Download or read book Empires of the Silk Road written by Christopher I. Beckwith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-16 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic account of the rise and fall of the Silk Road empires The first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Christopher Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the world economically, scientifically, and artistically for many centuries despite invasions by Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese, and others. In retelling the story of the Old World from the perspective of Central Eurasia, Beckwith provides a new understanding of the internal and external dynamics of the Central Eurasian states and shows how their people repeatedly revolutionized Eurasian civilization. Beckwith recounts the Indo-Europeans' migration out of Central Eurasia, their mixture with local peoples, and the resulting development of the Graeco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations; he details the basis for the thriving economy of premodern Central Eurasia, the economy's disintegration following the region's partition by the Chinese and Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the damaging of Central Eurasian culture by Modernism; and he discusses the significance for world history of the partial reemergence of Central Eurasian nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Empires of the Silk Road places Central Eurasia within a world historical framework and demonstrates why the region is central to understanding the history of civilization.

Download or read book Worshiping the Ancestors written by Jan Stuart and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite their powerful presence and exquisite quality, Chinese ancestor portraits have never been studied as a genre. This illustrated text explores the artistic, historical, and religious significance of these paintings and places them in context with other types of commemorative portraiture. During the late Ming (1368-1644) and Quing (1644-1911) dynasties, full-length portraits of individual men and women came into vogue. These ancestor portraits were important objects of veneration, and the practice continued into the 20th century, when paintings were gradually replaced by photographs. The authors explore the works in depth, presenting a fascinating glimpse of Chinese life and culture and providing biographies of the sitters. Worshiping the Ancestors should appeal to connoisseurs of Chinese art and to all those interested in social history, portraiture, and devotional art.

Download or read book Summary Catalogue of European Decorative Arts in the J Paul Getty Museum written by Gillian Wilson and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2002-03-07 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: J. Paul Getty had a passion for the exquisitely made furniture and decorative objects of eighteenth-century France, which he began collecting in the 1930s. Gillian Wilson, curator of decorative arts since 1971, has broadened and strengthened the collection, adding Boulle furniture, mounted oriental porcelain, tapestries, clocks, ceramics, and more. In the 1980s and 1990s the Museum continued to enlarge its decorative arts holdings, creating a European sculpture department in 1984 and adding glass, maiolica, goldsmiths’ work, pietre dure, and furniture from Italy and Northern Europe. This book is a revised and expanded edition of Decorative Arts: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue of the Collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum (1993). In addition to more than forty recent acquisitions—among these four wall sconces from Versailles that once belonged to Marie Antoinette and an elaborate upholstered bed from the collection of Karl Lagerfeld—it includes the results of years of research. Designed for scholars, students, and devotees of the decorative arts, this volume provides a comprehensive look at the Getty's fine collection.

Download or read book In Pursuit of Beauty written by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 1986 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This project is the first comprehensive study of a phenomenon that not only dominated the American arts of the 1870s and 1880s, but also helped set the course of such later developments in the United States as the Arts and Crafts movement, the indigenous interpretation of Art Nouveau, and even the rise of modernism. In fact, the early history of the Metropolitan--its founding, its sponsorship of a school of industrial design, and its display of decorative works--is inextricably tied to the Aesthetic movement and its educational goals. "In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic Movement" comprised some 175 objects including furniture, metalwork, stained glass, ceramics, textiles, wallpaper, painting, and sculpture. Some of these had rarely been displayed; others, although familiar, were being shown in new and even startling contexts. The exhibition and catalogue are arranged thematically to illustrate both the major styles of a visually rich movement and the ideas that generated its diversity"--From publisher's description.

Download or read book Dictionary of French and English English and French written by John Bellows and published by . This book was released on 1911 with total page 708 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The History of Modern Painting written by Richard Muther and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Anagram Solver written by Bloomsbury Publishing and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 719 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anagram Solver is the essential guide to cracking all types of quiz and crossword featuring anagrams. Containing over 200,000 words and phrases, Anagram Solver includes plural noun forms, palindromes, idioms, first names and all parts of speech. Anagrams are grouped by the number of letters they contain with the letters set out in alphabetical order so that once the letters of an anagram are arranged alphabetically, finding the solution is as easy as locating the word in a dictionary.

Download or read book American Art Auction Catalogues 1785 1942 written by Harold Lancour and published by Lancour Press. This book was released on 2007-03 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Download or read book A New Pocket Dictionary of the French and English Languages in Two Parts written by Thomas Nugent and published by . This book was released on 1770 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Journals of Mary Butts written by Mary Butts and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 509 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: divdivBritish modernist writer Mary Butts (1890–1937), now recognized as one of the most important and original authors of the interwar years, lived an unconventional life. She encountered many of the most famous figures in early twentieth-century literature, music, and art—among them T. S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein—and came to know some of them intimately. These luminaries figure prominently in journals in which Butts chronicled the development of her craft between 1916 and her untimely death in 1937. This volume is the first substantial edition of her journals. Introduced and annotated by Nathalie Blondel, the leading authority on Butts’s life and works, the book reveals the workings of a complex and distinctive mind while offering vivid insights into her fascinating era. /DIV/DIV

Download or read book Reconfiguring the Silk Road written by Victor H. Mair and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014-09-08 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Bronze Age through the Middle Ages, a network of trade and migration routes brought people from across Eurasia into contact. Their commerce included political, social, and artistic ideas, as well as material goods such as metals and textiles. Reconfiguring the Silk Road offers new research on the earliest trade and cultural interactions along these routes, mapping the spread and influence of Silk Road economies and social structures over time. This volume features contributions by renowned scholars uncovering new discoveries related to populations that lived in the Tarim Basin, the advanced state of textile manufacturing in the region, and the diffusion of domesticated grains across Inner Asia. Other chapters include an analysis of the dispersal of languages across the Eurasian Steppe and a detailed examination of the domestication of the horse in the region. Contextualized with a foreword by Colin Renfrew and introduction by Victor Mair, Reconfiguring the Silk Road provides a new assessment of the intercultural evolution along the steppes and beyond. Contributors: David W. Anthony, Elizabeth Wayland Barber, Dorcas R. Brown, Peter Brown, Michael D. Frachetti, Jane Hickman, Philip L. Kohl, Victor H. Mair, J. P. Mallory, Joseph G. Manning, Colin Renfrew.

Download or read book The Smell of Books written by Hans J. Rindisbacher and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1992 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates that sense of smell plays a significant role in the history of European literature

Download or read book The Devil s Alternative written by Frederick Forsyth and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 New York Times bestselling author Frederick Forsyth delivers a frighteningly possible novel of international terrorism and impending war… As the Russian people face starvation, the Politburo is faced with a hard choice: negotiate with America for food, go to war for national survival, or deal with an uprising in the motherland. Through an informant, British Agent Adam Munro learns that the situation is growing dangerously tense, with powerful forces in the USSR maneuvering for supremacy. But even as East and West conduct delicate talks, events spiral out of control and threaten to undo every step taken. The world’s largest oil tanker is hijacked by terrorists, and a Ukrainian “freedom fighter” is rescued in a bloody catastrophe on the Black Sea. From Moscow to Washington, the stakes grow ever more perilous as the mad actions of a few threaten to engulf the entire world in nuclear war—unless Munro can stop them.

Download or read book The Joys of Collecting written by Jean Paul Getty and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2011 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published: New York: Hawthorn Books, 1965.

Download or read book NEW ENGLAND INDIAN SUMMER 1865 1915 written by VAN WYCK BROOKS and published by . This book was released on 1940 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Stranded written by Joris-Karl Huysmans and published by Dedalus European Classics. This book was released on 2010 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jacques' waking reveries and daydreams are balanced by a succession of dreams and nightmares that explore the seemingly irrational, often grotesque, world of unconscious desire, producing a series of images that challenges anything to be found in the fantasies of 'Against Nature', or the Satanic obsessions of 'La-Bas'."

Download or read book Words to Rhyme with written by Willard R. Espy and published by Checkmark Books. This book was released on 2001 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An easy-to-use dictionary of over 80,000 rhyming words.