《唐风吹拂撒马尔罕:粟特艺术与中国、波斯、印度、拜占庭》是作者康马泰结合主持中亚布哈拉古城考古的挖掘实践及多年研究的心血之作。全书分为四卷——《粟特艺术与中国》《粟特艺术与波斯》《粟特艺术与印度》《粟特艺术与拜占庭》，关于撒马尔罕大使厅壁画上的唐代端午节，中国北朝墓葬中的粟特艺术，粟特信仰与佛教、印度教神祇的关系等，书中都有精彩论述。

《中国宫殿史（修订本）》是在原版的基础上增补和修订而成的，该书选用新材料，吸纳新成果，求真求实，探索中国宫殿的发展轨迹，为我们展示了一幅中国宫殿的新画卷。全书共分10个章节，具体内容包括传说时代的宫室及夏商宫殿、周秦的都城与宫殿、两汉宫室、魏晋南北朝的都城与宫殿、隋唐宫殿等。《中国宫殿史》曾于1995年在初版，迄今已十余年了。十余年来。有关的文物考古材料又有新的发现，其研究成果亦堪称丰硕。

Award-winning historian Mary Beth Norton reexamines the Salemwitch trials in this startlingly original, meticulously researched,and utterly riveting study. In 1692 the people of Massachusetts were living in fear, and notsolely of satanic afflictions. Horrifyingly violent Indian attackshad all but emptied the northern frontier of settlers, and manytraumatized refugees—including the main accusers of witches—hadfled to communities like Salem. Meanwhile the colony’s leaders,defensive about their own failure to protect the frontier, ponderedhow God’s people could be suffering at the hands of savages. Struckby the similarities between what the refugees had witnessed andwhat the witchcraft “victims” described, many were quick to see avast conspiracy of the Devil (in league with the French and theIndians) threatening New England on all sides. By providing thisessential context to the famous events, and by casting her net wellbeyond the borders of Salem itself, Norton sheds new light on oneof the most pe

This is the classic book on war as we know it. During his longlife, Basil H. Liddell Hart was considered one of the world'sforemost military thinkers--a man generally regarded as the"Clausewitz of the 20th century." Liddell Hart stressed movement, flexibilty, surprise. He saw thatin most military campaigns dislocation of the enemy's psychologicaland physical balance is prelude to victory. This dislocationresults from a strategic indirect approach. Reflect for a moment onthe results of direct confrontation (trench war in WW I) versusindirect dislocation (Blitzkreig in WW II). Liddell Hart is alsotonic for business and political planning: just change thevocabulary and his concepts fit. "The most important book by one of the outstanding militaryauthorities of our time." (Library Journal) --This text refers tothe Audio Cassette edition.

From 1942 to 1944, twelve thousand children passed through theTheresienstadt internment camp, near Prague, on their way toAuschwitz. Only a few hundred of them survived the war. In TheGirls of Room 28, ten of these children—mothers and grandmotherstoday in their seventies—tell us how they did it. The Jews deported to Theresienstadt from countries all overEurope were aware of the fate that awaited them, and they decidedthat it was the young people who had the best chance to survive.Keeping these adolescents alive, keeping them whole in body, mind,and spirit, became the priority. They were housed separately, indormitory-like barracks, where they had a greater chance of stayinghealthy and better access to food, and where counselors (young menand women who had been teachers and youth workers) created adisciplined environment despite the surrounding horrors. Thecounselors also made available to the young people the talents ofan amazing array of world-class artists, musicians, andplaywrights–Euro

“Admirers of FDR credit his New Deal with restoring theAmerican economy after the disastrous contraction of 1929—33. Truthto tell–as Powell demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt–the NewDeal hampered recovery from the contraction, prolonged and added tounemployment, and set the stage for ever more intrusive and costlygovernment. Powell’s analysis is thoroughly documented, relying onan impressive variety of popular and academic literature bothcontemporary and historical.” – Milton Friedman , Nobel Laureate, Hoover Institution “There is a critical and often forgotten difference betweendisaster and tragedy. Disasters happen to us all, no matter what wedo. Tragedies are brought upon ourselves by hubris. The Depressionof the 1930s would have been a brief disaster if it hadn’t been forthe national tragedy of the New Deal. Jim Powell has proventhis.” – P.J. O’Rourke , author of Parliament of Whores and Eat theRich “The material laid out in this book desperat

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.

Tang carried the war to the enemy with unparalleled ferocity.This is her story as told by her skipper.

In nineteenth-century Boston, amidst the popular lecturing ofRalph Waldo Emerson and the discussion groups led by MargaretFuller, sat a remarkable young woman, Caroline Healey Dall(1822-1912): transcendentalist, early feminist, writer, reformer,and, perhaps most importantly, active diarist. During theseventy-five years that Dall kept a diary, she captured all thefascinating details of her sometimes agonizing personal life, andshe also wrote about all the major figures who surrounded her. Herdiary, filling forty-five volumes, is perhaps the longest runningdiary ever written by any American and the most complete account ofa nineteenth-century woman's life. In Daughter of Boston, scholar Helen Deese has painstakinglycombed through these diaries and created a single fascinatingvolume of Dall's observations, judgments, de*ions, andreactions.

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.

A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing fromByzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forestsof northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy tothe final moments of a millennial city under siege…. Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificentempire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than athousand years. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer andHerodotus, Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Aeschylus, wouldnever have survived. Yet very few of us have any idea of theenormous debt we owe them. The story of Byzantium is a real-life adventure of electrifyingideas, high drama, colorful characters, and inspiring feats ofdaring. In Sailing from Byzantium, Colin Wells tells of themissionaries, mystics, philosophers, and artists who against greatodds and often at peril of their own lives spread Greek ideas tothe Italians, the Arabs, and the Slavs. Their heroic efforts inspired the Renaissance, the golden age ofIslamic lear

Infinitely readable and absorbing, Bruce Catton's The CivilWar is one of the best-selling, most widely read general historiesof the war available in a single volume. Newly introduced by thecritically acclaimed Civil War historian James M. McPherson, TheCivil War vividly traces one of the most moving chapters inAmerican history, from the early division between the North and theSouth to the final surrender of Confederate troops. Catton'saccount of battles is carefully interwoven with details about thepolitical activities of the Union and Confederate armies anddiplomatic efforts overseas. This new edition of The Civil War is amust-have for anyone interested in the war that dividedAmerica.

For the first time in a generation, here is a bold new accountof the Battle of the Marne, a cataclysmic encounter that preventeda quick German victory in World War I and changed the course of twowars and the world. With exclusive information based on newlyunearthed documents, Holger H. Herwig re-creates the dramaticbattle and reinterprets Germany’s aggressive “Schlieffen Plan” as acarefully crafted design to avoid a protracted war against superiorcoalitions. He paints a fresh portrait of the run-up to the Marneand puts in dazzling relief the Battle of the Marne itself: theFrench resolve to win, and the crucial lack of coordination betweenGermany’s First and Second Armies. Herwig also provides stunningcameos of all the important players, from Germany’s Chief ofGeneral Staff Helmuth von Moltke to his rival, France’s JosephJoffre. Revelatory and riveting, this is the source on thisseminal event.

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

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