Download or read book From Satan s Crown to the Holy Grail written by Diane Morgan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-03-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Morgan discusses the origin of the emerald, its peculiar structure, and its strange allure. The story weaves across several continents and thousands of years. It is a tale of conquistadors, treachery, shipwrecks, and alchemy. Along the way, we meet scientists and kings and bear witness as the great emeralds are born, mined, smuggled, cut, and sold. The book also discusses the modern art of making synthetic emeralds. From the fastnesses of Afghanistan to the steamy jungles of Colombia and Zimbabwe, from the sands of Egypt to the bitter Urals, this is the story of a stone whose strange journey reflects the yearnings, greed, passions, and longing for beauty of the human race.
Download or read book Transnationalism in Ancient and Medieval Societies written by Michael C. Howard and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While scholars have long documented the migration of people in ancient and medieval times, they have paid less attention to those who traveled across borders with some regularity. This study of early transnational relations explores the routine interaction of people across the boundaries of empires, tribal confederacies, kingdoms, and city-states, paying particular attention to the role of long-distance trade along the Silk Road and maritime trade routes. It examines the obstacles voyagers faced, including limited travel and communication capabilities, relatively poor geographical knowledge, and the dangers of a fragmented and shifting political landscape, and offers profiles of better-known transnational elites such as the Hellenic scholar Herodotus and the Venetian merchant Marco Polo, as well lesser known servants, merchants, and sailors. By revealing the important political, economic, and cultural role cross-border trade and travel played in ancient society, this work demonstrates that transnationalism is not unique to modern times. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.
Download or read book Snakes in Myth Magic and History written by Diane Morgan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-09-30 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The snake is one of humankind's most powerful and ambiguous symbols: it has at various times represented immortality and death, male and female, deity and demon, circle and line, killer and healer, the highest wisdom and the deepest subconscious. By virtue of its mysterious movement, potent poison, fearful grip, unblinking gaze and lightning quick strike, the power and image of the snake has wound its way into every culture. Whether snakes are worshipped as gods, feared as devils, or handled in religious ceremonies to test faith, snakes have played a critical role in the human heritage. This book explores the cult of the snake in world history, religion, and folklore. Fascination with snakes has been around since the dawn of time. Even today, images of snakes attract attention, fear, disgust, or admiration. Morgan examines that obsession with this mysterious creature, covering in vivid details such topics as mythical snakes like the Plumed Serpent, serpent iconography, tall tales, as well as the psychological symbolism that has attached itself to snakes. Cultures as diverse as pre-Columbian America, India, Egypt, China, sub-Saharan Africa, Celtic Europe, and the United States have all accorded the serpent a special place in their culture—apparently regardless of whether or not real snakes play an important part in the life of the people. Here, the mysterious nature of the snake unfolds, enchanting readers with a colorful and lively discussion of its place in our history, stories, religions, and cultures.
Download or read book Chrysalis written by Jozef Borovský and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book does not claim absolute truths, but it speaks for those who can no longer speak for themselves by the histories they witnessed, wrote about, and which defined their ancestors and descendants, including the most powerful woman that ever lived – Countess Elizabeth Bathory. She tried to change the world; she paradoxically succeeded and failed. But what drove her? What did she know, we do not? What is her history? To begin to understand all this, one must travel back in time to when it began, when truth first became obscured, and when European society – Western culture - went horribly wrong. It is why her world was the way it was. Today, historiological “truths” of European Medieval Dark Ages, at best, exist as dim flashes of information in ancient manuscripts. A very interconnected European medieval history has much more, but inconvenient historiological information to informs us of events, names, places, and dates, but like a giant, complicated jigsaw puzzle. Unfortunately, many pieces are still missing, none more so than that of Carpathia. Consequently, an incomplete, theoretical picture of historical reality remains. There’s a reason for it. Throughout history, Europeans struggled for Humility, Humanity and Liberty, but only Carpathian Ungars maintained and struggled to keep it for more than a millennium – from about 600 to 1711. Their history has gone missing, supplanted by myths. Their greatest leaders are caricatures of Gothic horror literature, and their greatest traitors are their heroes. Their monuments are everywhere. Carpathia’s history does not exist in Western consciousness. What is it about Carpathia we are not supposed to know? Its missing medieval jigsaw puzzle pieces, when liberated from obscure archives, then reassembled, and inserted into the macro context of centuries, however, allows us to understand why. The period covered in this book is roughly seven centuries. It’s a litany of tragic moral failures. It begins with spiritual leaders who consistently failed in their moral duty because they misguidedly assumed a Roman imperial culture from the outset. It ends with the creation of a repressed imperial Ungaria and the supposed “first kings of Hungary.” Events within this book’s pages cover most of the first great pendulum swing of “European Cultural Chrysalis” – it’s Metamorphosis of Odium.” It explores the complexity of why, and how European culture became one of intolerance and hatred which tried to extinct all non-conformists within their divine Medieval European World Order. It explains why it was perfectly ethical and moral, and why society believed in the Resurrection of all things good after the final Apocalypse – this order’s primary vision. Resisting all this, of course, were all Carpathian cultures, the last being the Slavic-Turkic Ungars. To the Medieval European World Order, they, like the Caliphates, were the greatest heretics and heathens of the Dark Ages. These civilisations were the last refuge of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness in a world which had none. It’s a story of us.
Download or read book Hunting Nature written by Thomas P. Hodge and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Hunting Nature, Thomas P. Hodge explores Ivan Turgenev's relationship to nature through his conception, description, and practice of hunting—the most unquenchable passion of his life. Informed by an ecocritical perspective, Hodge takes an approach that is equal parts interpretive and documentarian, grounding his observations thoroughly in Russian cultural and linguistic context and a wide range of Turgenev's fiction, poetry, correspondence, and other writings. Included within the book are some of Turgenev's important writings on nature—never previously translated into English. Turgenev, who is traditionally identified as a chronicler of Russia's ideological struggles, is presented in Hunting Nature as an expert naturalist whose intimate knowledge of flora and fauna deeply informed his view of philosophy, politics, and the role of literature in society. Ultimately, Hodge argues that we stand to learn a great deal about Turgenev's thought and complex literary technique when we read him in both cultural and environmental contexts. Hodge details how Turgenev remains mindful of the way textual detail is wedded to the organic world—the priroda that he observed, and ached for, more keenly than perhaps any other Russian writer.
Download or read book The Dragon Legacy written by Nicholas de Vere and published by Book Tree. This book was released on 2004 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays on the Deresthai culture with accompanying extracts from the Dragon Court archives comprising the official history of the Dragon peoples.
Download or read book Urban Mountain Beings written by Kathleen S. Fine-Dare and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-12-04 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban Mountain Beings is an ethnographic and historically grounded study of recognition strategies and ethnogenesis carried out on the flanks of Mt. Pichincha in Quito, Ecuador. Kathleen S. Fine-Dare employs feminist geographical and Indigenous pedagogical frameworks to illustrate how histories of exclusion have created attitudes and policies that treat Native peoples as “out of place and time” in cities. Fine-Dare concentrates on two overlapping contexts for Indigenous vindication: the Yumbada of Cotocollao, an ancestral performance through which mountain and other spirits are called into the urban plaza; and Casa Kinde (Hummingbird House), a cultural organization that engages in workshops, filmmaking, photography, commerce, community education, and the formation of alliances with anthropologists, activists, filmmakers, engineers, and teachers.
Download or read book Policing the Monstrous written by Ashley Szanter and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2020-12-28 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of new essays examines how the injection of supernatural creatures and mythologies transformed the hugely popular crime procedural television genre. These shows complicate the predictable and comforting patterns of the procedural with the inherently unknowable nature of the supernatural. From Sherlock to Supernatural, essays cover a range of topics including the gothic, the post-structural nature of The X-Files, the uncanny lure of Twin Peaks, trickster detectives, forensic fairy tales, the allure of the vampire detective, and even the devil himself.
Download or read book World Clothing and Fashion written by Mary Ellen Snodgrass and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 1785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking a global, multicultural, social, and economic perspective, this work explores the diverse and colourful history of human attire. From prehistoric times to the age of globalization, articles cover the evolution of clothing utility, style, production, and commerce, including accessories (shoes, hats, gloves, handbags, and jewellery) for men, women, and children. Dress for different climates, occupations, recreational activities, religious observances, rites of passages, and other human needs and purposes - from hunting and warfare to sports and space exploration - are examined in depth and detail. Fashion and design trends in diverse historical periods, regions and countries, and social and ethnic groups constitute a major area of coverage, as does the evolution of materials (from animal fur to textiles to synthetic fabrics) and production methods (from sewing and weaving to industrial manufacturing and computer-aided design). Dress as a reflection of social status, intellectual and artistic trends, economic conditions, cultural exchange, and modern media marketing are recurring themes. Influential figures and institutions in fashion design, industry and manufacturing, retail sales, production technologies, and related fields are also covered.
Download or read book Colour of Paradise written by Kris Lane and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-27 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tapping a wide range of sources, Kris Lane traces the complex web of global trading networks that funneled emeralds from backland South America to populous Asian capitals between the 16th and the 18th centuries.
Download or read book Gemlore written by Diane Morgan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every culture has developed its own lore of rocks. From the stones of Aaron's breastplate to the foundational rocks of the New Jerusalem, from the creation tales of South America to the blood stones of Burma, gems have taken their place in the mythology and magic of the human race. This book details the lore attached to particular gems. Each chapter covers a particular stone and discusses the gem's geological, historical, mythical, and legendary qualities. A valuable resource for anyone researching symbols, myth, history, or literature, this book also helps science students understand the humanistic context of gemstones and offers social studies students a fascinating view of gems in world cultures. Each chapter covers a particular gemstone, such as diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. It also covers organic gems, such as pearl, coral, and amber. The chapters discuss the natural history of the stone, including where the gem is found, its value, and its use; the role the gem has played in history, especially for certain famous stones such as the Hope Diamond; and the myths, powers, and legends that have attached to the stone over the centuries. Science students will appreciate the humanistic context the book offers for gemstones, while social studies students will appreciate its consideration of gems across times and places. Students of literature and the arts will welcome the book's attention to gems as symbols, and general readers will find it a fascinating guide to the lore and legend of precious stones.
Download or read book Notes and Queries written by and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mind Invaders written by Stewart Home and published by Bread and Circuses Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-19 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The only movement to work consistently towards the death of history since the disbanding of the Situationist International has been the Global Neoist Network.Since 1979, Neoism has been defending the revolutionary gains made by the Situationists and Fluxus. The Neoists are the only group to have brought about the conjunction of nihilism and historical consciousness — the two elements essential for the destruction of the old order, the order of history.” You can never quite be sure to what degree Stewart Home, (or the Neoists from whom he noisily split, but under who’s banner he long continued to write / agitate), is/was taking the p*ss. Decades of provocation, parody, backhanded agitation, ideological feuding, art, anti art, ideological feuding as both art and anti art, all of it written up, reported upon, exaggerated, added to, invented, and thrown into the face of late 20th / 21st century culture /subculture, first as polemic, eventually as farce. Mind Invaders was first published in 1997, culled from a panopoly of underported , unregarded, barely noticed sources : obscure zines, half finished manifesto’s , loosely formed political strands starting to coalesce in shaded corners of the early web. Through force of will and a desire to exist, it pulled together a ramschackle, but somehow cohesive collection of currents that run deep through the post Situationist, anti-art, anti-trot, anti-spectacle European underground, tracing a definable lineage back from Dada > Bauhaus > Lettristes, through to the mail art movement of the 60’s, loosely tied to Fluxus, and by it’s very nature, a scattered, interconnected avant garde network, attempting to subvert the art-industrial complex by circumventing it, undermining commercial straitjackets by ignoring them. Techno paganism and Avant-bardism, 3 sided football, Five Year Plans for establishing community-based Autonomous space programmes around the world, psychogeographers planning to levitate . the Corn Exchange in Hulme...and most prominently,“The Luther Blissett Project, launched in Bologna, Summer ’94, by an international gang of revolutionaries, mail artists, poets, performers, underground ’zines, cybernauts and squatters, collectively casting a long, long shadow.
Download or read book Looking Through Stone written by Susan Ioannou and published by Wordwrights Canada. This book was released on 2010-08-13 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much past Canadian poetry described our people and landscape in lyrical terms. Combining research and wonder, Looking Through Stone burrows deeper -- the first collection of poems in Canada devoted exclusively to geology and mining. Quite literally, it goes underground. From volcanoes to vitamins, the book presents a wealth of factual information. It also explores past, more fanciful notions about how rocks, metals, and minerals fit into our human picture. In its pages, knowledge and imagination meet. Part I introduces a little basic geology. Part II focuses on the seven metals of the ancients, linked to the planets and days of the week, plus platinum and uranium. Part III delves into myths and legends about the power of gemstones. Part IV looks at the history and technology of mining, and its social and economic impact. A helpful glossary concludes this unique book that brings science and poetry together.
Download or read book The Book of the Epic written by Hélène Adeline Guerber and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Book of the Epic The World s Great Epics Told in Story written by Hélène Guerber and published by Litres. This book was released on 2018-12-02 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Crystal Seer written by Judy Hall and published by Fair Winds Press (MA). This book was released on 2018-04-10 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential, accessible, and portable volume for using crystals for divination and ritual.
