This prodigious narrative, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between the years 980 and 1010, tells the story of pre- Islamic Iran, beginning in the mythic time of Creation and continuing forward to the Arab invasion in the seventh century. As a window on the world, "Shahnameh" belongs in the company of such literary masterpieces as Dante's "Divine Comedy," the plays of Shakespeare, the epics of Homer- classics whose reach and range bring whole cultures into view. In its pages are unforgettable moments of national triumph and failure, human courage and cruelty, blissful love and bitter grief.In tracing the roots of Iran, "Shahnameh" initially draws on the depths of legend and then carries its story into historical times, when ancient Persia was swept into an expanding Islamic empire. Now Dick Davis, the greatest modern translator of Persian poetry, has revisited that poem, turning the finest stories of Ferdowsi's original into an elegant combination of prose and verse. For the first time in English, in the most complete form possible, readers can experience "Shahnameh" in the same way that Iranian storytellers have lovingly conveyed it in Persian for the past thousand years.

    Alfred R. Ferguson was founding editor of the edition, followed by Joseph Slater (until 1996).

    With wit and brilliance, Paul Johnson exposes these intellectuals, and questions whether ideas should ever be valued more than individuals.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    This enormous eBook offers readers the unique opportunity of exploring the prolific writer’s complete works in a manner never before possible. * illustrated with hundreds of images relating to Trollope’s life and works * annotated with concise introductions to the novels and other works * ALL 47 novels – even rare ones - and each with their own contents table * separate contents tables for the Barsetshire and Palliser novels * images of how the novels first appeared, giving your Kindle a taste of the Victorian texts * the Christmas stories, including the scarce novella THE TWO HEROINES OF PLUMPINGTON * rare short story collections like WHY FRAU FROHMANN RAISED HER PRICES AND OTHER STORIES – first time in digital print * both of the rare plays * includes Trollope’s travel writing and classical studies * includes Trollope’s rare biographies of Lord Palmerston, Thackeray and Cicero * the textbook Trollope analysing Caesar’s Commentaries * rare sketches, like the fully illustrated text CLERGYMEN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, available nowhere else in digital print * boasts a special criticism section, examining Trollope’s contribution to literature * SPECIAL BONUS text of Trollope’s autobiography - explore the author’s interesting life! * scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres, allowing easy navigation around Trollope’s immense oeuvre * UPDATED with more images, corrections and improved structure * UPDATED with rare short story THE GENTLE EUPHEMIA CONTENTS: The Barsetshire Series The Palliser Series The Novels THE MACDERMOTS OF BALLYCLORAN THE KELLYS AND THE O’KELLYS THE WARDEN LA VENDÉE BARCHESTER TOWERS THE THREE CLERKS DOCTOR THORNE THE BERTRAMS CASTLE RICHMOND FRAMLEY PARSONAGE ORLEY FARM THE STRUGGLES OF BROWN, JONES AND ROBINSON RACHEL RAY THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON CAN YOU FORGIVE HER? MISS MACKENZIE THE BELTON ESTATE THE CLAVERINGS NINA BALATKA THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET LINDA TRESSEL PHINEAS FINN HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON SIR HARRY HOTSPUR OF HUMBLETHWAITE RALPH THE HEIR GOLDEN LION OF GRANPÈRE THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL LADY ANNA PHINEAS REDUX THE WAY WE LIVE NOW THE PRIME MINISTER THE AMERICAN SENATOR IS HE POPENJOY? JOHN CALDIGATE AN EYE FOR AN EYE COUSIN HENRY THE DUKE’S CHILDREN AYALA’S ANGEL DOCTOR WORTLE’S SCHOOL THE FIXED PERIOD KEPT IN THE DARK MARION FAY MR. SCARBOROUGH’S FAMILY THE LANDLEAGUERS AN OLD MAN’S LOVE The Shorter Fiction TALES OF OTHER COUNTRIES SERIES I TALES OF OTHER COUNTRIES SERIES II THE GENTLE EUPHEMIA LOTTA SCHMIDT AND OTHER STORIES AN EDITOR’S TALES CHRISTMAS DAY AT KIRKBY COTTAGE NEVER, NEVER — NEVER, NEVER CATHERINE CARMICHAEL WHY FRAU FROHMANN RAISED HER PRICES AND OTHER STORIES THE TWO HEROINES OF PLUMPLINGTON NOT IF I KNOW IT The Short Stories LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER The Sketches HUNTING SKETCHES TRAVELLING SKETCHES CLERGYMEN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND LONDON TRADESMEN The Travel Writing THE WEST INDIES AND THE SPANISH MAIN NORTH AMERICA AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND SOUTH AFRICA HOW THE ‘MASTIFFS’ WENT TO ICELAND The Plays DID HE STEAL IT? THE NOBLE JILT The Non-Fiction LIST OF ESSAYS AND ARTICLES THE COMMENTARIES OF CAESAR The Criticism STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN LITERATURE by Frederic Harrison NOTES ON TROLLOPE by Leo Tolstoy EXTRACT FROM ‘THE NEW NOVEL’ by Henry James PARTIAL PORTRAITS: ANTHONY TROLLOPE by Henry James The Biographies THACKERAY LIFE OF CICERO LORD PALMERSTON AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

    While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.

    History is designed to meet the scope and sequence requirements of most introductory courses. The text provides a balanced approach to U.S. history, considering the people, events, and ideas that have shaped the United States from both the top down (politics, economics, diplomacy) and bottom up (eyewitness accounts, lived experience). U.S. History covers key forces that form the American experience, with particular attention to issues of race, class, and gender.

    This was the epoch of Alexander’s vast expansion of the Greco-Macedonian world, the rise and fall of his successors’ major dynasties in Egypt and Asia, and, ultimately, the establishment of Rome as the first Mediterranean superpower.The Hellenistic Age chronicles the years 336 to 30 BCE, from the days of Philip and Alexander of Macedon to the death of Cleopatra and the final triumph of Caesar’s heir, the young Augustus. Peter Green’s remarkably far-ranging study covers the prevalent themes and events of those centuries: the Hellenization of an immense swath of the known world–from Egypt to India–by Alexander’s conquests; the lengthy and chaotic partition of this empire by rival Macedonian marshals after Alexander’s death; the decline of the polis (city state) as the predominant political institution; and, finally, Rome’s moment of transition from republican to imperial rule.Predictably, this is a story of war and power-politics, and of the developing fortunes of art, science, and statecraft in the areas where Alexander’s coming disseminated Hellenic culture. It is a rich narrative tapestry of warlords, libertines, philosophers, courtesans and courtiers, dramatists, historians, scientists, merchants, mercenaries, and provocateurs of every stripe, spun by an accomplished classicist with an uncanny knack for infusing life into the distant past, and applying fresh insights that make ancient history seem alarmingly relevant to our own times.To consider the three centuries prior to the dawn of the common era in a single short volume demands a scholar with a great command of both subject and narrative line. The Hellenistic Age is that rare book that manages to coalesce a broad spectrum of events, persons, and themes into one brief, indispensable, and amazingly accessible survey.

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    He wrote vast volumes about animals. He described them, classified them, told us where and how they live and how they develop in the womb or in the egg. He founded a science. It can even be said that he founded science itself.In The Lagoon, acclaimed biologist Armand Marie Leroi recovers Aristotle’s science. He revisits Aristotle’s writings and the places where he worked. He goes to the eastern Aegean island of Lesbos to see the creatures that Aristotle saw, where he saw them. He explores Aristotle’s observations, his deep ideas, his inspired guesses—and the things he got wildly wrong. He shows how Aristotle’s science is deeply intertwined with his philosophical system and reveals that he was not only the first biologist, but also one of the greatest.The Lagoon is both a travelogue and a study of the origins of science. And it shows how a philosopher who lived almost two millennia ago still has so much to teach us today.

    Its success should have been a formality. For seventy years, victory—rapid, spectacular victory—had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. In the space of a single generation, they had swept across the Near East, shattering ancient kingdoms, storming famous cities, putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean. As a result of those conquests, Xerxes ruled as the most powerful man on the planet. Yet somehow, astonishingly, against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled, the Greeks of the mainland managed to hold out. The Persians were turned back. Greece remained free. Had the Greeks been defeated in the epochal naval battle at Salamis, not only would the West have lost its first struggle for independence and survival, but it is unlikely that there would ever have been such an entity as the West at all.Tom Holland’s brilliant new book describes the very first “clash of Empires” between East and West. As he did in the critically praised Rubicon, he has found extraordinary parallels between the ancient world and our own. There is no other popular history that takes in the entire sweep of the Persian Wars, and no other classical historian, academic or popular, who combines scholarly rigor with novelistic depth with a worldly irony in quite the fashion that Tom Holland does.

    The books published on the subject are so technical that only a person trained in pure physics and higher mathematics is able to fully understand them. In order to make a popular explanation of this far-reaching theory available, the present book is published.

    Through most of its long history, Greece was poor. But in the classical era, Greece was densely populated and highly urbanized. Many surprisingly healthy Greeks lived in remarkably big houses and worked for high wages at specialized occupations. Middle-class spending drove sustained economic growth. Classical wealth produced a stunning cultural efflorescence lasting hundreds of years.Why did Greece reach such heights in the classical period--and why only then? And how, after "the Greek miracle" had endured for centuries, did the Macedonians defeat the Greeks, seemingly bringing an end to their glory? Drawing on a massive body of newly available data and employing novel approaches to evidence, Josiah Ober offers a major new history of classical Greece and an unprecedented account of its rise and fall.Ober argues that Greece's rise was no miracle but rather the result of political breakthroughs and economic development. The extraordinary emergence of citizen-centered city-states transformed Greece into a society that defeated the mighty Persian Empire. Yet Philip and Alexander of Macedon were able to beat the Greeks in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, a victory enabled by the Macedonians' appropriation of Greek innovations. After Alexander's death, battle-hardened warlords fought ruthlessly over the remnants of his empire. But Greek cities remained populous and wealthy, their economy and culture surviving to be passed on to the Romans--and to us.A compelling narrative filled with uncanny modern parallels, this is a book for anyone interested in how great civilizations are born and die.This book is based on evidence available on a new interactive website. To learn more, please visit http://polis.stanford.edu/

    Robert Garland presents a wealth of fascinating, sometimes surprising information about our spiritual, cultural, and intellectual ancestors during this influential period. Did Greeks share our notion of romantic love? How stable was the family? How did they relax? What did they eat? Why was it more desirable to be a slave than a day laborer? Were they really more cultivated than we are?  Unique and descriptive, the attractive volume include includes images throughout, as well as maps.

    It's no wonder; the philosophy and its embrace of self-mastery, virtue, and indifference to that which we cannot control is as urgent today as it was in the chaos of the Roman Empire. In Lives of the Stoics, Holiday and Hanselman present the fascinating lives of the men and women who strove to live by the timeless Stoic virtues of Courage. Justice. Temperance. Wisdom. Organized in digestible, mini-biographies of all the well-known--and not so well-known--Stoics, this book vividly brings home what Stoicism was like for the people who loved it and lived it, dusting off powerful lessons to be learned from their struggles and successes. More than a mere history book, every example in these pages, from Epictetus to Marcus Aurelius--slaves to emperors--is designed to help the reader apply philosophy in their own lives. Holiday and Hanselman unveil the core values and ideas that unite figures from Seneca to Cato to Cicero across the centuries. Among them are the idea that self-rule is the greatest empire, that character is fate; how Stoics benefit from preparing not only for success, but failure; and learn to love, not merely accept, the hand they are dealt in life. A treasure of valuable insights and stories, this book can be visited again and again by any reader in search of inspiration from the past.