Download or read book Mission to the Volga written by Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earliest surviving instance of sustained first-person travel narrative in Arabic Mission to the Volga is a pioneering text of peerless historical and literary value. In its pages, we move north on a diplomatic mission from Baghdad to the upper reaches of the Volga River in what is now central Russia. In this colorful documentary from the tenth century, the enigmatic Ibn Fadlan relates his experiences as part of an embassy sent by Caliph al-Muqtadir to deliver political and religious instruction to the recently-converted King of the Bulghars. During eleven months of grueling travel, Ibn Fadlan records the marvels he witnesses on his journey, including an aurora borealis and the white nights of the North. Crucially, he offers a description of the Viking Rus, including their customs, clothing, body painting, and a striking account of a ship funeral. Together, these anecdotes illuminate a vibrant world of diversity during the heyday of the Abbasid Empire, narrated with as much curiosity and zeal as they were perceived by its observant beholder. An English-only edition.

Download or read book Two Arabic Travel Books written by Tim Mackintosh-Smith and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014-12-08 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its ports, we find a priceless cargo of information; here are the first foreign descriptions of tea and porcelain, a panorama of unusual social practices, cannibal islands, and Indian holy men--a marvelous, mundane world, contained in the compass of a novella. In Mission to the Volga, we move north on a diplomatic mission from Baghdad to the upper reaches of the Volga River in what is now central Russia. This colorful documentary by Ibn Fadlan relates the trials and tribulations of an embassy of diplomats and missionaries sent by caliph al-Muqtadir to deliver political and religious instruction to the recently-converted King of the Bulghars. During eleven months of grueling travel, Ibn Fadlan records the marvels he witnesses on his journey, including an aurora borealis and the white nights of the North. Crucially, he offers a description of the Viking Rus, including their customs, clothing, tattoos, and a striking account of a ship funeral.

Download or read book Mission to the Volga written by Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earliest surviving instance of sustained first-person travel narrative in Arabic Mission to the Volga is a pioneering text of peerless historical and literary value. In its pages, we move north on a diplomatic mission from Baghdad to the upper reaches of the Volga River in what is now central Russia. In this colorful documentary from the tenth century, the enigmatic Ibn Fadlan relates his experiences as part of an embassy sent by Caliph al-Muqtadir to deliver political and religious instruction to the recently-converted King of the Bulghars. During eleven months of grueling travel, Ibn Fadlan records the marvels he witnesses on his journey, including an aurora borealis and the white nights of the North. Crucially, he offers a description of the Viking Rus, including their customs, clothing, body painting, and a striking account of a ship funeral. Together, these anecdotes illuminate a vibrant world of diversity during the heyday of the Abbasid Empire, narrated with as much curiosity and zeal as they were perceived by its observant beholder. An English-only edition.

Download or read book Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness written by Ibn Fadlan and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012-07-26 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River. In his subsequent report on his mission he gave a meticulous and astonishingly objective description of Viking customs, dress, table manners, religion and sexual practices, as well as the only eyewitness account ever written of a Viking ship cremation. Between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Arab travellers such as Ibn Fadlan journeyed widely and frequently into the far north, crossing territories that now include Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Their fascinating accounts describe how the numerous tribes and peoples they encountered traded furs, paid tribute and waged wars. This accessible new translation offers an illuminating insight into the world of the Arab geographers, and the medieval lands of the far north.

Download or read book Ancient Accounts of India and China written by Abū Zayd Ḥasan ibn Yazīd Sīrāfī and published by . This book was released on 1733 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Through the Caucasus to the Volga written by Fridtjof Nansen and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-01-10 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1931, this early work on exploration is both expensive and hard to find in its first edition. It contains Nansen's account of his expedition through the Caucasus and is a fascinating work thoroughly recommended for anyone with an interest in the history of exploration. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Download or read book Rivers Memory And Nation building written by Dorothy Zeisler-Vralsted and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-11-01 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rivers figure prominently in a nation’s historical memory, and the Volga and Mississippi have special importance in Russian and American cultures. Beginning in the pre-modern world, both rivers served as critical trade routes connecting cultures in an extensive exchange network, while also sustaining populations through their surrounding wetlands and bottomlands. In modern times, “Mother Volga” and the “Father of Waters” became integral parts of national identity, contributing to a sense of Russian and American exceptionalism. Furthermore, both rivers were drafted into service as the means to modernize the nation-state through hydropower and navigation. Despite being forced into submission for modern-day hydrological regimes, the Volga and Mississippi Rivers persist in the collective memory and continue to offer solace, recreation, and sustenance. Through their histories we derive a more nuanced view of human interaction with the environment, which adds another lens to our understanding of the past.

Download or read book The Volga written by Janet M. Hartley and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rich and fascinating exploration of the Volga--the first to fully reveal its vital place in Russian history The longest river in Europe, the Volga stretches over three and a half thousand km from the heart of Russia to the Caspian Sea, separating west from east. The river has played a crucial role in the history of the peoples who are now a part of the Russian Federation--and has united and divided the land through which it flows. Janet Hartley explores the history of Russia through the Volga from the seventh century to the present day. She looks at it as an artery for trade and as a testing ground for the Russian Empire's control of the borderlands, at how it featured in Russian literature and art, and how it was crucial for the outcome of the Second World War at Stalingrad. This vibrant account unearths what life on the river was really like, telling the story of its diverse people and its vital place in Russian history.

Download or read book Eaters of the Dead written by Michael Crichton and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-05-14 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes an epic tale of unspeakable horror. It is 922 A.D. The refined Arab courtier Ibn Fadlan is accompanying a party of Viking warriors back to their home. He is appalled by their customs—the gratuitous sexuality of their women, their disregard for cleanliness, and their cold-blooded sacrifices. As they enter the frozen, forbidden landscape of the North—where the day’s length does not equal the night’s, where after sunset the sky burns in streaks of color—Fadlan soon discovers that he has been unwillingly enlisted to combat the terrors in the night that come to slaughter the Vikings, the monsters of the mist that devour human flesh. But just how he will do it, Fadlan has no idea.

Download or read book Al Jahiz In Praise of Books written by James E. Montgomery and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-13 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Edinburgh University Press will publish two self-contained guides to reading al-Jahiz that also shed light on his society and its writings. This first volume, 'In Praise of Books', is devoted to bibliomania and al-Jahiz's bibliophilia. Volume 2, In Censure of Books, explores Al-Jahiz's bibliophobia. Al-Jahiz was a bibliomaniac, theologian, and spokesman for the political and cultural elite, a writer who lived, counselled and wrote in Iraq during the first century of the 'Abbasid caliphate. He advised, argued and rubbed shoulders with the major power brokers and leading religious and intellectual figures of his day, and crossed swords in debate and argument with the architects of the Islamic religious, theological, philosophical and cultural canon. His many, tumultuous writings engage with these figures, their ideas, theories and policies. They give us an invaluable but much-neglected window onto the values and beliefs of this cosmopolitan elite.

Download or read book The Liberation of Sita written by Volga and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2018-03-05 with total page 93 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Valmiki's Ramayana is the story of Rama's exile and return to Ayodhya, of a triumphant king who will always do right by his subjects. In Volga's retelling, it is Sita who, after being abandoned by Purushottam Rama, embarks on an arduous journey towards self-realization. Along the way, she meets extraordinary women who have broken free from all that held them back: husbands, sons, and their notions of desire, beauty and chastity. The minor women characters of the epic as we know it -- Surpanakha, Renuka, Urmila and Ahalya -- steer Sita towards an unexpected resolution. Meanwhile, Rama too must reconsider and weigh his roles as the king of Ayodhya and as a man deeply in love with his wife. A powerful subversion of India's most popular tale of morality, choice and sacrifice, The Liberation of Sita opens up new spaces within the old discourse, enabling women to review their lives and experiences afresh. This is Volga at her feminist best.

Download or read book Becoming Muslim in Imperial Russia written by Agnès Nilüfer Kefeli and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire's Middle Volga region (today's Tatarstan) was the site of a prolonged struggle between Russian Orthodoxy and Islam, each of which sought to solidify its influence among the frontier's mix of Turkic, Finno-Ugric, and Slavic peoples. The immediate catalyst of the events that Agnes Nilufer Kefeli chronicles in Becoming Muslim in Imperial Russia was the collective turn to Islam by many of the region's Krashens, the Muslim and animist Tatars who converted to Russian Orthodoxy between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.The traditional view holds that the apostates had really been Muslim all along or that their conversions had been forced by the state or undertaken voluntarily as a matter of convenience. In Kefeli’s view, this argument vastly oversimplifies the complexity of a region where many participated in the religious cultures of both Islam and Orthodox Christianity and where a vibrant Krashen community has survived to the present. By analyzing Russian, Eurasian, and Central Asian ethnographic, administrative, literary, and missionary sources, Kefeli shows how traditional education, with Sufi mystical components, helped to Islamize Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples in the Kama-Volga countryside and set the stage for the development of modernist Islam in Russia.Of particular interest is Kefeli’s emphasis on the role that Tatar women (both Krashen and Muslim) played as holders and transmitters of Sufi knowledge. Today, she notes, intellectuals and mullahs in Tatarstan seek to revive both Sufi and modernist traditions to counteract new expressions of Islam and promote a purely Tatar Islam aware of its specificity in a post-Christian and secular environment.

Download or read book Diwan Antarah ibn Shaddad written by James E. Montgomery and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2018-10-02 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pre-Islamic warrior-poet 'Antarah ibn Shaddad, a composer of one of the Mu'allaqat, attracted the attention of the philologists who were active in Iraq at the nascence of the scholarly study of Arabic. These philologists collected and studied the diwan of 'Antarah as part of their recovery and codification of the Jahiliyyah: 'Antarah became one of the Six Poets, a collection of pre-Islamic poets associated with al-Asma'i, “the father of Arabic philology.” Two centuries later, in al-Andalus, al-Shantamari and al-Batalyawsi composed their commentaries on the diwans of the Six Poets. This study uncovers the literary history of 'Antarah’s diwan and presents five editions, with critical apparatus, of the extant recensions, based on an extensive collation of the surviving manuscripts. An Arabic edition with English scholarly apparatus.

Download or read book A Hundred and One Nights written by and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A luminous translation of Arabic tales of enchantment and wonder Translated into English for the very first time, A Hundred and One Nights is a marvelous example of the rich tradition of popular Arabic storytelling. Like the celebrated Thousand and One Nights, this collection opens with the frame story of Scheherazade, the vizier’s gifted daughter who recounts imaginative tales night after night in an effort to distract the murderous king from taking her life. A Hundred and One Nights features an almost entirely different set of stories, however, each one more thrilling, amusing, and disturbing than the last. Here, we encounter tales of epic warriors, buried treasure, disappearing brides, cannibal demon-women, fatal shipwrecks, and clever ruses, where human strength and ingenuity play out against a backdrop of inexorable, inscrutable fate. Distinctly rooted in Arabic literary culture and the Islamic tradition, these tales draw on motifs and story elements that circulated across cultures, including Indian and Chinese antecedents, and features a frame story possibly older than its more famous sibling. This vibrant translation of A Hundred and One Nights promises to transport readers, new and veteran alike, into its fantastical realms of magic and wonder. An English-only edition.

Download or read book 1637 The Volga Rules written by Eric Flint and published by Baen Books. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW ENTRY IN THE NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING, GENRE-DEFINING ALTERNATE HISTORY SERIES. It’s been five years since a cosmic incident known as The Ring of Fire transported the modern day town of Grantville, West Virginia, through time and space to 17th century Europe. The course of world history has been forever altered. And Mother Russia is no exception. Inspired by the American up-timers’ radical notion that all people are created equal, Russian serfs are rebelling. The entire village of Poltz, led by blacksmith Stefan Andreevich, pulls up stakes to make a run for freedom. Meanwhile, Czar Mikhail has escaped house arrest, with the aid of up-time car mechanic Bernie Zeppi, his Russian associates—and a zeppelin. The czar makes his way to the village of Ufa. There he intends to set up a government-in-exile. It is to Ufa that the serfs of Poltz are heading, as well. The path is dangerous—for the serfs as well as the czar. They face great distances and highwaymen. But the worst threat are those in the aristocracy who seek to crush the serfs and execute the czar in a bid to drive any hope for Russian freedom under their Parisian-crafted boot heels. But the Russians of 1637 have taken inspiration from their up-timer counterparts. And it could be that a new wind of liberty is about to blow three centuries early—and change Mother Russia forever. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About 1636: The Kremlin Games: “…a well-constructed plot filled with satisfying measures of comedy, romance, political intrigue, and action.”—Publishers Weekly About 1635: A Parcel of Rogues: "The 20th volume in this popular, fast-paced alternative history series follows close on the heels of the events in The Baltic War, picking up with the protagonists in London, including sharpshooter Julie Sims. This time the 20th-century transplants are determined to prevent the rise of Oliver Cromwell and even have the support of King Charles."—Library Journal About 1634: The Galileo Affair: "A rich, complex alternate history with great characters and vivid action. A great read and an excellent book."—David Drake "Gripping . . . depicted with power!"—Publishers Weekly About Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series: “This alternate history series is . . . a landmark…”—Booklist “[Eric] Flint's 1632 universe seems to be inspiring a whole new crop of gifted alternate historians.”—Booklist “ . . . reads like a technothriller set in the age of the Medicis . . . ”—Publishers Weekly

Download or read book A Bronze Age Landscape in the Russian Steppes written by David W. Anthony and published by Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. This book was released on 2016-12-31 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English-language monograph that describes seasonal and permanent Late Bronze Age settlements in the Russian steppes, this is the final report of the Samara Valley Project, a US-Russian archaeological investigation conducted between 1995 and 2002. It explores the changing organization and subsistence resources of pastoral steppe economies from the Eneolithic (4500 BC) through the Late Bronze Age (1900-1200 BC) across a steppe-and-river valley landscape in the middle Volga region, with particular attention to the role of agriculture during the unusual episode of sedentary, settled pastoralism that spread across the Eurasian steppes with the Srubnaya and Andronovo cultures (1900-1200 BC). Three astonishing discoveries were made by the SVP archaeologists: agriculture played no role in the LBA diet across the region, a surprise given the settled residential pattern; a unique winter ritual was practiced at Krasnosamarskoe involving dog and wolf sacrifices, possibly related to male initiation ceremonies; and overlapping spheres of obligation, cooperation, and affiliation operated at different scales to integrate groups defined by politics, economics, and ritual behaviors.

Download or read book 1636 Mission to the Mughals written by Eric Flint and published by Baen Books. This book was released on 2017-04-04 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The latest entry in the multiple New York Times best-selling Ring of Fire series created by Eric Flint. After carving a free state for itself in war-torn 17th century Europe, citizens of the modern town of Grantville, West Virginia go on a quest for the makings of medicines that have yet to be invented in 17th century Europe. The United States of Europe, the new nation formed by an alliance between the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and the West Virginians hurled back in time by a cosmic accident—the Ring of Fire—is beset by enemies on all sides. The U.S.E. needs a reliable source of opiates for those wounded in action, as well as other goods not available in Europe. The Prime Minister of the U.S.E., Mike Stearns, sends a mission to the Mughal Empire of India with the aim of securing a trade deal with the Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan. The mission consists of a mixed group of up-timers and down-timers, including paramedics, a squad of soldiers with railroad-building experience, a spy and a pair of swindlers. On reaching India the mission finds a grieving emperor obsessed with building the Taj Mahal, harem-bound princesses, warrior princes, and an Afghan adventurer embroiled in the many plots of the Mughal court. The emperor’s sons are plotting against each other and war is brewing with the newly risen Sikh faith. But in the midst of these intrigues, the U.S.E. mission finds a ally: the brilliant and beautiful Jahanara Begum, the eldest daughter of Shah Jahan. She is the mistress of her father's harem and a power in her own right, who wishes to learn more of these women who are free in a way she can scarcely comprehend. When the Emperor learns of what befalls his empire and children in the time that was, he makes every effort to change their fate. But emperors, princesses, and princes are no more immune to the inexorable waves of change created by the Ring of Fire than are the Americans themselves. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). About Eric Flint's groundbreaking Ring of Fire series: “This alternate history series is . . . a landmark…”—Booklist About Eric Flint's best-selling Jao Empire series coauthored with K.D. Wentworth and David Carrico: “The action is fast and furious . . . a trimphant story . . . ”—The Midwest Book Review “Building to an exhilarating conclusion, this book cries out for a sequel.”—Publishers Weekly About Eric Flint's Boundary series, coauthored with Ryk E. Spoor: “. . . fast-paced sci-fi espionage thriller . . . light in tone and hard on science . . .” —Publishers Weekly on Boundary “The whole crew from Flint and Spoor's Boundary are back . . . Tensions run high throughout the Ceres mission . . . a fine choice for any collection.” —Publishers Weekly on Threshold “[P]aleontology, engineering, and space flight, puzzles in linguistics, biology, physics, and evolution further the story, as well as wacky humor, academic rivalries, and even some sweet romances.” —School Library Journal on Boundary