But Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range maritime empire. In an astonishing blitz of thirty years, a handful of visionary and utterly ruthless empire builders, with few resources but breathtaking ambition, attempted to seize the Indian Ocean, destroy Islam and take control of world trade.Told with Roger Crowley's customary skill and verve, this is narrative history at its most vivid - an epic tale of navigation, trade and technology, money and religious zealotry, political diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance, courage and terrifying brutality. Drawing on extensive first-hand accounts, it brings to life the exploits of an extraordinary band of conquerors - men such as Afonso de Albuquerque, the first European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire - who set in motion five hundred years of European colonisation and unleashed the forces of globalisation.

    But today’s conflict is only the latest in a long history of battles over Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign nation. As award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy argues in The Gates of Europe, we must examine Ukraine’s past in order to understand its fraught present and likely future.Situated between Europe, Russia, and the Asian East, Ukraine was shaped by the empires that have used it as a strategic gateway between East and West—from the Romans and Ottomans to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, all have engaged in global fights for supremacy on Ukrainian soil. Each invading army left a lasting mark on the landscape and on the population, making modern Ukraine an amalgam of competing cultures.

    The world is changing dramatically and in an age of Brexit and Trump, the themes of isolation and fragmentation permeating the western world stand in sharp contrast to events along the Silk Roads, where ties are being strengthened and mutual cooperation established.This prescient contemporary history provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected. Following the Silk Roads eastwards from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, Peter Frankopan assesses the global reverberations of continual shifts in the centre of power – all too often absent from headlines in the west.The New Silk Roads asks us to re-examine who we are and where we stand in the world, illuminating the themes on which all our lives and livelihoods depend.The Silk Roads, a major reassessment of world history, has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

    Based on decades of scholarship, documentation newly available from the opening of Soviet archives, declassification of Western intelligence service records, as well as diaries and reports written in the camps, Cesarani provides a sweeping reappraisal that challenges accepted explanations for the anti-Jewish politics of Nazi Germany and the inevitability of the “final solution.” The persecution of the Jews, as Cesarani sees it, was not always the Nazis’ central preoccupation, nor was it inevitable. He shows how, in German-occupied countries, it unfolded erratically, often due to local initiatives. For Cesarani, war was critical to the Jewish fate. Military failure denied the Germans opportunities to expel Jews into a distant territory and created a crisis of resources that led to the starvation of the ghettos and intensified anti-Jewish measures. Looking at the historical record, he disputes the iconic role of railways and deportation trains. From prisoner diaries, he exposes the extent of sexual violence and abuse of Jewish women and follows the journey of some Jewish prisoners to displaced persons camps. David Cesarani’s Final Solution is the new standard chronicle of the fate of a heroic people caught in the hell that was Hitler’s Germany.

    But in the aftermath of the assassination in Sarajevo, the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and not even the Middle East could escape the vast and enduring consequences of one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. The Great War spelled the end of the Ottomans, unleashing powerful forces that would forever change the face of the Middle East.In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict. Bolstered by German money, arms, and military advisors, the Ottomans took on the Russian, British, and French forces, and tried to provoke Jihad against the Allies in their Muslim colonies. Unlike the static killing fields of the Western Front, the war in the Middle East was fast-moving and unpredictable, with the Turks inflicting decisive defeats on the Entente in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Gaza before the tide of battle turned in the Allies' favor. The great cities of Baghdad, Jerusalem, and, finally, Damascus fell to invading armies before the Ottomans agreed to an armistice in 1918.The postwar settlement led to the partition of Ottoman lands between the victorious powers, and laid the groundwork for the ongoing conflicts that continue to plague the modern Arab world. A sweeping narrative of battles and political intrigue from Gallipoli to Arabia, The Fall of the Ottomans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East.

    It looks at wars and disasters; introduces artists, explorers and leaders; shows us living in castles, yurts and skyscrapers. And it does not neglect the imagination—here too are dragons, mythical figures and TV characters, alongside world-changing inventions borne from the imaginations of scientists and explorers. Each scene puts global events in perspective, in space and time.

    But this conventional narrative is not the full story.In Church of Spies, the intelligence expert Mark Riebling draws on a wealth of recently uncovered documents to argue that, far from being Hitler’s lackey, Pius was an active anti-Nazi spymaster. He directed a vast network of Vatican operatives—priests and laypeople alike—who partnered with the German resistance, tipped the Allies off to Hitler’s invasions of France and Russia, and involved themselves in three separate plots to assassinate Hitler.A fast-paced and gripping tale of secrecy, danger, and self-sacrifice, Church of Spies takes readers from hidden crypts beneath the Vatican to Nazi bunkers in Germany to chart the true legacy of Pius’s secret war. Although these revelations do not excuse Pius’s public silence during the war, they provide us with a deeper understanding of the man reviled by so many.

    Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering over 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century AD. An unashamedly big history, it charts the development of European, Near Eastern, and Chinese civilizations and the growing links between them by way of the Indian Ocean, the silk Roads, and the great steppe corridor (which crucially allowed horse riders to travel from Mongolia to the Great Hungarian Plain within a year). Along the way, it is also the story of the rise and fall of empires, the development of maritime trade, and the shattering impact of predatory nomads on their urbanneighbours. Above all, as this immense historical panorama unfolds, we begin to see in clearer focus those basic underlying factors - the acquisitive nature of humanity, the differing environments in which people live, and the dislocating effect of even slight climatic variation - which have driven change throughout the ages, and which help us better understand our world today.

    Over the course of five years, author Kimberly Kay Hoang worked at four exclusive Saigon hostess bars catering to diverse clientele: wealthy local Vietnamese and Asian businessmen, Viet Kieus (ethnic Vietnamese living abroad), Western businessmen, and Western budget-tourists. Dealing in Desire takes an in-depth and often personal look at both the sex workers and their clients to show how Vietnamese high finance and benevolent giving are connected to the intimate spheres of the informal economy. For the domestic super-elite who use the levers of political power to channel foreign capital into real estate and manufacturing projects, conspicuous consumption is a means of projecting an image of Asian ascendancy to potential investors. For Viet Kieus and Westerners who bring remittances into the local economy, personal relationships with local sex workers reinforce their ideas of Asia’s rise and Western decline, while simultaneously bolstering their diminished masculinity. Dealing in Desire illuminates Ho Chi Minh City’s sex industry as not just a microcosm of the global economy, but a critical space where dreams and deals are traded.

    56 of them did not return. Despite these catastrophic losses, the raid became an enormous propaganda triumph. The survivors were feted as heroes and became celebrities of their time.They had been brought together for one specific task – so what happened next? Of the 77 men who made it home from that raid, 32 would lose their lives later in the war and only 45 survived to see the victory for which they fought.Few are aware of the extent of the Dambuster squadron’s operations after the Dams Raid. They became the ‘go to’ squadron for specialist precision attacks, dropping the largest bombs ever built on battleships, railway bridges, secret weapon establishments, rockets sites and U-boat construction pens. They were involved in attempts on the lives of enemy leaders, both Hitler and Mussolini, created a ‘false fleet’ on D-day which fooled the Germans, and knocked out a German super gun which would have rained 600 shells an hour on London.In ‘After The Flood’, John Nichol retraces the path of 617 Squadron’s most dangerous sorties as their reputation called them into action again and again.

    Now, to mark the 175th anniversary of photography and the birth of photojournalism, the Editors of TIME magazine are publishing this companion book to the groundbreaking digital celebration of photography that TIME.com will be mounting online, displaying the most influential photographs of all time. While they may not be the most famous or well-known photographs, each one is unique for the way in which it changed, influenced, or commemorated a particular world event. From the first sports photograph to ever win the Pulitzer Prize - that of Babe Ruth at Yankee Stadium to the photograph of Student Neda Agha-Soltan's death during Iran's 2009 election protests, each of the photographs in 100 Photographs: The Most Influential Images of All Time is significant in how it forever changed how we live, learn, communicate, and in many cases, view the world.

    He upends commonly held assumptions about key political and financial events of the past 150 years, and he sheds light on what our oil-constrained and eventually post-oil future might look like.Oil, Power, and War follows the oil industry from its heyday when the first oil wells were drilled to the quest for new sources as old ones dried up. It traces the rise of the Seven Sisters and other oil cartels and exposes oil's key role in the crises that have shaped our times: two world wars, the Cold War, the Great Depression, Bretton Woods, the 2008 financial crash, oil shocks, wars in the Middle East, the race for Africa's oil riches, and more. And it defines the oil-born trends shaping our current moment, such as the jockeying for access to Russia's vast oil resources, the search for extreme substitutes for declining conventional oil, the rise of terrorism, and the changing nature of economic growth.We meet a long line of characters from John D. Rockefeller to Dick Cheney and Rex Tillerson, and hear lesser-known stories like how New York City taxes were once funneled directly to banks run by oil barons. We see how oil and power, once they became inextricably linked, drove actions of major figures like Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, Hitler, Kissinger, and the Bushes. We also learn the fascinating backstory sparked by lesser-known but key personalities such as Calouste Gulbenkian, Abdullah al-Tariki, and Marion King Hubbert, the once-silenced oil industry expert who warned his colleagues that oil production was facing its peak.Oil, Power, and War is a story of the dreams and hubris that spawned an era of economic chaos, climate change, war, and terrorism--as well as an eloquent framing from which to consider our options as our primary source of power, in many ways irreplacable, grows ever more constrained.The book has been translated from the highly acclaimed French title, Or Noir.

    Bringing a historical perspective to bear on the regimes of race that colonizers have sought to impose on Aboriginal people in Australia, on Blacks and Native Americans in the United States, on Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe, on Arab Jews in Israel/Palestine, and on people of African descent in Brazil, this book shows how race marks and reproduces the different relationships of inequality into which Europeans have coopted subaltern populations: territorial dispossession, enslavement, confinement, assimilation, and removal. Charting the different modes of domination that engender specific regimes of race and the strategies of anti-colonial resistance they entail, the book powerfully argues for cross-racial solidarities that respect these historical differences.From the Trade Paperback edition.

    Understanding the Times offers a fascinating, comprehensive look at the how the tenets of the Christian worldview compares with the five major competing worldviews of our day: Islam, Secular Humanism, Marxism, New Age, and Postmodernism.Understanding the Times is a systematic way to understand the ideas that rule our world. While the material is expansive, the engaging, easy-to-understand writing style invites you to discover the truths of God – and our world. This classic should be on the shelf of every Christian home, on the desk of every pastor, and in the hands of every Christian student headed off to college.

    By the end of the First World War, the number of Armenians in what would become Turkey had been reduced by 90 percent--more than a million people. A century later, the Armenian Genocide remains controversial but relatively unknown, overshadowed by later slaughters and the chasm separating Turkish and Armenian interpretations of events. In this definitive narrative history, Ronald Suny cuts through nationalist myths, propaganda, and denial to provide an unmatched account of when, how, and why the atrocities of 1915-16 were committed. Drawing on archival documents and eyewitness accounts, this is an unforgettable chronicle of a cataclysm that set a tragic pattern for a century of genocide and crimes against humanity.

    His story is seasoned by his adventures during his first circumnavigation in 1984-86 as told in Across Islands and Oceans. Alone with little money aboard Atom, his now engineless 28-foot sailboat, James embarks on his odyssey without the comforts and equipment most sailors consider essential. Challenging himself to live as closely with the sea as possible, the author sets sail in 1987 from Florida, bound for new adventures on the distant shores of Asia. He does not return home again for 15 years. In this paean to the sea and foreign lands, the author recounts the best and worst of life on the ocean, visits to far-flung islands, and adventures amid throngs of humanity in some of the world’s most densely populated cities. This unvarnished physical and philosophical saga includes encounters with dead-eyed bureaucrats, native angels of mercy, newly discovered WWII wreckage, fellow expat adventurers, rogues and misfits. The journey takes many unplanned turns as the author faces near misses with lurking dangers, hikes across islands, finds temporary employment ashore, and immerses himself in foreign cultures. Along the way he is tested by sea and society, and he ultimately discovers the priceless treasures of heart and mind that he seeks. James invites you to come aboard Atom for the journey of a lifetime.

    But why is the demographic explosion and its effects ignored by policymakers and the media? Why do important people within the global environmental movement itself avoid the great challenges of the population issue?Isn’t it time to start talking about the equation that matters most to the future of people and the planet? Overpopulation + Overdevelopment = Overshoot.In a book as large and dramatic as the topic it covers, Overdevelopment, Overpopulation, Overshoot (OVER) will ignite that conversation around the world.In an exhibit-format treatment with provocative photos from across the globe, OVER moves beyond insider debates and tired old arguments (yes, population numbers AND consumption both matter). Framed by essays from population experts Eileen Crist and William Ryerson, as well as a forward by human rights activist Musimbi Kanyoro, the heart of OVER is a series of photo essays illuminating the depth of the damage that human numbers and behavior have caused to the Earth—and which threatens humanity’s future.

    Stunning images and illustrations bring the authoritative text to life, so each historical episode is explored and explained for easy reference and understanding. Important points in history, from the Battle of Hastings and the storming of the Bastille to D-day and 9/11, are given clear but concise coverage, together with profiles of influential figures, such as Rameses II, Julius Caesar, and Nelson Mandela. As each moment in history is defined and detailed, the causes and consequences are provided in supporting panels to provide a wider context and broaden our horizons. Contemporary issues, including climate change and the rise of social media, bring us out of the past and firmly into the present.Recently updated and expanded, History is the story of humankind in which we all have a part to play. This classic compendium is a worthy addition to any bookshelf or library for generations of readers to look back in wonder at the world.

    Two generations of this remarkable family transformed and popularised the waltz, delighting all of Viennese society with their prolific compositions. But behind the melody lay a darker discord, as the Strausses tore themselves apart while Vienna itself struggled to secure its place in a rapidly changing world.In The Last Waltz John Suchet skilfully portrays this gripping story, capturing the family dramas, the tensions, triumphs and disasters, all set against the turbulent backdrop of Austria in the nineteenth century, from revolution to regicide.Discover the truth behind Vienna’s extraordinary musical dynasty.

    As Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history of what he calls the “wars of the Ottoman succession,” we know far less than we think. The Ottoman Endgame brings to light the entire strategic narrative that led to an unstable new order in postwar Middle East—much of which is still felt today.The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East draws from McMeekin’s years of groundbreaking research in newly opened Ottoman and Russian archives. With great storytelling flair, McMeekin makes new the epic stories we know from the Ottoman front, from Gallipoli to the exploits of Lawrence in Arabia, and introduces a vast range of new stories to Western readers. His accounts of the lead-up to World War I and the Ottoman Empire’s central role in the war itself offers an entirely new and deeper vision of the conflict. Harnessing not only Ottoman and Russian but also British, German, French, American, and Austro-Hungarian sources, the result is a truly pioneering work of scholarship that gives full justice to a multitiered war involving many belligerents. McMeekin also brilliantly reconceives our inherited Anglo-French understanding of the war’s outcome and the collapse of the empire that followed. The book chronicles the emergence of modern Turkey and the carve-up of the rest of the Ottoman Empire as it has never been told before, offering a new perspective on such issues as the ethno-religious bloodletting and forced population transfers which attended the breakup of empire, the Balfour Declaration, the toppling of the caliphate, and the partition of Iraq and Syria—bringing the contemporary consequences into clear focus.Every so often, a work of history completely reshapes our understanding of a subject of enormous historical and contemporary importance. The Ottoman Endgame is such a book, an instantly definitive and thrilling example of narrative history as high art.

    Since 1868, this compendium of information has been the authoritative source for all your entertainment, reference, and learning needs. The 2016 edition of The World Almanac® reviews the events of 2015 and will be your go-to source for any questions on any topic in the upcoming year. Praised as a "treasure trove of political, economic, scientific and educational statistics and information" by The Wall Street Journal, The World Almanac® and Book of Facts will answer all of your trivia needs—from history and sports to geography, pop culture, and much more.Features include:• The Year in Review: The World Almanac® takes a look back at 2015 while providing all the information you'll need in 2016.• 2015—Top 10 News Topics: The editors of The World Almanac® list the top stories that held their attention in 2015. • 2015—Year in Sports: Hundreds of pages of trivia and statistics that are essential for any sports fan, featuring complete coverage of the first College Football Playoff, the Women's World Cup, 2015 World Series, and much more. • 2015—Year in Pictures: Striking full-color images from around the world in 2015, covering news, entertainment, science, and sports. • 2015—Offbeat News Stories: The World Almanac® editors found some of the strangest news stories of the year. • World Almanac ® Editors' Picks: Time Capsule: The World Almanac® lists the items that most came to symbolize the year 2015, from news and sports to pop culture.• U.S. Immigration: A Statistical Feature: The World Almanac® covers the historical background, statistics, and legal issues surrounding immigration, giving factual context to one of the hot-button topics of the upcoming election cycle. • World Almanac ® Editors' Picks: Most Memorable Super Bowls: On the eve of Super Bowl 50, the editors of The World Almanac® choose the most memorable "big games." • New Employment Statistics: Five years after the peak of the great recession, The World Almanac® takes a look at current and historic data on employment and unemployment, industries generating job growth, and the training and educational paths that lead to careers. • 2016 Election Guide: With a historic number of contenders for the presidential nominations, The World Almanac® provides information that every primary- and general-election voter will need to make an informed decision in 2016, including information on state primaries, campaign fundraising, and the issues voters care about most in 2016. • The World at a Glance: This annual feature of The World Almanac® provides a quick look at the surprising stats and curious facts that define the changing world. • and much more.

    Displaying more than 1,000 vehicles including classic cars, hybrids, race cars, sail boats, luxury cruise ships, BMX and dirt bikes, military tanks, steam locomotives, mountain trains, hot air balloons, fighter jets, International Space Station manned spacecraft and more, plus a glossary and index, this visual catalog is perfect for young transportation buffs. In addition to the eye-catching images for readers to spot and explore, exciting text covers facts and figures on record breakers and news makers and includes the story of the history of transportation - from the first wheel to the latest hybrids - giving this book a special appeal to reluctant readers.Cars, Trains, Ships & Planes is the fastest route to take young readers on a journey to learn about all things that go.

    Instead, it saved those democracies—but with a fateful cost. Now, in a “complex history rendered with great color and sympathy” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), Jay Winik captures the epic images and extraordinary history “with cinematic force” (Time).1944 witnessed a series of titanic events: FDR at the pinnacle of his wartime leadership as well as his reelection, the unprecedented D-Day invasion, the liberation of Paris, and the tumultuous conferences that finally shaped the coming peace. But millions of lives were at stake as President Roosevelt learned about Hitler’s Final Solution. Just as the Allies were landing in Normandy, the Nazis were accelerating the killing of millions of European Jews. Winik shows how escalating pressures fell on an infirm Roosevelt, who faced a momentous decision. Was winning the war the best way to rescue the Jews? Or would it get in the way of defeating Hitler? In a year when even the most audacious undertakings were within the world’s reach, one challenge—saving Europe’s Jews—seemed to remain beyond Roosevelt’s grasp.“Compelling….This dramatic account highlights what too often has been glossed over—that as nobly as the Greatest Generation fought under FDR’s command, America could well have done more to thwart Nazi aggression” (The Boston Globe). Destined to take its place as one of the great works of World War II, 1944 is the first book to retell these events with moral clarity and a moving appreciation of the extraordinary actions of many extraordinary leaders.

    The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine contributes fuel to the aggressive debate in Western societies and creates the need for measured discussion about religion, fear, prejudice, otherness, and residual colonialist attitudes. The Fear of Islam speaks into this context, offering an introduction to the historical roots and contemporary forms of religious anxiety regarding Islam within the Western world. Tracing the medieval legacy of religious polemics and violence, Green weaves together a narrative that orients the reader to the complex history and issues that originate from this legacy, continuing through to the early and late modern colonial enterprises, the theories of "Orientalism," and the production of religious discourses of alterity and the clash of civilizations that proliferated in the era of 9/11 and the war on terror. The book contains analysis of interviews from figures such as Keith Ellison, John Esposito, Ingrid Mattson, Eboo Patel, Tariq Ramadan, and others.

    Under successive military regimes, however, the country eventually ended up as one of the poorest countries in Asia, a byword for repression and ethnic violence. Richard Cockett spent years in the region as a correspondent for The Economist and witnessed firsthand the vicious sectarian politics of the Burmese government, and later, also, its surprising attempts at political and social reform. Cockett’s enlightening history, from the colonial era on, explains how Burma descended into decades of civil war and authoritarian government. Taking advantage of the opening up of the country since 2011, Cockett has interviewed hundreds of former political prisoners, guerilla fighters, ministers, monks, and others to give a vivid account of life under one of the most brutal regimes in the world. In many cases, this is the first time that they have been able to tell their stories to the outside world. Cockett also explains why the regime has started to reform, and why these reforms will not go as far as many people had hoped. This is the most rounded survey to date of this volatile Asian nation.Richard Cockett is Southeast Asia editor and correspondent at The Economist. He is the author of several books, the most recent being Sudan: Darfur and the Failure of an African State. He lives in London.

    As history flows without interruption and doomsday scenarios fail, the following generations focus on their own contemporary events, ignoring or underestimating the past. In this way people always see “signs” in their times and the end of the world is constantly a fresh subject.

    When the Germans were blitzing their way across France in Spring 1940, Pilot Officer Tom Neil had just received his first posting – to 249 Squadron. Nineteen years old, fresh from training he was soon to be pitched into the maelstrom of air fighting on which the very survival of Britain would depend. By the end of 1940, Neil had shot down 13 enemy aircraft, seen many of his friends killed, injured or burned, and was himself a wary and accomplished fighter pilot. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, he was then shipped off to the beleaguered island of Malta in the Mediterranean to face both the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica, Again Neil was heavily engaged in combat and shot down another enemy fighter and was himself shot down and injured. Now 95, he is one of only twenty-five Battle of Britain veterans still alive and this vivid memoir is his last word on his fighter pilot experiences

    Based in large part on previously unavailable sources, including the recently discovered papers of Knox’s close friend and colleague Christopher Goodman, Dawson’s biography challenges the traditionally held stereotype of this founder of the Presbyterian denomination as a strident and misogynist religious reformer whose influence rarely extended beyond Scotland. She maintains instead that John Knox relied heavily on the support of his “godly sisters” and conferred as well as argued with Mary, Queen of Scots. He was a proud member of the European community of Reformed Churches and deeply involved in the religious Reformations within England, Ireland, France, Switzerland, and the Holy Roman Empire.Casting a surprising new light on the public and private personas of a highly complex, difficult, and hugely compelling individual, Dawson’s fascinating study offers a vivid, fully rounded portrait of this renowned Scottish preacher and prophet who had a seismic impact on religion and society.

    Stories from the aftermath of the war, the exile and the Franco regime are also included.In addition with dealing with the more obvious themes such as anarchism, the Spanish Republic, Catalonia, George Orwell, the aerial bombing, and the May Days, etc, the book also looks at themes such as the Zoo during the Civil War, the American Sixth Fleet in the city, Barça, urbanism, Nazis in Barcelona, Robert Capa, the Spanish in the Holocaust, poster art... Intertwined in the text are contemporary quotes and a few personal stories of people I have met who experienced the war or its aftermath. There are also biographies of characters such as Andreu Nin and Lluís Companys.

    Indonesian history and culture are especially relevant today as the Island nation is an emerging power in the region with a dynamic new leader. It is a land of incredible diversity and unending paradoxes that has a long and rich history stretching back a thousand years and more. Indonesia is the fabled "Spice Islands" of every school child's dreams—one of the most colorful and fascinating countries in history. These are the islands that Europeans set out on countless voyages of discovery to find and later fought bitterly over in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. This was the land that Christopher Columbus sought, and Magellan reached and explored. One tiny Indonesian island was even exchanged for the island of Manhattan in 1667! This fascinating history book tells the story of Indonesia as a narrative of kings, traders, missionaries, soldiers and revolutionaries, featuring rough sea crossings, fiery volcanoes, and the occasional tiger. It recounts the colorful visits of foreign travelers who have passed through these shores for many centuries—from Chinese Buddhist pilgrims and Dutch adventurers to English sea captains and American movie stars. For readers who want an entertaining introduction to Asia's most fascinating country, this is delightful reading.

    They can be born into wealth or poverty, enjoying every privilege or struggling to make ends meet. They have parents -- gods, kings and emperors, governments, visionaries and madmen -- as well as friends and enemies. They have duties and responsibilities. They can endure crises of faith and purpose. They can succeed or fail. They can live. And, sooner or later, they die. In Fallen Glory, James Crawford uncovers the biographies of some of the world's most fascinating lost and ruined buildings, from the dawn of civilisation to the cyber era. The lives of these iconic structures are packed with drama and intrigue. Soap operas on the grandest scale, they feature war and religion, politics and art, love and betrayal, catastrophe and hope. Frequently their afterlives have been no less dramatic -- their memories used and abused down the millennia for purposes both sacred and profane. They provide the stage for a startling array of characters, including Gilgamesh, the Cretan Minotaur, Agamemnon, Nefertiti, Genghis Khan, Henry VIII, Catherine the Great, Adolf Hitler, and even Bruce Springsteen. Ranging from the deserts of Iraq, the banks of the Nile and the cloud forests of Peru, to the great cities of Jerusalem, Istanbul, Paris, Rome, London and New York, Fallen Glory is a unique guide to a world of vanished architecture. And, by picking through the fragments of our past, it asks what history s scattered ruins can tell us about our own future.

    And, though the emerging Orthodox Church eventually condemned Gnosticism as heretical, the church formed many of its most central doctrines (such as original sin, the Immaculate Conception, and even the concept of heresy) in response to Gnostic ideas.This fascinating 24-lecture course is a richly detailed guide to the theology, sacred writings, rituals, and outstanding human figures of the Gnostic movements. What we call "Gnosticism" comprised a number of related religious ideologies and movements, all of which sought "gnosis," or immediate, direct, and intimate knowledge of God. The Gnostics had many scriptures, but unlike the holy texts of other religions, Gnostic scriptures were often modified over time. Gnostic cosmology was extraordinarily intricate and multidimensional, but religious myth was simply a means to the ultimate end of gnosis.Follow Gnostic ideology and its vivid impact on Western thought through the centuries, from its role in early religions and its re-emergence in medieval spirituality to its remarkable traces in modern popular culture, from science fiction novels like Blade Runner to Hollywood films like The Matrix. In delving into the paths of gnosis, you'll discover a compelling, alternative current of religious practice in the West, and reveal Gnostic influence resonating in Western spirituality even in the present day.

    More than thirty percent of South Africa's population receive such payments, even as pundits elsewhere proclaim the neoliberal death of the welfare state. These programs' successes at reducing poverty under conditions of mass unemployment, Ferguson argues, provide an opportunity for rethinking contemporary capitalism and for developing new forms of political mobilization. Interested in an emerging "politics of distribution," Ferguson shows how new demands for direct income payments (including so-called "basic income") require us to reexamine the relation between production and distribution, and to ask new questions about markets, livelihoods, labor, and the future of progressive politics.

    Many places featured were once populated and now sit unoccupied, modern day ruins, sitting in decay.Stories, facts and photographs of 60 beautiful and eerie abandoned places from throughout the world. Time has stopped and nature is taking resident in these places mainly due to natural disasters, war or economic reasons.Places include:Severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Six Flags Jazzland has been abandoned since. Several of the rides still stand, a testimony to the resilience of New Orleans.Shicheng in China has been under water for 53 years since the Xin'an River Hydro Plant flooded the area. The city was founded 1,300 years ago.Chernobyl was totally abandoned after the nearby nuclear disaster in 1986. Due to radiation, it has been left untouched ever since the incident and will be for many thousands of years into the future. Nature now rules the city in what resembles an apocalyptic movie.Poveglia is an island in the Venetian Lagoon which under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte became a dumping ground for plague victims and later an asylum for the mentally ill.Plymouth was the capital of the island of Montserrat. The town was overwhelmed by volcanic eruptions starting in 1995 and was abandoned.St Kilda a remote Scottish Island may have been permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180. The entire population was evacuated in 1930.

    These 125 articles from its archives are the very best, covering more than a century of scientific breakthroughs, setbacks, and mysteries. The varied topics range from chemistry to the cosmos, biology to ecology, genetics to artificial intelligence, all curated by the former editor of Science Times, David Corcoran. Big, informative, and wide-ranging, this journey through the scientific stories of our times is a must-have for all science enthusiasts.

    It entails his struggle to survive many brutal events in Cambodia from the Coup d’ Etat of 1970, the fall of the Khmer Republic in 1975, and the end of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. The Khmer Rouge Communist Party of Cambodia purged the cities and countryside of intellectuals, rival politicians, monks and teachers. The extremeness of this group leads to a country that has no religion, no free market, no schools, no families, and a closed border. Citizens attempt to hide their old lives from ears outside the walls while food becomes dangerously scarce in the so called Agrarian Utopia. His memoir describes the events of each conflict as they unfold, where each time he somehow manages to survive and tell the story. After the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979, he found a way to provide for his family’s needs. Vanny and his family realized they would be better off leaving the land they called home for so many years. He led his family and friends to the refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines. After that, they were transported to America to start a new life. Upon arriving in America he managed to put himself through college while taking care of a family.

    The conflict that eventually won the Estonians their freedom could have had a very violent outcome. This story tells the history of the oppression of the Estonian people and how they gained their freedom through non-violent means.

    Around one million Armenians were killed, and the survivors were scattered across the world. Although it is now a century old, the issue of what most of the world calls the Armenian Genocide of 1915 is still a live and divisive issue that mobilizes Armenians across the world, shapes the identity and politics of modern Turkey, and has consumed the attention of U.S. politicians for years.In Great Catastrophe, the eminent scholar and reporter Thomas de Waal looks at the aftermath and politics of the Armenian Genocide and tells the story of recent efforts by courageous Armenians, Kurds, and Turks to come to terms with the disaster as Turkey enters a new post-Kemalist era. The story of what happened to the Armenians in 1915-16 is well-known. Here we are told the "history of the history" and the lesser-known story of what happened to Armenians, Kurds, and Turks in the century that followed. De Waal relates how different generations tackled the issue of the "Great Catastrophe" from the 1920s until the failure of the Protocols signed by independent Armenia and Turkey in 2010. Quarrels between diaspora Armenians supporting and opposing the Soviet Union broke into violence and culminated with the murder of an archbishop in 1933. The devising of the word "genocide," the growth of modern identity politics, and the 50th anniversary of the massacres re-energized a new generation of Armenians. In Turkey the issue was initially forgotten, only to return to the political agenda in the context of the Cold War and an outbreak of Armenian terrorism. More recently, Turkey has started to confront its taboos. In an astonishing revival of oral history, the descendants of tens of thousands of "Islamized Armenians," who have been in the shadows since 1915, have begun to reemerge and reclaim their identities.Drawing on archival sources, reportage and moving personal stories, de Waal tells the full story of Armenian-Turkish relations since the Genocide in all its extraordinary twists and turns. He looks behind the propaganda to examine the realities of a terrible historical crime and the divisive "politics of genocide" it produced. The book throws light not only on our understanding of Armenian-Turkish relations but also of how mass atrocities and historical tragedies shape contemporary politics.

    You'll visit their homes, their schools, their families, their favorite places, and much more. They'll show you how kids in different parts of the Philippines come from many different ethnic groups and have very various cultures—each with separate traditions, languages, and beliefs—and yet, they are all 100% Filipino! This children's book, aimed at kids ages 8 to 12, brings them on an exciting trip through some of the most fascinating islands on earth.Join Mary, Jaime and Ari to see the how earthquakes, typhoons and other natural events can be scary and yet also make the islands beautiful and full of life.Check out Filipino games, and make a sipa—the Philippines's version of a hacky-sack.Experience the festivals and foods of different cultures found in the Philippines, and try a few easy recipes.Make a parol—a Filipino holiday decoration that you can enjoy all year long.Learn about the conquistadors and traders who came to these islands many centuries ago.Learn how peoples who speak very different languages can communicate when they meet.And a lot more!Along with fun facts, you'll learn about the spirit of the Philippines that makes this country and its people unique. This is a book for families or classrooms to enjoy together.

    Literary Nonfiction. Hybrid Genre. Art. Music. Asian & Asian American Studies. The daughter of writers, Dao Strom fled Vietnam with her mother at the end of the war. It was not until years later that she learned her father was still alive and had spent a decade in Communist "reeducation camps" as persecution for his work as a writer in the pre-1975 era of Saigon. This rift caught between the forward-looking mother who severed ties with the past, and the only tenuous presence of a father who could not turn away from the past is the ethos behind this unique memoir, which renders itself also as an experiment in literary multimedia, combining text, image, and song. Strom juxtaposes documentary images next to family memorabilia to ruminate on the intersection of personal and collective histories, and offers up a re-imaging of cultural and folk myths along the way. Her autobiographical essays are candid at the same time they are enigmatic, playing with white space and the shapes the text makes on the page. WE WERE MEANT TO BE A GENTLE PEOPLE is accompanied by a music album (available digitally), East/West, that explores two "geographies." The result is a multidimensional work that draws disparate "voices" together into one confluent, challenging whole."

    The huge distances these highly migratory creatures cover and the depths they dive mean we catch only the merest glimpses of their lives as they break the surface of the water. But thanks to the marriage of science and technology, we are now beginning to understand their anatomy, complex social structures, extraordinary communication abilities, and behavioral patterns. In this beautifully illustrated guide, renowned marine mammalogist Annalisa Berta draws on the contributions of a pod of fellow whale biologists to present the most comprehensive, authoritative overview ever published of these remarkable aquatic mammals. Opening with an accessible rundown of cetacean biology—including the most recent science on feeding, mating, and communication—Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises then presents species-specific natural history on a range of topics, from anatomy and diet to distribution and conservation status. Each entry also includes original drawings of the species and its key identifiers, such as fin shape and color, tooth shape, and characteristic markings as they would appear both above and below water—a feature unique to this book. Figures of myth and—as the debate over hunting rages on—figures of conflict since long before the days of Moby-Dick, whales, dolphins, and porpoises are also ecologically important and, in many cases, threatened. Written for general enthusiasts, emergent cetacean fans, and biologists alike, this stunning, urgently needed book will serve as the definitive guide for years to come.

    From stone-age assassins to the orbiting cathedrals of the space age, from bloodthirsty god-kings to India’s first vegetarian emperor, discover the secret history of our species—and the evolutionary logic that governed it all.

    Here, Michael Parenti investigates how class power is a central force in our political life and, yet, is subjected to little critical discernment. He notes how big-moneyed interests shift the rules of the game in their favor while unveiling the long march by reactionaries through the nation s institutions to undo all the gains of social democracy, from the New Deal to the present. Parenti also traces the exploitative economic forces that have operated through much of American history, including the mass displacement and extermination of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans. Parenti is a master at demonstrating the impact of monomaniacal profit accumulation on social services and human values. Here he takes us one step further, showing how unrestrained capitalism ultimately endangers itself, becoming a self-devouring beast that threatens us all. Finally, he calls for a solution based on democratic diversity and public ownership because it works. "

    Neither existing international histories nor international relations texts sufficiently register the scale and impact of this 'global transformation', yet it is the consequences of these multiple revolutions that provide the material and ideational foundations of modern international relations. Global modernity reconstituted the mode of power that underpinned international order and opened a power gap between those who harnessed the revolutions of modernity and those who were denied access to them. This gap dominated international relations for two centuries and is only now being closed. By taking the global transformation as the starting point for international relations, this book repositions the roots of the discipline and establishes a new way of both understanding and teaching the relationship between world history and international relations.

    In this timely and important book, Abdel Bari Atwan draws on his unrivaled knowledge of the global jihadi movement and Middle Eastern geopolitics to reveal the origins and modus operandi of Islamic State. Based on extensive field research and exclusive interviews with IS insiders, Islamic State outlines the group's leadership structure, as well as its strategies, tactics, and diverse methods of recruitment. Atwan traces the Salafi-jihadi lineage of IS, its ideological differences with al Qaeda and the deadly rivalry that has emerged between their leaders. He also shows how the group's rapid growth has been facilitated by its masterful command of social media platforms, the "dark web," Hollywood blockbuster-style videos, and even jihadi computer games, producing a powerful paradox where the ambitions of the Middle Ages have reemerged in cyberspace. As Islamic State continues to dominate the world's media headlines with horrific acts of ruthless violence, Atwan considers the movement's chances of survival and expansion and offers indispensable insights on potential government responses to contain the IS threat.

    Whereas many scholars assume the emergence of queer cultures in China signals the end of Marxism and demonstrates China's political and economic evolution, Liu finds the opposite to be true. He challenges the persistence of Cold War formulations of Marxism that position it as intellectually incompatible with queer theory, and shows how queer Marxism offers a nonliberal alternative to Western models of queer emancipation. The work of queer Chinese artists and intellectuals not only provides an alternative to liberal ideologies of inclusion and diversity, but demonstrates how different conceptions of and attitudes toward queerness in China and Taiwan stem from geopolitical tensions. With Queer Marxism in Two Chinas Liu offers a revision to current understandings of what queer theory is, does, and can be.

    Yet there were also constant tensions and disagreements that threatened to pull the alliance apart. This book highlights why the unprecedented level of cooperation between the very different American and British forces eventually led to victory but also emphasizes the tensions and controversies which inevitably arose. Based on considerable archival research on both sides of the Atlantic, this work considers the breadth and depth of the relationship from high-level strategic decisions, the rivalries and personalities of the commanders to the ordinary British and American soldiers who fought alongside one another. The book also looks back and demonstrates how the legacy of previous experience shaped the decisions of the war.Eisenhower's Armies is the story of two very different armies learning to live, work, and fight together even in the face of serious strategic disagreements. The book is also a very human story about the efforts of many individuals—famous or otherwise—who worked and argued together to defeat Hitler’s Germany. In highlighting the cooperation, tensions, and disagreements inherent in this military alliance, this work shows that Allied victory was far from pre-ordained and proves that the business of making this alliance work was vital for eventual success. Thus this dynamic new history provides a fresh perspective on many of the controversies and critical strategic decisions of World War II. As such, this book provides expert analysis of the Anglo-American military alliance as well as new insights into the ‘special relationship’ of the mid-twentieth century.

    War World II: Visual Encyclopedia is a new book for kids ages 9-12 that profiles the soldiers who served, key events, and the technology of war.With more than 200 individual entries of specially commissioned CGI images, War World II: Visual Encyclopedia covers the key players including Winston Churchill, Adolf Hitler, Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Charles de Gaulle; major events such as the invasion of Poland, Battle of Britain, and Pearl Harbor; plus the weapons and machinery used such as Gato-class submarines, V1 Rockets, and the atomic bomb, all with age-appropriate text and images.With key information available at a glance and data boxes to dip into, plus facts and stats to compare, kids can discover the most cunning strategists, the longest battles, the fastest fighter planes, and more in this new addition to DK's award-winning Visual Encyclopedia format.

    Hanna explores the often overt support of sea marauders in maritime communities from the inception of England's burgeoning empire in the 1570s to its administrative consolidation by the 1740s. Although traditionally depicted as swashbuckling adventurers on the high seas, pirates played a crucial role on land. Far from a hindrance to trade, their enterprises contributed to commercial development and to the economic infrastructure of port towns.English piracy and unregulated privateering flourished in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean because of merchant elites' active support in the North American colonies. Sea marauders represented a real as well as a symbolic challenge to legal and commercial policies formulated by distant and ineffectual administrative bodies that undermined the financial prosperity and defense of the colonies. Departing from previous understandings of deep-sea marauding, this study reveals the full scope of pirates' activities in relation to the landed communities that they serviced and their impact on patterns of development that formed early America and the British Empire.

    Largely carried on in pamphlets, the instant media of their day, this war of words fueled the escalation of tensions between Great Britain and her North American colonies in the period from 1773 to 1776. During these crucial years a political controversy that had earlier focused on questions of representation and consent deepened into a more fateful contest over the nature of sovereignty itself.The pamphlets gathered in this second volume of a two-volume set were written both by Americans and Britons, though such distinctions can be misleading in light of the increasingly interconnected character of the empire in this period. Englishman Thomas Paine had been resident in the colonies for only fourteen months when he wrote Common Sense, the most influential expression of the “American” position during the debate, while Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson, who in two pamphlets articulates the “British” position as forcefully as any writer collected here, had deep ancestral roots in the colonies. The fluidity of these categories shaped the debate traced in this volume, indeed it can be said to have been the central question to be resolved: were Americans and Britons one people, one nation, or not?Here, in texts that vividly capture the mounting intensity of the imperial crisis, Thomas Jefferson presents a vision of a radically new kind of empire in the work that first made him famous; James Wilson boldly rejects Parliament’s authority over the colonies; Charles Lee, a British officer and future American general, offers words of encouragement for colonial militia; Joseph Galloway puts forward an ingenious but ill-fated plan for preserving union with Great Britain; Samuel Johnson, writing on behalf of the British government, gives vent to his deep animus for the Americans and their pretensions to liberty; and Edmund Burke, in a speech delivered in the House of Commons just a month before Lexington and Concord, makes an eloquent case for reconciliation before it’s too late.Prepared by the nation’s leading historian of the American Revolution, this volume includes an introduction, headnotes, biographical notes about the writers, a chronology charting the rise and fall of the first British empire, a textual essay describing the reception and influence of each work, and detailed explanatory notes. As a special feature, it also presents typographic reproductions of the pamphlets’ original title pages.

    A growing body of evidence has proven that its current cornerstone—incentives to attract and retain large, globally mobile businesses—is a dead end. Even those programs that focus on local business, through buy-local initiatives, for example, depend on ongoing support from government or philanthropy. The entire practice of economic development has become ineffective and unaffordable and is in need of a makeover.  The Local Economy Solution suggests an alternative approach in which states and cities nurture a new generation of special kinds of businesses that help local businesses grow. These cutting-edge companies, which Shuman calls “pollinator businesses,” are creating jobs and the conditions for future economic growth, and doing so in self-financing ways.  Pollinator businesses are especially important to communities that are struggling to lift themselves up in a period of economic austerity, when municipal budgets are being slashed. They also promote locally owned businesses that increase local self-reliance and evince high labor and environmental standards.  The book includes nearly two dozen case studies of successful pollinator businesses that are creatively facilitating business and neighborhood improvements, entrepreneurship, local purchasing, local investing, and profitable business partnerships. Examples include Main Street Genome (which provides invaluable data to improve local business performance), Supportland (which is developing a powerful loyalty card for local businesses), and Fledge (a business accelerator that finances itself through royalty payments). It also shows how the right kinds of public policy can encourage the spread of pollinator businesses at virtually no cost.

    Those hardy survivors stayed, built a community, and founded one of the fascinating groups described in this book—the Bene Israel of India’s Maharasthra Province. This story is unique, but it is not unusual. We have all heard the phrase “the lost tribes of Israel,” but never has the truth and wonder of the Diaspora been so lovingly and richly illustrated. To create this amazing chronicle of faith and resilience, the authors visited Jews in 30 countries across five continents, hearing origin stories and family histories that stretch back for millennia. Sixteen chapters featuring photographs and stories of the world’s most isolated Jewish communities, from: - The hills of northeastern India, on the border of Myanmar - Sub-Saharan Africa, in Ghana, on the border of Ivory Coast - The last Jewish villages in Eastern Europe and Central Asia - Jews at the heart of the Amazon - Marranos coming out of hiding in Portugal and Mexico - Jewish gauchos and ostrich barons, in the Argentine pampas and the South African veld A foreword from Tudor Parfitt, and over 500 full color photographs and illustrations accompany these beautiful stories, and many more. The culmination of 16 years of collaboration between writers and photographers, Scattered Among the Nations is a stunning work of research and storytelling, and a rich visual documentation of the planet’s most isolated and unusual Jewish communities. Above all, it is a testament to the power of the Jewish people, and the connection that binds such different groups into one great tribe.

    Builders, crew members, passengers, and explorers who discovered the wreck each have their own perspectives. Feel the pride of builders as they put the final touches on the grand staircase and the deep sadness of survivors who left loved ones behind. It’s the story of the Titanic like you have never heard it before.For ages 10-13.*Includes primary sources, including quotes from those who survived Titanic's sinking and primary-source images (Common Core link)*Packed with infographics, including tables, charts, bulleted list, and graphs*Explores the Titanic from the different perspectives and insights of those involved with the ship - the builders, crew members, passengers, and those who searched for the ship all had different experiences

    Hosken does an excellent job of sorting out the American reaction, the failure of the Iraqi leadership in the form of Nouri al-Maliki and others, and how IS has becomes the richest terrorist group in the world."—Kirkus Reviews, (Starred)One of the 10 Best Books of September 2015—The Christian Science Monitor In June 2014 Islamic State launched an astonishing blitzkrieg which saw them seize control of an area in the Middle East the size of Britain. The news was soon filled with their relentless acts of savagery, yet nobody seemed to know who they were or where they’d come from.Now BBC reporter Andrew Hosken delivers the inside story on Islamic State. Through extensive first-hand reporting, Hosken builds a comprehensive picture of IS, their brutal ideology and exterminationist methods. Equally compelling and horrifying, Empire of Fear reveals how Islamic State came to be, explores how they might be defeated and asks a frightening question — if they were brought down, could we stop another group emerging to replace them?

    As well as giving a 'blow-by-blow' account of campaigns and battles, Francis Pike offers many challenges to the standard interpretations with regards to the causes of the war; Emperor Hirohito's war guilt; the inevitability of US Victory; the abilities of General MacArthur and Admiral Yamamoto; the role of China, Great Britain and Australia; military and naval technology; and the need for the fire-bombing of Japan and the eventual use of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.Hirohito's War is accompanied by additional online resources, including more details on logistics, economics, POWs, submarines and kamikaze, as well as a 1930-1945 timeline and 178 maps.

    He is never seen again. Back in France his disappearance in 1977 – during the near four-year period of catastrophe that survivors call “the time when the clouds fell from the sky” – marked the start of an unceasing search for answers by his wife Martine and their daughter Neary. It seemed an impossible task: 30-year-old diplomat Ouk Ket had vanished into the wasteland of Pol Pot’s Cambodia, a country whose population was enslaved and whose borders were closed. Decades later, though, Martine's and Neary's perseverance paid off when they testified at the war crimes trial of Comrade Duch, the chief of Pol Pot’s notorious S-21 prison where thousands of “enemies of the revolution” were tortured prior to their execution. In this book, spanning five decades and five lives, journalist Robert Carmichael takes the reader on a compelling journey into the causes and consequences of the Khmer Rouge’s savage rule during which two million people died, one in every four Cambodians. In describing one family’s experience, this book illuminates not just the tragedy of a nation but the fundamental limitations of international justice. Reviews: "Crisply written, elegantly constructed and thoroughly researched, When Clouds Fell from the Sky is a perceptive, often heart-breaking book.” − David Chandler, author of "Voices from S-21: Terror and History in Pol Pot’s Secret Prison" “This is both the poignant story of a young woman seeking the truth about her father’s disappearance at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime, and an unflinching portrait of the executioner who oversaw the torture chamber where he was imprisoned. An unforgettable book.” − Elizabeth Becker, author of "When the War Was Over: Cambodia and The Khmer Rouge Revolution" “A beautifully written book that does a masterful job weaving the history of the Khmer Rouge tribunal with a more personal story of human tragedy and redemption. This extremely thoughtful work is the product of its author’s deep understanding of Cambodia. Anyone trying to make sense of the Khmer Rouge war crimes court should read this timely book.” − Peter Maguire, author of "Law and War", "Facing Death in Cambodia" and "Thai Stick" “Carmichael writes intelligently about a complicated subject that continues to haunt the survivors, be they Cambodians or anybody else from the myriad of foreign powers that dabbled in this country’s tragic history.” − The Diplomat magazine

    This attractive man, adored by Cecil Beaton; a man who was called a legend by contemporaries, who was the subject of two scandalous novels, and who helped launch the careers of Francis Bacon, John Craxton and Lucian Freud, fell victim to a fortune-hungry lover. Elegant and hungrily sexual, Peter Watson had a taste for edgy boyfriends. He was the unrequited love of Cecil Beaton’s life – his ‘queer saint’ – but Peter preferred the risk of less sophisticated lovers, including the beautiful, volatile, drug-addicted prostitute Denham Fouts. Peter’s thirst for adventure took him through the cabaret culture of 1930s Berlin, the demi-monde and aristocratic salons of pre-war Paris, English high society, and the glitz of Hollywood’s golden age. Gore Vidal described him as ‘a charming man, tall, thin, perverse. One of those intricate English queer types who usually end up as field marshals, but because he was so rich he never had to do anything.’ Truman Capote called him ‘not just another rich queen, but – in a stooped, intellectual, bitter-lipped style – one of the most personable men in England’. More than just a gay playboy, Peter Watson was a renowned connoisseur, and fuelled the engine of mid-twentieth century art with his enormous wealth. Without his patronage, Bacon and Freud might have failed before they’d got started. He also founded the influential British arts journal Horizon with Cyril Connolly and Stephen Spender, and was one of the core founders of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and organised most of its early exhibitions. From the mystery of his obscure family origins to the enigma surrounding his premature death, this book follows Peter Watson through an odyssey of the mid twentieth century, from high society to sweaty underworld, and discovers a man tormented by depression and doubt; he ultimately wanted love and a sense of self-worth but instead found angst and a squalid death. ‘PETER WATSON (1908–1956), LONG FORGOTTEN AS AN ASTUTE GREY EMINENCE IN THE ART WORLD OF HIS DAY, DISCERNING COLLECTOR OF PAINTINGS, PATRON OF THE YOUNG AND PROMISING, FOUNDER AND BENEFACTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS, IS AT LAST AND DESERVEDLY THE SUBJECT OF A SCRUPULOUS AND COMPELLING INVESTIGATION’ - BRIAN SEWELL ‘THIS COMPELLING REDISCOVERY OF THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER WATSON CASTS NEW LIGHT ON THE INTELLECTUAL AND ARTISTIC WORLD OF MID-TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN: THE WORLD OF BACON AND FREUD, CYRIL CONNOLLY AND STEPHEN SPENDER’ - LOYD GROSSMAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE HERITAGE ALLIANCE

    It was 1945, when they invaded Hungary and made it a Communist state, one of the most repressed in the world. Georgette’s family quickly went from a comfortable middle class life in Budapest, Hungary, to being prisoners of one of the most horrific systems in modern times. Thousands of Hungarians had been arrested, imprisoned, and tortured. Many had died of starvation and of foul conditions after being forced from their homes and made to live in camps. Some were executed. Georgette and her family knew they had to escape, or they would be joining their unfortunate neighbors. Georgette was captured by Russian soldiers, hunted by a Communist spy in Austria, and suffered the consequences of a failed attempt to escape through the infamous Iron Curtain, all before she was seventeen years old. By Dawn, We’ll Be Free is the narrative of a brave child and teenager, who lived through the tyranny of Stalinist Communism and ultimately triumphed in the free United States of America.

    It mattered greatly who won, and fighting was the essential determinant of victory or defeat. In Volume 1 of The Cambridge History of the Second World War a team of twenty-five leading historians offer a comprehensive and authoritative new account of the war's military and strategic history. Part I examines the military cultures and strategic objectives of the eight major powers involved. Part II surveys the course of the war in its key theatres across the world, and assesses why one side or the other prevailed there. Part III considers, in a comparative way, key aspects of military activity, including planning, intelligence, and organisation of troops and matérial, as well as guerrilla fighting and treatment of prisoners of war.

    Or did it? In The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan, Federico Marcon recounts how Japanese scholars developed a sophisticated discipline of natural history analogous to Europe’s but created independently, without direct influence, and argues convincingly that Japanese natural history succumbed to Western science not because of suppression and substitution, as scholars traditionally have contended, but by adaptation and transformation.             The first book-length English-language study devoted to the important field of honzogaku, The Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge in Early Modern Japan will be an essential text for historians of Japanese and East Asian science, and a fascinating read for anyone interested in the development of science in the early modern era.

    China Under Mao narrates the rise and fall of the Maoist revolutionary state from 1949 to 1976--an epoch of startling accomplishments and disastrous failures, steered by many forces but dominated above all by Mao Zedong.Mao's China, Andrew Walder argues, was defined by two distinctive institutions established during the first decade of Communist Party rule: a Party apparatus that exercised firm (sometimes harsh) discipline over its members and cadres; and a socialist economy modeled after the Soviet Union. Although a large national bureaucracy had oversight of this authoritarian system, Mao intervened strongly at every turn. The doctrines and political organization that produced Mao's greatest achievements--victory in the civil war, the creation of China's first unified modern state, a historic transformation of urban and rural life--also generated his worst failures: the industrial depression and rural famine of the Great Leap Forward and the violent destruction and stagnation of the Cultural Revolution.Misdiagnosing China's problems as capitalist restoration and prescribing continuing class struggle against imaginary enemies as the solution, Mao ruined much of what he had built and created no viable alternative. At the time of his death, he left China backward and deeply divided.

    Who was he, and what caused him to disappear? Was he simply a physicist, or also a spy and communist radical? A protege of Enrico Fermi, Pontecorvo was one of the most promising nuclear physicists in the world. He spent years hunting for the Higgs boson of his day -- the neutrino -- a nearly massless particle thought to be essential to the process of particle decay. His work on the Manhattan Project helped to usher in the nuclear age, and confirmed his reputation as a brilliant physicist. Why, then, would he disappear as he stood on the cusp of true greatness, perhaps even the Nobel Prize? In Half-Life, physicist and historian Frank Close offers a heretofore untold history of Pontecorvo's life, based on unprecedented access to Pontecorvo's friends and family and the Russian scientists with whom he would later work. Close takes a microscope to Pontecorvo's life, combining a thorough biography of one of the most important scientists of the twentieth century with the drama of Cold War espionage. With all the elements of a Cold War thriller -- classified atomic research, an infamous double agent, a possible kidnapping by Soviet operatives -- Half-Life is a history of nuclear physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb. Physics at perhaps its most powerful: when it created the bomb.

    His fame and influence extend far beyond India and are nowhere more significant than in South Africa. "India gave us a Mohandas, we gave them a Mahatma," goes a popular South African refrain. Contemporary South African leaders, including Mandela, have consistently lauded him as being part of the epic battle to defeat the racist white regime.The South African Gandhi focuses on Gandhi's first leadership experiences and the complicated man they reveal—a man who actually supported the British Empire. Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed unveil a man who, throughout his stay on African soil, stayed true to Empire while showing a disdain for Africans. For Gandhi, whites and Indians were bonded by an Aryan bloodline that had no place for the African. Gandhi's racism was matched by his class prejudice towards the Indian indentured. He persistently claimed that they were ignorant and needed his leadership, and he wrote their resistances and compromises in surviving a brutal labor regime out of history. The South African Gandhi writes the indentured and working class back into history. The authors show that Gandhi never missed an opportunity to show his loyalty to Empire, with a particular penchant for war as a means to do so. He served as an Empire stretcher-bearer in the Boer War while the British occupied South Africa, he demanded guns in the aftermath of the Bhambatha Rebellion, and he toured the villages of India during the First World War as recruiter for the Imperial army. This meticulously researched book punctures the dominant narrative of Gandhi and uncovers an ambiguous figure whose time on African soil was marked by a desire to seek the integration of Indians, minus many basic rights, into the white body politic while simultaneously excluding Africans from his moral compass and political ideals.

    He believed that knowledge cannot be divided into parts, that the world can be viewed only as an interlocking, complex system. This view complemented his life: he had reveled in the traditions and contrasts of his neighborhood, eschewed fame in favor of keeping his emotional and social development on track.In an age characterized by violence, extraordinary personal alienation, and the disintegration of moral values, Quigley chose a life dedicated to rationality. He wanted an explanation that in its very categorization would give meaning to a history which was a record of constant change. Therefore the analysis had to include but not be limited to categories of subject areas of human activity. It had to describe change in categories expressed sequentially in time. It was a most ambitious effort to make history rationally understandable.On such views, in 1961 Quigley published "The Evolution of Civilizations". Its scope was wide-ranging, covering the whole of man's activities throughout time. It attempted a categorization of man's activities in sequential fashion so as to provide a causal explanation of the stages of civilization.In 1966, Quigley published "Tragedy and Hope", a work of exceptional scholarship depicting the history of the world between 1895 and 1965. It was a commanding work, 20 years in the writing, that added to Quigley's considerable national reputation as a historian. The book reflected Quigley's feeling that "Western civilization is going down the drain." That was the tragedy. When the book came out in 1966, Quigley thought the whole show could he salvaged; that was his hope.In the last 12 years of his life, from 1965 to 1977, Quigley taught, observed the American scene, and reflected on his basic values in life. He was simultaneously pessimistic and radically optimistic. Teaching was the core of his professional life and neither his craving to write nor his discouragement with student reaction of the early seventies diminished his commitment to the classroom.Unlike his underlying faith in the efficacy of teaching, Quigley found little basis for optimism about the future of American society: "We are living in a very dangerous age in which insatiably greedy men are prepared to sacrifice anybody's health and tranquility to satisfy their own insatiable greed for money and power."Much of the joy of teaching left Quigley in his last years. He complained bitterly that his 1970s college students were woefully under-educated and ill-prepared for college level work and that too many of them had their minds elsewhere, fixated more on bringing about a social revolution than on achieving an education.Yet pessimism about American society did not weaken a radical optimism rooted in his essential values: nature, people, and God: "The need for others is present on all levels; the physical, emotional, and intellectual. Indeed, every relationship has in it all three aspects. The desire to help others experience these things and to grow as a result of such experiences is called love. Such love is the real motivating force of the universe and is, in its ultimate nature, a manifestation of the love of God. Because while God is pure Reason and man's ultimate goal is Reason, it cannot be reached directly and must always be approached step by step, not alone but in companionship with others, and thus through love. Thus love of others, ultimately love of God, are the steps by which man develops reason and slowly approaches pure Reason."In the fields of economics we have great recognition for names likes Keynes or Friedman. Professor Quigley, though a top American historian, has escaped our attention. This book, which is a compilation of some of Quigley's writings and most important lectures, is an attempt to fill the void.One Volume, 400 Page

    Although it covers many societies throughout time, the book does not attempt to tell all stories from all places, nor does it try to narrate "important" conflicts. Instead, author Wayne E. Lee describes the emergence of military innovations and systems, examining how they were created and then how they moved or affected other societies. These innovations are central to most historical narratives, including the development of social complexity, the rise of the state, the role of the steppe horseman, the spread of gunpowder, the rise of the west, the bureaucratization of military institutions, the industrial revolution and the rise of firepower, strategic bombing and nuclear weapons, and the creation of "people's war."

    The book includes contributors from various disciplines, and offers a cross-period, interdisciplinary exploration of a perennially popular cultural production. The essays in this collection explore the particular challenges female werewolves pose - to gender construction, to ideals of femininity and corporeality, to racial and sexual norms, and to our concepts of 'human' and 'monster'. The book's historical scope is broad, covering material from the Middle Ages to the present day. With chapters on folklore, history, witch trials, Victorian literature, young adult literature, film and gaming, the contributors offer a variety of critical approaches to the figure of the female werewolf. Considering issues such as religious and social contexts, colonialism, constructions of racial and gendered identities, corporeality and subjectivity - as well as female body hair, sexuality and violence - She-wolf reveals the varied ways in which the female werewolf is a manifestation of deep-rooted and complex cultural anxieties, as well as a site of continued fascination. For scholars of popular culture, cultural history and gender studies, this is an essential study of a complex and multifaceted creation.

    It is the real life story of how ordinary Americans are rising above the forces that seek to drive us apart, and instead finding paths to peace and understanding. Talk To Me gives these powerful stories of struggle from race and faith minorities the platform they deserve, and demonstrates that our differences are not a source of discord and division—they're a source of strength and recognition.Step out of your comfort zone and take the time to Talk To Me.

    The remains of these pharaohs and queens can inform us about their age at death and medical conditions from which they may have suffered, as well as the mummification process and objects placed within the wrappings. Using the latest technology, including Multi-Detector Computed Tomography and DNA analysis, co-authors Zahi Hawass and Sahar Saleem present the results of the examination of royal mummies of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties. New imaging techniques not only reveal a wealth of information about each mummy, but render amazingly lifelike and detailed images of the remains. In addition, utilizing 3D images, the anatomy of each face has been discerned for a more accurate interpretation of a mummy's facial features. This latest research has uncovered some surprising results about the genealogy of, and familial relationships between, these ancient individuals, as well as some unexpected medical finds. Historical information is provided to place the royal mummies in context, and the book with its many illustrations will appeal to Egyptologists, paleopathologists, and non-specialists alike, as the authors seek to uncover the secrets of these most fascinating members of the New Kingdom royal families.

    Brief, engaging, and colorfully illustrated synopses introduce readers to every major subdiscipline, including cell theory, genetics, evolution, physiology, thermodynamics, molecular biology, and ecology. With information on such varied topics as paleontology, pheromones, nature vs. nurture, DNA fingerprinting, bioenergetics, and so much more, this lively collection will engage everyone who studies and appreciates the life sciences.

    In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.

    An ordained rabbi, Zelkowicz became a key member of the archive in the Lodz ghetto. Opoczynski was a journalist and mailman who contributed to the Warsaw ghetto’s secret Oyneg Shabes archive. While other ghetto writers sought to create an objective record of their circumstances, Zelkowicz and Opoczynski chronicled daily life and Jewish responses to ghettoization by the Nazis with powerful immediacy. Expertly translated by David Suchoff, with an elegant introduction by Samuel Kassow, these profound writings are at last accessible to contemporary readers.

    Even as migration, race mixture, and transculturation took place, family members fulfilled obligations to one another by adapting custom to a changing world.Family began to shift when, from the moment of their arrival in 1532, Spaniards were joined with elite indigenous women in political marriage-like alliances. Almost immediately, a generation of mestizos was born that challenged the hierarchies of colonial society. In response, the Spanish Crownbegan to promote the marriage of these men and the travel of Spanish women to Peru to promote good customs and even serve as surrogate parents. Other reactions came from wives in Spain who, abandoned by husbands, sought assistance to fulfill family duties. For indigenous families, the pressures ofcolonialism prompted migration to cities. By mid-century, the increase of Spanish migration to Peru changed the social landscape, but did not halt mixed-race marriages. The book posits that late sixteenth-century cities, specifically Lima and Arequipa, were host to indigenous and Spanish familiesbut also to numerous 'blended' families borne of a process of mestizaje. In its final chapter, the legacies for the next generation reveal how Spanish fathers sometimes challenged law with custom and sentiment to establish inheritance plans for their children. By tracing family obligationsconnecting Peru and Spain through dowries, bequests, legal powers, and letters, Transatlantic Obligations presents a powerful call to rethink sixteenth-century definitions of family.

    It is also outstandingly clear that it was parent to that acknowledged and most obvious conspiracy such as exists today. Hence was able to develop that conspiracy against mankind most exemplified by a continuous propaganda of hate against all authority: in pre-antiquity and antiquity against the many city gods, and in relatively modern times against the kings that rose out of the ruins of that which had been Rome. As those controlling totally the economic life of a state through monetary creation and emission, must have felt that kings and gods were more of a nuisance than anything else, the instigators of this conspiracy in whatever place and era, obviously were those who first did the business of bankers; the controllers of values, and consequently the economic life of the states wherever the precious metal standard was used.

    Herring's 2008 From Colony to Superpower has won wide acclaim from critics and readers alike. Years of Peril and Ambition: U.S. Foreign Relations, 1776-1921 is the first volume of a new split paperback edition of that masterwork, making this award-winning title accessible to those with a particular interest in the first half of the United States' history. This first volume of Herring's international narrative charts the rise of the United States from a loose grouping of British colonies huddled along the Atlantic coast of North America into an emerging world power at the end of World War I. It tells an epic story of restless settlers pushing against weak restraints; of explorers, sea captains, adventurers, merchants, and missionaries carrying American ways to new lands. It analyzes countless crises, some resulting in war and others resolved peacefully. Above all, it is the tale of United States' expansion, commercial and political, across the North American continent, into the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean regions, and, economically, worldwide. Herring brings this first segment of America's dramatic emergence as a superpower to a close with the United States' post-World War I rise to the status of the world's most powerful nation, poised -- however unsteadily --for global engagement in what would be called the American Century. Years of Peril and Ambition highlights the ongoing impact of the nation's international affairs on the household names of U.S. history but also on ordinary citizens. Featuring a grand cast of characters, encompassing statesmen and presidents, diplomats and foreigners, and rogues and rascals alike, this fast-paced account illuminates the central importance of foreign relations to the existence and survival of the nation.

    However, the story of women's part in the struggle's success only now receives comprehensive consideration in Michelle Chase's history of women and gender politics in revolutionary Cuba. Restoring to history women's participation in the all-important urban insurrection, and resisting Fidel Castro's triumphant claim that women's emancipation was handed to them as a "revolution within the revolution," Chase's work demonstrates that women's activism and leadership was critical at every stage of the revolutionary process.Tracing changes in political attitudes alongside evolving gender ideologies in the years leading up to the revolution, Chase describes how insurrectionists mobilized familiar gendered notions, such as masculine honor and maternal sacrifice, in ways that strengthened the coalition against Fulgencio Batista. But, after 1959, the mobilization of women and the societal transformations that brought more women and young people into the political process opened the revolutionary platform to increasingly urgent demands for women's rights. In many cases, Chase shows, the revolutionary government was simply formalizing popular initiatives already in motion on the ground thanks to women with a more radical vision of their rights.

    In this, the first biography of Garnett, (known as Bunny), author Sarah Knights Â? who has had unprecedented access to Garnett's papers Â? goes beyond stereotype and myth to present a clear sighted account of this often contradictory figure. Trained as a scientist, Garnett worked as a novelist and wrote exquisite prose. Lady into Fox was made into a Rambert ballet and Aspects of Love into an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. In the First World War, he was a conscientious objector whereas in the Second he worked for British intelligence. A free love enthusiast, he nevertheless married. He loathed literary criticism but became a leading literary critic.Born into the Victorian period, Garnett's life spanned two World Wars, the Swinging Sixties and beyond. From pre-Revolutionary Russia, by way of Indian Nationalists in London and carefree Neo-Paganism, Garnett's early life was packed with adventure. Propelled by a desire to be constantly in love, he dazzled men and women, believing the person mattered, irrespective of gender. An overnight literary sensation in the 1920s he was at the centre of literary London. Confidante and mentor of many writers, T. E. Lawrence, Rupert Brooke, D. H. Lawrence, Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells, were among his friends. Garnett felt most at home with the Bloomsbury Group, in particular with Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, his lover, with whom he lived during the First World War. Their long friendship was threatened, however, when Garnett's cradle-side prophecy to marry their daughter Angelica came true.David 'Bunny' Garnett is brought to life by Ben Lloyd-Hughes and Jack Davenport in the BBC series 'Life in Squares'.

    The volume begins by outlining a series of core issues and processes across the world, including human relations with nature, gender and family, social hierarchies, education, and warfare. Further essays examine maritime and land-based networks of long-distance trade and migration in agricultural and nomadic societies, and the transmission and exchange of cultural forms, scientific knowledge, technologies, and text-based religious systems that accompanied these. The final section surveys the development of centralized regional states and empires in both the eastern and western hemispheres. Together these essays by an international team of leading authors show how processes furthering cultural, commercial, and political integration within and between various regions of the world made this millennium a 'proto-global' era.

    In the second decade of the twenty-first century the UN remains an indispensable organization thatcontinues to save lives and improve the world as its founders hoped. Since its original publication in 2008, this 2nd edition includes more recent examples of the UN Security Council in action and peacekeeping efforts while exploring its most recent successes and failures.After a brief history of the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations, Hanhim�ki examines the UN's successes and failures as a guardian of international peace and security, as a promoter of human rights, as a protector of international law, and as an engineer of socio-economicdevelopment. This updated edition highlights what continues to make the UN a complicated organization today, and the ongoing challenges between its ambitions and capabilities. Hanhim�ki also provides a clear account of the UN and its various arms and organizations (such as UNESCO and UNICEF), andoffers a critical overview of the UN Security Council's involvement in recent crises in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Libya, and Syria, and how likely it is to meet its overall goals in the future.Regardless of its obstacles, the UN is likely to survive for the foreseeable future. That alone makes trying to understand the UN in all its manifold - magnificent and frustrating - complexity a worthy task. With this much-needed updated introduction to the UN, Jussi Hanhim�ki engages the currentdebate over the organizations effectiveness as he provides a clear understanding of how it was originally conceived, how it has come to its present form, and how it must confront new challenges in a rapidly changing world.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to makeinteresting and challenging topics highly readable.

    T. Morris offers a unique way to look at the history of chemistry itself, showing how the development of the laboratory helped shape modern chemistry.             Chemists, Morris shows, are one of the leading drivers of innovation in laboratory design and technology. He tells of fascinating lineages of invention and innovation, for instance, how the introduction of coal gas into Robert Wilhelm Bunsen’s laboratory led to the eponymous burner, which in turn led to the development of atomic spectroscopy. Comparing laboratories across eras, from the furnace-centered labs that survived until the late eighteenth century to the cleanrooms of today, he shows how the overlooked aspects of science—the architectural design and innovative tools that have facilitated its practice—have had a profound impact on what science has been able to do and, ultimately, what we have been able to understand.

    In the past decade in particular, scholars, policy-makers and political pundits have been using the term with increasing frequency in their commentary on contemporary international relations. Many have invoked it as an old specter only to nervously deny its contemporary applicability. Meanwhile, the term has continued to be applied to a diverse range of economic, political, cultural and linguistic phenomena. The sudden popularity of the term has created confusion about what it means and why we should care about it. Regardless of whether it is used as an invective or an ideal, imperialism has turned into an all-encompassing buzzword that many use, though few can really define. Imperialism Past and Present seeks to clarify the prevailing confusion and provide a clear, concise account of imperialism, as well as to introduce readers to the fundamental logic, as well as the complex manifestations of imperialism. It also aims to offer a succinct review and interpretation of the complex experiences that constituted the history of imperialism. The authors contend that imperialism remains at the heart of recent events and ongoing processes that define contemporary politics, and they look at the way that it applies in the post-Cold War period.

    Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary literature, this objective and engaging history covers developments in the region up to the present day and offers an accessible interpretation of an often contested and controversial history. Importantly, Cathie Carmichael looks at Bosnia over the long term, moving away from a narrow focus on the 1990s to offer a historical rather than a nationalist perspective on events. Integrated within the narrative account, there is a particular focus on the themes of culture and religion, and the effect of geography and regional changes in the landscape on Bosnian history. Engaging and authoritative, the book succinctly explores how Bosnia has changed over many centuries, and focuses on the dynamic and creative aspects of Bosnia's past as well as the darker elements.

    Immediate freedom, however, did not live up to its promise, as it did not guarantee any level of stability or autonomy, and the implementation of new forms of coercion and control made it, in many ways, indistinguishable from slavery. In Troubling Freedom Natasha Lightfoot tells the story of how Antigua's newly freed black working people struggled to realize freedom in their everyday lives, prior to and in the decades following emancipation. She presents freedpeople's efforts to form an efficient workforce, acquire property, secure housing, worship, and build independent communities in response to elite prescriptions for acceptable behavior and oppression. Despite its continued efforts, Antigua's black population failed to convince whites that its members were worthy of full economic and political inclusion. By highlighting the diverse ways freedpeople defined and created freedom through quotidian acts of survival and occasional uprisings, Lightfoot complicates conceptions of freedom and the general narrative that landlessness was the primary constraint for newly emancipated slaves in the Caribbean.

    Afghan Modern presents a bold challenge to these misperceptions, revealing how Afghans, over the course of their history, have engaged and connected with a wider world and come to share in our modern globalized age.Always a mobile people, Afghan travelers, traders, pilgrims, scholars, and artists have ventured abroad for centuries, their cosmopolitan sensibilities providing a compass for navigating a constantly changing world. Robert Crews traces the roots of Afghan globalism to the early modern period, when, as the subjects of sprawling empires, the residents of Kabul, Kandahar, and other urban centers forged linkages with far-flung imperial centers throughout the Middle East and Asia. Focusing on the emergence of an Afghan state out of this imperial milieu, he shows how Afghan nation-making was part of a series of global processes, refuting the usual portrayal of Afghans as pawns in the “Great Game” of European powers and of Afghanistan as a “hermit kingdom.”In the twentieth century, the pace of Afghan interaction with the rest of the world dramatically increased, and many Afghan men and women came to see themselves at the center of ideological struggles that spanned the globe. Through revolution, war, and foreign occupations, Afghanistan became even more enmeshed in the global circulation of modern politics, occupying a pivotal position in the Cold War and the tumultuous decades that followed.

    When the soldiers came, people began covering their windows, so I couldn't see inside anymore. But the tiny attic window of the narrow brick house behind Otto Frank's business offices had no shade. For a long time the rooms were empty. Then one day, Otto's whole family came to live there. They called their new home the Secret Annex...A story of Anne Frank, who loved a tree and the tree who promised never to forget her.This book is co-published with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, chosen by the Anne Frank Center as the first U.S. recipient of a sapling from the tree outside of the Secret Annex window (the tree is the narrator in the book).

    But as intellectual historian Paul E. Gottfried writes in this provocative yet even-handed study, the term’s meaning has evolved over the years. Gottfried examines the semantic twists and turns the term has endured since the 1930s and traces the word’s polemical function within the context of present ideological struggles. Like “conservatism,” “liberalism,” and other words whose meanings have changed with time, “fascism” has been used arbitrarily over the years and now stands for a host of iniquities that progressives, multiculturalists, and libertarians oppose, even if they offer no single, coherent account of the historic evil they condemn. Certain factors have contributed to the term’s imprecise usage, Gottfried writes, including the equation of all fascisms with Nazism and Hitler, as well as the rise of a post-Marxist left that expresses predominantly cultural opposition to bourgeois society and its Christian and/or national components. Those who stand in the way of social change are dismissed as “fascist,” he contends, an epithet that is no longer associated with state corporatism and other features of fascism that were once essential but are now widely ignored. Gottfried outlines the specific historical meaning of the term and argues that it should not be used indiscriminately to describe those who hold unpopular opinions. His important study will appeal to political scientists, intellectual historians, and general readers interested in politics and history.

    Only in the last few decades have scholars from a wide variety of disciplines attempted to document the lives of historical animals in ways that recognize their agency as sentient beings with complex intelligence. This collection advances the field further, inviting us to examine our recorded history through an animal-centric lens to discover how animals have altered the course of our collective past. The seventeen scholars gathered here present case studies from the Pacific Ocean, Africa, Europe, and the Americas, involving species ranging from gorillas and horses to salamanders and orcas. Together they seek out new methodologies, questions, and stories that challenge accepted historical assumptions and structures. Drawing upon environmental, social, and political history, the contributors employ research from such wide-ranging fields as philosophy and veterinary medicine, embracing a radical interdisciplinarity that is crucial to understanding our nonhuman past. Grounded in the knowledge that there has never been a purely human time in world history, this collection asks and answers an incredibly urgent question for historians and others interested in the nonhuman past: in an age of mass extinctions, mass animal captivity, and climate change, when we know much of what animals have done in the past, which of our activities will we want to change in the future?

    Such is the case with Alfred Earl Jones, a private from rural California who fought in World War I, whose letters provide personal drama and are historically informative." - Peter Krass, author of Portrait of War: The U.S. Army's First Combat Artists and the Doughboys' Experience in WWI "This marvelously annotated collection of letters transports us back to the training camps, high seas, and battlefields; recounting the novelty, boredom and terror that so many young American men experienced going to war in 1917-18. These citizen-soldiers remained civilians at heart, and these letters attest to the importance of family in keeping men going at the front - offering an invaluable lesson for Americans today." - Jennifer D. Keene, author of Doughboys, the Great War and the Remaking of America (2001).

    To keep its armaments factories running, the British government enlisted millions of people in efforts to recycle a wide range of materials for use in munitions production. Recycling not only supplied British munitions factories with much-needed raw materials - it also played a key role in the efforts of the British government to maintain the morale of its citizens, to secure billions of dollars in Lend-Lease aid from the United States, and even to uncover foreign intelligence. However, Britain's wartime recycling campaign came at a cost: it consumed many items that would never have been destroyed under normal circumstances, including significant parts of the nation's cultural heritage. Based on extensive archival research, Peter Thorsheim examines the relationship between armaments production, civil liberties, cultural preservation, and diplomacy, making Waste into Weapons the first in-depth history of twentieth-century recycling in Britain.

    Volume 7 of the Cambridge World History series, divided into two books, offers a variety of angles of vision on the increasingly interconnected history of humankind. The second book questions the extent to which the transformations of the modern world have been shared, focussing on social developments such as urbanization, migration, and changes in family and sexuality; cultural connections through religion, science, music, and sport; ligaments of globalization including rubber, drugs, and the automobile; and moments of particular importance from the Atlantic Revolutions to 1989.

    Divided into two books, Volume 6 of the Cambridge World History series considers these critical transformations. The first book examines the material and political foundations of the era, including global considerations of the environment, disease, technology, and cities, along with regional studies of empires in the eastern and western hemispheres, crossroads areas such as the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and the Caribbean, and sites of competition and conflict, including Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean. The second book focuses on patterns of change, examining the expansion of Christianity and Islam, migrations, warfare, and other topics on a global scale, and offering insightful detailed analyses of the Columbian exchange, slavery, silver, trade, entrepreneurs, Asian religions, legal encounters, plantation economies, early industrialism, and the writing of history.

    It was a crucial win for the Athenians, since losing the battle would have led to their total defeat by Sparta and, perhaps, the slaughter and enslavement of their entire population. Paradoxically, the win at Arginusae resulted in one of the worst disasters to befall the Athenians during the brutal twenty-seven-year war.Due to a combination of factors—incompetent leadership, the weariness of the sailors, a sudden storm—the commanders on the scene failed to rescue the crews of twenty-five Athenian ships that had been disabled during the battle. Thousands of men, many of them injured, were left clinging to the wreckage of their ships awaiting help that never came. When the Athenians back home heard what had happened, they deposed the eight generals who had been in command during the battle. Two of these leaders went into exile; the six who returned to Athens were tried and eventually executed.The Battle of Arginusae describes the violent battle and its horrible aftermath. Debra Hamel introduces readers to Athens and Sparta, the two thriving superpowers of the fifth century B.C. She provides a summary of the events that caused the long war and discusses the tactical intricacies of Greek naval warfare. Recreating the claustrophobic, unhygienic conditions in which the ships’ crews operated, Hamel unfolds the process that turned this naval victory into one of the most infamous chapters in the city-state’s history. Aimed at classics students and general readers, the book also provides an in-depth examination of the fraught relationship between Athens’ military commanders and its vaunted sovereign democracy.

    No one even knows what the word might mean now for the Middle East. So to give one example of many, Israel argued that the omission of the word 'the' in one of the UN Security Council's resolutions meant that it was not mandated to withdraw from all of the territories occupied in 1967.The Language of War, The Language of Peace is another important book from Raja Shehadeh on the world's greatest political fault line.

    When the horror of the atrocities came fully to light, it was easy for others to imagine the joyful relief of freed prisoners. Yet for those who had survived the unimaginable, the experience of liberation was a slow, grueling journey back to life. In this unprecedented inquiry into the days, months, and years following the arrival of Allied forces at the Nazi camps, a foremost historian of the Holocaust draws on archival sources and especially on eyewitness testimonies to reveal the complex challenges liberated victims faced and the daunting tasks their liberators undertook to help them reclaim their shattered lives.Historian Dan Stone focuses on the survivors—their feelings of guilt, exhaustion, fear, shame for having survived, and devastating grief for lost family members; their immense medical problems; and their later demands to be released from Displaced Persons camps and resettled in countries of their own choosing. Stone also tracks the efforts of British, American, Canadian, and Russian liberators as they contended with survivors’ immediate needs, then grappled with longer-term issues that shaped the postwar world and ushered in the first chill of the Cold War years ahead.

    This book tells the version according to modern science. It is a unique account, starting at the Big Bang and traveling right up to the emergence of humans as conscious intelligent beings, 13.8 billion years later. Chapter by chapter, it sets out the current state of scientific knowledge: the origins of space and time; energy, mass, and light; galaxies, stars, and our sun; the habitable earth, and complex life itself. Drawing together the physical and biological sciences, Baggott recounts what we currently know of our history, highlighting the questions science has yet to answer.

    In Part I leading scholars outline the approaches, methods, and themes that have shaped and defined world history scholarship across the world and right up to the present day. Chapters examine the historiographical development of the field globally, periodization, divergence and convergence, belief and knowledge, technology and innovation, family, gender, anthropology, migration, and fire. Part II surveys the vast Paleolithic era, which laid the foundations for human history, concentrating on the most recent phases of hominin evolution, the rise of Homo sapiens and the very earliest human societies through to the end of the last ice age. Anthropologists, archaeologists, historical linguists and historians examine climate and tools, language, and culture, as well as offering regional perspectives from across the world.

    Constitution ever to be repealed?How did King Henry II of England provide a procedural blueprint for criminal law?  These are just a few of the thought-provoking questions addressed in this beautifully illustrated book. Join author Michael H. Roffer as he explores 250 of the most fundamental, far-reaching, and often-controversial cases, laws, and trials that have profoundly changed our world—for good or bad. Offering authoritative context to ancient documents as well as today’s hot-button issues, The Law Book presents a comprehensive look at the rules by which we live our lives. It covers such diverse topics as the Code of Hammurabi, the Ten Commandments, the Trial of Socrates, the Bill of Rights, women’s suffrage, the insanity defense, and more. Roffer takes us around the globe to ancient Rome and medieval England before transporting us forward to contemporary accounts that tackle everything from civil rights, surrogacy, and assisted suicide to the 2000 U.S. presidential election, Google Books, and the fight for marriage equality.   Organized chronologically, the entries each consist of a short essay and a stunning full-color image, while the “Notes and Further Reading” section provides resources for more in-depth study. Justice may be blind, but this collection brings the rich history of the law to light.

    From geology and beaches to forced removals and hip-hop, Nechama Brodie, author of the best-selling The Joburg book, has delved deeply into the hidden past of Cape Town to emerge with a lucid and compelling account of South Africa’s first city, its landscape and its people. The book’s 14 chapters trace the origins and expansion of Cape Town – from the City Bowl to the southern and coastal suburbs, the vast expanse of the Cape Flats and the sprawling northern areas. Offering a nuanced, yet balanced, perspective on Cape Town, the book includes familiar attractions like Table Mountain, Kirstenbosch and the Company’s Garden, while also giving a voice to marginalised communities in areas such as Athlone, Langa, Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha. Many of the images in the book have never been published before, and are drawn from the archives of museums, universities and public institutions. This beautifully illustrated, information-rich book is the definitive portrait of the wind-blown, contradictory city at the southern tip of Africa that more than three million people call home.

    Explore history and archaeology from the Sphinx to Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. Catch up on the latest science from wildlife to evolution and the solar system. Travel to the best places from Petra to Prague. Stop at art museums and cultural treasures along the way!Your order includes membership in The Smithsonian Institution. Member benefits include Smithsonian Magazine, shopping discounts with Smithsonian, and more. The Smithsonian Institution has inspired generations through knowledge and discovery since 1846. It's the world's largest complex of museums and research facilities with a focus on four core areas: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Universe, Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet, World Cultures, and the American Experience.

    Journalist Paul L. Williams presents evidence suggesting the existence of “stay-behind” units in many European countries consisting of five thousand to fifteen thousand military operatives. According to the author’s research, the initial funding for these guerilla armies came from the sale of large stocks of SS morphine that had been smuggled out of Germany and Italy and of bogus British bank notes that had been produced in concentration camps by skilled counterfeiters. As the Cold War intensified, the units were used not only to ward off possible invaders, but also to thwart the rise of left-wing movements in South America and NATO-based countries by terror attacks. Williams argues that Operation Gladio soon gave rise to the toppling of governments, wholesale genocide, the formation of death squads, financial scandals on a grand scale, the creation of the mujahideen, an international narcotics network, and, most recently, the ascendancy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit cleric with strong ties to Operation Condor (an outgrowth of Gladio in Argentina) as Pope Francis I.Sure to be controversial, Operation Gladio connects the dots in ways the mainstream media often overlooks.

     Strategy Six Pack brings together six essential texts for military theorists: Machiavelli’s The Prince The Art of War by Sun Tzu Battle Studies by Ardant du Picq Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne Julius Caesar’s The Gallic Wars On War by Carl von Clausewitz In addition to these six master texts, there is also an image gallery and a link to a free audio recording of The Art of War. Each work has been newly revised and expertly edited with notes, images and a table of contents. Centuries of tactical wisdom distilled into one awesome e-book. Military Science has never been more thoroughly represented in one single volume. “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” - Sun Tzu.