Download or read book The Empire of Death written by Paul Koudounaris and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2011-09-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bone fetishism in the ancient world to painted skulls in Austria and Bavaria: an unusual and compelling work of cultural history. It is sometimes said that death is the last taboo, but it was not always so. For centuries, religious establishments constructed decorated ossuaries and charnel houses that stand as masterpieces of art created from human bone. These unique structures have been pushed into the footnotes of history; they were part of a dialogue with death that is now silent. The sites in this specially photographed and brilliantly original study range from the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Palermo, where the living would visit mummified or skeletal remains and lovingly dress them; to the Paris catacombs; to fantastic bone-encrusted creations in Austria, Cambodia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Paul Koudounaris photographed more than seventy sites for this book. He analyzes the role of these remarkable memorials within the cultures that created them, as well as the mythology and folklore that developed around them, and skillfully traces a remarkable human endeavor.
Download or read book Death of an Empire written by Robert Booth and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-08-16 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SALEM has long been notorious for the witch trials of 1692. But a hundred years later it was renowned for very different pursuits: vast wealth and worldwide trade. Now Death of an Empire tells the story of Salem's glory days in the age of sailing, and the murder that hastened its descent. When America first became a nation, Salem was the richest city in the republic, led by a visionary merchant who still ranks as one of the wealthiest men in history. For decades, Salem connected America with the wider world, through a large fleet of tall ships and a pragmatic, egalitarian brand of commerce taht remains a model of enlightened international relations. But America's emerging big cities and westward expansion began to erode Salem's national political importance just as its seafaring economy faltered in the face of tariffs and global depression. With Salem's standing as a world capital imperiled, two men, equally favored by fortune, struggled for its future: one, a progressive merchant-politician, tried to build new institutions and businesses, while the other, a reclusive crime lord, offered a demimonde of forbidden pleasures. The scandalous trial that followed signaled Salem's fall from national prominence, a fall that echoed around the world in the loss of friendly trade and in bloody reprisals against native peoples by the U.S. Navy. Death of an Empire is an exciting tale of a remarkably rich era, shedding light on a little-known but fascinating period of Ameriacn history in which characters such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Quincy Adams, and Daniel Webster interact with the ambitious merchants and fearless mariners who made Salem famous around the world.
Download or read book Death at the Edges of Empire written by Shannon Bontrager and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-02 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 2020 BookAuthority selection for best new American Civil War books Hundreds of thousands of individuals perished in the epic conflict of the American Civil War. As battles raged and the specter of death and dying hung over the divided nation, the living worked not only to bury their dead but also to commemorate them. President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address perhaps best voiced the public yearning to memorialize the war dead. His address marked the beginning of a new tradition of commemorating American soldiers and also signaled a transformation in the relationship between the government and the citizenry through an embedded promise and obligation for the living to remember the dead. In Death at the Edges of Empire Shannon Bontrager examines the culture of death, burial, and commemoration of American war dead. By focusing on the Civil War, the Spanish-Cuban-American War, the Philippine-American War, and World War I, Bontrager produces a history of collective memories of war expressed through American cultural traditions emerging within broader transatlantic and transpacific networks. Examining the pragmatic collaborations between middle-class Americans and government officials negotiating the contradictory terrain of empire and nation, Death at the Edges of Empire shows how Americans imposed modern order on the inevitability of death as well as how they used the war dead to reimagine political identities and opportunities into imperial ambitions.
Download or read book Rome s Revolution written by Richard Alston and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-06 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On March 15th, 44 BC a group of senators stabbed Julius Caesar, the dictator of Rome. By his death, they hoped to restore Rome's Republic. Instead, they unleashed a revolution. By December of that year, Rome was plunged into a violent civil war. Three men--Mark Antony, Lepidus, and Octavian--emerged as leaders of a revolutionary regime, which crushed all opposition. In time, Lepidus was removed, Antony and Cleopatra were dispatched, and Octavian stood alone as sole ruler of Rome. He became Augustus, Rome's first emperor, and by the time of his death in AD 14 the 500-year-old republic was but a distant memory and the birth of one of history's greatest empires was complete. Rome's Revolution provides a riveting narrative of this tumultuous period of change. Historian Richard Alston digs beneath the high politics of Cicero, Caesar, Antony, and Octavian to reveal the experience of the common Roman citizen and soldier. He portrays the revolution as the crisis of a brutally competitive society, both among the citizenry and among the ruling class whose legitimacy was under threat. Throughout, he sheds new light on the motivations that drove men to march on their capital city and slaughter their compatriots. He also shows the reasons behind and the immediate legacy of the awe inspiringly successful and ruthless reign of Emperor Augustus. An enthralling story of ancient warfare, social upheaval, and personal betrayal, Rome's Revolution offers an authoritative new account of an epoch which still haunts us today.
Download or read book Life Death and Entertainment in the Roman Empire written by David Stone Potter and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire gives those who have a general interest in Roman antiquity a starting point informed by the latest developments in scholarship for understanding the extraordinary range of Roman society. Family structure, gender identity, food supply, religion, and entertainment are all crucial to an understanding of the Roman world. As views of Roman history have broadened in recent decades to encompass a wider range of topics, the need has grown for a single volume that can offer a starting point for all these diverse subjects, for readers of all backgrounds."--Page 4 of cover.
Download or read book Ghost on the Throne written by James Romm and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2012-11-13 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-two, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea in the west all the way to modern-day India in the east. In an unusual compromise, his two heirs—a mentally damaged half brother, Philip III, and an infant son, Alexander IV, born after his death—were jointly granted the kingship. But six of Alexander’s Macedonian generals, spurred by their own thirst for power and the legend that Alexander bequeathed his rule “to the strongest,” fought to gain supremacy. Perhaps their most fascinating and conniving adversary was Alexander’s former Greek secretary, Eumenes, now a general himself, who would be the determining factor in the precarious fortunes of the royal family. James Romm, professor of classics at Bard College, brings to life the cutthroat competition and the struggle for control of the Greek world’s greatest empire.
Download or read book The Merlin Prophecy Book Two Death of an Empire written by M. K. Hume and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DEATH OF AN EMPIRE— THE LEGEND OF MERLIN CONTINUES Merlin is the product of a brutal rape. Determined to uncover his father’s identity, he sets sail from Celtic Britain with his band of loyal companions. Their journey through war-ravaged France, Rome, and Ravenna to Constantinople will push their strength to the limit and shape Merlin’s reputation as a great healer. The Roman Empire is under attack. Bound by an oath to relieve suffering the talented apothecary saves thousands of warriors from total destruction. A bloodier conflict between opposing powers arises, and Merlin must use all his resolve if he wishes to survive the death of an empire. M. K. Hume has won the praise of readers and critics alike with her original take on the beloved and enduring Merlin legend. Her background in Arthurian literature lends historical accuracy to a trilogy wrought with passion, heart, and adventure.
Download or read book Imperial Bodies written by Shana Minkin and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the turn of the twentieth century, Alexandria, Egypt, was a bustling transimperial port city, under nominal Ottoman and unofficial British imperial rule. Thousands of European subjects lived, worked, and died there. And when they died, the machinery of empire had to negotiate for space, resources, and control with the nascent national state. Imperial Bodies shows how the mechanisms of death became a tool for exerting both imperial and national governance. Shana Minkin investigates how French and British power asserted itself in Egypt through local consular claims of belonging manifested within the mundane caring for dead bodies. European communities corralled imperial bodies through the bureaucracies and rituals of death—from hospitals, funerals, and cemeteries to autopsies and death registrations. As they did so, imperial consulates pushed against the workings of both the Egyptian state and each other, expanding their governments' material and performative power. Ultimately, this book reveals how European imperial powers did not so much claim Alexandria as their own, as they maneuvered, manipulated, and cajoled their empires into Egypt.
Download or read book Seven Deaths of an Empire written by G R Matthews and published by Rebellion Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Emperor is dead. Long live the Empire. General Bordan has a lifetime of duty and sacrifice behind him in the service of the Empire. But with rebellion brewing in the countryside, and assassins, thieves and politicians vying for power in the city, it is all Bordan can do to protect the heir to the throne. Apprentice Magician Kyron is assigned to the late Emperor’s honour guard escorting his body on the long road back to the capital. Mistrusted and feared by his own people, even a magician’s power may fail when enemies emerge from the forests, for whoever is in control of the Emperor’s body, controls the succession. Seven lives and seven deaths to seal the fate of the Empire.
Download or read book Freeing the World to Death written by William Blum and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of biting essays written by William Blum includes some previously published ones and several written exclusively for this book. Among them: "The Bombing of PanAm Flight 103: Case Not Closed" "Cuban Political Prisoners ... in the United States" "What do the Imperial Mafia Want in Iraq?" "Myth and Denial in the War Against Iraq." "Hiroshima: Needless Slaughter, Useful Terror" "Hostages in Peru: Their Terrorists, our Freedom Fighters" "The Myth of America's Booming Economy" "A New Yorker Trapped in Los Angeles" "Treason: None Dare Call it Nothing" William Blum is the author of the monumental reference work, Killing Hope: CIA and Military Intervention since World War II and Rogue State, a Guide to the World's Only Superpower.
Download or read book Death and Disaster written by Paul Alexander and published by Sphere. This book was released on 1994 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following the death of Andy Warhol, those closest to him have been caught up in a battle to control the paintings, prints and films that comprise his $600 million estate. This work looks at the future of this legacy and provides an insight into New York's creative community.
Download or read book Empire of Sentiment written by Joanna Lewis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative study proposing a new history of the British Empire in Africa by exploring the emotion culture of imperialism.
Download or read book Heavenly Bodies written by Paul Koudounaris and published by Thames and Hudson. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intriguing visual history of the veneration in European churches and monasteries of bejeweled and decorated skeletons Death has never looked so beautiful. The fully articulated skeleton of a female saint, dressed in an intricate costume of silk brocade and gold lace, withered fingers glittering with colorful rubies, emeralds, and pearls—this is only one of the specially photographed relics featured in Heavenly Bodies. In 1578 news came of the discovery in Rome of a labyrinth of underground tombs, which were thought to hold the remains of thousands of early Christian martyrs. Skeletons of these supposed saints were subsequently sent to Catholic churches and religious houses in German-speaking Europe to replace holy relics that had been destroyed in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. The skeletons, known as “the catacomb saints,” were carefully reassembled, richly dressed in fantastic costumes, wigs, crowns, jewels, and armor, and posed in elaborate displays inside churches and shrines as reminders to the faithful of the heavenly treasures that awaited them after death. Paul Koudounaris gained unprecedented access to religious institutions to reveal these fascinating historical artifacts. Hidden for over a century as Western attitudes toward both the worship of holy relics and death itself changed, some of these ornamented skeletons appear in publication here for the first time.
Download or read book Angels of Death written by William Marsden and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-07-30 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The award-winning authors of The Road to Hell: How the Biker Gangs Are Conquering Canada bring us a definitive, up-to-the-minute account of the Hells Angels and the international biker network. Marsden and Sher explain how the expansion of America’ s foremost motorcycle gang has allowed this once ragtag group of rebels, outcasts and felons to become one of the world’s most sophisticated criminal organizations. While the media has continued to toast the Hells Angels California leader, Sonny Barger, as an American legend, the facts tell another story—they are America’s major crime export. With an estimated 2,500 full-patch members in 25 countries, the Hells Angels have inspired a global subculture of biker gangs that are among the most feared and violent underworld players. Angels of Death takes readers to Arizona, inside the biggest American police undercover operation to infiltrate the bikers; to British Columbia where wealthy bikers dominate the organized crime pyramid; to Australia where the “bikies” shoot it out with police; to Curaçao where terrorist organizations funnel drugs to Dutch bikers; and to the streets of Oslo, Copenhagen and Helsinki where a murderous biker war saw rocket attacks and bombs turn Scandinavia into a war zone. For the first time, police officers who have infiltrated biker gangs tell their secrets—revealing the challenges, fears and horrors they’ve discovered going undercover. Sher and Marsden take the reader behind the latest headlines to tell the story of how the Hells Angels became so powerful, and how the police—with only a few successes—have tried to stop them. Excerpt from Angels of Death: Three murderous evenings, three different continents, three faces of the Angels of death: the killing of innocents, the killing of fellow bikers, and the killing of cops. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of lives ruined, brains fried, bodies withered by the methamphetamines, cocaine and other drugs pushed by the bikers. And yet while the body count kept mounting, Sonny Barger, the Californian patriarch and international leader of the Hells Angels, was being feted by the international media as he promoted his latest bestselling book. Even the usually thoughtful British press fell for the rebel Yankee. The Times called him, “affable, big-hearted, warm.” The Independent labelled him an “American legend.” And in many ways he is.
Download or read book The Archaeology of Death in Roman Syria written by Lidewijde de Jong and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-20 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book sheds new light on funerary customs in Roman Syria, offering a novel way of understanding its provincial culture.
Download or read book Death to the Emperor written by Simon Scarrow and published by Headline. This book was released on 2022-11-10 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AD 60. Britannia. The Boudica Revolt begins . . . Macro and Cato - heroes of the Roman Empire - face a ruthless enemy set on revenge The Roman Empire's hold on the province of Britannia is fragile. The tribes implacably opposed to Rome have grown cunning in their attacks on the legions. Even amongst those who have sworn loyalty, dissent simmers. In distant Rome, Nero is blind to the danger. As hostilities create mayhem in the west, Governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus gathers a vast army, with Prefect Cato in command. A hero of countless battles, Cato wants his loyal comrade Centurion Macro by his side. But the Governor leaves Macro behind, in charge of the veteran reserves in Camulodunum. Suetonius dismisses concerns that the poorly fortified colony will be vulnerable to attack when only a skeleton force remains. With the military distracted, slow-burning anger amongst the tribespeople bursts into flames. The king of the Iceni is dead and a proud kingdom is set for plundering and annexation. But the widow is Queen Boudica, a woman with a warrior's heart. If Boudica calls for death to the emperor, a bloodbath will follow. Macro and Cato each face deadly battles against enemies who would rather die than succumb to Roman rule. The future of Britannia hangs in the balance. 'Scarrow . . . has the gift of combining wide knowledge of the period with a page-turning narrative' Sunday Times SIMON SCARROW: 5 MILLION BOOKS SOLD WORLDWIDE!
Download or read book History of the Later Roman Empire written by J. B. Bury and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 2012-07-18 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Volume 1 of classic history. One of the world's foremost historians chronicles the major forces and events in the history of the Western and Byzantine Empires from the death of Theodosius (A.D. 395) to the death of Justinian (A.D. 565).
