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Showing 61 - 80 of 3355 items
By Stephen Turnbull. 2017
This history of the ninja uncovers the truth behind the image—from the exploits of medieval ninjas to their modern incarnation…
as pop culture icons. The ninja is a legendary figure in Japanese military culture, a fighter widely regarded as the world&’s greatest expert in secret warfare. The word alone conjures the image of a masked assassin dressed in black, capable of extraordinary feats of daring; a mercenary who disposes of enemies by sending sharp iron stars spinning towards them. This is, of course, a popular myth, based on exaggerations and Hollywood movies. But the truth, as Stephen Turnbull explains in Ninja, is even more fascinating. A leading expert on samurai culture, Turnbull presents an authoritative study of ninja history based on original Japanese sources, many of which have never been translated before. These include accounts of castle attacks, assassinations and espionage, as well as the last great ninja manual, which reveals the spiritual and religious ideals that were believed to lie behind the ninja&’s arts. Turnbull&’s critical examination of the ninja phenomenon ranges from undercover operations during the age of Japan&’s civil wars to the modern emergence of the superman ninja as a comic book character. The book concludes with a detailed investigation of the ninja in popular culture.By Matt Hooley. 2024
In Against Extraction Matt Hooley traces a modern tradition of Ojibwe invention in Minneapolis and St. Paul from the mid-nineteenth…
century to the present as that tradition emerges in response to the cultural legacies of US colonialism. Hooley shows how Indigenous literary and visual art modernisms challenge the strictures of everyday life and question the ecological, political, and cultural fantasies that make multivalent US colonialism seem inevitable. Hooley analyzes literature and art by Louise Erdrich, William Whipple Warren, David Treuer, George Morrison, and Gerald Vizenor in relation to histories of Indigenous dispossession and occupation, enslavement and Black life, and environmental harm and care. He shows that historical narratives of these cities are intimately bound up with the violence of colonial systems of extraction and that concepts like Indigeneity and sovereignty extend beyond treaty-granted promises of political control. These works, created in opposition and proximity to the extraction of cultural, political, and territorial resources, demonstrate how Indigenous claims to life and land matter to rethinking and unmaking the social and ecological devastations of the colonial world.By Rosemary Sullivan. 2006
“Rosemary Sullivan goes beyond the confines of Air-Bel to tell a fuller story of France during the tense years from…
1933 to 1941. . . . A moving tale of great sacrifice in tumultuous times.” — Publishers WeeklyParis 1940. Andre Breton, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Consuelo de Saint-Exupery, and scores of other cultural elite denounced as enemies of the conquering Third Reich, live in daily fear of arrest, deportation, and death. Their only salvation is the Villa Air-Bel, a chateau outside Marseille where a group of young people, financed by a private American relief organization, will go to extraordinary lengths to keep them alive. In Villa Air-Bel, Rosemary Sullivan sheds light on this suspenseful, dramatic, and intriguing story, introducing the brave men and women who use every means possible to stave off the Nazis and the Vichy officials, and goes inside the chateau’s walls to uncover the private worlds and the web of relationships its remarkable inhabitants developed.By Katell Berthelot. 2021
How encounters with the Roman Empire compelled the Jews of antiquity to rethink their conceptions of Israel and the TorahThroughout…
their history, Jews have lived under a succession of imperial powers, from Assyria and Babylonia to Persia and the Hellenistic kingdoms. Jews and Their Roman Rivals shows how the Roman Empire posed a unique challenge to Jewish thinkers such as Philo, Josephus, and the Palestinian rabbis, who both resisted and internalized Roman standards and imperial ideology.Katell Berthelot traces how, long before the empire became Christian, Jews came to perceive Israel and Rome as rivals competing for supremacy. Both considered their laws to be the most perfect ever written, and both believed they were a most pious people who had been entrusted with a divine mission to bring order and peace to the world. Berthelot argues that the rabbinic identification of Rome with Esau, Israel's twin brother, reflected this sense of rivalry. She discusses how this challenge transformed ancient Jewish ideas about military power and the use of force, law and jurisdiction, and membership in the people of Israel. Berthelot argues that Jewish thinkers imitated the Romans in some cases and proposed competing models in others.Shedding new light on Jewish thought in antiquity, Jews and Their Roman Rivals reveals how Jewish encounters with pagan Rome gave rise to crucial evolutions in the ways Jews conceptualized the Torah and conversion to Judaism.By James Prosek. 1999
James Prosek has been called "the Audubon of the fishing world" by the New York Times. A passionate fisherman and…
talented artist from a young age, he published two illustrated books on fish and fishing while still an undergraduate at Yale. After winning a traveling fellowship to follow in the footsteps of Izaak Walton, The Compleat Angler became his obsession. He was fascinated by Walton, a humble man who won the friendship of kings, and he was intrigued by the book's philosophies concerning the timelessness and immortality that could be achieved by fishing. Although Walton was sixty when The Compleat Angler was published and Prosek only twenty when he set off to visit England, they each had traits in common: a love of fishing and an extraordinary ability to make friends.This is the story of a young man's pilgrimage through England, fishing the waters that are now privately held. Along with wonderful stories about good times, great fishing, and fine eating, this trip becomes an exploration of Waltonian ideals: how to live with humor, wisdom, contentment, and simplicity.The original watercolors complementing the text are wonderful. Like Walton's book, The Complete Angler is not about fishing but about life. Or rather, it is about fishing—but fishing is life.By Jacqueline Bryant, Larry Andrews, B. J. Bolden, Kelly Norman Ellis, Regina Jennings, Dolores Kendrick, D. H. Melhem, Maria K. Mootry, Adele S. Newson-Horst, Elaine Richardson, Dorothy Randall Tsuruta. 2002
This book of ctritical essays and commentary by eleven authors is on Gwendolyn Brooks' only novel, Maud Martha, published in…
1953. The essays provide deep insight and understanding of the world that Brooks describes. The authors are active in Literary Criticism, Women Studies and African American Studies and bring those perspectives to their writing.By Tilar J. Mazzeo. 2014
Set against the backdrop of the Nazi occupation of World War II, The Hôtel on Place Vendôme is the captivating…
history of Paris’s world-famous Hôtel Ritz—a breathtaking tale of glamour, opulence, and celebrity; dangerous liaisons, espionage, and resistance—from Tilar J. Mazzeo, the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot and The Secret of Chanel No. 5When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, the legendary Hôtel Ritz on the Place Vendôme—an icon of Paris frequented by film stars and celebrity writers, American heiresses and risqué flappers, playboys, and princes—was the only luxury hotel of its kind allowed in the occupied city by order of Adolf Hitler.Tilar J. Mazzeo traces the history of this cultural landmark from its opening in fin de siècle Paris. At its center, The Hotel on Place Vendôme is an extraordinary chronicle of life at the Ritz during wartime, when the Hôtel was simultaneously headquarters to the highest-ranking German officers, such as Reichsmarshal Hermann Göring, and home to exclusive patrons, including Coco Chanel. Mazzeo takes us into the grand palace’s suites, bars, dining rooms, and wine cellars, revealing a hotbed of illicit affairs and deadly intrigue, as well as stunning acts of defiance and treachery.Rich in detail, illustrated with black-and-white photos, The Hotel on Place Vendôme is a remarkable look at this extraordinary crucible where the future of post-war France—and all of post-war Europe—was transformed."William C. Davis's Three Roads to the Alamo is far and away the best account of the Alamo I have…
ever read. The portraits of Crockett, Bowie, and Travis are brilliantly sketched in a fast-moving story that keeps the reader riveted to the very last word." — Stephen B. OatesThree Roads to the Alamois the definitive book about the lives of David Crockett, James Bowie and William Barret Travis—the legendary frontiersmen and fighters who met their destiny at the Alamo in one of the most famous and tragic battles in American history—and about what really happened in that battle.By Leah Garrett. 2021
WALL STREET JOURNAL BOOK OF THE MONTH "This is the incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought…
in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now." —Wall Street Journal“Brilliantly researched, utterly gripping history: the first full account of a remarkable group of Jewish refugees—a top-secret band of brothers—who waged war on Hitler.”—Alex Kershaw, New York Times best-selling author of The Longest Winter and The LiberatorThe incredible World War II saga of the German-Jewish commandos who fought in Britain’s most secretive special-forces unit—but whose story has gone untold until now June 1942. The shadow of the Third Reich has fallen across the European continent. In desperation, Winston Churchill and his chief of staff form an unusual plan: a new commando unit made up of Jewish refugees who have escaped to Britain. The resulting volunteers are a motley group of intellectuals, artists, and athletes, most from Germany and Austria. Many have been interned as enemy aliens, and have lost their families, their homes—their whole worlds. They will stop at nothing to defeat the Nazis. Trained in counterintelligence and advanced combat, this top secret unit becomes known as X Troop. Some simply call them a suicide squad. Drawing on extensive original research, including interviews with the last surviving members, Leah Garrett follows this unique band of brothers from Germany to England and back again, with stops at British internment camps, the beaches of Normandy, the battlefields of Italy and Holland, and the hellscape of Terezin concentration camp—the scene of one of the most dramatic, untold rescues of the war. For the first time, X Troop tells the astonishing story of these secret shock troops and their devastating blows against the Nazis.“Garrett’s detective work is stunning, and her storytelling is masterful. This is an original account of Jewish rescue, resistance, and revenge.”—Wendy Lower, author of The Ravine and National Book Award finalist Hitler’s FuriesBen Thompson—author of Badass, creator of the epic website badassoftheweek.com, and the Internet’s foremost expert on badassitude—is back to enthrall…
lovers of skull-smashing, bone-crushing bad behavior with his latest compendium, Badass: The Birth of a Legend. Like its macho predecessor, Badass: The Birth of a Legend celebrates fearless berserkers of every stripe, male and female, but this time pulls them from the hoary pages of mythology, fantasy fiction, and the silver screen—from Zeus to Beowulf to Dirty Harry Callahan, the most merciless gods, monsters, heroes, villains, and mythical creatures ever envisioned. Forget your whiny Twilight vampires and werewolves, these badasses kick butt!By Saul Friedländer. 2007
"Establishes itself as the standard historical work on Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Europe’s Jews. . . . An account…
of unparalleled vividness and power that reads like a novel. . . . A masterpiece that will endure." — New York Times Book ReviewThe Years of Extermination, the completion of Saul Friedländer's major historical opus on Nazi Germany and the Jews, explores the convergence of the various aspects of the Holocaust, the most systematic and sustained of modern genocides.The enactment of the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews depended upon many factors, including the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, and the passivity of the populations, primarily of their political and spiritual elites. Necessary also was the victims' willingness to submit, often with the hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise.In this unparalleled work—based on a vast array of documents and an overwhelming choir of voices from diaries, letters, and memoirs—the history of the Holocaust has found its definitive representation.By Peter Frankopan. 2023
A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • A revolutionary new history that reveals how climate change has dramatically shaped the…
development—and demise—of civilizations across time*The ebook edition now includes endnotes. Anyone who purchased the book previously can re-download this updated edition and access the notes.* Global warming is one of the greatest dangers mankind faces today. Even as temperatures increase, sea levels rise, and natural disasters escalate, our current environmental crisis feels difficult to predict and understand. But climate change and its effects on us are not new. In a bold narrative that spans centuries and continents, Peter Frankopan argues that nature has always played a fundamental role in the writing of history. From the fall of the Moche civilization in South America that came about because of the cyclical pressures of El Niño to volcanic eruptions in Iceland that affected Egypt and helped bring the Ottoman empire to its knees, climate change and its influences have always been with us. Frankopan explains how the Vikings emerged thanks to catastrophic crop failure, why the roots of regime change in eleventh-century Baghdad lay in the collapse of cotton prices resulting from unusual climate patterns, and why the western expansion of the frontiers in North America was directly affected by solar flare activity in the eighteenth century. Again and again, Frankopan shows that when past empires have failed to act sustainably, they have been met with catastrophe. Blending brilliant historical writing and cutting-edge scientific research, The Earth Transformed will radically reframe the way we look at the world and our future.By Sir Laurens Van Der Post. 1982
Yet Being Someone Other is the most revealing book that Laurens van der Post wrote about his extraordinary and eventful…
life, and the most far-reaching; it is a distillation of the experiences that have moved him at the deepest level of the imagination and made him the exceptional person and writer he was.By Herodotus. 1954
A king who would be worshipped as a god...When Xerxes, King of Persia, crosses the Hellespont at the head of…
a formidable army, it seems inevitable that Greece will be crushed beneath its might. But the Greeks are far harder to defeat than he could ever have imagined.As storms lash the Persian ships, and sinister omens predict a cruel fate for the expedition, Xerxes strives onward, certain his enemies will accept him as their king. But as he soon discovers, the Greeks will sacrifice anything, even their lives, to keep their liberty...By Christopher Hill. 1975
'His finest work and one that was both symptom and engine of the concept of "history from below" ... Here…
Levellers, Diggers, Ranters, Muggletonians, the early Quakers and others taking advantage of the collapse of censorship to bid for new kinds of freedom were given centre stage ... Hill lives on' Times Higher EducationIn 'The World Turned Upside Down' Christopher Hill studies the beliefs of such radical groups as the Diggers, the Ranters, the Levellers and others, and the social and emotional impulses that gave rise to them. The relations between rich and poor classes, the part played by wandering 'masterless' men, the outbursts of sexual freedom, the great imaginative creations of Milton and Bunyan - these and many other elements build up into a marvellously detailed and coherent portrait of this strange, sudden effusion of revolutionary beliefs.'Established the concept of an "English Revolution" every bit as significant and potentially as radical as its French and Russian equivalents' Daily Telegraph'Brilliant ... marvellous erudition and sympathy' David Caute, New Statesman'This book will outlive our time and will stand as a notable monument to the man, the committed radical scholar, and one of the finest historians of the age' The Times Literary Supplement'The dean and paragon of English historians' E.P. ThompsonBy T. Vadney. 1998
THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF GLOBAL CHANGE FROM 1945 TO THE PRESENT DAY The world since 1945 has witnessed fundamental changes,…
notably the increasing influence of the West - particularly the USA - in a variety of spheres, the emergence and collapse of the USSR, the end of colonial empire in Asia and Africa and the escalation of wars and other conflicts in the Third World. In this incisive survey T. E. Vadney examines the key events without ever neglecting the underlying trends. He explores therapid changes in the Middle East, the end of apartheid in South Africa and the aims of American foreign policy. He concludes with a new epilogue in which he examines the direction of post-1945 history as the world enters the twenty-first century.By Mary Seacole. 2005
Written in 1857, this is the autobiography of a Jamaican woman whose fame rivalled Florence Nightingale's during the Crimean War.…
Seacole's offer to volunteer as a nurse in the war met with racism and refusal. Undaunted, Seacole set out independently to the Crimea where she acted as doctor and 'mother' to wounded soldiers while running her business, the 'British Hotel'. A witness to key battles, she gives vivid accounts of how she coped with disease, bombardment and other hardships at the Crimean battlefront."In her introduction to the very welcome Penguin edition, Sara Salih expertly analyses the rhetorical complexities of Seacole's book to explore the richness of her story. Traveller, entrepreneur, healer and woman of colour, Mary Seacole is a singular and fascinating figure, overstepping all conventional boundaries." Jan Marsh, Independent"It's hard to believe that this amazing adventure story is the true-life experience of a Jamaican woman - it would make a great film." Andrea Levy, Sunday TimesBy Alexandre Dumas. 2006
The Baron des Canolles is a man torn apart by the civil war that dominates mid-seventeenth century France. For while…
the naïve Gascon soldier cares little for the politics behind the battles, he is torn apart by a deep passion for two powerful women on opposing sides of the war: Nanon de Lartigues, a keen supporter of the Queen Regent Anne of Austria, and the Victomtesse de Cambes, who supports the rebellious forces of the Princess de Condé. Set around Bordeaux during the first turbulent years of the reign of Louis XIV, The Women's War sees two women taking central stage in a battle for all France. Humorous, dramatic and romantic, it offers a compelling exploration of political intrigue, the power of redemption, the force of love and the futility of war.By Angelique Richardson. 2005
"A lady? decidedly. Fast? perhaps. Original? undoubtedly. Worth knowing? rather." Daring and dynamic, the 'new woman' came to represent the…
very spirit of the age. The stories in this anthology take up this phenomenon and examine society throughthe eyes of the new woman, as she encountered new choices in marriage, motherhood, work and love.Women Who Did charts a rebellion that was social, sexual and literary. It tells the stories of competing voices - of the men and women who entered into the fray of the fin de siècle, and were not afraid to confront, challenge or delight in the irrepressible New, in an irrepressibly new form, the short story.By Will Cohu. 2012
In 1966 Will Cohu's grandparents moved to Bramble Carr, a remote cottage on the Yorkshire moors. The summers and winters…
he spent there were full of freedom and light; only after childhood ended was he aware of the price the adults had paid for life in this most romantic of settings.Navigating family tensions and the trials of growing up, Will describes the close-knit community of North Yorkshire and his family's place within it: the shepherd probing the head-high snowdrifts for his flock; the pub landlord obsessed with military uniforms; the village doctor lost in his love for the purple moorland; Will's glamorous RAF parents; and, at the centre of the story, his beloved but enigmatic grandparents.The Wolf Pit is an enquiring love letter from Will Cohu to his family, and to a changing rural England that is passionate, frightening and funny.