Book picks similar to
Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan by Sören Stark
central-asia
ancient-art
not-carried-by-the-library
patterns-networks-complexity
Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race
Michael A. Cremo - 1993
Forbidden Archeology documents a systematic process of "knowledge filtration" and constitutes a serious challenge to the Darwinian theory of evolution.
The Runaway Girl
Emily Organ - 2016
Now available as a three book box set, the Runaway Girl Series contains 900 pages of fast-paced historical thrills. Book 1: Runaway Girl A missing girl. The treacherous streets of Medieval London. Only one woman is brave enough to try and bring her home. After the death of her family, grieving Alice has chosen a quiet life of seclusion in a monastery. But she is hit by a personal tragedy which forces her to confront the dangers of medieval London. When her 14 year old friend, Constance, vanishes, Alice’s life is turned upside down. Is Constance’s disappearance linked to a dead girl pulled from the Thames? Another girl is on the run - but who is she running from? Alice’s desperate search stirs up something sinister and soon her own life is in danger. Powerful forces want to ensure the truth will never be uncovered, can Alice find Constance before her time runs out? Book 2: Forgotten Child Her husband took a fatal secret to the grave. Two friends are murdered. She has only one chance to stop the killing. Alice Wescott thought she knew her husband, Thomas. But after his death, two strangers reveal something he kept hidden from her. When two of her friends are murdered, Alice has to confront her husband’s past. Was he really the man she thought he was? An eight year old boy holds the answer, but he forces her to make a perilous journey north to the wilds of Northumbria. Stranded on Holy Island, Alice’s mission to remedy her husband’s mistake leads her into a deadly trap. Can she right her husband’s wrongs or will his secret claim another victim? Book 3: Sins of the Father An enemy returns. And this time he has her fooled. If he gets his own way then a little girl will never be seen again. Alice de Grey is settling into married life in medieval London, but her world is shattered when her two year old niece, Mary, is kidnapped. As the city searches for the little girl, Alice realises that it was her own mistake which put Mary in danger. Alice’s adversary, Sir Walter, is back. He has duped her and will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Even murder. Alice is forced to fix her mistake but Mary isn’t the only one to suffer. Sir Walter is one step ahead, and time is running out for Alice and her family.Alternate cover edition.
Bhais of Bengaluru
Jyoti Shelar - 2017
Kodigehalli Mune Gowda was crowned the city's first 'don' back in the 1960s, but it was in the '80s and the '90s that powerhouses like Muthappa Rai, Sreedhar, 'Boot House' Kumar aka Oil Kumar, Bekkina Kannu Rajendra and Srirampura Kitty emerged. In Bhais of Bengaluru, Jyoti Shelar, a print journalist with ten years of work experience as a field reporter, explores this mysterious and fascinating underbelly of India's Garden City.
America's War for the Greater Middle East
Andrew J. Bacevich - 2016
Bacevich provides a searing reassessment of U.S. military policy in the Middle East over the past four decades. From the end of World War II until 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in the Greater Middle East. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere else. What caused this shift? Andrew J. Bacevich, one of the country’s most respected voices on foreign affairs, offers an incisive critical history of this ongoing military enterprise—now more than thirty years old and with no end in sight. During the 1980s, Bacevich argues, a great transition occurred. As the Cold War wound down, the United States initiated a new conflict—a War for the Greater Middle East—that continues to the present day. The long twilight struggle with the Soviet Union had involved only occasional and sporadic fighting. But as this new war unfolded, hostilities became persistent. From the Balkans and East Africa to the Persian Gulf and Central Asia, U.S. forces embarked upon a seemingly endless series of campaigns across the Islamic world. Few achieved anything remotely like conclusive success. Instead, actions undertaken with expectations of promoting peace and stability produced just the opposite. As a consequence, phrases like “permanent war” and “open-ended war” have become part of everyday discourse. Connecting the dots in a way no other historian has done before, Bacevich weaves a compelling narrative out of episodes as varied as the Beirut bombing of 1983, the Mogadishu firefight of 1993, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the rise of ISIS in the present decade. Understanding what America’s costly military exertions have wrought requires seeing these seemingly discrete events as parts of a single war. It also requires identifying the errors of judgment made by political leaders in both parties and by senior military officers who share responsibility for what has become a monumental march to folly. This Bacevich unflinchingly does. A twenty-year army veteran who served in Vietnam, Andrew J. Bacevich brings the full weight of his expertise to this vitally important subject. America’s War for the Greater Middle East is a bracing after-action report from the front lines of history. It will fundamentally change the way we view America’s engagement in the world’s most volatile region.Advance praise for America’s War for the Greater Middle East“In one arresting book after another, Bacevich has relentlessly laid bare the failings of American foreign policy since the Cold War. This one is his sad crowning achievement: the story of our long and growing military entanglement in the region of the most tragic, bitter, and intractable of conflicts.”—Richard K. Betts, director, Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University “An unparalleled historical tour de force certain to affect the formation of future U.S. foreign policy . . . Every citizen aspiring to high office needs not only to read but to study and learn from this important book. This is one of the most serious and essential books I have read in more than half a century of public service.”—Lieutenant General Paul K. Van Riper, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) “Bacevich asks and answers a provocative, inconvenient question: In a multigenerational war in the Middle East, ‘Why has the world’s mightiest military achieved so little?’ ”—Graham Allison, director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of GovernmentFrom the Hardcover edition.
The Stone Fields: An Epitaph for the Living
Courtney Angela Brkic - 2004
Unlike many aid workers, Brkic was drawn there by her family history, and although fluent in the language, she was advised to avoid letting local workers discover her ethnicity. Brkic helped set up a morgue in Tuzla, assisting pathologists with autopsies and laying out personal effects for photographing. Later, she helped excavate graves at Srebenica, where many thousands had been indiscriminately slaughtered. This was not the only excavating she was doing. As she describes the gruesome work of recovering remains and transcribing the memories of survivors, she also explores her family's history in Yugoslavia, telling of her grandmother's childhood in Herzegovina, early widowhood, and imprisonment during World War II for hiding her Jewish lover. "The Stone Fields," deeply personal and wise, asks what it takes to prevent the violent loss of life, and what we are willing to risk in the process.
Digging Dinosaurs: The Search That Unraveled the Mystery of Baby Dinosaurs
Jack Horner - 1988
Recounts the author's search for evidence of baby dinosaurs in the badlands of Montana and his discovery of dinosaur nests and of two new species.
The Lost Ark of the Covenant: The Remarkable Story of How the Fabled Ark Was Found
Tudor Parfitt - 2008
The Ark, believed to be the throne of God, was carried by the Israelite high priests in the wilderness during their harrowing search for a homeland. When the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, the Ark entered the domain of legend. The mysterious disappearance of arguably the most important religious artifact in history led to a plethora of theories about the location of the Ark. Its whereabouts unknown, adventurers risked their lives and fortunes for over two millennia in attempts to discover this sacred treasure.With painstaking historical scholarship, groundbreaking genetic science, and hair-raising fieldwork, Parfitt, who the "Wall Street Journal" calls "a British Indiana Jones," debunks the previous myths and reveals the shocking history of the Ark and its keepers. From Israel to Egypt, Ethiopia, and the ruins of Great Zimbabwe, the journey leads to places Parfitt could never have imagined. He encounters a cannibalistic tribe in Papua, New Guinea.He is ambushed and shot at in Africa. And he narrowly escapes being kidnapped by Islamist outlaws in the wilder reaches of Yemen.Throughout his search, he is aided by a motley crew of kabbalistic mystics, Muslim holy men, charlatans and crooks, tribal elders, and scheming politicians."The Lost Ark of the Covenant" is a vivid and page-turning account of the culmination of two decades of research by an acclaimed scholar and adventurer. In the end, legend becomes reality as an unknown history comes to light, and with it our understanding of this lost treasure is changed forever.
Genghis Khan: His Conquests, His Empire, His Legacy
Frank McLynn - 2015
McLynn provides the most accurate and absorbing account yet of one of the most powerful men ever to have ever lived.
A Brief History of the Romans
Mary T. Boatwright - 2006
Boatwright, Daniel J. Gargola, and Richard J.A. Talbert.This shorter version lucidly unfolds Rome's remarkable evolution through monarchy, republic, and then an empire that, at its height, stretched from Scotland to Iraq and the Nile Valley. Concise narrative integrates the political, military, social, and cultural landmarks of over 1,500 years--from the early struggles against Etruscans, Samnites, and Gauls to the sack of Rome by Alaric and his Visigoths. The book gives readers a basic yet engaging introduction to Roman history and society. It is an ideal text for courses on Ancient civilization, Roman civilization, or Roman history.FEATURES* Fourteen boxes featuring excerpts from writings by Romans themselves* Extensive variety of photos and illustrations, all with detailed captions; twenty-four custom-drawn maps of the city of Rome, Italy, the Mediterranean, and the wider Roman world* Narrative enlivened by such fascinating individuals as Hannibal, Mithridates, Pompey, Caesar, Cleopatra, Augustus, Livia, Nero, Trajan, Shapur, and Constantine* Selective, up-to-date recommendations for further reading; timeline of key events; glossary of Latin terms
Genghis Khan and the Quest for God: How the World's Greatest Conqueror Gave Us Religious Freedom
Jack Weatherford - 2016
Genghis Khan conquered by arms & bravery. He ruled by commerce & religion. He transformed the silk road into the world’s most effective trading network, established new laws & drastically lowered merchant taxes. But he knew that if his empire was going to last, he'd need something stronger & more binding than trade. He needed religion. Unlike the Christian, Taoist & Muslim conquerors who'd come before, he gave his subjects freedom of religion using an argument that would directly influence Th Jefferson. But before that, he looted their shrines, killed their priests. Genghis lived in the 13th century, but he struggled with many of the same problems faced today: How may one balance religious freedom with the need to restrain fanatics? Can one compel rival religions—driven by deep-seated hatred—to live together peacefully? A celebrated anthropologist whose bestselling Genghis Khan & the Making of the Modern World radically transformed our understanding of the Mongols & their legacy, Weatherford has spent 18 years exploring areas of Mongolia closed until the USSR's fall & researching The Secret History of the Mongols, an astonishing document written in code that was only recently discovered. He pored thru archives & found groundbreaking evidence of Genghis’ influence on the founding fathers. Now, with this masterpiece of historical erudition & religious insight, he's written his most resonant work.
Ancient Egypt: An Illustrated Reference to the Myths, Religions, Pyramids and Temples of the Land of the Pharaohs
Lucia Gahlin - 2000
Readers will gain a unique understanding of this captivating culture through breathtaking, full-color illustrations, in-depth text, detailed maps, and comprehensive chronologies. You'll read about: - Famous burial sites - The mortuary temples of the many gods and goddesses of ancient Egypt - Gods and goddesses - Pharaohs - Festivals - Offerings - Superstitions - And more! An invaluable reference to one of the most intriguing periods of history.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Michael Ledwidge - 2002
Decorated NYPD Officer John Coglin always thought his picture on the front page of the newspaper would be one for the scrapbook.That was before he had the bad luck to be forced into a witness-free, kill-or-be-killed confrontation with a drug-dealing thug. It's of no help to him that the incident took place during the run-up to a bitter mayoral election campaign, and that his adversary was sixteen years old and black.Now, instead of another commendation, Coglin is staring down the barrel of a media- and politics-stoked murder rap.But on the eve of his sure conviction arrives a fateful telephone call.It's not the governor, but his long-lost uncle, Aidan O'Connell.A veteran of the IRA and a recently released guest of San Quentin Penitentiary for armed-to-the-teeth robbery, Aidan offers his nephew a pardon that has nothing to do with lawyers.Coglin is about to find out that the type of amnesty Uncle Aidan is proposing is the kind that involves a beautiful but dangerous Mafia widow, a car trunk full of M-16s, and thirty million dollars in jewels smack dab in the middle of Rockefeller Center."Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" is a highly entertaining, deliciously gritty, super-fast thriller that takes us on a cutthroat ride into an urban realm where criminal intent collides head-on with the vagaries of fate and the inscrutabilities of the human heart.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1841-1919: A Dream of Harmony
Peter H. Feist - 1990
His work shows art at its most light-hearted, sensual and luminous. Renoir never wanted anything ugly in his paintings, nor any dramatic action. "I like pictures which make me want to wander through them when it's a landscape," he said, "or pass my hand over breast or back if it's a woman." Renoir's entire oeuvre is dominated by the depiction of women. Again and again he painted "these faunesses with their pouting lips" (Mallarme) and invented a new image of feminity.
Pompeii: The Living City
Alex Butterworth - 2005
The ash of Mt. Vesuvius preserves a living record of the complex and exhilarating society it instantly obliterated two thousand years ago. In this highly readable, lavishly illustrated book, Butterworth and Laurence marshall cutting-edge archaeological reconstructions and a vibrant historical tradition dating to Pliny and Tacitus; they present a richly textured portrait of a society not altogether unlike ours, composed of individuals ordinary and extraordinary who pursued commerce, politics, family and pleasure in the shadow of a killer volcano. Deeply resonant in a world still at the mercy of natural disaster, Pompeii recreates life as experienced in the city, and those frantic, awful hours in AD 79 that wiped the bustling city from the face of the earth.