|
Books > History > History of other lands
'Beautifully written, sumptuously illustrated, constantly
fascinating' The Times On 26 November 1922 Howard Carter first
peered into the newly opened tomb of an ancient Egyptian boy-king.
When asked if he could see anything, he replied: 'Yes, yes,
wonderful things.' In Tutankhamun's Trumpet, acclaimed Egyptologist
Toby Wilkinson takes a unique approach to that tomb and its
contents. Instead of concentrating on the oft-told story of the
discovery, or speculating on the brief life and politically
fractious reign of the boy king, Wilkinson takes the objects buried
with him as the source material for a wide-ranging, detailed
portrait of ancient Egypt - its geography, history, culture and
legacy. One hundred artefacts from the tomb, arranged in ten
thematic groups, are allowed to speak again - not only for
themselves, but as witnesses of the civilization that created them.
Never before have the treasures of Tutankhamun been analysed and
presented for what they can tell us about ancient Egyptian culture,
its development, its remarkable flourishing, and its lasting
impact. Filled with surprising insights, unusual details, vivid
descriptions and, above all, remarkable objects, Tutankhamun's
Trumpet will appeal to all lovers of history, archaeology, art and
culture, as well as all those fascinated by the Egypt of the
pharaohs. 'I've read many books on ancient Egypt, but I've never
felt closer to its people' The Sunday Times
Empires--vast states of territories and peoples united by force
and ambition--have dominated the political landscape for more than
two millennia. "Empires in World History" departs from conventional
European and nation-centered perspectives to take a remarkable look
at how empires relied on diversity to shape the global order.
Beginning with ancient Rome and China and continuing across Asia,
Europe, the Americas, and Africa, Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper
examine empires' conquests, rivalries, and strategies of
domination--with an emphasis on how empires accommodated, created,
and manipulated differences among populations.
Burbank and Cooper examine Rome and China from the third century
BCE, empires that sustained state power for centuries. They delve
into the militant monotheism of Byzantium, the Islamic Caliphates,
and the short-lived Carolingians, as well as the pragmatically
tolerant rule of the Mongols and Ottomans, who combined religious
protection with the politics of loyalty. Burbank and Cooper discuss
the influence of empire on capitalism and popular sovereignty, the
limitations and instability of Europe's colonial projects, Russia's
repertoire of exploitation and differentiation, as well as the
"empire of liberty"--devised by American revolutionaries and later
extended across a continent and beyond.
With its investigation into the relationship between diversity
and imperial states, "Empires in World History" offers a fresh
approach to understanding the impact of empires on the past and
present.
Arab Patriotism presents the essential backstory to the formation
of the modern nation-state and mass nationalism in the Middle East.
While standard histories claim that the roots of Arab nationalism
emerged in opposition to the Ottoman milieu, Adam Mestyan points to
the patriotic sentiment that grew in the Egyptian province of the
Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, arguing that it
served as a pivotal way station on the path to the birth of Arab
nationhood. Through extensive archival research, Mestyan examines
the collusion of various Ottoman elites in creating this nascent
sense of national belonging and finds that learned culture played a
central role in this development. Mestyan investigates the
experience of community during this period, engendered through
participation in public rituals and being part of a theater
audience. He describes the embodied and textual ways these
experiences were produced through urban spaces, poetry,
performances, and journals. From the Khedivial Opera House's
staging of Verdi's Aida and the first Arabic magazine to the 'Urabi
revolution and the restoration of the authority of Ottoman viceroys
under British occupation, Mestyan illuminates the cultural dynamics
of a regime that served as the precondition for nation-building in
the Middle East. A wholly original exploration of Egypt in the
context of the Ottoman Empire, Arab Patriotism sheds fresh light on
the evolving sense of political belonging in the Arab world.
'Engrossing ... grips you and doesn't let go.' The Spectator
'Waterdrinker's gift for savage comedy and his war correspondent's
eye have few contemporary equivalents.' The Times A thrilling
escapade through the Soviet Union of the '90s and early 2000s by a
tour guide turned smuggler turned novelist, that tells the
unputdownable story of modern Russia. One day, in 1988, a priest
knocks on Pieter Waterdrinker's door with an unusual request: will
he smuggle seven thousand bibles into the Soviet Union? Pieter
agrees, and soon finds himself living in the midst of one of the
biggest social and cultural revolutions of our time, working as a
tour operator ... with a sideline in contraband. During the next
thirty years, he witnesses, and is sometimes part of, the seismic
changes that transform Russia into the modern state we know it as
today. This riveting blend of memoir and history provides startling
insight into the emergence of one of the world's most powerful and
dangerous countries, as well as telling a nail-biting,
laugh-out-loud adventure story that will leave you on the edge of
your seat.
In 1924 when thirty-two-year-old Edmond Landry kissed his family
good-bye and left for the leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana,
leprosy, now referred to as Hansen's Disease, stigmatized and
disfigured but did not kill. Those with leprosy were incarcerated
in the federal hospital and isolated from family and community.
Phones were unavailable, transportation was precarious, and fear
was rampant. Edmond entered the hospital (as did his four other
siblings), but he did not surrender to his fate. He fought with his
pen and his limited energy to stay connected to his family and to
improve living conditions for himself and other patients
Claire Manes, Edmond's granddaughter, lived much of her life
gripped by the silence surrounding her grandfather. When his
letters were discovered, she became inspired to tell his story
through her scholarship and his writing. "Out of the Shadow of
Leprosy: The Carville Letters and Stories of the Landry Family"
presents her grandfather's letters and her own studies of narrative
and Carville during much of the twentieth century. The book becomes
a testament to Edmond's determination to maintain autonomy and
dignity in the land of the living dead. Letters and stories of the
other four siblings further enhance the picture of life in Carville
from 1919 to 1977.
As a border city Baltimore made an ideal arena to push for
change during the civil rights movement. It was a city in which all
forms of segregation and racism appeared vulnerable to attack by
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's
methods. If successful in Baltimore, the rest of the nation might
follow with progressive and integrationist reforms. The Baltimore
branch of the NAACP was one of the first chapters in the nation and
was the largest branch in the nation by 1946. The branch undertook
various forms of civil rights activity from 1914 through the 1940s
that later were mainstays of the 1960s movement. Nonviolent
protest, youth activism, economic boycotts, marches on state
capitols, campaigns for voter registration, and pursuit of
anti-lynching cases all had test runs. Remarkably, Baltimore's
NAACP had the same branch president for thirty-five years starting
in 1935, a woman, Lillie M. Jackson. Her work highlights gender
issues and the social and political transitions among the changing
civil rights groups. In "Borders of Equality," Lee Sartain
evaluates her leadership amid challenges from radicalized youth
groups and the Black Power Movement. Baltimore was an urban
industrial center that shared many characteristics with the North,
and African Americans could vote there. The city absorbed a large
number of black economic migrants from the South, and it exhibited
racial patterns that made it more familiar to Southerners. It was
one of the first places to begin desegregating its schools in
September 1954 after the "Brown" decision, and one of the first to
indicate to the nation that race was not simply a problem for the
Deep South. Baltimore's history and geography make it a perfect
case study to examine the NAACP and various phases of the civil
rights struggle in the twentieth century
With the growing interest in the history of peoples of African
descent in the Americas, narratives addressing regions outside of
the United States are becoming increasingly popular. The
Conceptualization of Race in Colonial Puerto Rico, 1800-1850
illuminates the role people of African descent played in the
building of a Spanish Caribbean society during the social upheaval
of the early nineteenth century. This examination of cultural
tensions created by changing regional and national definitions and
the fluidity of identity within these structures will appeal to
those interested in colonial race issues, Africans in the Americas,
and gender and race stratification. Kathryn R. Dungy uses gender,
color, and class differences as lenses to understand a colonial
society that was regulated by social relationships within Puerto
Rico, the Caribbean, and the Americas. By examining slave and free
status, color, gender, work, and immigration, she endeavors to
stimulate current debate on issues of gender, color, nation, and
empire, utilizing a unique population and culture in the Black
Atlantic.
This volume brings together philosophers, social theorists, and
theologians in order to investigate the relation between future(s)
of the Revolution and future(s) of the Reformation. It offers
reflections on concepts and interpretations of revolution and
reformation that are relevant for the analysis of future-oriented
political practices and political theologies of the present time.
In early March of 2020, Americans watched with uncertain terror as
the “novel coronavirus†pandemic unfolded in the coastal cities
of Seattle and Boston as well as around the world. No one in the
heartland state of Ohio had been infected—as far as we knew,
given the scarcity of tests. One week later, Ohio announced its
first confirmed cases. Just one year later, the state had over a
million cases and 18,000 Ohioans had died. What happened in the
course of that first pandemic year is not only a story of a public
health disaster, but also a story of social disparities and moral
dilemmas, of lives and livelihoods turned upside down, and of
institutions and safety nets stretched to their
limits.  This volume tells the human story of COVID in
Ohio, America’s “bellwether†state. Scholars and
practitioners examine the pandemic response from multiple angles,
and contributors from numerous walks of life offer moving
first-person reflections. Two themes emerge again and again: how
the pandemic revealed a deep tension between individual autonomy
and the collective good, and how it exacerbated social
inequalities. When COVID hit Ohio, it found a state divided along
social, economic, and political lines. State leaders and health
care institutions struggled to react to the growing emergency
without much help from the federal government. Meanwhile,
individuals and families were put under enormous stress. Many
already marginalized and underserved communities were left
behind.  Chapters address such varied topics as mask
mandates, ableism, prisons, food insecurity, access to reproductive
health care, and the need for more Black doctors. The book
concludes with an interview with Dr. Amy Acton, the state’s top
public health official at the time COVID hit Ohio.Â
Collectively, the volume captures the devastating impact of the
pandemic, both in the public discord it has unearthed and in the
unfair burdens it has placed on the groups least equipped to bear
them.
In 1909, young William F. Buckley Sr. (1881-1958), who grew up in
the dusty South Texas town of San Diego, graduated from the
University of Texas law school and headed for Mexico City. Fluent
in Spanish, familiar with Mexican traditions, and soon fit to
practice law south of the border, Buckley was headed up the aisle
to vast wealth and cultural power. On the way, he took a front-row
seat at the Mexican Revolution and played a key role in steering
the nascent oil industry through tumultuous and dangerous times.
This book for the first time tells the story of the man behind the
family that would become nothing short of a conservative
institution, reaching its apogee in the career of William F.
Buckley Jr., arguably the most prominent conservative commentator
of the twentieth century. Buckley witnessed the overthrow and exit
of President Porfirio DIaz, the rise of Madero, and the coup of
General Victoriano Huerta, all while building the Pantepec Oil
Company, the most profitable small petroleum producer in Mexico. He
faced down Pancho Villa, survived encounters with hired assassins,
evaded snipers in the streets of Veracruz, gambled and won in many
a business venture-and ultimately was expelled from the country. As
the narrative follows Buckley from his small-town Texas beginnings
to the founding of a family dynasty, the streak of independence and
distrust of government that would become the Buckley hallmark can
be seen in the making. An eventful chapter in the life and career
of a singular character, this dramatic account of a man and his
moment is a document of political and historical significance-but
it is also a remarkable story, told with irresistible brio.
The Black people of Marks, Mississippi, and other rural southern
towns were the backbone of the civil rights movement, yet their
stories have too rarely been celebrated and are, for the most part,
forgotten. Part memoir, part oral history, and part historical
study, A Day I Ain't Never Seen Before tells the story of the
struggle for equality and dignity through the words of these
largely unknown men and women and the civil rights workers who
joined them. Deeply rooted in documentary and archival sources,
this book also offers extensive suggestions for further readings on
both Marks and the civil rights movement. Set carefully within its
broader historical context, the narrative begins with the founding
of the town and the oppressive conditions under which Black people
lived and traces their persistent efforts to win the rights and
justice they deserved. In their own words, Marks residents describe
their lives before, during, and after the activist years of the
civil rights movement, bolstered by the voices of those like Joe
Bateman who arrived in the mid-1960s to help. Voter registration
projects, white violence, sit-ins, arrests, school desegregation
cases, community-organizing meetings, protest marches, Freedom
Schools, door-to-door organizing-all of these played out in Marks.
The broader civil rights movement intersects many of these local
efforts, from Freedom Summer to the War on Poverty, from the death
of a Marks man on the March against Fear (Martin Luther King Jr.
preached at his funeral) to the Poor People's Movement, whose Mule
Train began in Marks. At each point Bateman and local activists
detail how they understood what they were doing and how each
protest action played out. The final chapters examine Marks in the
aftermath of the movement, with residents reflecting on the changes
(or lack thereof ) they have seen. Here are triumphs and beatings,
courage and infighting, surveillance and-sometimes- lasting
progress, in the words of those who lived it.
Spanish-British relations changed during the first three decades of
the 19th century. Both states emerged victorious from the
Napoleonic wars and were united by the alliance, but their
respective strength was totally different. While Great Britain
enhanced its status as a sea power, strong enough to affect the
political situation in Europe, Spain sank to the rank of a
secondary state. Britain, protecting clearly defined interests,
carried out long-term and rational policy. Spain's policy was
inconsistent and it could not be treated as a reliable ally in
spite of its considerable economic resources and strategic
importance. The book analyses a long and complex process of
overcoming the traditional hostility between the two countries and
outlines the international context as well as the internal
conditions of that political evolution.
Representations of southern poor whites have long shifted between
romanticization and demonization. At worst, poor southern whites
are aligned with racism, bigotry, and right-wing extremism, and, at
best, regarded as the passive victims of wider, socioeconomic
policies. In Poverty Politics: Poor Whites in Contemporary Southern
Writing, author Sarah Robertson pushes beyond these stereotypes and
explores the impact of neoliberalism and welfare reform on
depictions of poverty. Robertson examines representations of
southern poor whites across various types of literature, including
travel writing, photo-narratives, life-writing, and eco-literature,
and reveals a common interest in communitarianism that crosses the
boundaries of the US South and regionalism, moving past ideas about
the culture of poverty to examine the economics of poverty.
Included are critical examinations of the writings of southern
writers such as Dorothy Allison, Rick Bragg, Barbara Kingsolver,
Tim McLaurin, Toni Morrison, and Ann Pancake. Poverty Politics
includes critical engagement with identity politics as well as
reflections on issues including Hurricane Katrina, the 2008
financial crisis, and mountaintop removal. Robertson interrogates
the presumed opposition between the Global North and the Global
South and engages with microregions through case studies on
Appalachian photo-narratives and eco-literature. Importantly, she
focuses not merely on representations of southern poor whites, but
also on writing that calls for alternative ways of
reconceptualizing not just the poor, but societal Measures of time,
value, and worth.
The natural and cultural history of an iconic plant The palmetto,
also known as the cabbage palm or Sabal palmetto, is an iconic part
of the southeastern American landscape and the state tree of
Florida and South Carolina. In The Palmetto Book, Jono Miller
offers surprising facts and dispels common myths about an important
native plant that remains largely misunderstood. Miller answers
basic questions such as: Are palms trees? Where did they grow
historically? When should palmettos be pruned? What is swamp
cabbage and how do you prepare it? Did Winslow Homer's watercolors
of palmettos inadvertently document rising sea level? How can these
plants be both flammable and fireproof? Based on historical
research, Miller argues that cabbage palms can live for more than
two centuries. The palmettos that were used to build Fort Moultrie
at the start of the Revolutionary War thwarted a British attack on
Charleston-and ended up on South Carolina's flag. Delving into
biology, Miller describes the anatomy of palm fronds and their
crisscrossed leaf bases, called bootjacks. He traces the
underground "saxophone" structure of the young plant's root system.
He explores the importance of palmettos for many wildlife species,
including Florida Scrub-Jays and honey bees. Miller also documents
how palmettos can pose problems for native habitats, citrus groves,
and home landscapes. From Low Country sweetgrass baskets to
Seminole chickees and an Elvis Presley movie set, the story of the
cabbage palm touches on numerous dimensions of the natural and
cultural history of the Southeast. Exploring both the past and
present of this distinctive species, The Palmetto Book is a
fascinating and enlightening journey.
The first book-length treatment of Utah's distinctive food
heritage, this volume contains work by more than sixty
Subject-matter experts, including scholars, community members,
event organizers, journalists, bloggers, photographers, and food
producers. It features recipes and photographs of food and
beverages. Utah's food history is traced from preContact Native
American times through the arrival of multinational Mormon
pioneers, miners, farmers, and other immigrants to today's moment
of 'foodie' creativity, craft beers, and 'fast-casual'
restaurant-chain development. Contributors also explore the
historical and cultural background for scores of food-related
tools, techniques, dishes, traditions, festivals, and distinctive
ingredients from the state's religious, regional, and ethnic
communities as well as Utah-based companies. In a state much
influenced by Latter-day Saint history and culture, iconic items
like Jell-O salads, funeral potatoes, fry sauce, and the
distinctive 'Utah scone' have emerged as self-conscious signals of
an ecumenical Utah identity. Scholarly but lively and accessible,
this book will appeal to both the general reader and the academic
folklorist.
How the support of patriotic sentiments in Ottoman Egypt led to an
emerging Arab nationalism Arab Patriotism presents the essential
backstory to the formation of the modern nation-state and mass
nationalism in the Middle East. While standard histories claim that
the roots of Arab nationalism emerged in opposition to the Ottoman
milieu, Adam Mestyan points to the patriotic sentiment that grew in
the Egyptian province of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth
century, arguing that it served as a pivotal way station on the
path to the birth of Arab nationhood. Through extensive archival
research, Mestyan examines the collusion of various Ottoman elites
in creating this nascent sense of national belonging and finds that
learned culture played a central role in this development. Mestyan
investigates the experience of community during this period,
engendered through participation in public rituals and being part
of a theater audience. He describes the embodied and textual ways
these experiences were produced through urban spaces, poetry,
performances, and journals. From the Khedivial Opera House's
staging of Verdi's Aida and the first Arabic magazine to the 'Urabi
revolution and the restoration of the authority of Ottoman viceroys
under British occupation, Mestyan illuminates the cultural dynamics
of a regime that served as the precondition for nation-building in
the Middle East. A wholly original exploration of Egypt in the
context of the Ottoman Empire, Arab Patriotism sheds fresh light on
the evolving sense of political belonging in the Arab world.
|
|