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Ornette Coleman's career encompassed the glory years of jazz and
the American avant-garde. Born in segregated Fort Worth, Texas,
during the Great Depression, the African American composer and
musician was zeitgeist incarnate. Steeped in the Texas blues
tradition, Ornette and jazz grew up together, as the brassy blare
of big band swing gave way to bebop, a faster music for a faster,
post-war world. At the dawn of the Space Age and New York's 1960s
counterculture, his music gave voice to the moment. Lauded by some,
maligned by many, he forged a breakaway art sometimes called 'the
new thing' or 'free jazz'. Featuring previously unpublished
photographs of Ornette and his contemporaries, this is the
compelling story of one of America's most adventurous musicians and
the sound of a changing world.
Trenchant and witty critiques of life in Cairo under British rule
What 'Isa ibn Hisham Told Us is a masterpiece of early
twentieth-century Arabic prose. Penned by the Egyptian journalist
Muhammad al-Muwaylihi, this highly original work was first
introduced in serialized form in his family's pioneering newspaper
Misbah al-Sharq (Light of the East) and later published in book
form in 1907. Widely hailed for its erudition and mordant wit, What
'Isa ibn Hisham Told Us was embraced by Egypt's burgeoning reading
public and soon became required reading for generations of school
students. Bridging classical genres and modern Arabic fiction, What
'Isa ibn Hisham Told Us is divided into two parts. Sarcastic in
tone and critical in outlook, the first part of the book relates
the excursions of its narrator, 'Isa ibn Hisham, and his companion,
the Pasha, through a rapidly westernizing Cairo and provides vivid
commentary on a society negotiating-however imperfectly-the clash
between traditional norms and imported cultural values. The second
half takes the narrator to Paris to visit the Exposition
Universelle of 1900, where al-Muwaylihi casts a critical eye on
European society, modernity, and the role of Western imperialism as
it ripples across the globe. Paving the way for the modern Arabic
novel, What 'Isa ibn Hisham Told Us is invaluable both for its
insight into colonial Egypt and its pioneering role in Arabic
literary history. An English-only edition.
Ornette Coleman's career encompassed the glory years of jazz and
the American avant-garde. Born in segregated Fort Worth, Texas,
during the Great Depression, the African American composer and
musician was the zeitgeist incarnate. Steeped in the Texas blues
tradition, Ornette and jazz grew up together, as the brassy blare
of big band swing gave way to bebop, a faster music for a faster,
post-war world. At the dawn of the Space Age and New York's 1960s
counterculture, his music gave voice to the moment. Lauded by some,
maligned by many, he forged a breakaway art sometimes called `the
new thing' or `free jazz'. Featuring previously unpublished
photographs of Ornette and his contemporaries, this is the
compelling story of one of America's most adventurous musicians and
the sound of a changing world.
To secure a comfortable afterlife, ancient Egyptians built
fortress-like tombs and filled them with precious goods, a practice
that generated staggering quantities of artefacts over the course
of many millennia, but one which has also drawn thieves and
tomb-raiders to Egypt since antiquity. Drawing on modern
scholarship, reportage and period sources, this book tracks the
history of treasure-seekers in Egypt and the social contexts in
which they operated, revealing striking continuities throughout
time. Readers will recognize the foibles of today’s politicians
and con artists, the perils of materialism, and the cycles of
public compliance and dissent in the face of injustice. In
describing an age-old pursuit and its timeless motivations, A Short
History of Tomb-Raiding shows how much we have in common with our
Bronze Age ancestors.
Meteorites are among the rarest objects on Earth, yet they have
left a pervasive mark on our planet and civilization. Arriving
amidst thunderous blasts and flame-streaked skies, meteorites were
once thought to be messengers from the gods, embodiments of the
divine. Prized for their outlandish qualities, meteorites are a
collectible, a commodity, objects of art and artists' desires and a
literary muse. 'Meteorite hunting' is an adventurous, lucrative
profession for some, and an addictive hobby for thousands of
others. Meteorite: Nature and Culture is a unique, richly
illustrated cultural history of these ancient and mysterious
phenomena. Taking in a wide range of sources Maria Golia pays
homage to the scientists, scholars and aficionados who have scoured
the skies and combed the Earth's most unforgiving reaches for
meteorites, contributing to a body of work that situates our planet
and ourselves within the vastness of the Universe.Appealing to
collectors and hobbyists alike, as well as any lovers of nature,
marvel and paradox, this book offers an accessible overview of what
science has learned from meteorites, beginning with the scientific
community's reluctant embrace of their interplanetary origins, and
explores their power to reawaken that precious, yet near-forgotten
human trait - the capacity for awe.
Cairo is a 1,400-year-old metropolis whose streets are inscribed
with sagas, a place where the pressures of life test people's
equanimity to the very limit. Virtually surrounded by desert,
sixteen million Cairenes cling to the Nile and each other,
proximities that color and shape lives. Packed with incident and
anecdote "Cairo: City of Sand" describes the city's given
circumstances and people's attitudes of response. Apart from a
brisk historical overview, this book focuses on the present moment
of one of the world's most illustrious and irreducible cities.
"Cairo" steps inside the interactions between Cairenes, examining
the roles of family, tradition and bureaucracy in everyday life.
The book explores Cairo's relationship with its "others," from the
French and British occupations to modern influences like tourism
and consumerism. "Cairo" also discusses characteristic styles of
communication, and linguistic "memes," including slang,
grandiloquence, curses and jokes.
Cairo exists by virtue of these interactions, synergies of
necessity, creativity and the presence or absence of power. "Cairo:
City of Sand" reveals a peerless balancing act, and transmits the
city's overriding message: the breadth of the human capacity for
loss, astonishment and delight.
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