Download or read book The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek written by Barry Cunliffe and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2002-04-01 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The archaeologist-author of The Ancient Celts provides an in-depth account of the fourth-century B.C. expedition of Pytheas, a Greek explorer who traveled from the Greek colony of Massalia (Marseille) to the distant lands of northern Europe, including Britain, Denmark, and, possibly, Iceland.
Download or read book The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek written by Barry W. Cunliffe and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some 2,300 or more years ago an amazing expedition, headed by Pytheas, set out from the Greek colony of Massalia (Marseilles) to explore the terrifying, fabled lands of northern Europe: a mysterious, largely conjectural zone which, according to Greek science, was too cold to sustain human life.
Download or read book Britain Begins written by Barry Cunliffe and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013 with total page 567 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of the origins of the British and the Irish peoples, from the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000BC to the eve of the Norman Conquest - who they were, where they came from, and how they related to one another.
Download or read book On the Ocean written by Pytheas (of Massalia.) and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book On the Ocean written by Sir Barry Cunliffe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-29 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For humans the sea is, and always has been, an alien environment. Ever moving and ever changing in mood, it is a place without time, in contrast to the land which is fixed and scarred by human activity giving it a visible history. While the land is familiar, even reassuring, the sea is unknown and threatening. By taking to the sea humans put themselves at its mercy. It has often been perceived to be an alien power teasing and cajoling. The sea may give but it takes. Why, then, did humans become seafarers? Part of the answer is that we are conditioned by our genetics to be acquisitive animals: we like to acquire rare materials and we are eager for esoteric knowledge, and society rewards us well for both. Looking out to sea most will be curious as to what is out there - a mysterious island perhaps but what lies beyond? Our innate inquisitiveness drives us to explore. Barry Cunliffe looks at the development of seafaring on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, two contrasting seas — the Mediterranean without a significant tide, enclosed and soon to become familiar, the Atlantic with its frightening tidal ranges, an ocean without end. We begin with the Middle Palaeolithic hunter gatherers in the eastern Mediterranean building simple vessels to make their remarkable crossing to Crete and we end in the early years of the sixteenth century with sailors from Spain, Portugal and England establishing the limits of the ocean from Labrador to Patagonia. The message is that the contest between humans and the sea has been a driving force, perhaps the driving force, in human history.
Download or read book The Celts A Very Short Introduction written by Barry Cunliffe and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2003-06-26 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Savage and bloodthirsty, or civilized and peaceable? The Celts have long been a subject of enormous fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding. From the ancient Romans to the present day, their real nature has been obscured by a tangled web of preconceived ideas and stereotypes. Barry Cunliffe seeks to reveal this fascinating people for the first time, using an impressive range of evidence, and exploring subjects such as trade, migration, and the evolution of Celtic traditions. Along the way, he exposes the way in which society's needs have shaped our visions of the Celts, and examines such colourful characters as St Patrick, Cú Chulainn, and Boudica. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek written by Barry Cunliffe and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2003-03-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Around 330 b.c., a remarkable adventurer named Pytheas set out from the Greek colony of Massalia (now Marseille) on the Mediterranean Sea to explore the fabled, terrifying lands of northern Europe. Renowned archaeologist Barry Cunliffe here re-creates Pytheas's unprecedented journey, which occurred almost 300 years before Julius Caesar landed in Britain. Beginning with an invaluable pocket history of early Mediterranean civilization, Cunliffe illuminates what Pytheas would have seen and experienced—the route he likely took to reach Brittany, then Britain, Iceland, and Denmark; and evidence of the ancient cultures he would have encountered on shore. The discoveries Pytheas made would reverberate throughout the civilized world for years to come, and in recounting his extraordinary voyage, Cunliffe chronicles an essential chapter in the history of civilization.
Download or read book The Walrus Mutterer written by Mandy Haggith and published by Saraband. This book was released on 2018-03-21 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Northern Britain, Iron Age. Rian, a carefree young woman and promising apprentice healer, is enslaved by a spiteful trader and forced aboard a vessel to embark on a perilous sea voyage. They are in search of the fabled hunter known as the Walrus Mutterer, to recover something once stolen. The limits of Rian's endurance are tested not only by the cruelty of her captor, but their mysterious fellow passenger Pytheas The Greek – and the mercilous sea that constantly endangers both their mission and their lives. A visceral evocation of ancient folklore and ritual, The Walrus Mutterer introduces an unforgettable cast of characters in an extraordinary, vividly imagined Celtic world. "Utterly compelling...beautifully crafted...paints an exquisite pen picture." Undiscovered Scotland "Haggith's woman's eye view of the Iron Age feels fresh and distinctive." Alastair Mabbott, Sunday Herald "An ambitious and imaginative novel ... believable and compelling." Jane Bradley, Scotsman "We see what the world was like...for the Iron Age peoples, particularly the women. The few historical accounts we have of that time seldom feature women... Rian is a compelling heroine. Life for her is often harsh, uncompromising and dangerous, and yet she has insights and wisdom that we moderns may well envy." Margaret Elphinstone "The Walrus Mutterer transported me to an extraordinary Iron Age world that resonated long after the final page – vivid, memorable, and utterly compelling." Helen Sedgwick "Compelling." Lucinda Byatt, Historical Novels Review "An immersive evocation of ancient folklore and ritual, this novel's characterisation and fast pace make it a real page-turner which will keep you hooked." Scottish Field
Download or read book The Vinland Sagas written by Leifur Eiricksson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red’s Saga contain the first ever descriptions of North America, a bountiful land of grapes and vines, discovered by Vikings five centuries before Christopher Columbus. Written down in the early thirteenth century, they recount the Icelandic settlement of Greenland by Eirik the Red, the chance discovery by seafaring adventurers of a mysterious new land, and Eirik’s son Leif the Lucky’s perilous voyages to explore it. Wrecked by storms, stricken by disease and plagued by navigational mishaps, some survived the North Atlantic to pass down this compelling tale of the first Europeans to talk with, trade with, and war with the Native Americans.
Download or read book Circumference written by Nicholas Nicastro and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do you measure the size of the planet you're standing on? "Circumference" is the story of what happened when one man asked himself that very question. Nicholas Nicastro brings to life one of history's greatest experiments when an ancient Greek named Eratosthenes first accurately determined the distance around the spherical earth. In this fascinating narrative history, Nicastro takes a look at a deceptively simple but stunning achievement made by one man, millennia ago, with only the simplest of materials at his disposal. How was he able to measure the land at a time when distance was more a matter of a shrug and a guess at the time spent on a donkey's back? How could he be so confident in the assumptions that underlay his calculations: that the earth was round and the sun so far away that its rays struck the ground in parallel lines? Was it luck or pure scientific genius? Nicastro brings readers on a trip into a long-vanished world that prefigured modernity in many ways, where neither Eratosthenes' reputation, nor the validity of his method, nor his leadership of the Great Library of Alexandria were enough to convince all his contemporaries about the dimensions of the earth. Eratosthenes' results were debated for centuries until he was ultimately vindicated almost 2000 years later, during the great voyages of exploration. "Circumference" is a compelling scientific detective story that transports readers back to a time when humans had no idea how big their world was--and the fate of a man who dared to measure the incomprehensible.
Download or read book In Northern Mists written by Fridtjof Nansen and published by New York : F.A. Stokes. This book was released on 1911 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Periplus of Hanno written by Hanno and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mont Saint Michel and Chartres written by Henry Adams and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Brave Vessel written by Hobson Woodward and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2009-07-09 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "At once a penetrating work of literary analysis and a riveting historical narrative." -Nathaniel Philbrick Merging maritime adventure and early colonial history, A Brave Vessel charts a little-known chapter of the past that offers a window on the inspiration for one of Shakespeare's greatest works. In 1609, aspiring writer William Strachey set sail for the New World aboard the Sea Venture, only to wreck on the shores of Bermuda. Strachey's meticulous account of the tragedy, the castaways' time in Bermuda, and their arrival in a devastated Jamestown, remains among the most vivid writings of the early colonial period. Though Strachey had literary aspirations, only in the hands of another William would his tale make history as The Tempest-a fascinating connection across time and literature that Hobson Woodward brings vividly to life.
Download or read book Facing the Ocean written by Barry W. Cunliffe and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bretons are not French, the Celts are not English, and the Galicians are not Spanish, writes Barry Cunliffe. These maritime communities have long looked north and south along the coast, not inland, to claim a common bond. Even today, the Bretons see themselves as distinct from the French, but refer to the Irish, Welsh, and Galicians as their brothers and cousins. In Facing the Ocean, Barry Cunliffe, one of the world's most highly regarded authorities on prehistoric Europe, offers an utterly original way of looking at that continent. He argues that the peoples of the Atlantic rim--of Iceland, Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar--all share a cultural identity shaped by the Atlantic Ocean, an identity which stretches back almost ten thousand years. These peoples lived at the edge of the world, in places called Land's End, Finistere, and Finisterra, and looked out on a bountiful but terrifying expanse of ocean, a roiling, merciless infinity beyond which there was nothing. Their profound relationship with the ocean set these communities apart from their inland countryman, creating a distinct Atlantic culture. Cunliffe culls the archaeological evidence to illuminate the bonds that developed and intensified between these isolated communities and helped to maintain a shared and distinctive Atlantic identity. Attractively designed and vibrantly written, Facing the Ocean offers a striking reassessment of a people who have usually been regarded as peripheral to European history. It will send shock waves through the history world and will radically change our view of the European past.
Download or read book Great Explorers written by Stewart Ross and published by . This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pytheas the Greek, who sailed to the Arctic Circle without a compass, to Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, here are 14 extraordinary journeys by land, sea and air - each remarkable for the way it was made, for the technology behind it, and for the inspiration it gave to future generations. Storytelling, fold-out cross sections, detailed maps and technical drawings enable readers to experience the excitement of exploration.
Download or read book Greek Island Life written by Margaret E. Kenna and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book gives a vivid and engaging account of anthropological exploration on a remote Greek island in the 1960s and is based on letters, progress reports, field notes and diary entries made at the time. These allow the reader to experience the bewildering early weeks of fieldwork in the Spring of 1966, the writer's first impressions, mistakes and understandings, and her attempts to make sense of what was going on during the sixteen months she spent on the island. The reader can also share in the emerging understanding resulting from long-term association and familiarity, gaining a sense of how months of work can be summed up in a short phrase or single sentence in later writings. Since the 1960s the author has returned to the island many times, and her later impressions and understandings are integrated in this book adding richness and depth to the material. This enables the reader, together with the author, to look back on those months from a viewpoint in the 90s.The islanders who regarded themselves as far from God in the sixties are now struggling to make a living from tourism, marketing their island as one of the unspoilt places in Greece. This is not only a dynamic and important reflexive account for the anthropologist, but an engaging and thoroughly enjoyable read for anyone interested in Greece or travel writing. Readers with an interest in modern history, sociology or Greek studies will also appreciate the depth and quality of Kenna's research as well as her accessible writing style.
