A surprise Arab attack on two fronts on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, with Israel’s reserves un-mobilized, triggered apocalyptic visions in Israel, euphoria in the Arab world, and fraught debates on both sides. Rabinovich, who covered the war for The Jerusalem Post, draws on extensive interviews and primary source material to shape his enthralling narrative. We learn of two Egyptian nationals, working separately for the Mossad, who supplied Israel with key information that helped change the course of the war; of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s proposal for a nuclear “demonstration” to warn off the Arabs; and of Chief of Staff David Elazar’s conclusion on the fifth day of battle that Israel could not win. Newly available transcripts enable us to follow the decision-making process in real time from the prime minister’s office to commanders studying maps in the field. After almost overrunning the Golan Heights, the Syrian attack is broken in desperate battles. And as Israel regains its psychological balance, General Ariel Sharon leads a nighttime counterattack across the Suez Canal through a narrow hole in the Egyptian line -- the turning point of the war.

    As varied and inventive as the volumes they hold, such buildings can be much more than the dusty, dark wooden shelves found in mystery stories or the catacombs of stacks in the basements of academia. From the great dome of the Library of Congress, to the white façade of the Seinäjoki Library in Finland, to the ancient ruins of the library of Pergamum in modern Turkey, the architecture of a library is a symbol of its time as well as of its builders’ wealth, culture, and learning. Architectural historian James Campbell and photographer Will Pryce traveled the globe together, visiting and documenting over eighty libraries that exemplify the many different approaches to thinking about and designing libraries. The result of their travels, The Library: A World History is one of the first books to tell the story of library architecture around the world and through time in a single volume, from ancient Mesopotamia to modern China and from the beginnings of writing to the present day. As these beautiful and striking photos reveal, each age and culture has reinvented the library, molding it to reflect their priorities and preoccupations—and in turn mirroring the history of civilization itself. Campbell’s authoritative yet readable text recounts the history of these libraries, while Pryce’s stunning photographs vividly capture each building’s structure and atmosphere.  Together, Campbell and Pryce have produced a landmark book—the definitive photographic history of the library and one that will be essential for the home libraries of book lovers and architecture devotees alike.

    Dollar dhesam is a novel that completely covers the political history of America in view with all of its presidents answering pertinent questions such as why dollar is valued in premium? WHen, how did america become superpower? etc., Written in Tamil is a pleasant read indeed.

    Published in Britain to great acclaim--a startling, gut-wrenching memoir of war, personal dissolution, and rebirth based on the author's experiences in Bosnia.

    It offers a behind-the-scenes examination of music from a Cuban point of view, unearthing surprising, provocative connections and making the case that Cuba was fundamental to the evolution of music in the New World. The ways in which the music of black slaves transformed 16th-century Europe, how the claves appeared, and how Cuban music influenced ragtime, jazz, and rhythm and blues are revealed. Music lovers will follow this journey from Andalucía, the Congo, the Calabar, Dahomey, and Yorubaland via Cuba to Mexico, Puerto Rico, Saint-Domingue, New Orleans, New York, and Miami. The music is placed in a historical context that considers the complexities of the slave trade; Cuba's relationship to the United States; its revolutionary political traditions; the music of Santería, Palo, Abakuá, and Vodú; and much more.

    William Bernstein's The Birth of Plenty. This newsworthy book sheds new light in the history of human progress. Bill Bernstein is no stranger to McGraw-Hill. He has written two successful investing books for us and both have exceeded expectations; The premise of Dr. Bernstein's book is fascinating as well as provocative. From the beginning of civilization until 1820, mankind experienced zero economic growth (0% GDP). This basically means that life for the average individual was no better in 5 A.D. than in 1555 A.D or 1555B.C. But after 1820, the world rapidly becomes a much more prosperous place for the average individual. What happened in 1820? Bernstein contends that there are four conditions necessary for sustained human economic progress: Property rights. Scientific rationalism. Capital markets. Communications and transportation technology. Holland, and by 1820 they were securely in place in the English-speaking world. It was not until much later that all four had spread over much of the rest of the globe. Global GDP since then has consistently been around 2%. And that 2% of growth has allowed most of the world to live in a much better place than our ancestors. While the historical aspect of Bernstein's story will appeal to certain history buffs. His book is also full of implications for today's society. Bernstein asserts that the absence of even one factor endangers economic progress and human welfare. He uses the beleaguered Middle East as one example - where the absence of capital markets and scientific rationalism have deterred the quality of life from improving. And Africa is sited as a dire example, where tragically in most of Africa all four factors are essentially absent.

    The historian John Sugden charts the period of Nelson's career neglected by earlier writers-from childhood to his breathtaking victory against the Spanish fleet at Cape St. Vincent when he became an admiral, lost an arm, and won international fame. Like Alexander of Macedon, Nelson led from the front (not always a sensible custom). But he was a natural leader and a genuine hero, and his actions invariably raised his stock with his men, who trusted him as a commander willing to share their dangers.Nelson combines groundbreaking scholarship with a vivid and compelling narrative style. Detailing every facet of Nelson's crowded life, the author offers the only full account of Nelson's early voyages and the first complete analysis of the formative incidents in his career. Throughout there are revealing and startling discoveries about Nelson's relationships with family, patrons, officers, and men-and with his women. Previous biographies have failed to penetrate the mythology encrusting one of the world's greatest naval heroes, and none has been based on a thorough examination of original sources.Nelson will immediately become the benchmark against which all subsequent books about Nelson will be judged. It is a biography of the best sort: compelling, authoritative, and thrillingly alive.

    George actually fought dragons, since dragons don't exist? Strange though they sound, however, these myths did not begin as fiction.This absorbing book shows that myths originally transmitted real information about real events and observations, preserving the information sometimes for millennia within nonliterate societies. Geologists' interpretations of how a volcanic cataclysm long ago created Oregon's Crater Lake, for example, is echoed point for point in the local myth of its origin. The Klamath tribe saw it happen and passed down the story--for nearly 8,000 years.We, however, have been literate so long that we've forgotten how myths encode reality. Recent studies of how our brains work, applied to a wide range of data from the Pacific Northwest to ancient Egypt to modern stories reported in newspapers, have helped the Barbers deduce the characteristic principles by which such tales both develop and degrade through time. Myth is in fact a quite reasonable way to convey important messages orally over many generations--although reasoning back to the original events is possible only under rather specific conditions.Our oldest written records date to 5,200 years ago, but we have been speaking and mythmaking for perhaps 100,000. This groundbreaking book points the way to restoring some of that lost history and teaching us about human storytelling.

     Argues the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11 activated a series of political and cultural responses that were profoundly colonial in nature. The first analysis of the "war on terror" to connect events in Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq. Traces the connections between geopolitics and the lives of ordinary people. Richly illustrated and packed with empirical detail.

    Within a few years, the slave insurgents forced the French administrators of the colony to emancipate them, a decision ratified by revolutionary Paris in 1794. This victory was a stunning challenge to the order of master/slave relations throughout the Americas, including the southern United States, reinforcing the most fervent hopes of slaves and the worst fears of masters.But, peace eluded Saint-Domingue as British and Spanish forces attacked the colony. A charismatic ex-slave named Toussaint Louverture came to France's aid, raising armies of others like himself and defeating the invaders. Ultimately Napoleon, fearing the enormous political power of Toussaint, sent a massive mission to crush him and subjugate the ex-slaves. After many battles, a decisive victory over the French secured the birth of Haiti and the permanent abolition of slavery from the land. The independence of Haiti reshaped the Atlantic world by leading to the French sale of Louisiana to the United States and the expansion of the Cuban sugar economy.Laurent Dubois weaves the stories of slaves, free people of African descent, wealthy whites, and French administrators into an unforgettable tale of insurrection, war, heroism, and victory. He establishes the Haitian Revolution as a foundational moment in the history of democracy and human rights.

    The war that followed had global repercussions, destroying four empires and costing millions of lives. Even the victorious countries were scarred for a generation, and we still today remain within the conflict's shadow.

    Children and parents love the activities, ranging from cooking projects to crafts, board games to science experiments, and puzzles to projects. Each Story of the World Activity Book provides a full year of history study when combined with the Textbook, Audiobook, and Tests each available separately to accompany each volume of The Story of the World Activity Book. Activity Book 3 Grade Recommendation: Grades 3-8.

    An indispensable resource for every home, office, dorm room, and library, this new edition of The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge offers in-depth explorations of art, astronomy, biology, business, economics, the environment, film, geography, history, the Internet, literature, mathematics, music, mythology, philosophy, photography, sports, theater, film, and many other subjects.   This one volume is designed to offer more information than any other book on the most important subjects, as well as provide easy-to-access data critical to everyday life. It is the only universal reference book to include authoritative and engaging essays from New York Times experts in almost every field of endeavor.

    Beginning with the Big Bang, David Christian views the interaction of the natural world with the more recent arrivals in flora and fauna, including human beings.Cosmology, geology, archeology, and population and environmental studies—all figure in David Christian's account, which is an ambitious overview of the emerging field of "Big History." Maps of Time opens with the origins of the universe, the stars and the galaxies, the sun and the solar system, including the earth, and conducts readers through the evolution of the planet before human habitation. It surveys the development of human society from the Paleolithic era through the transition to agriculture, the emergence of cities and states, and the birth of the modern, industrial period right up to intimations of possible futures. Sweeping in scope, finely focused in its minute detail, this riveting account of the known world, from the inception of space-time to the prospects of global warming, lays the groundwork for world history—and Big History—true as never before to its name.

    For more than five hours, sixty ships fought at close quarters as their occupants struggled under the constant barrage of cannon and musket fire, amid choking fumes and ear-splitting explosions. Nelson's navy was severely outgunned; twenty-seven British battleships carrying 2,150 guns faced thirty-three French and Spanish ships carrying 2,640 guns. Yet the British gunners, quicker and more disciplined, carried the day. While the men maneuvered the ships and kept the cannons firing, the women tended the sick and helped the boys carry gunpowder cartridges to the gun decks. When Nelson died in the midst of the battle, French Vice-Admiral Villeneuve remarked that "to any other nation the loss of a Nelson would have been irreparable, but in the British Fleet off Cadiz, every captain was a Nelson."" Adkins has drawn on a broad range of primary source material to write this powerful, unforgettably vivid history that captures as never before the harsh conditions in which sailors lived and died, the mechanics of nautical combat and the human costs of the conflict.

    The prairies are the heartland of the continent, a vast, windswept plain that flows from Alberta south to Texas and from the Rockies east to the Mississippi River. This is big sky country, and until recently, one of the richest and most magnificent natural grasslands in the world. Today, however, the North American prairies are among the most altered environments on Earth. Thorough, detailed, and scientifically up-to-date, Prairie: A Natural History provides a comprehensive, nontechnical guide to the biology and ecology of this fabled environment, offering a view of the past, a vision for the future, and a clear focus on the present. Sidebars throughout highlight various grasslands species, tell fascinating natural history and conservation stories, and present the traditional Native American view of the prairie and its inhabitants.

    Swift and Defoe used his experiences as inspiration in writing Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe. Captain Cook relied on his observations while voyaging around the world. Coleridge called him a genius and "a man of exquisite mind." In the history of exploration, nobody has ventured further than Englishman William Dampier. Yet while the exploits of Cook, Shackleton, and a host of legendary explorers have been widely chronicled, those of perhaps the greatest are virtually invisible today—an omission that Diana and Michael Preston have redressed in this vivid, compelling biography.As a young man Dampier spent several years in the swashbuckling company of buccaneers in the Caribbean. At a time when surviving one voyage across the Pacific was cause for celebration, Dampier ultimately journeyed three times around the world; his bestselling books about his experiences were a sensation, influencing generations of scientists, explorers, and writers. He was the first to deduce that winds cause currents and the first to produce wind maps across the world, surpassing even the work of Edmund Halley. He introduced the concept of the "sub-species" that Darwin later built into his theory of evolution, and his description of the breadfruit was the impetus for Captain Bligh's voyage on the Bounty. Dampier reached Australia 80 years before Cook, and he later led the first formal expedition of science and discovery there.A Pirate of Exquisite Mind restores William Dampier to his rightful place in history—one of the pioneers on whose insights our understanding of the natural world was built.

    Countering the commonplace assumption that politicians lost control of events, and that the war, once it began, quickly became an unstoppable machine, Stevenson contends that politicians deliberately took risks that led to war in July 1914. Far from being overwhelmed by the unprecedented scale and brutality of the bloodshed, political leaders on both sides remained very much in control of events throughout. According to Stevenson, the disturbing reality is that the course of the war was the result of conscious choices -- including the continued acceptance of astronomical casualties. In fluid prose, Stevenson has written a definitive history of the man-made catastrophe that left lasting scars on the twentieth century. Cataclysm is a truly international history, incorporating new research on previously undisclosed records from governments in Europe and across the world. From the complex network of secret treaties and alliances that eventually drew all of Europe into the war, through the bloodbaths of Gallipoli and the Somme, to the arrival of American forces, and the massive political, economic, and cultural shifts the conflict left in its wake, Cataclysm is a major revision of World War I history.

    Diarmuid Jeffreys traces the story of aspirin from the drug's origins in ancient Egypt, through its industrial development at the end of the nineteenth century and its key role in the great flu pandemic of 1918, to its subsequent exploitation by the pharmaceutical conglomerates and the marvelous powers still being discovered today.

    It saw 150,000 men - British, American and Canadian, cross the English Channel. In this title, participants in the event tell in their own words what they did or saw.

    In this brilliant look at the rise of political Islam, the distinguished political scientist and anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani brings his expertise and insight to bear on a question many Americans have been asking since 9/11: how did this happen? Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is a provocative and important book that will profoundly change our understanding both of Islamist politics and the way America is perceived in the world today.

    The last major work completed by Samir Kassir before his tragic death in 2005, Beirut is a tour de force that takes the reader from the ancient to the modern world, offering a dazzling panorama of the city's Seleucid, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, and French incarnations. Kassir vividly describes Beirut's spectacular growth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, concentrating on its emergence after the Second World War as a cosmopolitan capital until its near destruction during the devastating Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990. Generously illustrated and eloquently written, Beirut illuminates contemporary issues of modernity and democracy while at the same time memorably recreating the atmosphere of one of the world's most picturesque, dynamic, and resilient cities.

    But from the time the colonies were settled in the 1600s until the end of the Civil War in 1865, millions of black people were bought and sold like goods. Where did the slaves come from? Where did they live when they were brought to this country? What kind of work did they do? With compassion and respect for the enslaved, this book answers questions children might have about this dismal era in American history.

     In this groundbreaking new series, DK brings together fresh voices and DK design values to give readers the most information-packed, visually exciting biographies on the market today. Full-color photographs of people, places, and artifacts, definitions of key words, and sidebars on related subjects add dimension and relevance to stories of famous lives that students will love to read.

    This outstanding work of scholarship illustrates the phenomenon of the traditionalist as revisionist: the distortions of decades of Marxist historiography are overturned in Carroll's narration of the bloody struggle to preserve Western civilization in the heart of 20th century Europe.

    Here are the writings of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Halley, Hubble, and Einstein, as well as that of dozens of others who have significantly contributed to our picture of the universe. From Aristotle's proof that the Earth is round to the 1998 paper that posited an accelerating universe, this book contains 100 entries spanning the history of astronomy. Award-winning science writer Marcia Bartusiak provides enormously entertaining introductions, putting the material in context and explaining its place in the literature. Archives of the Universe is essential reading for professional astronomers, science history buffs, and backyard stargazers alike.

    Impassioned debate over situations as diverse as the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Elián Gonzáles affair is characteristic not only of modern times but of centuries of Cuban history. In this concise and up-to-date book, British journalist Richard Gott casts a fresh eye on the history of the Caribbean island from its pre-Columbian origins to the present day. He provides a European perspective on a country that is perhaps too frequently seen solely from the American point of view. The author emphasizes such little-known aspects of Cuba’s history as its tradition of racism and violence, its black rebellions, the survival of its Indian peoples, and the lasting influence of Spain. The book also offers an original look at aspects of the Revolution, including Castro’s relationship with the Soviet Union, military exploits in Africa, and his attempts to promote revolution in Latin America and among American blacks. In a concluding section, Gott tells the extraordinary story of the Revolution’s survival in the post-Soviet years.

    Rowse, Sunday Telegraph

    Together, the two men spearheaded one of the greatest intellectual revolutions in modern history, and their rivalry, usually amicable but occasionally acrimonious, forged modern evolutionary theory. Yet today, few people today know much about Wallace.The Heretic in Darwin's Court explores the controversial life and scientific contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace--Victorian traveler, scientist, spiritualist, and co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of natural selection. After examining his early years, the biography turns to Wallace's twelve years of often harrowing travels in the western and eastern tropics, which place him in the pantheon of the greatest explorer-naturalists of the nineteenth century. Tracing step-by-step his discovery of natural selection--a piece of scientific detective work as revolutionary in its implications as the discovery of the structure of DNA--the book then follows the remaining fifty years of Wallace's eccentric and entertaining life. In addition to his divergence from Darwin on two fundamental issues--sexual selection and the origin of the human mind--he pursued topics that most scientific figures of his day conspicuously avoided, including spiritualism, phrenology, mesmerism, environmentalism, and life on Mars.Although there may be disagreement about his conclusions, Wallace's intellectual investigations into the origins of life, consciousness, and the universe itself remain some of the most inspired scientific accomplishments in history. This authoritative biography casts new light on the life and work of Alfred Russel Wallace and the importance of his twenty-five-year relationship with Charles Darwin.

    Yet under the magnifying glass of David Ray Griffin, eminent theologian & author of The New Pearl Harbor, the report appears much shabbier. In fact, there are holes in the places where detail ought to be thickest: Is it possible that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has given three different stories of what he was doing the morning of 9/11, & that the Commission combines two of them & ignores eyewitness reports to the contrary? That the Commission fails even to mention Coleen Rowley, FBI whistleblower & Time person of the year? Griffin's critique of the Kean-Zelikow report makes clear that that the Commission charged with investigating all of the facts surrounding 9/11 has succeeded in obscuring, rather than unearthing, the truth.

    In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Risking their lives to discover exotic plants, these daredevil explorers joined with their sponsors to create a global culture of botany.But some secrets were unearthed only to be lost again. In this moving account of the abuses of indigenous Caribbean people and African slaves, Schiebinger describes how slave women brewed the "peacock flower" into an abortifacient, to ensure that they would bear no children into oppression. Yet, impeded by trade winds of prevailing opinion, knowledge of West Indian abortifacients never flowed into Europe. A rich history of discovery and loss, "Plants and Empire" explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations.

    The Figureheads of the campaign were singular characters like Slim, Mountbatten, Stilwell and Wingate. While its ranks were dominated by ordinary soldiers gathered 'like a whirlpool from the ends of the earth': from Britain, America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, West, East and South Africa, but overwhelmingly, from India. Jon Latimer draws these disparate strands together in a gripping narrative that encompasses everything from the widest political developments to detailed tactical operations. His focus is the experiences of thousands of ordinary people whose lives were transformed by this south-east Asian maelstrom, many of whom feel that they were forgotten. Burma ensures that none of them are.

    Who was Martin Luther? What made his theology so explosive in 16th-century Europe? Was it really his intention to start Protestantism, and with it a new church?

    But this is to overlook force employment, or the doctrine and tactics by which materiel is actually used. In a landmark reconception of battle and war, this book provides a systematic account of how force employment interacts with materiel to produce real combat outcomes. Stephen Biddle argues that force employment is central to modern war, becoming increasingly important since 1900 as the key to surviving ever more lethal weaponry. Technological change produces opposite effects depending on how forces are employed; to focus only on materiel is thus to risk major error--with serious consequences for both policy and scholarship.In clear, fluent prose, Biddle provides a systematic account of force employment's role and shows how this account holds up under rigorous, multimethod testing. The results challenge a wide variety of standard views, from current expectations for a revolution in military affairs to mainstream scholarship in international relations and orthodox interpretations of modern military history. Military Power will have a resounding impact on both scholarship in the field and on policy debates over the future of warfare, the size of the military, and the makeup of the defense budget.

    Charles Messenger’s vivid study of the landings and subsequent campaign chronicles the gradual evolution of the invasion plan, encompassing the intelligence efforts, the Ango-US strategic debate over where the Allies should attack, and the elaborate deception put in place to fool the Germans about the true D-Day objective. The build-up culminates in a day-by-day account of the landings by sea and by air on the beaches of Normandy—Utah,Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword—and the ensuing grim struggle for six weeks to break through the German defenses.At the heart of this fascinating re-creation of the D-Day campaign are seventy-one maps in full color, which incorporate the latest computer technology. Many are in fact based on the very same maps used by the Allies in 1944. Specially commissioned reconstruction drawings and 82 contemporary photographs help bring the beaches of Normandy to life.

    From 1948-54, he published six volumes of memoirs. They secured his reputation and shaped our understanding of the conflict to this day. Drawing on the drafts of Churchill's manuscript as well as his correspondence from the period, David Reynolds masterfully reveals Churchill the author. Reynolds shows how the memoirs were censored by the British government to conceal state secrets, and how Churchill himself censored them to avoid offending current world leaders. This book illuminates an unjustly neglected period of Churchill's life-the Second Wilderness Years of 1945-51, when Churchill wrote himself into history, politicked himself back into the prime-ministership, and delivered some of the most important speeches of his career.

    But conflict in the region has deep roots. Now available in paperback, Holy War in China remains the first comprehensive and balanced history of a late nineteenth-century Muslim rebellion in Xinjiang, which led to the establishment of an independent Islamic state under Ya'qub Beg. That independence was lost in 1877, when the Qing army recaptured the region and incorporated it into the Chinese state, known today as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.Hodong Kim offers readers the first English-language history of the rebellion since 1878 to be based on primary sources in Islamic languages as well as Chinese, complemented by British and Ottoman archival documents and secondary sources in Russian, English, Japanese, Chinese, French, German, and Turkish. His pioneering account of past events offers much insight into current relations.

    Ferns live in habitats from the tropics to polar latitudes, and unlike seed plants, which endow each seed with the resources to help their offspring, ferns reproduce by minute spores. There are floating ferns, ferns that climb or live on trees, and ferns that are trees. There are poisonous ferns, iridescent ferns, and resurrection ferns that survive desert heat and drought. The relations of ferns and people are equally varied. Moran sheds light on Robinson Crusoe's ferns, the role of ferns in movies, and how ferns get their names. A Natural History of Ferns provides just what is needed for those who wish to grow ferns or observe them in their habitats with greater understanding and appreciation.

    This universal truth unites three bodies of thought--economics, evolution, and history--that have developed largely in mutual isolation. Here, Geerat Vermeij undertakes a groundbreaking and provocative exploration of the facts and theories of biology, economics, and geology to show how processes common to all economic systems--competition, cooperation, adaptation, and feedback--govern evolution as surely as they do the human economy, and how historical patterns in both human and nonhuman evolution follow from this principle.Using a wealth of examples of evolutionary innovations, Vermeij argues that evolution and economics are one. Powerful consumers and producers exercise disproportionate controls on the characteristics, activities, and distribution of all life forms. Competition-driven demand by consumers, when coupled with supply-side conditions permitting economic growth, leads to adaptation and escalation among organisms. Although disruptions in production halt or reverse these processes temporarily, they amplify escalation in the long run to produce trends in all economic systems toward greater power, higher production rates, and a wider reach for economic systems and their strongest members.Despite our unprecedented power to shape our surroundings, we humans are subject to all the economic principles and historical trends that emerged at life's origin more than 3 billion years ago. Engagingly written, brilliantly argued, and sweeping in scope, Nature: An Economic History shows that the human institutions most likely to preserve opportunity and adaptability are, after all, built like successful living things.

    The book was written by award-winning author James D. Houston (1933-2009) in close collaboration with Kamae, and was designed by Barbara Pope of Honolulu-based 'Ai Pohaku Press. The 260-page book includes more than 60 historical photographs, drawings and album covers that help to chart the high points of an influential career that has spanned more than half a century.As a young man in the late 1940s, Kamae developed a jazz picking style that forever changed the status of the ukulele. He became its reigning virtuoso. For 20 years the legendary band he founded with Gabby Pahinui, The Sons of Hawaii, played a leading role in the Hawaiian cultural renaissance. By the mid 1970s Kamae himself had become a folk-hero, known for his instrumental genius and for a vigorous singing style that carries the spirit of an ancient vocal tradition into the 21st century.During the 1980s, while continuing to perform, arrange, and lead the band, Kamae launched a second career as a filmmaker, once again proving to be a cultural pioneer. In documentaries such as Listen to the Forest and Words, Earth & Aloha he found a filmic voice that speaks from deep within his own island world.Kamae's personal journey is measured by the many teachers Kamae, now 85, has met along the way, from Mary Kawena Pukui and Pilahi Paki, to 'Iolani Luahine, San Li'a Kalainaina, and "Papa" Henry Auwae. Dancers and singers, storytellers, healers, and elders have guided him in his long quest to find the sources of a rich tradition and thus to find himself.

    Mosaddeq became prime minister of Iran in May 1951 and promptly nationalized its British-controlled oil industry, initiating a bitter confrontation between Iraq and Britain that increasingly undermined Mossaddeq's position. He was finally overthrown in August 1953 in a coup d'etat that was organized and led by the United States Central Intelligence Agency. This coup initiated a twenty-five-year period of dictatorship in Iran, leaving many Iranians resentful of the U.S. legacies that still haunt relations between the two countries today.Contents include: "Mosaddeq's Government in Iranian History: Arbitrary Rule, Democracy, and the 1953 Coup" - Homa Katouzian; "Unseating Mosaddeq: The Configuration and Role of Domestic Forces" - Fakhreddin Azimi; "The 1953 Coup in Iran and the Legacy of the Tudeh" - Maziar Behrooz; "Great Britain and the Intervention in Iran, 1953" - Wm. Roger Louis; "The International Boycott of Iranian Oil and the Anti-Mossaddeq Coup of 1953" - Mary Ann Heiss; "The Road to Intervention: Factors Influencing U.S. Policy Toward Iran, 1945-1953" - Malcolm Byrne; "The 1953 Coup d'etat Against Mosaddeq" - Mark J. Gasiorowski

    Exactly 100 facts, accompanied by detailed artwork, reveal fascinating information from the beginning of time to the discovery of fire, through to state-of-the-art laser technology. Throughout there are puzzles, quizzes, and projects—learn how to use a compass, make a shadow clock, and discover how friction creates heat. So get your thinking cap on, put pen to paper, and discover some amazing new ideas!

    Fiercely protective of his privacy, and that of his partner of 40 years, he left England in the 1960s to live on the continent, where he carved a second career for himself as a bestselling autobiographer and successful novelist. Although Bogarde destroyed many of his papers, his family has made available his personal archive to John Coldstream, who knew him well in his last years.

    Drawing on the latest historical and anthropological findings, Behringer sheds new light on the history of European witchcraft, while demonstrating that witch-hunts are not simply part of the European past. Although witch-hunts have long since been outlawed in Europe, other societies have struggled with the idea that witchcraft does not exist. As Behringer shows, witch-hunts continue to pose a major problem in Africa and among tribal people in America, Asia and Australia. The belief that certain people are able to cause harm by supernatural powers endures throughout the world today. Wolfgang Behringer explores the idea of witchcraft as an anthropological phenomenon with a historical dimension, aiming to outline and to understand the meaning of large-scale witchcraft persecutions in early modern Europe and in present-day Africa. He deals systematically with the belief in witchcraft and the persecution of witches, as well as with the process of outlawing witch-hunts. He examines the impact of anti-witch-hunt legislation in Europe, and discusses the problems caused in societies where European law was imposed in colonial times. In conclusion, the relationship between witches old and new is assessed. This book will make essential reading for all those interested in the history and anthropology of witchcraft and magic.

    Tracing the dynamic relationships among plants, peoples, states, and economies over the course of three centuries, this collection of essays offers a lively challenge to a historiography that has emphasized the rise of modern botany as a story of taxonomies and pure systems of classification. Charting a new map of botany along colonial coordinates, reaching from Europe to the New World, India, Asia, and other points on the globe, Colonial Botany explores how the study, naming, cultivation, and marketing of rare and beautiful plants resulted from and shaped European voyages, conquests, global trade, and scientific exploration.From the earliest voyages of discovery, naturalists sought profitable plants for king and country, personal and corporate gain. Costly spices and valuable medicinal plants such as nutmeg, tobacco, sugar, Peruvian bark, peppers, cloves, cinnamon, and tea ranked prominently among the motivations for European voyages of discovery. At the same time, colonial profits depended largely on natural historical exploration and the precise identification and effective cultivation of profitable plants. This volume breaks new ground by treating the development of the science of botany in its colonial context and situating the early modern exploration of the plant world at the volatile nexus of science, commerce, and state politics.Written by scholars as international as their subjects, Colonial Botany uncovers an emerging cultural history of plants and botanical practices in Europe and its possessions.

    Virtually surrounded by desert, sixteen million Cairenes cling to the Nile and each other, proximities that color and shape lives. Packed with incident and anecdote Cairo: City of Sand describes the city's given circumstances and people's attitudes of response. Apart from a brisk historical overview, this book focuses on the present moment of one of the world's most illustrious and irreducible cities.Cairo steps inside the interactions between Cairenes, examining the roles of family, tradition and bureaucracy in everyday life. The book explores Cairo's relationship with its "others", from the French and British occupations to modern influences like tourism and consumerism. Cairo also discusses characteristic styles of communication, and linguistic mêmes, including slang, grandiloquence, curses and jokes.Cairo exists by virtue of these interactions, synergies of necessity, creativity and the presence or absence of power. Cairo: City of Sand reveals a peerless balancing act, and transmits the city's overriding message: the breadth of the human capacity for loss, astonishment and delight.

    His Science and Civilisation in China series caused a seismic shift in western perceptions of China, revealed as perhaps the world's most scientifically and technically productive country in pre-modern times. But why did the scientific and industrial revolutions not happen in China? Joseph Needham reflects on possible answers to this question in the concluding volume of this series and provides fascinating insights into his great intellectual quest.

    Ruth Price traces Agnes Smedley's unlikely trajectory from a small Missouri town to the coal country of Colorado; to Berkeley and Greenwich Village; to Berlin, Moscow, and China. Fueled by a fury at injustice, Smedley threw herself headlong into the crucial issues of the time, from Indian independence to birth control, women's rights, and the revolution in China. Her friends included such figures as Margaret Sanger, Langston Hughes, Emma Goldman, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mao Zedong, and many others. Perhaps most important, Price uncovers an astonishing truth: Smedley, long thought to be the unfair target of a Cold War smear campaign, was indeed guilty of the espionage charges leveled against her by General Douglas MacArthur and others. Smedley worked to foment armed revolution in India and gathered intelligence for the Soviet Union, seeing it as a bulwark against fascism. Price argues that Smedley acted out of a passionate idealism and that she exhibited a courage and compassion worthy of a renewed, if more complicated, admiration today. Epic in scope, painstakingly researched, and unflinchingly honest, The Lives of Agnes Smedley offers a stunning reappraisal of one of America's most controversial Leftists and a new look at the troubled historical terrain of the first half of the twentieth century.

    Yet few people know much about them.This comprehensive study includes more than twenty contributions from members, ex-members, and academics who have followed the Hare Krishna movement for years. Since the death of its founder, the movement, also known as the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), has experienced debates over the roles of authority, heresy, and dissent, which have led to the development of several splinter movements. There is a growing women's rights movement and a highly publicized child abuse scandal. Providing a privileged look at the people and issues shaping ISKCON, this volume also offers insight into the complex factors surrounding the emergence of religious traditions, including early Christianity, as well as a glimpse of the original seeds and the germinating stages of a religious tradition putting down roots in foreign soil.

    For everyone, whether combatant or not, it is the most testing of times, when the old certainties and moral imperatives cannot be guaranteed. Life hangs by a gossamer thread and many people who would otherwise not keep diaries feel the need to record what they see, feel and do. Arranged like a diary, The Secret Annexe tells many individual stories - some horrific, some hilarious - of many wars down the ages, with several compelling entries for each day of the year. The diarists come from every walk of life, from friend and foe, from anonymous foot-soldiers to those charged with orchestrating battle, from the Home Front to the Holocaust, from famous writers, political leaders and fighting men and women to ordinary working people enveloped by events over which they have little influence. Together they contribute to the most intimate insight into what's been described as "the most exciting and dramatic thing in life". Complementing the diary entries are comprehensive biographies and bibliographies of the diarists as well as summaries of each of the wars covered..

    The author traveled to Iran and Europe to interview participants whom previous books had ignored, so for the first time we also get the full, inside story of what happened.

    The three wars to be investigated here are (1) the Persian Wars, between a coalition of Greek city-states or “poleis,” most notably Athens and Sparta, and the Achaemenid Persian empire, the central and decisive portion of which took place between 490 and 479 B.C.E.; (2) the later Peloponnesian War between Athens and her allies and Sparta and hers, 431-404 B.C.E.; and finally (3) the three Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage, which stretched, on and off, for well more than a century, from 264 to 146 B.C.E.Each of these wars helped, in profound and perhaps surprising ways, to shape, even still, our ideals, our identity, and our values. Course SyllabusLecture 1: The Persian Wars: Greece and Persia, the Opening Rounds Lecture 2: The Persian Wars: Darius, Miltiades, and the Battle of Marathon Lecture 3: The Persian Wars: Xerxes, Leonidas and the 300 Spartans, the Battle of Thermopylae Lecture 4: The Persian Wars: Xerxes, Themistocles, and the Battle of Salamis Lecture 5: The Persian Wars: Mardonius and the Final Victory of Greece: The Battles of Plataea and Mycale Lecture 6: The Peloponnesian War: The Outbreak, Pericles, and the Plague Lecture 7: The Peloponnesian War: Melos and Mytilene, Athens Overreaches Lecture 8: The Peloponnesian War: Alcibiades, Nicias, and Syracuse; Sparta Sends a General Lecture 9: The Peloponnesian War: Arginousai, Aegospotomoi, Lysander and the Bitter End Lecture 10: The Punic Wars: Rome and Carthage, the First Punic War Lecture 11: The Punic Wars: The Second Punic War, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, Lake Trasimene Lecture 12: The Punic Wars: Carthage Triumphant, the Battle of Cannae, Fabius Maximus—Cunctator Lecture 13: The Punic Wars: Rome Wins at Last, Scipio Africanus and Zama Lecture 14: The Punic Wars: “Cartago Delinda Est,” the Third Punic War

    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

    Detailed, atmospheric illustrations, revealing photographs and lively descriptions engage and encourage readers to discover for themselves a part of the world's exciting history. Every page is designed to capture the imagination and stimulate curiosity. A dramatic four-page foldout scene and vivid drawings take young readers into the heart of the topic.

    A board of specialists from various disciplines was assembled to reflect all aspects of knowledge from a global and gender-inclusive perspective, which allows readers to trace ideas and concepts across culture and time periods.

    Written mainly in Greek, Latin and Syriac, it emanated from all parts of the early Christian world and helped extend its boundaries. This History offers a systematic account of that literature and its setting. The work of individual writers is considered alongside three general essays that survey the social, cultural and doctrinal context within which Christian literature arose.

    In 2003, the Pentagon discovered, through the use of satellite technology, an anomaly beneath this ancient sphinx. This book chronicles the discovery of these modern day artefacts.

    armed forces during World War II, and millions more worked and sacrificed at home to help the Allied cause to defeat the Axis powers. At the close of the war, America had become the leading nation on the global stage, and its veterans returned home to forge a vibrant postwar society. Written under the direction of two distinguished historians, The World War II Desk Reference explains in clear prose, backed by rosters of statistics, time lines, and maps, the global cataclysm that was World War II.But this volume is not a typical almanac. With material ranging from battlefronts to important military commanders to armaments, among the backdrop of all the necessary political, social, and economic factors, Douglas Brinkley and Michael E. Haskew's reference will prove invaluable to readers. Photographs, lists, time lines, tables, glossaries, and maps encapsulate many pieces of complicated information, making The World War II Desk Reference immensely browsable. The book also includes a helpful resource on national World War II monuments, organizations, and museums.Throughout the book, you'll find oral histories culled from several sources, including the Eisenhower Center for American Studies at the University of New Orleans, which holds the world's largest repository of valuable letters, journals, and other war-related records. Excerpted from those who fought on both sides, these accounts add a deeply touching, profoundly personal dimension seldom found in other books on World War II.In a modern world plagued by terrorism, dictators, and weapons of mass destruction, Brinkley and Haskew's seminal work reminds us that America's role in World War II led to a truly monumental victory. For World War II enthusiasts, history buffs, and anyone interested in our nation's history, this is the one book to own.

    the collapse of the Uighur steppe empire in 840 C.E., and the subsequent fleeing of large numbers of Uighur refugees to China s northern frontier. Through a translation of seventy relevant documents the author analyzes the rhetoric of the crisis, as well as its aftermath. The extant writings of Li Deyu uniquely allow an in-depth look into Chinese-Inner Asian relations, very unusual for such an early period. This volume permits us a close look at the workings of the late Tang government, particularly in terms of policy formation and implementation, as well as the rhetoric surrounding such activities."

    

    Tracing the stylistic and functional threads that unite clothing across time and cultures, as well as delving into the divergent styles and significance of apparel, this A to Z encyclopedia is the essential resource for exploring the relationship between culture and couture. A new addition to the Scribner Daily Life series, which includes the best-selling Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, this broad-based encyclopedia surveys clothing and body adornment, and examines the origins of clothing, the development of fabrics and technologies, and the social meanings of dress. It also presents information on representative costumes from a wide variety of historical eras. Topics range from the bustle, sari, and toga to Polyester and body piercing. cocktail dress, bathing suit, burqua, Nehru jacket), techniques and manufactures (batik, dry cleaning, zipper, stone washing), body adornment (makeup, mask, tattoo, wig), and important persons and institutions (Coco Chanel, Edith Head, Yves Saint-Laurent, Fashion Institute of Technology). The longer essays provide cultural context: class, gender, sumptuary laws, costume design for stage and screen, advertising; fashion careers; ecclesiastical dress; military uniforms; etc. The Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion includes a comprehensive general index in the last volume, a timeline, and a topical outline. From the secondary school student writing a paper on dress among Native Americans to the university student interested in the underpinnings of clothing design, this set represents a unique and valuable source.

    This book examines the historical forces that led to the development of the system of apartheid, what life was like under the system for both blacks and whites, and the efforts that caused the end of this system.

    As the story of Renaissance Europe was never told in a single volume of Guerber’s histories, but rather piecemeal throughout several volumes, Christine Miller has taken those portions of The Story of Old France and The Story of the English by H. A. Guerber which do tell the story of the Renaissance and Reformation, and has woven them together into a single, seamless narrative, carefully preserving Guerber’s own style. Other sources for additional material include Charlotte Yonge’s A Young Folk’s History of Germany, The Story of the Christians and Moors of Spain, and Frederic Seebohm’s The Era of the Protestant Revolution, among others (an extensive bibliography of sources is included). Where necessary, the chapters authored by C. M. Yonge and F. Seebohm have been re-written in Guerber’s unique style to preserve the continuity and consistency of the narrative throughout.As with the other Guerber histories republished by Nothing New Press, The Story of the Renaissance and Reformation is illustrated throughout with famous paintings of its historical subjects, and photographs of the places it describes. Not only are maps present in the beginning of the book, but throughout the text as well, which greatly aids in making the narrative more clear. And as with the other Guerber histories, the pronunciation of personal and place names are carefully marked in the text upon their first occurrence. A complete timeline of the events and persons mentioned in the text, a comprehensive Recommended Reading list keyed to the chapters, and a thorough bibliography and index rounds out the book.

    They were part of a greater scheme, one which involved Islamic terrorists and at least one provable link to Iraq. This book, written by the relentless reporter who first broke the story of the Mideast connection, is filled with new revelations about the case and explains in full detail the complete, and so far untold, story behind the failed investigation-why the FBI closed the door, what further evidence exists to prove the Iraqi connection, why it has been ignored, and what makes it more relevant now than ever. Told with a gripping narrative style and rock-solid investigative journalism and vetted by men such as former CIA director James Woolsey, Davis's piercing account is the first book to set the record straight about what really happened April 19, 1995.

    During this period large numbers of British and allied troops were tied up in the strategically vital Balkans. Salonika was converted into a vast military base and over 70 miles of defensive works were created.We learn of the disappointments of the British XII Corps offensive in April/May 1917 (The First Battle of Doiran) and the more successful aggressive raiding in the Struma Valley. Using first hand accounts, a vivid picture of life for the British Army is painted, with the roles of the Royal Flying Corps/RAF and RNAS well covered.The campaign drew to a victorious conclusion with the defeat of the Bulgarians in 1918 but the British Salonika Army remained in place until 1921. The effect of this slow demobilization is also covered.

    The verbal banquet comes courtesy of such diverse figures as Herodotus, Charlemagne, Dante, Shakespeare, Thomas More, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Harriet Tubman, Rasputin, Lenin, Nehru, Al Capone, Churchill, Charles Lindbergh, Mao, Gloria Steinem, Susan Sontag, and hundreds more. These aren’t quick one-liners, but richly detailed and generous excerpts from speeches, documents, literature, and other sources. Every continent and every major civilization receives representation and enlightening commentary, with topics ranging from the toppling of nations to the changes in science. All the quotations have annotations, with details about sources.

    For over a thousand years the sword was revered as the very soul of the samurai warriors who wielded it, commanding awe, respect, and an almost religious devotion. The tumultuous events of modern Japanese history and the nation's relentless drive toward technological advancement, however, irrevocably sealed the sword's fate, and, along with the samurai class, the sword became an anachronism, both culturally and militarily.As Japan entered a period of unprecedented Imperial expansion in the early twentieth century, the Japanese sword, despite its limited practical effect, became a feature of the soldier's arsenal-an echo of the mythical status it enjoyed in feudal times. The Yasukuni swords emerged during the build-up to World War II, in part to help meet the huge demands of the Imperial Army, but more importantly out of a desire to preserve time-honored forging methods, and to revive the spirit of the samurai. For these reasons, they were notably distinct from so-called "Showa-to," which were mass-produced and inferior in quality and artistry.All swords were banned in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and the decades that followed have seen a decline in the popularity of Yasukuni swords, largely because of their associations with that war and the military. Another factor has been the stigma attached to Showa-to, which has helped to stereotype wartime swords in general.Recent years, however, have seen a renewed interest in the surviving Yasukuni swords. Many collectors and appraisers have acknowledged the workmanship of these swords as displaying a perfect blend of technology and tradition, and a quality that can rival even that of the great classical smiths.In his tribute to the Yasukuni smiths, acclaimed photographer and sword enthusiast Tom Kishida has compiled an extensive study of these rare and exceptional swords, drawing on a variety of sources to shed light on this often little-understood chapter of Japanese sword history. With his unique eye for capturing the beauty of the blades in his photographs, he has provided the reader with the most lavishly detailed book on Yasukuni swords to date. This will be an important addition to the libraries of specialists and connoisseurs, and to those who wish to deepen their understanding of these fascinating wartime weapons.

    Featured topics include the constructed nature of ethnicity, class and the new racism, different forms of nationalism, self-determination and indigenous politics, the politics of recognition versus the politics of redistribution, and the re-emergence of cosmopolitanism.

    Based largely on recently declassified intelligence records, this narrative history thoroughly explores these relations, details Allied secret operations and sheds new light on the intense rivalry between the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) and the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

    It contains nearly 1,200 entries written by an international team of specialists, to enable readers to explore a range of diverse and fascinating cultural subjects from prisons to rock groups, underground Christian churches to TV talk shows and radio hotlines. Experimental artists with names such as 'Big-Tailed Elephants' and 'The North-Pole Group' nestle between the covers alongside entries on lotteries, gay cinema, political jokes, sex shops, theme parks, 'New Authoritarians' and 'Little Emperors'.While the focus of the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture is on mainland China since 1980, it also includes longer, specially commissioned entries on various aspects of contemporary culture in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Including full and up-to-date references for further reading, this is an indispensable reference tool for all teachers and students of contemporary Chinese culture. It will also be warmly embraced as an invaluable source of cultural context by tourists, journalists, business people and others who visit China.

    African countries are among the world's poorest. Hunger is common, and jobs are rare. Many countries are torn by ongoing wars. Others are devastated by disease. This title gives an overview of the natural features, history, economy, and cultures of this continent.

    His discovery of the sea route to India established, for the first time, direct contact between Europe and East Asia, ushering in a period of rich commercial and artistic exchange. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the V&A in Autumn 2004 (23 September-5 December 2004), this sumptuously illustrated volume traces the links between these two cultures over three centuries and explores their ongoing fascination with each other - a fascination that persists to this day. The book is divided into three sections: Discoveries is about exploration from East to West and from West to East; Encounters deals with relationships - diplomatic, missionary and personal - highlighting some of the colourful characters that inhabited this period of history; while Exchanges focuses on trade, particularly in luxury goods, which gave rise to a cross-fertilisation of styles and tastes. This resulted in some truly remarkable works of art, some of which are illustrated here for the first time.

    flag was being lowered while the Philippine flag was being raised, and the two became entangled. In The Star-Entangled Banner, Sharon Delmendo demonstrates that this incident is indicative of the longstanding problematic relationship between the two countries. When faced with a national crisis or a compelling need to reestablish its autonomy, each nation paradoxically turns to its history with the other to define its place in the world.Each chapter of the book deals with a separate issue in this linked history: the influence of Buffalo Bill’s show on the proto-nationalism of José Rizal, who is often described as the “First Filipino”; the portrayal of the Philippines in American children’s books; Back to Bataan, a World War II movie starring John Wayne; the post-independence fiction of F. Sionil José; and the refusal of the U..S military to return the Balangiga Bells, which were taken as war booty during the Philippine-American War. Ultimately, Delmendo demonstrates how the effects of U.S. imperialism in the Philippines continue to resonate in U.S. foreign policy in the post cold war era and the war on terrorism.

    Alejandra Bronfman traces the formation of Cuba's multiracial legal and political order in the early Republic by exploring the responses of social scientists, such as Fernando Ortiz and Israel Castellanos, and black and mulatto activists, including Gustavo Urrutia and Nicolas Guillen, to the paradoxes of modern nationhood.Law, science, and the social sciences--which, during this era, enjoyed growing status in Cuba as well as in many other countries--played central roles in producing knowledge and shaping social categories in postindependence Cuba. Anthropologists, criminologists, and eugenicists embarked on projects intended to employ the tools of science to rid Cuba of the last vestiges of a colonial past. Meanwhile, the legal arena created both new freedoms and new modes of repression. Black and mulatto intellectuals and activists, working to ensure that citizenship offered concrete advantages rather than empty promises, appropriated changing social scientific and legal categories and turned them to their own uses. In the midst of several decades of intermittent racial violence and expanding social and political mobilization by Cubans of African descent, debates among intellectuals and activists, state officials, and legislators transformed not only understandings of race, but also the terms of citizenship for all Cubans.

    To study this transition from universalism to cultural particularism, Richard King focuses on the arguments of major thinkers, movements, and traditions of thought, attempting to construct a map of the ideological positions that were staked out and an intellectual history of this transition.King's range is international, from North American and European concerns, to the Negritude movement of Africa and the Caribbean, to arguments raised at the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. And his comparisons embrace a diversity of subjects, such as anti-Semitism and anti-black racism, and political, psychological, and sociological models of oppression, accommodation, and resistance. This study explores the intellectual roots of current debates over such topics as affirmative action, multiculturalism, cultural relativism, and humanism. Among thinkers who receive sustained attention are Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka, Bruno Bettelheim, Harold Cruse, Stanley Elkins, Ralph Ellison, Frantz Fanon, E. Franklin Frazier, Raul Hilberg, Max Horkheimer, C. L. R. James, Albert Memmi, Albert Murray, Gunnar Myrdal, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Richard Wright.

    Follow dramatic, political power struggles, German scientists switching allegiance and what happened to early rockets transporting fruit flies into space.Peter Ackroyd brilliantly explains the era of space travel in this first title in his epic new 10-volume history of the world for children. Let the voyage begin.

    Written by a group of experts in the field, this book surveys what happened to the Western 'art' tradition alongside the development of jazz, popular music, and world music, linking the history of music with that of its social contexts.

    This beautifully written biography puts the record straight. Born in 1908 in Portsmouth into a naval family, she seized independence at the first opportunity, making a penurious life for herself in London as a furniture painter at Peter Jones, before signing up as a wartime ambulance driver - although she had never learned to drive. Her personality was as idiosyncratic her novels. Her husband, Reggie Smith, was equally a 'character' - a BBC producer, self-proclaimed communist and life-long philanderer. Both indulged in affairs, but their unusual marriage was sustained by his lifelong support for his wife's gifts. After their adventurous war (Reggie was then in the British Council - and probably a spy) they became the centre of London literary life, numbering among their close friends Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark, Stevie Smith, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Anthony Burgess and Laurence Durrell. Olivia Manning died in 1980 in their house on the Isle of Wight; a cat lover, she left most of her money to the Wood Green Animal sanctuary.

    Hardcover

    S. Pritchett was described by Eudora Welty as “one of the great pleasure-givers in our language.” Here is a true literary event: the first major biography of this extraordinary writer, who for most of a century ennobled the ordinary, and the affecting story of the two tumultuous marriages that fueled his art.He would become universally known as V.S.P., but he began life as Victor–named for Queen Victoria–in 1900. His imagination was both an inheritance from and an inoculation against his unpredictable father: a charming spendthrift who went bankrupt in a variety of businesses. For Victor, writing ultimately became a way to turn the pain of his past into security.As a reporter in the 1920s, Pritchett was posted to some of the trouble spots of Europe, including pre-Civil War Spain, but he preferred travel to politics, honing the acute perception of common people that he used to great effect in his fiction. His youthful marriage to a better-born aspiring actress was his first crisis, leaving him in sexual misery, comforted only by the “inner riot” of his imagination.His affair with and marriage to Dorothy Roberts, in his mid-thirties, changed his life. Passionate and forceful, she became Pritchett’s support and secretary, helping him to develop his voice in short stories, novels, literary journalism, and memoirs. His work dramatized the world of his native lower middle class, showing how “every life is interesting.” Their union produced two children and a cache of stunning erotic letters, published in part here for the first time. But as Pritchett’s international fame as an author and critic grew, so did the couple’s separations. Already a serious drinker, Dorothy became an alcoholic. Pritchett took an American mistress while in residence at Princeton, causing a painful and prolonged domestic crisis.Illuminating the connections between events in his life and famous works such as his novel Mr. Beluncle, dramatizing the friendships Pritchett forged with other writers, particularly Gerald Brenan, and cogently analyzing the undeserved eclipse his reputation would suffer immediately after his death, Jeremy Treglown’s V. S. Pritchett is the complete story of a popular, influential, deceptively simple author, a man to whom, he once misleadingly claimed, “nothing continues to happen.”

    Alexander inherited the throne of Macedonia at the age of twenty and, in his short life, conquered the then-know world--Alexander's armies reached as far east as the Ganges. This fully-illustrated book separates the history from the myth in Alexander's life and tells the story of one of the greatest, and most feared, leaders in history.