A special agency of censors was also organized for the purpose of enforcing the regulations concerning the sanctity of animal life and the observance of filial piety, in the most extended sense. These officers were expressly enjoined to concern themselves with all sects, and with every class of society, not excluding the royal family, while separate officials were charged with the delicate duty of supervising female morals. In practice, this system must have led to much espionage and tyranny] from Chapter VII: Asoka Maurya and His Successors First published in 1906, this classic nine-volume history of the nation of India places it among the storied lands of antiquity, alongside Egypt, China, and Mesopotamia. Edited by American academic ABRAHAM VALENTINE WILLIAMS JACKSON (18621937), professor of Indo-Iranian languages at Columbia University, it offers a highly readable narrative of the Indian people and culture through to the time of its publication, when the nation was still part of the British Empire. Volume II, From the Sixth Century B.C. to the Mohammedan Conquest, Including the Invasion of Alexander the Great, by British scholar VINCENT ARTHUR SMITH (1848-1920), features entertaining and enlightening treatments of: the dynasties before Alexander Alexanders Indian campaign imperial monarch Asoka Maurya the Indo-Greek and Indo-Parthian dynasties the Gupta Empire and the white Huns the reign of Harsha the medieval kingdoms of the north and much more. This beautiful replica of the 1906 first edition includes all the original illustrations.

Music in Religious Cults of the Ancient Near East presents the first extended discussion of the relationship between music and cultic worship in ancient western Asia. The book covers ancient Israel and Judah, the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Elam, and ancient Egypt, focusing on the period from approximately 3000 BCE to around 586 BCE. This wide-ranging book brings together insights from ancient archaeological, iconographic, written, and musical sources, as well as from modern scholarship. Through careful analysis, comparison, and evaluation of those sources, the author builds a picture of a world where religious culture was predominant and where music was intrinsic to common cultic activity.

Nazi Germany utilized every available resource to fight the Second World War, and one significant weapon in Hitler's economic arsenal was gold - gold looted from the central banks of those European countries which were occupied by the Nazi regime between 1939 and 1942. Calculated at pre-1939 prices, the Germans gained access to about $625 million (US) in monetary gold, only about half of which was recovered by American Forces in April 1945 from a mine in central Germany. The 'Gold War' did not end then, however; it just assumed a different shape. Instead of fuelling Hitler's war effort, the recovered gold soon became a pawn in the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union and has remained a controversial issue in international politics for years, one not completely resolved to this day.Although this is an important aspect of the Second World War and its aftermath, it has been largely neglected in historical research because of the lack of adequate source materials. The author succeeded in gaining access to hitherto unavailable but crucial records from archives in West Germany, Britain and the United States and is thus in a position to piece together, for the first time, the story of the Nazi gold loot and the long, complicated restitution of part of this gold by the Western Allies. Hitler's Gold represents an essential contribution to the economic history of the Second World War.

Music in Religious Cults of the Ancient Near East presents the first extended discussion of the relationship between music and cultic worship in ancient western Asia. The book covers ancient Israel and Judah, the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Elam, and ancient Egypt, focusing on the period from approximately 3000 BCE to around 586 BCE. This wide-ranging book brings together insights from ancient archaeological, iconographic, written, and musical sources, as well as from modern scholarship. Through careful analysis, comparison, and evaluation of those sources, the author builds a picture of a world where religious culture was predominant and where music was intrinsic to common cultic activity.