Download or read book Cradle of America written by Peter Wallenstein and published by University Press of Kansas. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the site of the first permanent English settlement in North America, the birthplace of a presidential dynasty, and the gateway to western growth in the nation’s early years, Virginia can rightfully be called the “cradle of America.” Peter Wallenstein traces major themes across four centuries in a brisk narrative that recalls the people and events that have shaped the Old Dominion. The second edition is updated with new material throughout, including a new chapter on Virginia and world affairs from the Korean War through 9/11 and beyond, and, an expanded bibliography. Historical accounts of Virginia have often emphasized harmony and tradition, but Wallenstein focuses on the impact of conflict and change. From the beginning, Virginians have debated and challenged each other’s visions of Virginia, and Wallenstein shows how these differences have influenced its sometimes turbulent development. Casting an eye on blacks as well as whites, and on people from both east and west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he traces such key themes as political power, racial identity, and education. Bringing to bear his long experience teaching Virginia history, Wallenstein takes readers back, even before Jamestown, to the Elizabethan settlers at Roanoke Island and the inhabitants they encountered, as well as to Virginia’s leaders of the American Revolution. He chronicles the state’s dramatic journey through the Civil War era, a time that revealed how the nation’s evolution sometimes took shape in opposition to the vision of many leading Virginians. He also examines the impact of the civil rights movement and considers controversies that accompany Virginia into its fifth century. The text is copiously illustrated to depict not only such iconic figures as Pocahontas, George Washington, and Robert E. Lee, but also such other prominent native Virginians as Carter G. Woodson, Patsy Cline, and L. Douglas Wilder. Sidebars throughout the book offer further insight, while maps and appendixes of reference data make the volume a complete resource on Virginia’s history.
Download or read book Armenia written by David Marshall Lang and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-12-19 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1970, this book is the result of many years of study and research in the field. It begins with a geographic and ethnic survey of the land and Armenian people and traces the land’s prehistory back to the Old Stone Age. The origins of the wine-making and bronze-working industries are discussed, in which Armenia played a pioneering role. The outstanding Armenian contribution to Church art and architecture is also explored as is the contribution of Armenia to painting, philosophy, and science. The final section is devoted to an account of Soviet Armenia.
Download or read book In Search of the Cradle of Civilization written by Georg Feuerstein and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishing House. This book was released on 2005 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this pathbreaking book, the authors show that the ancient Indians were no primitives but possessed a high spiritual culture, which not only influenced the evolution of the Western world in decisive ways but which still hs much to teach us today. India's archaic spirituality is codified in the rich symbols, metaphors and myths of the magnificent Rig-Veda, which is shown to be much older than has been widely assumed by scholars. The present book also unravels the astonishing mathematical and astronomical code hidden in the Vedic hymns. Anyone interested in ancient cultural history, India, archaeo-astronomy or spirituality will find this well researched and cross-cultural work spellbinding and enriching.
Download or read book Greece written by Claudia Martin and published by Visual Explorer Guide. This book was released on 2021-05-14 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presented in a landscape format and with captions explaining the story behind each entry, Greece is a stunning collection of images celebrating one of the world's most popular destinations. From antiquity to modernity, from the tallest mountains to the tiniest islands, from the Romans to the Venetians to the Ottomans, Greece is a beautiful photographic exploration of this fascinating country. Arranged by region, the book celebrates such classical highlights as Athens's Acropolis, the ruins at Mycenae in the Peloponnese, the Byzantine churches of Thessaloniki, and the ancient Temple at Delphi. It also explores the beauty of the islands of the Aegean and the Ionian Sea, the Zagori mountains in the northwest of the country, and the hydrothermal craters on Nisyros.
Download or read book Big Bone Lick written by Stanley Hedeen and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shawnee legend tells of a herd of huge bison rampaging through the Ohio Valley, laying waste to all in their path. To protect the tribe, a deity slew these great beasts with lightning bolts, finally chasing the last giant buffalo into exile across the Wabash River, never to trouble the Shawnee again. The source of this legend was a peculiar salt lick in present-day northern Kentucky, where giant fossilized skeletons had for centuries lain undisturbed by the Shawnee and other natives of the region. In 1739, the first Europeans encountered this fossil site, which eventually came to be known as Big Bone Lick. The site drew the attention of all who heard of it, including George Washington, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and especially Thomas Jefferson. The giant bones immediately cast many scientific and philosophical assumptions of the day into doubt, and they eventually gave rise to the study of fossils for biological and historical purposes. Big Bone Lick: The Cradle of American Paleontology recounts the rich history of the fossil site that gave the world the first evidence of the extinction of several mammalian species, including the American mastodon. Big Bone Lick has played many roles: nutrient source, hallowed ground, salt mine, health spa, and a rich trove of archaeological and paleontological wonders. Natural historian Stanley Hedeen presents a comprehensive narrative of Big Bone Lick from its geological formation forward, explaining why the site attracted animals, regional tribespeople, European explorers and scientists, and eventually American pioneers and presidents. Big Bone Lick is the history of both a place and a scientific discipline: it explores the infancy and adolescence of paleontology from its humble and sometimes humorous beginnings. Hedeen combines elements of history, geology, politics, and biology to make Big Bone Lick a valuable historical resource as well as the compelling tale of how a collection of fossilized bones captivated a young nation.
Download or read book The Empty Cradle of Democracy written by Alexandra Halkias and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2004-09-24 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the 1990s, Greece had a very high rate of abortion at the same time that its low birth rate was considered a national crisis. The Empty Cradle of Democracy explores this paradox. Alexandra Halkias shows that despite Greek Orthodox beliefs that abortion is murder, many Greek women view it as “natural” and consider birth control methods invasive. The formal public-sphere view is that women destroy the body of the nation by aborting future citizens. Scrutiny of these conflicting cultural beliefs enables Halkias’s incisive critique of the cornerstones of modern liberal democracy, including the autonomous “individual” subject and a polity external to the private sphere. The Empty Cradle of Democracy examines the complex relationship between nationalism and gender and re-theorizes late modernity and violence by exploring Greek representations of human agency, the fetus, national identity, eroticism, and the divine. Halkias’s analysis combines telling fragments of contemporary Athenian culture, Greek history, media coverage of abortion and the declining birth rate, and fieldwork in Athens at an obstetrics/gynecology clinic and a family-planning center. Halkias conducted in-depth interviews with one hundred and twenty women who had had two or more abortions and observed more than four hundred gynecological exams at a state family-planning center. She reveals how intimate decisions and the public preoccupation with the low birth rate connect to nationalist ideas of race, religion, freedom, resistance, and the fraught encounter between modernity and tradition. The Empty Cradle of Democracy is a startling examination of how assumptions underlying liberal democracy are betrayed while the nation permeates the body and understandings of gender and sexuality complicate the nation-building projects of late modernity.
Download or read book The Near East written by Sema'an I. Salem and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2000-04 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an elegant account of the development of the great ancient civilizations of the Near East and how did the knowledge of the people of the Orient spread over the surrounding regions. In a lucid, concise, and well-organized style, the authors provide a clear analysis of how the ancient Near East provided the West with the foundations of civilization from the domestication of plants and animals through the development of writing, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, law, and industry to the formation of governments, states, and empires. Each of the various aspects of civilization is treated independently, rendering the book an accessible source of information and an easy to use reference book.
Download or read book A Needle in the Right Hand of God written by R. Howard Bloch and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-09-23 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bayeux Tapestry is the world’s most famous textile–an exquisite 230-foot-long embroidered panorama depicting the events surrounding the Norman Conquest of 1066. It is also one of history’s most mysterious and compelling works of art. This haunting stitched account of the battle that redrew the map of medieval Europe has inspired dreams of theft, waves of nationalism, visions of limitless power, and esthetic rapture. In his fascinating new book, Yale professor R. Howard Bloch reveals the history, the hidden meaning, the deep beauty, and the enduring allure of this astonishing piece of cloth. Bloch opens with a gripping account of the event that inspired the Tapestry: the swift, bloody Battle of Hastings, in which the Norman bastard William defeated the Anglo-Saxon king, Harold, and laid claim to England under his new title, William the Conqueror. But to truly understand the connection between battle and embroidery, one must retrace the web of international intrigue and scandal that climaxed at Hastings. Bloch demonstrates how, with astonishing intimacy and immediacy, the artisans who fashioned this work of textile art brought to life a moment that changed the course of British culture and history. Every age has cherished the Tapestry for different reasons and read new meaning into its enigmatic words and images. French nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century, fired by Tapestry’s evocation of military glory, unearthed the lost French epic “The Song of Roland,” which Norman troops sang as they marched to victory in 1066. As the Nazis tightened their grip on Europe, Hitler sent a team to France to study the Tapestry, decode its Nordic elements, and, at the end of the war, with Paris under siege, bring the precious cloth to Berlin. The richest horde of buried Anglo-Saxon treasure, the matchless beauty of Byzantine silk, Aesop’s strange fable “The Swallow and the Linseed,” the colony that Anglo-Saxon nobles founded in the Middle East following their defeat at Hastings–all are brilliantly woven into Bloch’s riveting narrative. Seamlessly integrating Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Viking, and Byzantine elements, the Bayeux Tapestry ranks with Chartres and the Tower of London as a crowning achievement of medieval Europe. And yet, more than a work of art, the Tapestry served as the suture that bound up the wounds of 1066. Enhanced by a stunning full-color insert that includes reproductions of the complete Tapestry, A Needle in the Right Hand of God will stand with The Professor and the Madman and How the Irish Saved Civilization as a triumph of popular history.
Download or read book From the Cradle to the Grave written by Clare West and published by OXFORD. This book was released on 1993 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These stories explore the trials of life from youth to old age, in a wide variety of writing styles, including black humour, satire, and compassionate and realistic observations of the follies and foibles of humankind. Authors such as Saki, Evelyn Waugh, Roald Dahl, Raymond Carver, and W Somerset Maugham look at youth, marriage, parenthood and new relationships in later life, in stories that each have a unique twist.
Download or read book What Makes Civilization written by D. Wengrow and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A vivid new account of the 'birth of civilization' in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia where many of the foundations of modern life were laid
Download or read book Africa the Cradle of Human Diversity written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores important chapters of past and recent African history from a multidisciplinary perspective. It covers an extensive time range from the evolution of early humans to the complex cultural and genetic diversity of modern-day populations in Africa. Through a comprehensive list of chapters, the book focuses on different time-periods, geographic regions and cultural and biological aspects of human diversity across the continent. Each chapter summarises current knowledge with perspectives from a varied set of international researchers from diverse areas of expertise. The book provides a valuable resource for scholars interested in evolutionary history and human diversity in Africa. Contributors are Shaun Aron, Ananyo Choudhury, Bernard Clist, Cesar Fortes-Lima, Rosa Fregel, Jackson S. Kimambo, Faye Lander , Marlize Lombard, Fidelis T. Masao, Ezekia Mtetwa, Gilbert Pwiti, Michèle Ramsay, Thembi Russell, Carina Schlebusch, Dhriti Sengupta, Plan Shenjere-Nyabezi, Mário Vicente.
Download or read book Cradle of the American Circus written by Jo Pitkin and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americas circusa spectacle of flying trapeze artists, colorful clowns and trained animal acts under the big topgrew out of the traveling menagerie phenomenon in Somers, New York, in the 1800s. To commemorate this proud local heritage, award-winning poet and Somers native Jo Pitkin presents a collection of poems inspired by the people, events and fantastic ephemera of the glory days of the Somers showmen. Complementing her dazzling lines are essays by regional historians that explain Somerss unique role as the Cradle of the American Circus. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, step up, step up! The show is about to begin.
Download or read book Ife Cradle of the Yoruba written by J. A. Ademakinwa and published by AMV Publishing Services. This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When this book made its first appearance in 1958, it was well received by lovers of Yoruba history and culture. Indeed, the most famous scholar of the Yoruba at that time, Professor S. O. Biobaku, who encouraged the project, supplied a foreword to the first edition. The reason for reprinting this book is exactly the same reason expressed many years ago: a new generation remains ignorant of the history of their people. The central focus is the city of Ile-Ife; the author, the late J. A. Ademakinwa, was an Ife indigene. He puts the mythologies and traditions of his people to good use to speak to a host of subjects.." . . "Ademakinwa's book fulfills the goals set out by the author, conveying ideas to understand historical events within the idioms and conception of history by his own people. It links rituals with mythologies to explain events and phenomena. It explains the formation of Yoruba customs and culture in combination with traditional accounts that tell us about Yoruba history and culture. The book deals primarily with a past that is no more, that very distant time not covered by scientific explanations but by mythologies. In this sense, the myths are valid within the rubric of traditional stories. The book can be enjoyed at multiple levels: as the history of Ife and the Yoruba; as a body of impressive myths about the past; and as the memory of a different age." -Toyin Falola University Distinguished Teaching Professor Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities The University of Texas at Austin (From the New Foreword) ABOUT THE AUTHOR J. A. Ademakinwa is believed to have been born in Ile-Ife sometime in 1894 according to the Yoruba traditional method of age calculation in the absence of official birth registry records. He was among the earliest Ife indigenes to embrace the Christian faith. As a result of this conversion, he was admitted to the CMS Primary School, Aiyegbaju, Ile-Ife. His brilliant performance at the school earned him a scholarship to the prestigious St. Andrew's College, Oyo from where he graduated in 1918. Upon graduation, he taught in several schools in the Old Western Region of Nigeria before moving to Lagos in 1928 where he continued his teaching career and eventually retired. During a teaching tenure at Ijebu-Ode, he met a fellow teacher and an indigene of the town, Victoria Abosede Oluyemi-Wright whom he later married in Lagos in 1930. The union was blessed with six children. J. A. Ademakinwa was one of the founding members of the Yoruba Research Council. Between the early 1940s and late 1960s, he was a regular contributor to major Lagos-based newspapers as well as Radio programs. He was also the author of The History of St. Andrew's College, Oyo and The History of Christ Apostolic Church (both written in Yoruba language).
Download or read book Monte Cassino in the Middle Ages written by Herbert Bloch and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1986 with total page 1584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The monastery of Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict in the sixth century, was the cradle of Western monasticism. It became one of the vital centers of culture and learning in Europe. At the height of its influence, in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, two of its abbots (including Desiderius) and one of its monks became popes, and it controlled a vast network of dependencies--churches, monasteries, villages, and farms--especially in central and southern Italy. Herbert Bloch's study, the product of forty years of research, takes as its starting point the twelfth-century bronze doors of the basilica of the abbey, the most significant relic of the medieval structure. The panels of these doors are inscribed with a list of more than 180 of the abbey's possessions. Mr. Bloch has supplemented this roster with lists found in papal and imperial privileges and other documents. The heart of the book is a detailed investigation of the nearly 700 dependencies of Monte Cassino from the sixth to the twelfth century and beyond. No comparable study of this or any other great medieval institution has ever before been undertaken. Ironically, it was the bombing of 1944, which destroyed the monastery, that led to an unexpected revelation: the discovery, on the reverse side of some panels of the doors, of magnificent engraved figures of patriarchs and apostles. These proved to be remnants of the church portal ordered from Constantinople by Desiderius in the eleventh century, which marked the beginning of the grandiose reconstruction of the abbey and its church, the latter to become a model for many other churches. In order to solve the riddle of the doors of Monte Cassino, Bloch has investigated other bronze doors of Byzantine origin in Italy and the doors of the great Italian master Oderisius of Benevento, as well as those of S. Clemente a Casauria and of the cathedral of Benevento. Also included is a study of the political and cultural impact of Byzantium on Monte Cassino and a chapter on Constantinus Africanus, Saracen turned monk, one of the most interesting figures in the history of medieval medicine. The text is sumptuously illustrated with 193 plates; most of the more than 300 illustrations have never before been published. This three-volume work, with its nine detailed indexes, offers a wealth of information for scholars in many different fields.
Download or read book Cradle of Life written by J. William Schopf and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the greatest mysteries in reconstructing the history of life on Earth has been the apparent absence of fossils dating back more than 550 million years. We have long known that fossils of sophisticated marine life-forms existed at the dawn of the Cambrian Period, but until recently scientists had found no traces of Precambrian fossils. The quest to find such traces began in earnest in the mid-1960s and culminated in one dramatic moment in 1993 when William Schopf identified fossilized microorganisms three and a half billion years old. This startling find opened up a vast period of time--some eighty-five percent of Earth's history--to new research and new ideas about life's beginnings. In this book, William Schopf, a pioneer of modern paleobiology, tells for the first time the exciting and fascinating story of the origins and earliest evolution of life and how that story has been unearthed. Gracefully blending his personal story of discovery with the basics needed to understand the astonishing science he describes, Schopf has produced an introduction to paleobiology for the interested reader as well as a primer for beginning students in the field. He considers such questions as how did primitive bacteria, pond scum, evolve into the complex life-forms found at the beginning of the Cambrian Period? How do scientists identify ancient microbes and what do these tiny creatures tell us about the environment of the early Earth? (And, in a related chapter, Schopf discusses his role in the controversy that swirls around recent claims of fossils in the famed meteorite from Mars.) Like all great teachers, Schopf teaches the non-specialist enough about his subject along the way that we can easily follow his descriptions of the geology, biology, and chemistry behind these discoveries. Anyone interested in the intriguing questions of the origins of life on Earth and how those origins have been discovered will find this story the best place to start.
Download or read book West of the Indus written by William Orville Douglas and published by Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday. This book was released on 1958 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of a seven-thousand-mile motor trip across five Middle East countries in 1957 - starting in Karachi, West Pakistan, and ending in Istanbul.
Download or read book Cradle to Kindergarten written by Ajay Chaudry and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early care and education for many children in the United States is in crisis. The period between birth and kindergarten is a critical time for child development, and socioeconomic disparities that begin early in children’s lives contribute to starkly different long-term outcomes for adults. Yet, compared to other advanced economies, high-quality child care and preschool in the United States are scarce and prohibitively expensive for many middle-class and most disadvantaged families. To what extent can early-life interventions provide these children with the opportunities that their affluent peers enjoy and contribute to reduced social inequality in the long term? Cradle to Kindergarten offers a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy that diagnoses the obstacles to accessible early education and charts a path to opportunity for all children. The U.S. government invests less in children under the age of five than do most other developed nations. Most working families must seek private childcare, which means that children from low-income households, who would benefit most from high-quality early education, are the least likely to attend them. Existing policies, such as pre-kindergarten in some states are only partial solutions. To address these deficiencies, the authors propose to overhaul the early care system, beginning with a federal paid parental leave policy that provides both mothers and fathers with time and financial support after the birth of a child. They also advocate increased public benefits, including an expansion of the child care tax credit, and a new child care assurance program that subsidizes the cost of early care for low- and moderate-income families. They also propose that universal, high-quality early education in the states should start by age three, and a reform of the Head Start program that would include more intensive services for families living in areas of concentrated poverty and experiencing multiple adversities from the earliest point in these most disadvantaged children’s lives. They conclude with an implementation plan and contend that these reforms are attainable within a ten-year timeline. Reducing educational and economic inequalities requires that all children have robust opportunities to learn, fully develop their capacities, and have a fair shot at success. Cradle to Kindergarten presents a blueprint for fulfilling this promise by expanding access to educational and financial resources at a critical stage of child development.
