Download or read book Elephants Kings written by Thomas R. Trautmann and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-08-03 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Because of their enormous size, elephants have long been irresistible for kings as symbols of their eminence. In early civilizations—such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Civilization, and China—kings used elephants for royal sacrifice, spectacular hunts, public display of live captives, or the conspicuous consumption of ivory—all of them tending toward the elephant’s extinction. The kings of India, however, as Thomas R. Trautmann shows in this study, found a use for elephants that actually helped preserve their habitat and numbers in the wild: war. Trautmann traces the history of the war elephant in India and the spread of the institution to the west—where elephants took part in some of the greatest wars of antiquity—and Southeast Asia (but not China, significantly), a history that spans 3,000 years and a considerable part of the globe, from Spain to Java. He shows that because elephants eat such massive quantities of food, it was uneconomic to raise them from birth. Rather, in a unique form of domestication, Indian kings captured wild adults and trained them, one by one, through millennia. Kings were thus compelled to protect wild elephants from hunters and elephant forests from being cut down. By taking a wide-angle view of human-elephant relations, Trautmann throws into relief the structure of India’s environmental history and the reasons for the persistence of wild elephants in its forests.
Download or read book Tell Them of Battles Kings and Elephants written by Mathias Énard and published by New Directions Publishing. This book was released on 2019-10-29 with total page 157 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michelangelo’s adventure in Constantinople, from the “mesmerizing” (New Yorker) and “masterful” (Washington Post) author of Compass In 1506, Michelangelo—a young but already renowned sculptor—is invited by the sultan of Constantinople to design a bridge over the Golden Horn. The sultan has offered, along with an enormous payment, the promise of immortality, since Leonardo da Vinci’s design was rejected: “You will surpass him in glory if you accept, for you will succeed where he has failed, and you will give the world a monument without equal.” Michelangelo, after some hesitation, flees Rome and an irritated Pope Julius II—whose commission he leaves unfinished—and arrives in Constantinople for this truly epic project. Once there, he explores the beauty and wonder of the Ottoman Empire, sketching and describing his impressions along the way, as he struggles to create what could be his greatest architectural masterwork. Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants—constructed from real historical fragments—is a thrilling page-turner about why stories are told, why bridges are built, and how seemingly unmatched fragments, seen from the opposite sides of civilization, can mirror one another.
Download or read book The Land of the Elephant Kings written by Paul J. Kosmin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-06-23 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year The Seleucid Empire (311–64 BCE) was unlike anything the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds had seen. Stretching from present-day Bulgaria to Tajikistan—the bulk of Alexander the Great’s Asian conquests—the kingdom encompassed a territory of remarkable ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity; yet it did not include Macedonia, the ancestral homeland of the dynasty. The Land of the Elephant Kings investigates how the Seleucid kings, ruling over lands to which they had no historic claim, attempted to transform this territory into a coherent and meaningful space. “This engaging book appeals to the specialist and non-specialist alike. Kosmin has successfully brought together a number of disparate fields in a new and creative way that will cause a reevaluation of how the Seleucids have traditionally been studied.” —Jeffrey D. Lerner, American Historical Review “It is a useful and bright introduction to Seleucid ideology, history, and position in the ancient world.” —Jan P. Stronk, American Journal of Archaeology
Download or read book Stalking the Elephant Kings written by Christopher Kremmer and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book 17 Kings and 42 Elephants written by Margaret Mahy and published by Dial Books. This book was released on 1987 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seventeen kings and forty-two elephants romp with a variety of jungle animals during their journey through a wild, wet night. Suggested level: junior, primary.
Download or read book Elephants and Kings written by Thomas R. Trautmann and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-08-03 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Retreat and persistence of elephants -- Elephants and Indian kingship -- War elephants -- Structures of use: caturaga, vihana, vyha -- Elephant knowledge -- The spread of the war elephant -- North India, South India, Sri Lanka -- The Near East, North Africa, Europe -- Southeast Asia -- After the war elephant -- Drawing the balance, looking ahead
Download or read book Naked Statues Fat Gladiators and War Elephants written by Garrett Ryan and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-09-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why didn't the ancient Greeks or Romans wear pants? How did they shave? How likely were they to drink fine wine, use birth control, or survive surgery? In a series of short and humorous essays, Naked Statues, Fat Gladiators, and War Elephants explores some of the questions about the Greeks and Romans that ancient historian Garrett Ryan has answered in the classroom and online. Unlike most books on the classical world, the focus is not on famous figures or events, but on the fascinating details of daily life. Learn the answers to: How tall were the ancient Greeks and Romans? How long did they live? What kind of pets did they have? How dangerous were their cities? Did they believe their myths? Did they believe in ghosts, monsters, and/or aliens? Did they jog or lift weights? How did they capture animals for the Colosseum? Were there secret police, spies, or assassins? What happened to the city of Rome after the Empire collapsed? Can any families trace their ancestry back to the Greeks or Romans?
Download or read book The Executive and the Elephant written by Richard L. Daft and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2010-08-02 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lessons for leaders on resolving the ongoing struggle between instinct and the creative mind Kings, heads of government, and corporate executives lead thousands of people and manage endless resources, but may not have mastery over themselves. Often leaders know that right action is important, but have little (if any) understanding of what prevents them from acting in accordance with their intentions. In this important book, leadership expert Richard Daft portrays this dilemma as a struggle between instinct (elephant) and intention (the executive) using the most current research on the intentional vs. the habitual mind to explain how this phenomenon occurs. Based on current research and real-life examples Offers leaders a method for directing themselves more productively Written by an expert in leadership, organizational performance, and change management Through real-life examples and recent studies in psychology, management and Eastern spirituality Daft provides guidance to all of us who struggle finding our own balance and cultivating the behavior of others.
Download or read book How Animals Grieve written by Barbara J. King and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-03-28 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A touching and provocative exploration of the latest research on animal minds and animal emotions” from the renowned anthropologist and author (The Washington Post). Scientists have long cautioned against anthropomorphizing animals, arguing that it limits our ability to truly comprehend the lives of other creatures. Recently, however, things have begun to shift in the other direction, and anthropologist Barbara J. King is at the forefront of that movement, arguing strenuously that we can—and should—attend to animal emotions. With How Animals Grieve, she draws our attention to the specific case of grief, and relates story after story—from fieldsites, farms, homes, and more—of animals mourning lost companions, mates, or friends. King tells of elephants surrounding their matriarch as she weakens and dies, and, in the following days, attending to her corpse as if holding a vigil. A housecat loses her sister, from whom she’s never before been parted, and spends weeks pacing the apartment, wailing plaintively. A baboon loses her daughter to a predator and sinks into grief. In each case, King uses her anthropological training to interpret and try to explain what we see—to help us understand this animal grief properly, as something neither the same as nor wholly different from the human experience of loss. The resulting book is both daring and down-to-earth, strikingly ambitious even as it’s careful to acknowledge the limits of our understanding. Through the moving stories she chronicles and analyzes so beautifully, King brings us closer to the animals with whom we share a planet, and helps us see our own experiences, attachments, and emotions as part of a larger web of life, death, love, and loss.
Download or read book Ivory written by Keith Somerville and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-30 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Half of Tanzania's elephants have been killed for their ivory since 2007. A similar alarming story can be told of the herds in northern Mozambique and across swathes of central Africa, with forest elephants losing almost two-thirds of their numbers to the tusk trade. The huge rise in poaching and ivory smuggling in the new millennium has destroyed the hope that the 1989 ivory trade ban had capped poaching and would lead to a long-term fall in demand. But why the new upsurge? The answer is not simple. Since ancient times, large-scale killing of elephants for their tusks has been driven by demand outside Africa's elephant ranges - from the Egyptian pharaohs through Imperial Rome and industrialising Europe and North America to the new wealthy business class of China. And, who poaches and why do they do it? In recent years lurid press reports have blamed mass poaching on rebel movements and armed militias, especially Somalia's Al Shabaab, tying two together two evils - poaching and terrorism. But does this account stand up to scrutiny? This new and ground-breaking examination of the history and politics of ivory in Africa forensically examines why poaching happens in Africa and why it is corruption, crime and politics, rather than insurgency, that we should worry about.
Download or read book We Three Kings written by and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-10-02 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated edition of the traditional Christmas song.
Download or read book The Elephant lore of the Hindus written by Nīlakaṇṭha (of Rajamangalam) and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1985 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is intended to serve as an introduction to the elephant-lore of Hindus. It consists primarily of a translation of the Elephant-Sport (Matanga-Lila) of Nilakantha, with notes, introduction, and glossary. The Matanga-Lila is without doubt the best available Sanskrit work on elephantology. It is a brief and succinct treatise in 263 stanzas, divided into twelve chapters of uneven length. Nothing is known of the Nilakantha who is mentioned as its author. According to the editor, Ganapati Sastri, the three manuscripts he used are about two hundred years old. But the work is probably very much older. For aught we know it may go back a thousand years or even to a much earlier date. This, however, is purely conjectural; all we can say is that there is no positive trace of modernity in the work. The elephant-lore of our text is based on a genuine traditional knowledge which grew up among those whose business it was to deal with elephants, and that this tradition has persisted to modern times.
Download or read book Gaja stram written by Pālakāpya and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present Publication, the Gajasastram of Palakapya Muni, along with a Sanskrit commentrey, named Bhavasandarsini by Anantakesnabhattaraka as well as the english translation and 136 illustrations, is a very rare and important work, which is still unpublished. The main contribution of the book is the Sanskrit Commentry which is still in the form of Ma. and its English tanslation-cum-paraphrase, possibly by the Scribe himself, viz V Vijyaraghavacharya.
Download or read book The King the Mice and the Cheese written by Nancy Gurney and published by Harpercollins Pub Limited. This book was released on 1986-03-01 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lower primary In the style of Dr. Seuss.
Download or read book Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions written by Frank L. Holt and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2003-11-24 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation A rare set of coin medallions is used to analyze Alexander the Great's reputation for invinceability in war. The book's backbone is the history of the discovery and interpretation of these medallions, to which are added the extraordinary story of Alexander, and a brief introduction to the science of numismatics.
Download or read book Elephants in My Backyard written by Lynne S. Dumas and published by Vantage Press. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Elephant in the Brain written by Kevin Simler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human beings are primates, and primates are political animals. Our brains, therefore, are designed not just to hunt and gather, but also to help us get ahead socially, often via deception and self-deception. But while we may be self-interested schemers, we benefit by pretending otherwise. The less we know about our own ugly motives, the better - and thus we don't like to talk or even think about the extent of our selfishness. This is the elephant in the brain. Such an introspective taboo makes it hard for us to think clearly about our nature and the explanations for our behavior. The aim of this book, then, is to confront our hidden motives directly - to track down the darker, unexamined corners of our psyches and blast them with floodlights. Then, once everything is clearly visible, we can work to better understand ourselves: Why do we laugh? Why are artists sexy? Why do we brag about travel? Why do we prefer to speak rather than listen? Our unconscious motives drive more than just our private behavior; they also infect our venerated social institutions such as Art, School, Charity, Medicine, Politics, and Religion. In fact, these institutions are in many ways designed to accommodate our hidden motives, to serve covert agendas alongside their official ones. The existence of big hidden motives can upend the usual political debates, leading one to question the legitimacy of these social institutions, and of standard policies designed to favor or discourage them. You won't see yourself - or the world - the same after confronting the elephant in the brain.
