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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history
Afghanistan in the 20th century was virtually unknown in Europe and
America. At peace until the 1970s, the country was seen as a remote
and exotic land, visited only by adventurous tourists or
researchers. Afghan Village Voices is a testament to this
little-known period of peace and captures a society and culture now
lost. Prepared by two of the most accomplished and well-known
anthropologists of the Middle East and Central Asia, Richard Tapper
and Nancy Tapper-Lindisfarne, this is a book of stories told by the
Piruzai, a rural Afghan community of some 200 families who farmed
in northern Afghanistan and in summer took their flocks to the
central Hazarajat mountains. The book comprises a collection of
remarkable stories, folktales and conversations and provides
unprecedented insight into the depth and colour of these people's
lives. Recorded in the early 1970s, the stories range from memories
of the Piruzai migration to the north a half century before, to the
feuds, ethnic strife and the doings of powerful khans. There are
also stories of falling in love, elopements, marriages, childbirth
and the world of spirits. The book includes vignettes of the
narrators, photographs, maps and a full glossary. It is a
remarkable document of Afghanistan at peace, told by a people whose
voices have rarely been heard.
In this comprehensive study, Kenneth Morgan provides an
authoritative account of European exploration and discovery in
Australia. The book presents a detailed chronological overview of
European interests in the Australian continent, from initial
speculations about the 'Great Southern Land' to the major
hydrographic expeditions of the 19th century. In particular, he
analyses the early crossings of the Dutch in the 17th century, the
exploits of English 'buccaneer adventurer' William Dampier, the
famous voyages of James Cook and Matthew Flinders, and the
little-known French annexation of Australia in 1772. Introducing
new findings and drawing on the latest in historiographical
research, this book situates developments in navigation, nautical
astronomy and cartography within the broader contexts of imperial,
colonial, and maritime history.
Papers read to the Fifth British Legal History Conference
illustrating the dynamic interchange between law and the society
and cultural opinions that produce it.
The Israeli-West-German Reparations Agreement from September 10,
1952, is considered an event of paramount importance in the history
of the State of Israel due to its dramatic and far-reaching
implications in multiple spheres. Moreover, this agreement marked a
breakthrough in international law. It recognized the right of one
country to claim compensation from another, in the name of a people
scattered around the globe, and following events that took place at
a time when neither polity existed. Post-Holocaust Reckonings
studies this historical chapter based on an enormous variety of
sources, some of which are revealed here for the first time, and it
is the first comprehensive research work available on the subject.
Researchers, lecturers, teachers, students, journalists,
politicians and laymen who are curious about history and political
science might take a great interest in this book. The subject of
indemnification for damages resulting from war or war crimes would
also be of interest to societies and communities worldwide who have
experienced or are currently experiencing human and material
tragedies due to national, ethnic or religious conflicts.
Met kaarte en geografiese grense sal mens wel kan bepaal waar le
die Tankwa-Karoo. maar vir Adriaan Oosthuizen kry jy die streek
wanneer jy die langste grondpad tussen twee dorpe in Suid-Afrika
aanpak: die pad tussen Ceres en Calvinia. Saam met Adriaan se
foto’s vertel Leti Kleyn van haar besoek aan hierdie geliefde stuk
land en dit word aangevul deur Dawid Slinger se vertellings en
skrywes. ’n Fees vir die oog, lekkerleesboek en ’n inligtinggids
ineen oor die geliefde streek wat die Tankwa-Karoo heet.
The true story of how the First Folio creators made 'Shakespeare'
2023 marks the 400-year anniversary of Mr William Shakespeare's
Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies, known today simply as the
First Folio. It is difficult to imagine a world without The
Tempest, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale,
and Macbeth, but these are just some of the plays which were only
preserved thanks to the astounding labour of love that went into
creating the first collection. Without the First Folio, Shakespeare
was unlikely to acquire his towering international stature and
become the legend that inspired so much of language, art, education
and public institution. But who were the personalities behind the
project and did Shakespeare himself play a role in its inception?
Shakespeare's Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio
charts, for the first time, the manufacture of the First Folio
against a turbulent backdrop of seismic political events and
international tensions which intersected with the lives of its
creators and which left their indelible marks on this ambitious
publication-project. This transporting book uncovers the
friendships, bonds, social ties and professional networks which
facilitated the production of Shakespeare's book, as well as the
personal challenges, tragedies and dangers which threw obstacles in
its way. And it reveals how Shakespeare himself, before his death,
may have influenced the ways in which his own public identity would
come to be enshrined in the First Folio, shaping the transmission
of his legacy to future generations and determining how the world
would remember him 'not of an age, but for all time'.
When Robert McBride was sentenced to death, he turned to the public gallery in court and said: ‘Freedom is just around the corner. I am leaving you at the corner – and you must take that corner to find freedom on the other side.’ As the guard moved in, he raised his fist and shouted: ‘The struggle continues till Babylon falls!’
It was 1987: the time of ‘total onslaught’. The trial of the MK unit that planted the Magoo's bomb on the Durban beachfront dominated the news but few knew the real facts of the brave young people who brought the armed struggle to KwaZulu-Natal.
This is the remarkable story of McBride and his comrades: the substation sabotage spree, rescuing a compatriot from hospital and smuggling him to Botswana, the devastating Why Not and Magoo's car bomb that killed three women, the dramatic trial and McBride’s 1 463 days on Death Row.
Now updated to include McBride’s controversial life after the end of apartheid, this is a thrilling tale of a young South African’s incredible courage, loyalty between friends and falling in love across the race barrier. Today, the struggle continues as McBride fights against corruption and state capture.
This book offers an innovative account of how audiences and actors
emotionally interacted in the English theatre during the middle
decades of the eighteenth century, a period bookended by two of its
stars: David Garrick and Sarah Siddons. Drawing upon recent
scholarship on the history of emotions, it uses practice theory to
challenge the view that emotional interactions between actors and
audiences were governed by empathy. It carefully works through how
actors communicated emotions through their voices, faces and
gestures, how audiences appraised these performances, and mobilised
and regulated their own emotional responses. Crucially, this book
reveals how theatre spaces mediated the emotional practices of
audiences and actors alike. It examines how their public and
frequently political interactions were enabled by these spaces.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024.
The highly original, blistering, and unconventional memoir by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer, which has now sold over one million copies worldwide
With insight, humour, formal invention, and lyricism, in A Man of Two Faces Nguyen rewinds the film of his own life. He expands the genre of personal memoir by acknowledging larger stories of refugeehood, colonization, and ideas about Vietnam and America, writing with his trademark sardonic wit and incisive analysis, as well as a deep emotional openness about his life as a father and a son.
At the age of four, Nguyen and his family are forced to flee his hometown of Ban Mê Thu?t and come to the USA as refugees. After being removed from his brother and parents and homed with a family on his own, Nguyen is later allowed to resettle into his own family in suburban San José. But there is violence hidden behind the sunny façade of what he calls AMERICA™. One Christmas Eve, when Nguyen is nine, while watching cartoons at home, he learns that his parents have been shot while working at their grocery store, the SàiGòn M?i, a place where he sometimes helps price tins of fruit with a sticker gun. Years later, as a teenager, the blood-stirring drama of the films of the Vietnam War such as Apocalypse Now throw Nguyen into an existential crisis: how can he be both American and Vietnamese, both the killer and the person being killed? When he learns about an adopted sister who has stayed back in Vietnam, and ultimately visits her, he grows to understand just how much his parents have left behind. And as his parents age, he worries increasingly about their comfort and care, and realizes that some of their older wounds are reopening.
Resonant in its emotions and clear in its thinking about cultural power, A Man of Two Faces explores the necessity of both forgetting and of memory, the promises America so readily makes and breaks, and the exceptional life story of one of the most original and important writers working today.
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