Part of a multi-volume work that catalogs the enormous range of enamel-painted figures made predominantly in the Staffordshire Potteries between 1780 and 1840, Volume 2 presents figures portraying equestrians, fairground entertainers, personalities from literature and the stage, biblical characters, and a host of people of national and international significance. Also shown are sporting pastimes and figures reflecting a patriotic theme. It includes over 1000 brilliant color photos of figures. Literary figures range from Cleopatra and Doctor Syntax, while important persons as varied as Benjamin Franklin and Admiral Lord Nelson are captured in clay. The works also include the early pugilists, bull and bear baiting, and sportsmen and women of those days. Many of these figures have long been hidden from the public eye. Fashioned in an era before photography, they give us rare glimpses of a world that has vanished. In many cases, they are hauntingly beautiful. To hold one is to touch the past.

For hundreds of years the Bactrian camel ploughed a lonely furrow across the vast wilderness of Asia. This bizarre-looking, temperamental yet hardy creature here came into its own as the core goods vehicle, resolutely and reliably transporting to China - over huge and unforgiving distances - fine things from the West while taking treasures out of the Middle Kingdom in return. Where the chariot, wagon and other wheeled conveyances proved useless amidst the shifting desert dunes, the surefooted progress of the camel - archetypal 'ship of the Silk Road' - now reigned supreme. The Bactrian camel was a subject that appealed particularly to Chinese artists because of its association with the exotic trade to mysterious Western lands. In his lavishly illustrated volume, Angus Forsyth explores diverse jade pieces depicting this iconic beast of burden. Almost one hundred separate objects are included, many of which have not been seen in print before. At the same time the author offers the full historical background to his subject. The book will have a strong appeal to collectors and art historians alike.

From AD 500-1000, the Indian Ocean emerged as a global commercial centre, and by around 750-800 a sophisticated trade network had been established involving the movement of goods from Japan and China in the east, to southern Africa and Spain in the west. However, the Indian Ocean's commercial system has been relatively understudied, with many of the key assumptions regarding its development based on narrative textual sources and selective archaeological evidence. This study sets out the case for the unique significance of quantified ceramic finds as an indicator of long-term changes in the scale and volume of maritime exchange in a period for which few other sources of systematic economic history survive. The publication presents archaeological data from thirteen sites distributed across the western Indian Ocean, including Siraf (Iran), Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka) and Manda (Kenya). The ceramic assemblages are considered in terms of their general compositional characteristics and the distinctions between local, regional and long-distance exchange. The volume concludes with a discussion of how this data can be used to address the broader issues of long-term economic change and the relationship between state power in the Middle East and the commercial networks of the Indian Ocean operating via the Persian Gulf.