《宅兹中国：宝鸡出土青铜器与金文精华》是一部有关陕西鸡宝出土的青铜器与金文的作品，分“吉金文字、交相辉映”“鸿功令德、铭传万世”“天人之际、智慧存焉”三个单元，从人文、历史、艺术、信仰等不同角度解读上古遗存，引导大家走进神秘奇谲、波澜壮阔的青铜器与金文世界，欣赏生动有趣、仪态万方的金文艺术，解读扣人心弦、引人入胜的金文故事，领略格物致知、穷理尽性的金文智慧。

《宅兹中国：宝鸡出土青铜器与金文精华》是一部有关陕西鸡宝出土的青铜器与金文的作品，分“吉金文字、交相辉映”“鸿功令德、铭传万世”“天人之际、智慧存焉”三个单元，从人文、历史、艺术、信仰等不同角度解读上古遗存，引导大家走进神秘奇谲、波澜壮阔的青铜器与金文世界，欣赏生动有趣、仪态万方的金文艺术，解读扣人心弦、引人入胜的金文故事，领略格物致知、穷理尽性的金文智慧。

More dramtatic than fiction...THE GUNS OF AUGUST is amagnificent narrative--beautifully organized, elegantly phrased,skillfully paced and sustained....The product of painstaking andsophisticated research. CHICAGO TRIBUNE Historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman hasbrought to life again the people and events that led up to Worl WarI. With attention to fascinating detail, and an intense knowledgeof her subject and its characters, Ms. Tuchman reveals, for thefirst time, just how the war started, why, and why it could havebeen stopped but wasn't. A classic historical survey of a time anda people we all need to know more about, THE GUNS OF AUGUST willnot be forgotten.

In The Wall Street Journal, Victor Davis Hanson named With theOld Breed one of the top five books on epic twentieth-centurybattles. Studs Terkel interviewed the author for his definitiveoral history, The Good War. Now E. B. Sledge’s acclaimedfirst-person account of fighting at Peleliu and Okinawa returns tothrill, edify, and inspire a new generation. An Alabama boy steeped in American history and enamored of suchheroes as George Washington and Daniel Boone, Eugene B. Sledgebecame part of the war’s famous 1st Marine Division–3d Battalion,5th Marines. Even after intense training, he was shocked to bethrown into the battle of Peleliu, where “the world was a nightmareof flashes, explosions, and snapping bullets.” By the time Sledgehit the hell of Okinawa, he was a combat vet, still filled withfear but no longer with panic. Based on notes Sledge secretly kept in a copy of the NewTestament, With the Old Breed captures with utter simplicity andsearing honesty the experience of a soldier

Less than 100 years after its creation as a fragile republic,the United States more than quadrupled its size, making it theworld's third largest nation. No other country or sovereign powerhad ever grown so big so fast or become so rich and sopowerful. Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Richard Kluger chronicles thisepic achievement in a compelling narrative, celebrating the energy,daring, and statecraft behind America's insatiable land hungerwhile exploring the moral lapses that accompanied it. Comprehensiveand balanced, Seizing Destiny is a revelatory, often surprisingreexamination of the nation's breathless expansion, dwelling onboth great accomplishments and the American people's tendency toconfuse opportunistic success with heaven-sent entitlement thatcame to be called manifest destiny.

Paul Cartledge, one of the world’s foremost scholars ofancient Greece, illuminates the brief but iconic life of Alexander(356-323 BC), king of Macedon, conqueror of the Persian Empire, andfounder of a new world order. Alexander's legacy has had a major impact on military tacticians,scholars, statesmen, adventurers, authors, and filmmakers.Cartledge brilliantly evokes Alexander's remarkable political andmilitary accomplishments, cutting through the myths to show why hewas such a great leader. He explores our endless fascination withAlexander and gives us insight into his charismatic leadership, hiscapacity for brutality, and his sophisticated grasp ofinternational politics. Alexander the Great is an engagingportrait of a fascinating man, and a welcome balance to the myths,legends, and often skewed history that have obscured the realAlexander.

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, PulitzerPrize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the greatuntold stories of American history: the decades-long migration ofblack citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities,in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus ofalmost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkersoncompares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples inhistory. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gainedaccess to new data and official records, to write this definitiveand vividly dramatic account of how these American journeysunfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves. With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this storythrough the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, whoin 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi forChicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in oldage, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senateseat; sh

In this thrilling real-life account of bravery, greed,obsession, and ultimate betrayal, award- winning writer Joe Jacksonbrings to life the story of fortune hunter Henry Wickham and hiscollaboration with the empire that fueled, then abandoned him. In1876, Wickham smuggled 70,000 rubber tree seeds out of therainforests of Brazil and delivered them to Victorian England'smost prestigious scientists at Kew Gardens. The story of howWickham got his hands on those seeds-and the history-makingconsequences-is the stuff of legend. The Thief at the End of theWorld is an exciting true story of reckless courage andambition that perfectly captures the essential nature of GreatBritain's colonial adventure in South America.

The Taste of Conquest offers up a riveting, globe-trottingtale of unquenchable desire, fanatical religion, raw greed, ficklefashion, and mouthwatering cuisine–in short, the very stuff ofwhich our world is made. In this engaging, enlightening, andanecdote-filled history, Michael Krondl, a noted chef turned writerand food historian, tells the story of three legendarycities–Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam–and how their single-mindedpursuit of spice helped to make (and remake) the Western diet andset in motion the first great wave of globalization. Sharing mealsand stories with Indian pepper planters, Portuguese sailors, andVenetian foodies, Krondl takes every opportunity to explore theworld of long ago and sample its many flavors. Along the way, hereveals that the taste for spice of a few wealthy Europeans ledto great crusades, astonishing feats of bravery, and even wholesaleslaughter. As stimulating as it is pleasurable, and filled with surprisinginsights, The Taste of Conquest offers a compell

This brief and illuminating account of the ideas of worldorder prevalent in the Elizabethan age and later is anindispensable companion for readers of the great writers of thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Shakespeare and the Elizabethandramatists, Donne and Milton, among many others. The basic medievalidea of an ordered Chain of Being is studied by Professor Tillyardin the process of its various transformations by the dynamic spiritof the Renaissance. Among his topics are: Angels; the Stars andFortunes; the Analogy between Macrocosm and Microcosm; the FourElements; the Four Humours; Sympathies; Correspondences; and theCosmic Dance—ideas and symbols which inspirited the minds andimaginations not only of the Elizabethans but of all men of theRenaissance.

Drawn from letters, diaries, newspaper articles, publicdeclarations, contemporary narratives, and private memoranda, The American Revolution brings together over 120 pieces bymore than 70 participants to create a unique literary panorama ofthe War of Independence. From Paul Revere's own narrative of hisride in April 1775 to an account of George Washington's resignationfrom command of the Army in December 1783, the volume presentsfirsthand all the major events of the conflict-the early battles ofLexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill; the failed American invasionof Canada; the battle of Saratoga; the fighting in the South andalong the western frontier; and the decisive triumph atYorktown. Famous figures-Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Benedict Arnold,John and Abigail Adams-are here alongside lesser known participantslike Samuel Blachley Webb describing courage and panic at BunkerHill or Sarah Hodgkins writing longingly to her absent soldierhusband. American Loyalists and British officers and offici

The Hellenistic Age chronicles the years 336 to 30 BCE, aperiod that witnessed the overlap of two of antiquity’s greatcivilizations, the Greek and the Roman. Peter Green’s remarkablyfar-ranging study covers the prevalent themes and events of thosecenturies: the Hellenization, by Alexander’s conquests, of animmense swath of the known world; the lengthy and chaotic partitionof this empire by rival Macedonian bands; the decline of thecity-state as the predominant political institution; and, finally,Rome’s moment of transition from republican to imperial rule. It isa story of war and power-politics, and of the developing fortunesof art, science, and statecraft, spun by an accomplished classicistwith an uncanny knack for infusing life into the distant past, andapplying fresh insights that make ancient history seem alarminglyrelevant to our own times. “Spectacular . . . [filled with] Mr. Green’s criticalacumen.” –The Wall Street Journal “Green draws upon a li

Book De*ion The geologist acclaimed for re-dating theGreat Sphinx at Giza sets his sights on one of the true mysteriesof antiquity: the Great Pyramid of Giza. What is the Great Pyramid of Giza? Ask that basic question of atraditional Egyptologist, and you get the basic, traditionalanswer: a fancy tombstone for a self-important pharaoh of the OldKingdom. This, Egyptologists argue, is the sole finding based onthe data, and the only deduction supported by science. By implication, anyone who dissents from this point of view isunscientific and woolly-minded-a believer in magic and ghosts.Indeed, some of the unconventional ideas about the Great Pyramid dohave a spectacularly fabulous ring to them. Yet from beneath theobvious terms of this controversy, a deeper, more significantquestion arises: how is it that the Great Pyramid exercises such agripping hold on the human psyche- adding cryptic grace to the backof the one-dollar bill and framing myriad claims of New Age"pyramid power"?

The story of two World War II battalions--one German, oneAmerican--each cut off behind enemy lines in the same forest at thesame time, and the heroic efforts to save them--InfantryMagazine

American history has never seen a more tumultuous or moresignificant year than 1863. During this crucial time the tide ofthe Civil War turned inexorably from the Confederacy to the Union,with momentous consequences that are still being felt today. It wasa year of upheaval unparalleled in our national experience: twelvemonths of searing brutality and ennobling sacrifice, 365 stirring,dramatic days that changed our country forever. Integrating the events of this epochal year into a panoramicnarrative, Joseph E. Stevens presents a grand portrait of the Unionand Confederacy at war. He captures two nations struggling todefine the American experiment and create a new understanding offreedom on the bloody battlefields of Stones River,Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, andChattanooga. He also traces the astonishing political, economic,and social transformations that marked 1863 as a watershed. 1863 features a remarkable cast of characters: larger-than-lifeleaders li

Book De*ion Marco Polo?s account of his journey throughout the East in thethirteenth century was one of the earliest European travelnarratives, and it remains the most important. Themerchant-traveler from Venice, the first to cross the entirecontinent of Asia, provided us with accurate de*ions of lifein China, Tibet, India, and a hundred other lands, and recordedcustoms, natural history, strange sights, historical legends, andmuch more. From the dazzling courts of Kublai Khan to the perilousdeserts of Persia, no book contains a richer magazine of marvelsthan the Travels. This edition, selected and edited by the great scholar ManuelKomroff, also features the classic and stylistically brilliantMarsden translation, revised and corrected, as well as Komroff?sIntroduction to the 1926 edition. Book Dimension length: (cm)19.7 width:(cm)12.8

A companion book to The History Channel specialseries of ten one-hour documentaries 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America pinpoints pivotaldays that transformed our nation. For the series and the book, TheHistory Channel challenged a panel of leading historians, includingauthor Steven M. Gillon, to come up with some less well-known buthistorically significant events that triggered change in America.Together, the days they chose tell a story about the greatdemocratic ideals upon which our country was built. You won’t find July 4, 1776, for instance, or the attack on FortSumter that ignited the Civil War, or the day Neil Armstrong setfoot on the moon. But January 25, 1787, is here. On that day, theragtag men of Shays’ Rebellion attacked the federal arsenal inSpringfield, Massachusetts, and set the new nation on the path to astrong central government. January 24, 1848, is also on the list.That’s when a carpenter named John Marshall spotted a fewglittering flakes of gold in a California riverbed.

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte, only twenty-eight, set sail forEgypt with 335 ships, 40,000 soldiers, and a collection ofscholars, artists, and scientists to establish an eastern empire.He saw himself as a liberator, freeing the Egyptians fromoppression. But Napoleon wasn’t the first—nor the last—whotragically misunderstood Muslim culture. Marching across seeminglyendless deserts in the shadow of the pyramids, pushed to the limitsof human endurance, his men would be plagued by mirages, suicides,and the constant threat of ambush. A crusade begun in honor woulddegenerate into chaos. And yet his grand failure also yielded atreasure trove of knowledge that paved the way for modernEgyptology—and it tempered the complex leader who believed himselfdestined to conquer the world.

In this groundbreaking work, leading historian FelipeFernández-Armesto tells the story of our hemisphere as a whole,showing why it is impossible to understand North, Central, andSouth America in isolation without turning to the intertwiningforces that shape the region. With imagination, thematic breadth,and his trademark wit, Fernández-Armesto covers a range ofcultural, political, and social subjects, taking us from the dawnof human migration to North America to the Colonial andIndependence periods to the “American Century” and beyond.Fernández-Armesto does nothing less than revise the conventionalwisdom about cross-cultural exchange, conflict, and interaction,making and supporting some brilliantly provocative conclusionsabout the Americas’ past and where we are headed.

In this perfect companion to London: The Biography ,Peter Ackroyd once again delves into the hidden byways of history,describing the river's endless allure in a journey overflowing withcharacters, incidents, and wry observations. Thames: TheBiography meanders gloriously, rather like the river itself. Inshort, lively chapters Ackroyd writes about connections between theThames and such historical figures as Julius Caesar and Henry VIII,and offers memorable portraits of the ordinary men and women whodepend upon the river for their livelihoods. The Thames as a sourceof artistic inspiration comes brilliantly to life as Ackroydinvokes Chaucer, Shakespeare, Turner, Shelley, and other writers,poets, and painters who have been enchanted by its many moods andcolors.

Whether photographing avant-garde theatre, gypsies on thesteppes of Eastern Europe, resistance to Soviet guns and tanksadvancing on Prague, Josef Koudelka has consistently producedimages that provoke a connection to the larger questions of humanexistence. This book brings together panoramic photographs from oneof his most recent projects, the landscape of the Piedmont regionof northern Italy. As Giuseppe Culicchia says in his introductionto this superb collection, Todays Piedmont is a region that is bothwonderful and wounded. And here they are: the wonders and thewounds. Every one of Josef Koudelkas shots stirs up an emotionHumans are largely absent from Koudelkas images, because the booksmain protagonist is the land itself. This beautifully bound volumeis sure to have a powerful resonance for all lovers ofphotography.

In A Continent for the Taking Howard W. French, a veterancorrespondent for The New York Times, gives a compelling firsthandaccount of some of Africa’s most devastating recent history–fromthe fall of Mobutu Sese Seko, to Charles Taylor’s arrival inMonrovia, to the genocide in Rwanda and the Congo that leftmillions dead. Blending eyewitness reportage with rich historicalinsight, French searches deeply into the causes of today’s events,illuminating the debilitating legacy of colonization and theabiding hypocrisy and inhumanity of both Western and Africanpolitical leaders. While he captures the tragedies that have repeatedly befallenAfrica’s peoples, French also opens our eyes to the immensepossibility that lies in Africa’s complexity, diversity, and myriadcultural strengths. The culmination of twenty-five years ofpassionate exploration and understanding, this is a powerful andultimately hopeful book about a fascinating and misunderstoodcontinent.

To understand Iraq, Charles Tripp's history is the book to read.Since its first appearance in 2000, it has become a classic in thefield of Middle East studies, read and admired by students,soldiers, policymakers and journalists. The book is now updated toinclude the recent American invasion, the fall and capture ofSaddam Hussein and the subsequent descent into civil strife. Whatis clear is that much that has happened since 2003 was foreshadowedin the account found in this book. Tripp's thesis is that thehistory of Iraq throughout the twentieth-century has made it whatit is today, but also provides alternative futures. Unless this isproperly understood, many of the themes explored in this book -patron-client relations, organized violence, sectarian, ethnic andtribal difference - will continue to exert a hold over the futureof Iraq as they did over its past.