Encompassing a grand sweep of human history, A History of the World in 100 Objects begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with objects which characterise the world we live in today. Seen through MacGregor's eyes, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. A stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people; Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency; and an early Victorian tea-set speaks to us about the impact of empire. An intellectual and visual feast, this is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years. 'Brilliant, engagingly written, deeply researched' Mary Beard, Guardian 'A triumph: hugely popular, and rightly lauded as one of the most effective and intellectually ambitious initiatives in the making of 'public history' for many decades' Sunday Telegraph 'Highly intelligent, delightfully written and utterly absorbing ' Timothy Clifford, Spectator 'This is a story book, vivid and witty, shining with insights, connections, shocks and delights' Gillian Reynolds Daily Telegraph

    It assumes no prior acquaintance with the classical world, and explains the necessary linguistic, historical, religious, social, and political background needed to fully understand Roman art.

    Steven Collins felt pulled in different directions when it came to apparent conflicts between the Bible and scholarly research and theory—an intellectual crisis that inspired him to lay it all on the line as he set off to locate the lost city of Sodom. Recounting Dr. Collins’s quest for Sodom in absorbing detail, this adventure-cum-memoir reflects the tensions that define biblical archaeology as it narrates a tale of discovery. Readers follow “Dr. C” as he tracks down biblical, archaeological, and geographical clues to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, narrowing the list of possible sites as he weighs evidence and battles skeptics. Finally, he arrives at a single location that looms as the only option: a massive ancient ruin called Tall el-Hammam in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Many scholars who were initially opposed to Dr. Collins’s theory now concede that history books may need to be rewritten in light of his groundbreaking discovery. It—along with several other recent finds—is challenging the assumptions of academics and asserting a new voice in the controversy of biblical archaeology and the dispute over using the Bible as a credible historical source.***From respected archaeologist Dr. Steven Collins and award-winning author Dr. Latayne C. Scott comes the fascinating, true account of the frustrating search and exciting excavation of the city the Bible calls Sodom, which scholars and others had “misplaced” for hundreds of years. Like many modern-day Christians, Dr. Collins struggled with what seemed to be a clash between his heritage of belief in the Bible and the research regarding ancient history and human evolution. This crisis of faith led him to embark on a quest to put both his archaeological education and the Bible to the test by seeking out the lost ancient city, an expedition that has led to one of the most exciting finds in recent archaeology. Challenging the assumptions of academics around the world, Discovering the City of Sodom may well inspire a revision of the history books. Dr. Collins has become a new voice in the controversy over using the Bible as a credible source of understanding the past—and opened a new chapter in the struggle over the soul of biblical archaeology.

    Immediately, strange and lurid rumors began circulating the neighborhood about what had happened. Some said she ran off with an egg seller; others supposed it was an aristocratic foxhunter who had taken young Bridget away. Swirling amid rumors was the barely whispered, but widely held, belief that Bridget had gone with no mortal man; rather, she had gone off with the fairies. The mystery deepened when seven days later her body was discovered, bent, broken and badly burned in a shallow grave. Within a few days, the unimaginable truth came to light: for almost a week before her death Bridget had been confined, ritually starved, threatened, physically and verbally abused, exorcised, and, finally, burned to death by her husband, Michael Cleary, her father, and extended family who confused bronchitis with a "fairy dart." They had all become convinced that "their Bridgie" had been taken from them and her fairy-possessed body left behind to deceive them. In The Cooper's Wife Is Missing, Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates make sense of this ancient, rarely publicized, ritual exorcism and explain how the incident went on to become a national and international incident. Set against a backdrop of renewed Irish nationalism, a Church crackdown on lingering pagan practices and the ongoing British humiliation of Catholic Ireland, the authors deftly map the dislocating anxieties that beset the rural peasantry in late nineteenth-century Ireland. Bewildered and frightened by the changes occurring all around them, pulled in all directions by their politicians, priests, landlords and English overlords, the Clearys were not alone in retreating to the relative comfort of pagan ritual. Drawing on first-hand accounts, contemporary newspaper reports, police records, trial testimony and a rich wealth of folklore, the authors weave a mesmerizing tale that touches upon magic, madness and mystery as it details, day by day, Bridget's ordeal and the resulting investigation. This is narrative history at its evocative best. It fascinates as it illuminates.

    Today, however, the entire biblical tradition, including its historical veracity, is being challenged. Leading this assault is a group of scholars described as the "minimalist" or "revisionist" school of biblical studies, which charges that the Hebrew Bible is largely pious fiction, that its writers and editors invented "ancient Israel" as a piece of late Jewish propaganda in the Hellenistic era.In this fascinating book noted Syro-Palestinian archaeologist William G. Dever attacks the minimalist position head-on, showing how modern archaeology brilliantly illuminates both life in ancient Palestine and the sacred scriptures as we have them today. Assembling a wealth of archaeological evidence, Dever builds the clearest, most complete picture yet of the real Israel that existed during the Iron Age of ancient Palestine (1200–600 B.C.).Dever's exceptional reconstruction of this key period points up the minimalists' abuse of archaeology and reveals the weakness of their revisionist histories. Dever shows that ancient Israel, far from being an "invention," is a reality to be discovered. Equally important, his recovery of a reliable core history of ancient Israel provides a firm foundation from which to appreciate the aesthetic value and lofty moral aspirations of the Hebrew Bible.

    This book describes and explains its extraordinary progress from a remote Andean settlement near Lake Titicaca to its rapid demise six centuries later at the hands of the Spanish conquerors.A bold new history by the world's leading expert on Incan civilization.Covers the entire Andean region, five countries and ten million people.Heavily illustrated with maps, figures, and photographs.

    The book's contributors chart the spread of marauders and traders in Europe as well as the expansion of farmers and explorers throughout the North Atlantic and into the New World. They show that Norse contacts with Native American groups were more extensive than has previously been believed, but that the outnumbered Europeans never established more than temporary settlements in North America.

    [and] the most complete history we have of the Irish female experience. -- Labor History

    Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

    To them a large section of the land owed its existence; the fertility and the prosperity of the whole was dependent upon them; they were the chief means of communication, the main channels of trade, the distributors of civilization. It was in recognition of this that the ancient inhabitants called the Euphrates 'the life of the land,' and the Tigris 'the bestower of blessing.'" - G.S.G.Introduction - The Lands of the Euphrates and Tigris. The Excavations in Babylonia and Assyria. The Language and Literature. Chronology and History. The City States of Babylonia and Their Unification under Babylon to 2000 B.C. - The Dawn of History. Movements toward Expansion and Unification. Civilization of Old Babylonia: Political and Social Life. Civilization of Old Babylonia: Literature, Science, Art, and Religion. The Times of Khammurabi of Babylon. 2300-2100 B.C. The Rise of Assyria and its Struggles with Kassite Babylonia - The Kassite Conquest of Babylonia and the Appearance of Assyria. 2000-1500 B.C. The Early Conflicts of Babylonia and Assyria. 1500-1150 B.C. Civilization and Culture in the Kassite Period. The Times of Tiglathpileser I. 1100 B.C. The Ascendancy of Assyria - The Ancient World at the Beginning of the First Millennium. 1000 B.C. Ashurnacirpal III and the Conquest of Mesopotamia. 885-860 B.C. The Advance into Syria and the Rise of Urartu: from Shalmaneser II to the Fall Of His House. 860-745 B.C. The Assyrian Revival. Tiglathpileser III and Shalmaneser IV. 745-722 B.C. The Assyrian Empire at Its Height. Sargon II. 722-705 B.C. The Struggle for Imperial Unity. Sennacherib. 705-681 B.C. Imperial Expansion and Division. Esarhaddon. 681-668 B.C. The Last Days of Splendor. Ashurbanipal 668-626 B.C. The Fall of Assyria. 626-606 B.C. The New Babylonian (or Kaldean) Empire - The Heirs of Assyria. Nebuchadrezzar and His Successors. Babylonia under the Kaldeans. The Fall of Babylon.

    It moves from the story of the city's founding, and huge expansion in the nineteenth century, to the lives of Gaudi, Miro, Casals and Dali. It also examines the history of Catalan nationalism, the tragedy of the Civil War, the Franco years, and the transition from dictatorship to democracy which Colm Tóibín witnessed in the 1970s.

    Ruined cities, golden treasures, cryptic inscriptions, and ornate tombs have been found across the world, and yet these artifacts of ages past often raised more questions than answers. But with the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline in the 19th century, everything changed.Illustrated with dazzling photographs, this enlightening narrative tells the story of human civilization through 100 key expeditions, spanning six continents and more than three million years of history. Each account relies on firsthand reports from explorers, antiquarians, and scientists as they crack secret codes, evade looters and political suppression, fall in love, commit a litany of blunders, and uncover ancient curses.Pivotal discoveries include:King Tut's tomb of treasureTerracotta warriors escorting China's first emperor into the afterlifeThe glorious Anglo-Saxon treasure of Sutton-HooGraves of the Scythians, the real Amazon warrior womenNew findings on the grim fate of the colonists of JamestownWith a foreword from bestselling author Douglas Preston, Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs is an expertly curated and breath-taking panorama of the human journey.

    Dense urban living has been prescribed as a panacea for the environmental and resource crises of our time. But is it better or worse for our happiness? Are subways, sidewalks and condo towers an improvement on the car-dependence of sprawl?The award-winning journalist Charles Montgomery finds answers to such questions at the intersection between urban design and the emerging science of happiness, during an exhilarating journey through some of the world’s most dynamic cities. He meets the visionary mayor who introduced a “sexy” bus to ease status anxiety in Bogotá; the architect who brought the lessons of medieval Tuscan hill towns to modern-day New York City; the activist who turned Paris’s urban freeways into beaches; and an army of American suburbanites who have hacked the design of their own streets and neighborhoods.Rich with new insights from psychology, neuroscience and Montgomery’s own urban experiments, Happy City reveals how our cities can shape our thoughts as well as our behavior. The message is as surprising as it is hopeful: by retrofitting cities and our own lives for happiness, we can tackle the urgent challenges of our age. The happy city can save the world--and all of us can help build it.

    Sketches a rough and ready picture of the more prominent peaks that rise out of Ireland's past-the high spots in the story of the Irish race. Written especially for the American reader (whom the author found to be as unknowing about Ireland's past as about the past of Borneo)... --alibris ... 'Indispensable for anyone who wants to understand the Irish people--their political struggle, their magnificent literature, and their whole great contribution to Western Civilization, a contribution amazing in its richness and variety." --from jacket flap.

    But as architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart point out in this provocative, visionary book, such an approach only perpetuates the one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model, dating to the Industrial Revolution, that creates such fantastic amounts of waste and pollution in the first place. Why not challenge the belief that human industry must damage the natural world? In fact, why not take nature itself as our model for making things? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we consider its abundance not wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective.Waste equals food. Guided by this principle, McDonough and Braungart explain how products can be designed from the outset so that, after their useful lives, they will provide nourishment for something new. They can be conceived as "biological nutrients" that will easily reenter the water or soil without depositing synthetic materials and toxins. Or they can be "technical nutrients" that will continually circulate as pure and valuable materials within closed-loop industrial cycles, rather than being "recycled" -- really, downcycled -- into low-grade materials and uses. Drawing on their experience in (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, McDonough and Braungart make an exciting and viable case for putting eco-effectiveness into practice, and show how anyone involved with making anything can begin to do as well.