Download or read book Keeping the Barbarians at Bay written by David Wilkinson and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kenneth Allsop was a writer, journalist and broadcaster who in the 1960s and early 90s became one of Britain's first television celebrities. This book focuses on the last few years of his short life, when he escaped London to live in a 17th-century watermill in the secret, crumpled landscape of West Dorset. The book describes how the threat of oil and gas exploration in this protected area of outstanding natural beauty forced him to become an environmental activist, and his grassroots campaigning led him to the BBC's first environmentalist TV series, Down to Earth, and to a radical 'green' column in the Sunday Times.

Download or read book The Invention of Humanity written by Siep Stuurman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of history, strangers were routinely classified as barbarians and inferiors, seldom as fellow human beings. The notion of a common humanity was counterintuitive and thus had to be invented. Siep Stuurman traces evolving ideas of human equality and difference across continents and civilizations from ancient times to the present. Despite humans’ deeply ingrained bias against strangers, migration and cultural blending have shaped human experience from the earliest times. As travelers crossed frontiers and came into contact with unfamiliar peoples and customs, frontier experiences generated not only hostility but also empathy and understanding. Empires sought to civilize their “barbarians,” but in all historical eras critics of empire were able to imagine how the subjected peoples made short shrift of imperial arrogance. Drawing on the views of a global mix of thinkers—Homer, Confucius, Herodotus, the medieval Muslim scholar Ibn Khaldun, the Haitian writer Antenor Firmin, the Filipino nationalist Jose Rizal, and more—The Invention of Humanity surveys the great civilizational frontiers of history, from the interaction of nomadic and sedentary societies in ancient Eurasia and Africa, to Europeans’ first encounters with the indigenous peoples of the New World, to the Enlightenment invention of universal “modern equality.” Against a backdrop of two millennia of thinking about common humanity and equality, Stuurman concludes with a discussion of present-day debates about human rights and the “clash of civilizations.”

Download or read book First They Took Rome written by David Broder and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2020-07-14 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Italy’s political disaster under a microscope There is little that hasn’t gone wrong for Italy in the last three decades. Economic growth has flatlined, infrastructure has crumbled, and out-of-work youth find their futures stuck on hold. These woes have been reflected in the country’s politics, from Silvio Berlusconi’s scandals to the rise of the far right. Many commentators blame Italy’s malaise on cultural ills—pointing to the corruption of public life or a supposedly endemic backwardness. In this reading, Italy has failed to converge with the neoliberal reforms mounted by other European countries, leaving it to trail behind the rest of the world. First They Took Rome offers a different perspective: Italy isn’t failing to keep up with its international peers but farther along the same path of decline they are following. In the 1980s, Italy boasted the West’s strongest Communist Party; today, social solidarity is collapsing, working people feel ever more atomized, and democratic institutions grow increasingly hollow. Studying the rise of forces like Matteo Salvini’s Lega, this book shows how the populist right drew on a deep well of social despair, ignored by the liberal centre. Italy’s recent history is a warning from the future—the story of a collapse of public life that risks spreading across the West.

Download or read book The World s Great Wonders written by Lonely Planet and published by Lonely Planet. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher* Go beyond the visual spectacle of the world's 50 greatest wonders, and discover what makes them such amazing places. With stunning images and expert illustrations, experience and appreciate the most famous sights on earth in an exciting new way. Author: Lonely Planet About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places where they travel. TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category 'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times 'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves; it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia) *#1 in the world market share - source: Nielsen Bookscan. Australia, UK and USA. March 2012-January 2013 Important Notice: The digital edition of this book may not contain all of the images found in the physical edition.

Download or read book Bede and the Future written by Peter Darby and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bede (c. 673-735) was Anglo-Saxon England’s most prominent scholar, and his body of work is among the most important intellectual achievements of the entire Middle Ages. Bede and the Future brings together an international group of Bede scholars to examine a number of questions about Bede’s attitude towards, and ideas about, the time to come. This encompasses the short-term future (Bede’s own lifetime and the time soon after his death) and the end of time. Whilst recognising that these temporal perspectives may not be completely distinct, the volume shows how Bede’s understanding of their relationship undoubtedly changed over the course of his life. Each chapter examines a distinct aspect of the subject, whilst at the same time complementing the other essays, resulting in a comprehensive and coherent volume. In so doing the volume asks (and answers) new questions about Bede and his ideas about the future, and will undoubtedly stimulate further research in this field.

Download or read book The Merovingian Kingdoms 450 751 written by Ian Wood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-23 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive survey which begins with the rise of the Franks, then examines the Merovingians.

Download or read book The Magma of War written by Edgar Illas and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-06-21 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: War, from the conflicts in the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine to Mexican narco-violence, from neocolonial land grabs in the Global South to racial, border, health, and climate crises all over the planet, defines the most extreme and contradictory expression of the global world. In this fascinating exploration on the history of the thinking of conflict, Edgar Illas departs from military and sociological analyses to propose a theoretical exploration of war as the ontological force that produces political orders. Magma is used as a geological metaphor to theorize the mixtures of politics and war that organize, and disorganize, global society. Divided into two parts, Illas’ study begins by surveying some of the most important thinkers of war, moving from classical antiquity to the twentieth century. Each thinker provides a different inflection in the historical evolution of the being of war. The second part turns to a theorization of the twenty-first century to claim that conflictive relations between capital, state power, political movements, and social life in globalization culminate and at the same time reiterate the paradoxes of war as an ontological event. The Magma of War is an energizing contribution to the task of rethinking politics in relation to war and an invaluable resource to all those conscious of the unstable forms of contemporary social and political life.

Download or read book RoutledgeCurzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism written by Xinzhong Yao and published by Taylor & Francis US. This book was released on 2003 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique reference covers Confucianism as a whole, in 1235 entries on its history, doctrines, schools, rituals, sacred places and terminology, and on the new thinking taking place in China and other Eastern Asian countries. Written by an international team of specialists, it provides extensive textual cross-references, bibliographies, and three comprehensive indexes.

Download or read book Deterring Democracy written by Noam Chomsky and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1992-04-06 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly praised and widely debated book, America's leading dissident intellectual offers a revelatory portrait of the American empire and the danger it poses for democracy, both at home and abroad. Chomsky details the major shift in global politics and economic potency and reveals the potentially catastrophic consequences of this new imbalance.

Download or read book Nonzero written by Robert Wright and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2001-04-20 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his bestselling The Moral Animal, Robert Wright applied the principles of evolutionary biology to the study of the human mind. Now Wright attempts something even more ambitious: explaining the direction of evolution and human history–and discerning where history will lead us next. In Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, Wright asserts that, ever since the primordial ooze, life has followed a basic pattern. Organisms and human societies alike have grown more complex by mastering the challenges of internal cooperation. Wright's narrative ranges from fossilized bacteria to vampire bats, from stone-age villages to the World Trade Organization, uncovering such surprises as the benefits of barbarian hordes and the useful stability of feudalism. Here is history endowed with moral significance–a way of looking at our biological and cultural evolution that suggests, refreshingly, that human morality has improved over time, and that our instinct to discover meaning may itself serve a higher purpose. Insightful, witty, profound, Nonzero offers breathtaking implications for what we believe and how we adapt to technology's ongoing transformation of the world.

Download or read book A Study of History written by Arnold Toynbee and published by . This book was released on 1961 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Encyclopedia of Confucianism written by Xinzhong Yao and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-05-11 with total page 953 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia, the first of its kind, introduces Confucianism as a whole, with 1,235 entries giving full information on its history, doctrines, schools, rituals, sacred places and terminology, and on the adaptation, transformation and new thinking taking place in China and other Eastern Asian countries. An indispensable source for further study and research for students and scholars.

Download or read book Waiting for the Barbarians written by Lewis H. Lapham and published by Verso. This book was released on 1998 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With invective all the more deadly for its grace and wit, Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper's magazine, presents a portrait of a feckless American establishment gone large in the stomach and soft in the head. This acerbic commentary on the insouciance of the monied ruling class concludes with a forewarning piece where Lapham looks at the fate of indolent ruling classes throughout history.

Download or read book Warfare in the Dark Ages written by Kelly DeVries and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The articles in this volume explore the way in which military developments helped to sculpt, out of very strange and diverse components, our familiar Europe. The period studied covers the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the rise of the Carolingian Empire and its eventual collapse, leaving a vacuum in the heart of Europe into which flowed new forces: the Vikings from outside and the great lords from within.

Download or read book Imperial Twilight written by Eric Thomson and published by Sanddiver Books Inc.. This book was released on 2019 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most powerful empire in human history is rushing headlong toward destruction, ending our species’ supremacy in the known galaxy. Two men with widely divergent visions are on a mission to save civilization in at least one sector, far from the imperial capital where a demented ruler holds sway. The first, Jonas Morane, wants to create an impregnable vault containing humanity’s accumulated knowledge so those who survive the coming darkness can rebuild in decades instead of millennia. The other, Devy Custis, seeks to fend off collapse by founding a new empire in the Coalsack Sector, one free of the madness that caused this civil war. But will either resist the ravages of a genocidal empress, blood-maddened barbarians, and scheming admirals? Unfortunately, the vicissitudes of fate, abetted by greed and lust for power, could destroy both before they make their dreams a reality. Imperial Twilight is the second installment in Eric Thomson’s saga Ashes of Empire, the story of a desperate attempt to preserve one last spark of civilization so that humanity does not vanish from the galaxy. Keyword Tags: galactic empire, sci-fi, science fiction, military science fiction, war, strong female character, space opera, science fiction action adventure, alien invasion, starfleet, space fleet, sci-fi adventure, military sci-fi, Eric Thomson, science fiction series, interstellar war, galactic war, space pirates, mercenaries

Download or read book Reading the Middle Ages Volume II written by Barbara H. Rosenwein and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-11-18 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning the period from c.900 to c.1500 and containing primary source material from the European, Byzantine, and Islamic worlds, Barbara H. Rosenwein's Reading the Middle Ages, Second Edition once again brings the Middle Ages to life. Building on the strengths of the first edition, this volume contains 24 new readings, including 10 translations commissioned especially for this book, and a stunning new 10-plate color insert entitled "Containing the Holy" that brings together materials from the Western, Byzantine, and Islamic religious traditions. Ancillary materials, including study questions, can be found on the History Matters website (www.utphistorymatters.com).

Download or read book The New Roman Empire written by Anthony Kaldellis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 1169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the first comprehensive, single-author history of the eastern Roman empire (or Byzantium) to appear in over a generation. It begins with the foundation of Constantinople in 324 AD and ends with the fall of the empire to the Ottoman Turks in the fifteenth century, covering political and military history as well as all major changes in religion, society, demography, and economy. In recent decades, the study of Byzantium has been revolutionized by new approaches and sophisticated models for how its society and state operated. The book's core is an accessible and lively narrative of events, free of jargon, which incorporates new findings, explains recent models, and presents well-known historical characters and events in new light. Two overarching themes shape the narrative. First, by projecting accountability the Roman state persuaded its subjects that it was working in their interests and thereby forestalled separatist movements. To do so, it had to restrain the tendency of elites to extract ever more resources from the labor-force. Second, the effort to sustain a common identity, both Roman and Christian, was subject to powerful forces of internal division and put under severe strain by western Europeans in the later Middle Ages. The book explains in detail the alternating periods of success and failure in the long history of this polity. It foregrounds the dynamics of Christian identity, asking why it tended to fracture along lines of doctrine, practice, and ultimately over Union with the Catholic West"--