865-1879


Thomas Goodrich - 1997
    As settlers moved west following the Civil War, they found powerful Indian tribes barring the way. When the U.S. Army intervened, a bloody and prolonged conflict ensued.Drawing heavily from diaries, letters, and memoirs from American Plains settlers, historian Thomas Goodrich weaves a spellbinding tale of life and death on the prairie, told in the timeless words of the participants themselves. Scalp Dance is a powerful, unforgettable epic that shatters modern myths. Within its pages, the reader will find a truthful account of Indian warfare as it occurred.

Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians


Jeffrey Burton Russell - 1997
    Yet this curious illusion persists today, firmly established with the help of the media, textbooks, teachers--even noted historians. Inventing the Flat Earth is Russell's attempt to set the record straight. He begins with a discussion of geographical knowledge in the Middle Ages, examining what Columbus and his contemporaries actually did believe, and then moves to a look at how the error was first propagated in the 1820s and 1830s and then snowballed to outrageous proportions by the late 19th century. But perhaps the most intriguing focus of the book is the reason why we allow this error to persist. Do we prefer to languish in a comfortable and familiar error rather than exert the effort necessary to discover the truth? This uncomfortable question is engagingly answered.Inventing the Flat Earth is Jeffrey Burton Russell's attempt to set the record straight. He begins with a discussion of geographical knowledge in the Middle Ages, examining what Columbus and his contemporaries actually did believe, and then moves to a look at how the error was first propagated in the 1820s and 1830s--including how noted writers Washington Irving and Antoinne-Jean Letronne were among those responsible. He shows how later day historians followed these original mistakes, and how this snowball effect grew to outrageous proportions in the late nineteenth century, when Christians opposed to Darwinism were labelled as similar to Medieval Christians who (allegedly) thought the earth was flat. But perhaps the most intriguing focus of the book is the reason why we allow this error to persist. Do we prefer to languish in a comfortable and familiar error rather than exert the effort necessary to discover the truth? This uncomfortable question is engagingly answered, and includes a discussion about the implications of this for historical knowledge and scholarly honesty.

The Truth About Everything: An Irreverent History of Philosophy with Illustrations


Matthew Stewart - 1997
    But in this well-intended pursuit of truth, have we lost sight of what philosophy is? Matthew Stewart believes we have.His rowdy guided tour of the search for truth romps through traditional histories of philosophy using parables, imaginary dialogues, and illustrations to demonstrate that knowing theories, recognizing revered schools, and distinguishing the views of the great philosophers isn't what philosophy should be about. Once removed from the clutches of historicism, the compulsion for universal answers, and the perception that reason is a peculiarly Western possession, the nature of philosophy can be seen as a genuine human disposition to love and respect knowledge coupled with a desire for critical thinking.

...the Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age


Walter A. McDougall - 1997
    Drawing on published literature, archival sources in both the United States and Europe, interviews with many of the key participants, and important declassified material, such as the National Security Council's first policy paper on space, McDougall examines U.S., European, and Soviet space programs and their politics. Opening with a short account of Nikolai Kibalchich, a late nineteenth-century Russian rocketry theoretician, McDougall argues that the Soviet Union made its way into space first because it was the world's first "technocracy"—which he defines as "the institutionalization of technological change for state purpose." He also explores the growth of a political economy of technology in both the Soviet Union and the United States.

Macrohistory And Macrohistorians: Perspectives On Individual, Social, And Civilizational Change


Johan Galtung - 1997
    The authors move toward a general theory of grand social change based on the writings of these macrohistorians and provide a comparative view of macrohistory and sociology.The book brings a cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective to the study of social change, analyzing macrohistorians and macrohistory comparatively and synthetically, from the traditional linear-cyclical divide as well as including broader transcendental and feminist approaches. Like a road map par excellence for the study of civilizational change, the book captures the panoramic sweep of history and helps readers learn to appreciate, and henceforth include in the circle of greats, those non-Western thinkers whose work they may until now have neglected.^L ^L Johan Galtung, Sohail Inayatullah, and the other contributors to ^IMacrohistory and Macrohistorians^R demonstrate that each generation may give new perspectives to ideas that we thought we understood. The book covers the vital perspective out of which the 21st century emerges, and in the cases of Sorokin, Toynbee, and Eisler, deals with theories directly bearing on the potential shape of the next thousand years. It brings a cross-cultural and transhistorical perspective to the study of social change and will be of considerable interest to historians and sociologists as well as students of philosophy, historiography, and political science.

Black Spark, White Fire: Did African Explorers Civilize Ancient Europe?


Richard Poe - 1997
    When the reconstruction was completed in 1989, Natsef-Amun's distinctly Negroid features came as a surprise to some Egyptologists.Were the ancient Egyptians black? Some experts say yes. If so, then Western civilization may owe its existence to black Africans.In Black Spark, White Fire , award-winning journalist Richard Poe explores new and controversial evidence from linguistics, archaeology, and anthropology, suggesting that Egyptian explorers may have landed in Greece 3 to 4,000 years ago, reared cities and pyramids, established cults, and founded royal dynasties. In the process, the spark they lit may have kindled the fire of Western Civilization. Black Spark, White Fire solves the riddles to these questions and more:• Why do so many of the cities, mountains, and rivers in Greece have names that are not Greek, but Egyptian and Phoenician?• Who were the mysterious "Minyans" who built pyramids in Greece, some 2,000 years before the Golden Age of classical Athens?• Did an Egyptian army once march across Russia leaving colonists in the Caucasus?• Did the first Egyptian pharaohs come from Nubia — a lost civilization deep in the heart of Africa?With all the suspense of a mystery thriller, Black Spark, White Fire follows a slender trail of clues that leads from the highlands of Ethiopia to the barrows of the Russian steppes. It pieces together the forgotten story of an Age of Exploration that ended nearly 3,000 years before Columbus — a time when Egypt ruled the waves, Africa was the seat of learning and power, and Europe a savage frontier.

Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition


James K. Hoffmeier - 1997
    The reason for the rejection of the exodus tradition is said to be the lack of historical and archaeological evidence in Egypt. Those advancing these claims, however, are not specialists in the study of Egyptian history, culture, and archaeology. In this pioneering book, James Hoffmeier examines the most current Egyptological evidence and argues that it supports the biblical record concerning Israel in Egypt.

Educating Australia: Government, Economy and Citizen Since 1960


Simon Marginson - 1997
    The book draws on economic and sociological data, key texts and political events, anecdotes and a review of other analyses to build a picture of the role of education programs in the modernization of Australian life. It examines the implications of change for the labor market and the economy, in social policies and in cultural life. An important focus of the book is the discussion of the extension of citizenship through education.

For Women and the Nation: Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti of Nigeria


Cheryl Johnson-Odim - 1997
    She also joined the struggle for Nigerian independence as an activist in the anticolonial movement. This book presents the story of this courageous woman.

The New Woman


Sally Ledger - 1997
    By comparing the fictional representations with the lived experience of thenew woman, Ledger's book makes a major contribution to an understanding of the 'woman question' at the fin de siecle. She alights on such disparate figures as Eleanor Marx, Gertrude Dix, Dracula, Oscar Wilde, Olive Schreiner and Radclyffe Hall. Focusing mainly on the last two decades of thenineteenth century, the book's later chapters project forward into the twentieth century, considering the relationship between new woman fiction and early modernism as well as the socio-sexual inheritance of the 'second generation' new woman writers.

Rethinking the Rhetorical Tradition: From Plato to Postmodernism


James L. Kastely - 1997
    Kastely examines works by writers from Plato to Jane Austen and locates a line of thinking that values rhetoric but also raises questions about the viability of rhetorical practice. While dealing principally with literary theory, rhetoric, and philosophy, the author's arguments extend to practical concerns and open up the way to deeper thinking about individual responsibility for existing injustices, for inadvertently injuring others, and for silencing those without power. Challenging the traditional claim that Plato is the chief opponent of rhetoric, Kastely contends that he was its most sophisticated theorist. Plato, Sophocles, and Euripides, the author asserts, recognized an essential paradox: while urgently believing in the need for rhetoric in a world where injustice cannot be eliminated, they nevertheless regarded the possibilities of rhetoric with skepticism. Tracing the modern recovery of a skeptical rhetorical tradition to Jane Austen, the author argues that Sartre's work displays the incoherence within modernist thought on discourse and reveals the tensions between two strains of postmodern thought--deconstructionism and Marxism. Kastely concludes by showing how the rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke has returned to the insights of classical rhetoric in order to balance a skeptical stance toward persuasion with a commitment to act in a world with persistent injustice.

The World of Opals


Allan W. Eckert - 1997
    A stone of incredible beauty and variety, with a background rich in myth, adventure, and intrigue, it is considered by many to be the most desirable, the most handsome, and the most precious of all gemstones. The first comprehensive book on the subject in over thirty years, The World of Opals is a complete guide to the science and history of these remarkable gems. It begins with a thorough examination of the physical properties and attributes of common and precious opals, with up-to-date information on opal formation, extraction, storage, and cutting. Next, it chronicles man's involvement with the stone from 4000 B.C. to the present, following the opal through countless reversals of fortune and mythology as talisman, prognostic aid, patron stone of thieves, and bearer of bad luck. Readers will find fascinating de-tails about the discovery, whereabouts, and value of famous opals, from such classic specimens as the Burning of Troy Opal to the Bonanza Opal and other more recent discoveries. Finally, the book surveys today's major opal-producing areas and provides current information on opal occurrence worldwide. Punctuating the text are useful tables, extensive glossaries of opal types and opal-related terms, and beautiful photographs that capture the essence and mystery of this most exquisite stone. Accessible and authoritative, The World of Opals is a first-rate reference that will be consulted by mineral and gem enthusiasts for years to come. The complete guide to the science and history of opals The World of Opals contains thorough and accessible coverage of all aspects of the legendary Queen of Gems. It features the latest information on how opals are formed, where they are found, and how the stone is mined, and explores the fascinating history and mythology of opals throughout the ages. An indispensable addition to the library of every mineral and gem enthusiast, this definitive reference includes: * In-depth material on physical properties, attributes, and handling * A multifaceted examination of opal formation, opalized fossils and pseudomorphs, and opal types * Famous and distinctive opals, including weight, origin, date of discovery, and background * An up-to-date survey of major opal fields, plus an alphabetical guide to opal occurrence worldwide * Extensive glossaries of opal types and related terms, plus bibliography, tables, photographs, and more

Reflections on the Causes of Human Misery and Upon Certain Proposals to Eliminate Them


Barrington Moore Jr. - 1997
    Philosophy

The Norton History of the Human Sciences


Roger Smith - 1997
    Beginning with the Renaissance's rediscovery of Greek psychology, political philosophy, and ethics, Roger Smith recounts how the human sciences gradually organized themselves around a scientific conception of psychology, and how this trend has continued to the present day in a circle of interactions between science and ordinary life, in which the human sciences have influenced and been influenced by popular culture.

The Penguin State of the World Atlas


Dan Smith - 1997
     * The World at War * The Rise of Globalization * Control of the Seas * Control of Space * Superpowers * Population Growth * Urbanization * Traffic * Energy Use * Global Warming * Biodiversity * Stock Markets * Human Rights * Children's Rights * The Internet and Digital Media * Investment * Health and Disease Using a mainly visual analysis of data in full-color maps and graphics, Dan Smith gives shape and meaning to the statistics.

Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia


Thomas T. Allsen - 1997
    His latest book breaks new scholarly boundaries in its exploration of cultural and scientific exchanges between Iran and China. Contrary to popular belief, Mongol rulers were intensely interested in the culture of their sedentary subjects. Under their auspices, various commodities, ideologies and technologies were disseminated across Eurasia. The result was a lively exchange of scientists, scholars and ritual specialists between East and West. The book is broad-ranging and erudite and promises to become a classic in the field.

Great mysteries of the 20th century


Reader's Digest Association - 1997
    From the death of Marilyn Monroe to the disappearance of Agatha Christie (stranger than her own novels), here is the truth about spontaneous human combustion, the theories about enormous (and perfect) crop circles, and much more.

Reworking Class: Romanticism, Gender, and the Ethics of Understanding


John R. Hall - 1997
    John R. Hall argues that recent historical and intellectual developments require reworking basic assumptions about classes and their dynamics. The contributors effectively abandon the notion of a transcendent class struggle. They seek instead to understand the historically contingent ways in which economic interests are pursued under institutionally, socially, and culturally structured circumstances.In his introduction, Hall proposes a neo-Weberian venue intended to bring the most promising contemporary approaches to class analysis into productive exchange with one another. Some of the chapters that follow rework how classes are conceptualized. Others offer historical and sociological reflections on questions of class identity. A third cluster focuses on the politics of class mobilizations and social movements in contexts of national and global economic change.

The Global Past


Lanny B. Fields - 1997
    Written by experienced teachers of the course, it integrates diverse perspectives, combining a truly global approach, multidisciplinary treatment, balanced coverage, and a variety of interesting features. To provide students with a coherent framework, it places key historical themes within a chronological structure that helps students make comparisons and see connections across time and place. Abundant and creative pedagogy helps students make sense of it all; innovative ancillaries give students and teachers the tools to contend with this challenging course.

The Gendered Worlds of Latin American Women Workers: From Household and Factory to the Union Hall and Ballot Box


John D. French - 1997
    Emphasizing the integration of traditional labor history topics with historical accounts of gender, female subjectivity, and community, this volume focuses on the experience of working women at mid-century, especially those laboring in the urban industrial sector. In its exploration of working women’s agency and consciousness, this collection offers rich detail regarding women’s lives as daughters, housewives, mothers, factory workers, trade union leaders, and political activists.Widely seen as a hostile sexualized space, the modern factory was considered a threat, not only to the virtue of working women, but also to the survival of the family, and thus, the future of the nation. Yet working-class women continued to labor outside the home and remained highly visible in the expanding world of modern industry. In nine essays dealing with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala, the contributors make extensive use of oral histories to describe the contradictory experiences of women whose work defied gender prescriptions but was deemed necessary by working-class families in a world of need and scarcity. The volume includes discussion of previously neglected topics such as single motherhood, women’s struggle against domestic violence, and the role of women as both desiring and desired subjects.Contributors. Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, Mary Lynn Pedersen Cluff, John D. French, Daniel James, Thomas Miller Klubock, Deborah Levenson-Estrada, Mirta Zaida Lobato, Heidi Tinsman, Theresa R. Veccia, Barbara Weinstein

Luck and Chutzpah: Against All Odds


Harold G. Kahn - 1997
    And it was no easy task as he escaped from the Nazis through the least-used route from Amsterdam through Belgium, France and across the Pyrenees to Spain, Portugal and England. There he volunteered and spent the rest of the war with the Navy of the Dutch Government-in-exile. The story takes us up to the present day.

The Kingfisher Young People's Atlas of the World


Philip Steele - 1997
    Locator maps for each continent and country provide a clear global perspective. Succinct text, hundreds of photographs and illustrations, and easy-to-read charts of facts and figures help curious young geographers understand what life is like in these faraway places, and explore everything from customs and cultures to economic systems and climates. Includes country flags and a section on mapmaking and usage.

Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature


Mary Ellen Snodgrass - 1997
    It focuses on the feminist works from writers such as Willa Cather, George Eliot, and Helen Keller.

Showdown: The Lithuanian Rebellion and the Breakup of the Soviet Empire


Richard J. Krickus - 1997
    This gripping eyewitness account explains the forces behind the rebellion and the role that Americans played in this important event.

The Ashio Riot of 1907: A Social History of Mining in Japan


Kazuo Nimura - 1997
    Exploring an event in labor history unprecedented in the Japan of that time, Nimura uses this riot as a launching point to analyze the social, economic, and political structure of early industrial Japan. As such, The Ashio Riot of 1907 functions as a powerful critique of Japanese scholarly approaches to labor economics and social history. Arguing against the spontaneous resistance theory that has long dominated Japanese social history accounts, Nimura traces the laborers’ unrest prior to the riots as well as the development of the event itself. Drawing from such varied sources as governmental records, media reports, and secret legal documents relating to the riot, Nimura discusses the active role of the metal mining workers’ trade organization and the stance taken by mine labor bosses. He examines how technological development transformed labor-management relations and details the common characteristics of the laborers who were involved in the riot movement. In the course of this historical analysis, Nimura takes on some of the most influential critical perspectives on Japanese social and labor history. This translation of Nimura’s prize-winning study—originally published in Japan—contains a preface by Andrew Gordon and an introduction and prologue written especially for this edition.

Treacherous Women of Imperial Japan: Patriarchal Fictions, Patricidal Fantasies


Helene Bowen Raddeker - 1997
    Through examination of the careers and writings of two women convicted of conspiring to assassinate the Japanese emperor, this text offers insight into the women's interpretations of their lives and imminent deaths.

The New American Desk Encyclopedia


Concord Reference - 1997
    Completely updated an expanded Over 1.5 million copies in print The only one-volume mass market paperback encyclopedia available More than 15,000 entries Includes current people and topics such as Bill Gates, Ebola virus, NAFTA and virtual reality Covers virtually every field of knowledge 16-page guide to space, and more than 240 location maps for the United States and foreign countries

To the Other Shore: The Russian Jewish Intellectuals Who Came to America


Steven Cassedy - 1997
    This pioneer group of Jewish intellectuals, many of whom were raised in Orthodox homes, abandoned their Jewish identity, absorbed the radical political theories circulating in nineteenth-century Russia, and brought those theories with them to America. When they became leaders in the labor movement in the United States and wrote for the Yiddish, Russian, and English-language radical press, they generally retained the secularized Russian cultural identity they had adopted in their homeland, together with their commitment to socialist theories.This group includes Abraham Cahan, longtime editor of The Jewish Daily Forward and one of the most influential Jews in America during the first half of this century; Morris Hillquit, a founding figure of the American socialist movement; Michael Zametkin and his wife, Adella Kean, both journalists and labor activists in the early decades of this century; and Chaim Zhitlovsky, one of the most important Yiddish writers in modern times. These immigrants were part of the generation of Jewish intellectuals that preceded the better-known New York Intellectuals of the late 1920s and 1930s--the group chronicled in Irving Howe's World of Our Fathers.In To the Other Shore, Steven Cassedy offers a broad, clear-eyed portrait of the early Jewish emigr� intellectuals in America and the Russian cultural and political doctrines that inspired them.Originally published in 1997.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Castles in Ireland: Feudal Power in a Gaelic World


Tom McNeill - 1997
    A lord's power and prestige was displayed in the majesty and uniqueness of his castle. The remains of several thousand castles enable us to reconstruct life in Ireland during these crucial centuries.Castles in Ireland tells the story of the nature and development of lordship and power in medieval Ireland. Ireland formed the setting to the interplay of the differing roles of competing lordships: English and Irish; feudal European and Gaelic; royal and baronial. Tom McNeill argues that the design of the castles contests the traditional view of Ireland as a land torn by war and divided culturally between the English and Irish.

The Origins and Ancient History of Wine


Patrick E. McGovern - 1997
    Among the subjects covered are the domestication of the Vinifera grape, the wine trade, the iconography of ancient wine, and the analytical and archaeological challenges posed by ancient wines. The essayists argue that wine existed as long ago as 3500 BC, almost half a millennium earlier than experts believed. Discover named these findings among the most important in 1991. Featuring the work of 23 internationally known scholars and writers, the book offers the first wide ranging treatment of wine in the early history of western Asia and the Mediterranean. Comprehensive and accessible while providing full documentation, it is sure to serve as a catalyst for future research.

Sacred Shadows


Maxine Rose Schur - 1997
    She grows up torn between her desire to leave and her allegiance to her mother, who ignores thecountry's growing anti-Semitism. Then Janusz, a handsome young bout Huckley's history than they ever wanted to know! "Amiable characters, fleet pacing, and witty, in-the-know narration will keep even the non-bookish interested."-- Publishers Weekly

Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World


Jerry Brotton - 1997
    Focusing on how early European geographers mapped the territories of the Old World—Africa and Southeast Asia—Jerry Brotton contends that the historical preoccupation with Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World in 1492 has tended to obscure the importance of the mapping of territories that have been defined as “eastern.” Brotton situates the rise of early modern mapping within the context of the seaborne commercial adventures of the early maritime empires—the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Ottomans, the Dutch, and the English—and explores the ways in which maps and globes were used to mediate the commercial and diplomatic disputes between these empires. Rather than the development of early maps being shaped by disinterested intellectual pursuits, Trading Territories argues that trade, diplomacy, and financial speculation played the most essential role. “In this outstanding study of maps and mapping, Jerry Brotton reveals a dynamism in the transaction between East and West beyond anything we have previously appreciated.”—Lisa Jardine, Queen Mary, University of London