When a space shuttle goes missing during a test flight, James Bond (Roger Moore) is the man who must track it down. His investigations take him to Venice (where he uses his specially customized gondola), Rio de Janeiro (where he fights steel-toothed henchman Jaws on top of a cable car), and finally into outer space (where he uncovers a ruthless plot to wipe out the human race and replace it with genetically engineered humanoids). Highlights include Bond's encounters with NASA scientist Dr Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) and the climactic battle aboard villain Hugo Drax's (Michael Lonsdale) space station.

Did you know that Kakadu National Park in Australia boasts some of the oldest exposed rock on the planet and is known to have been inhabited continuously for over 40,000 years? That Lake Malawi contains the largest number of fish species of any lake in the world-over 3,000? Or that the tiny Madeiran archipelago off the coast of Northern Africa is the last vestige of the original majestic laurel forests that once covered most of Southern Europe? Published in partnership with UNESCO World Heritage, Our Natural World Heritage showcases 50 of the planet's most beautiful and biodiverse landscapes, each identified as a site of outstanding universal value and an irreplaceable source of life and inspiration. Over 900 colour images and evocative, accessible text reveal what makes each site unique, through an exploration of its flora, fauna, and natural history. This is awe-inspiring natural beauty that belongs to us all.

The rapidly evolving inter-disciplinary field of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) is a vital means of evaluating the likely significant environmental consequences of implementing land use plan proposals. The European SEA directive, which came into effect in 2004, requires member states to implement SEA requirements. This book provides an authoritative, international evaluation of the SEA of land use plans and provides context using a variety of case studies in which the uniquely qualified contributors evaluate systems in Canada, Denmark, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, The UK, and the USA. Each SEA system is evaluated against a set of generic criteria specially designed to analyse different aspects of SEA. Numerous figures and tables are used to summarize the evaluative findings.

A steep hillside garden in Singapore. A garden defined by shape and light in Marrakech. A haunting tree museum in Switzerland. These are just a few of the outstanding gardens featured in Gardenlust, a sumptuous exploration of the world's best new gardens. Intrepid plant expert Christopher Woods explores the best modern gardens from around the world, introducing us to private and public spaces that offer unparalleled innovation and beauty. Traveling from the Americas and Europe to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, from Asia to Australia and New Zealand, readers will discover the people and plants that bring these gardens to life and the stories that make them memorable. Featuring fifty gardens and packed with hundreds of stunning photographs, Gardenlust is a remarkable and unforgettable botanical tour.

Explore the changing world of late nineteenth-century Iran through the gaze of one of its most renowned photographers, Antoin Sevruguin. This volume publishes for the first time the Oriental Institute Museum's complete collection of nineteenth-century Iranian photographs, most of which were created by Sevruguin. The artfully staged photographs still resonate with us today. Accompanying the catalogue of photographs is a series of essays that investigating Sevruguin's life and photographic career, including the lasting impact of his unique vision as demonstrated by the work of contemporary artist Yassaman Ameri.

Writing, the ability to make language visible and permanent, is one of humanity's greatest inventions. This book presents current perspectives on the origins and development of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt, providing an overview of each writing system and its uses. Essays on writing in China and Mesoamerica complete coverage of the four "pristine" writing systems - inventions of writing in which there was no previous exposure to texts. The authors explore what writing is, and is not, and sections of the text are devoted to Anatolian hieroglyphs of Anatolia, and to the development of the alphabet in the Sinai Peninsula in the second millennium BC and its spread to Phoenicia where it spawned the Greek and Latin alphabets. This richly illustrated volume, issued in conjunction with an exhibit at the Oriental Institute, provides a current perspective on, and appreciation of, an invention that changed the course of history.