Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at
2:22 am
Product Description
From Kenneth C. Davis, author of Don’t Know Much About’ Geography, Don’t Know Much About’ the Civil War, and Don’t Know Much About’ the Bible, comes a lively presentation of the phenomenal bestseller that has brought American history to life for hundreds of thousands of readers.
From the first settlements of the continent through Vietnam, Watergate, and Reagan, Davis takes listeners on a rollicking ride through 600 years of Americana. With wit, candor, and fascinating facts, Don’t Know Much About’ History explodes long-held myths and misconceptions-revealing the very human side of history that the textbooks neglect.
In this entertaining presentation, you’ll meet the personalities who helped shape our nation and hear the words and wisdom that have endured through the centuries. From the French and Indian War to Vietnam, from George Washington to George Bush, here is the story of how we got to where we are today-and the questions that have plagued most of us since grade school are more interesting than ever before.
Amazon.com Review
Finally, someone who tells history like it was, without the old textbook gloss that’s put so many students into premature naptime and misinformed the few who stayed awake. Davis corrects the myths and misconceptions from Columbus up through the Clinton administration, and shows that truth is more entertaining than propaganda.
Don’t Know Much About History
Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at
12:24 am
Product Description
The Holman Bible Atlas offers a visual feast through which the reader can explore the world of the Bible. Utilizing 140 full color maps key to biblical events and 140 full color photographs illustrating the land, sites, and archaeology of the biblical world, the Atlas draws the reader into the biblical story. The Holman Bible Atlas begins with an introduction to the geography of the biblical world emphasizing the major physical features of the Ancient Near East with special attention given to the geographical regions of Palestine. Information about daily life and the role of archaeology in recovering ancient cultures are discussed.
Holman Bible Atlas: A Complete Guide to the Expansive Geography of Biblical History
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at
3:41 am
Product Description
What terrible secret was buried in Shi Huangdi’s tomb? Did nomads like lizard stew? What happened to Anansi the Spider in the Village of the Plantains? And how did a six-year-old become the last emperor of Rome?
Told in a straightforward, engaging style that has become Susan Wise Bauer’s trademark, The Story of the World series covers the sweep of human history from ancient times until the present. Africa, China, Europe, the Americas—find out what happened all around the world in long-ago times. This first revised volume begins with the earliest nomads and ends with the last Roman emperor. Newly revised and updated, The Story of the World, Volume 1 includes maps, a new timeline, more illustrations, and additional parental aids.
This read-aloud series is designed for parents to share with elementary-school children. Enjoy it together and introduce your child to the marvelous story of the world’s civilizations.
The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor, Revised Edition
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at
2:42 am
Product Description
A tautly paced investigation of one the 20th century’s most audacious art frauds, which generated hundreds of forgeries-many of them still hanging in prominent museums and private collections today
Provenance is the extraordinary narrative of one of the most far-reaching and elaborate deceptions in art history. Investigative reporters Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo brilliantly recount the tale of a great con man and unforgettable villain, John Drewe, and his sometimes unwitting accomplices.
Chief among those was the struggling artist John Myatt, a vulnerable single father who was manipulated by Drewe into becoming a prolific art forger. Once Myatt had painted the pieces, the real fraud began. Drewe managed to infiltrate the archives of the upper echelons of the British art world in order to fake the provenance of Myatt’s forged pieces, hoping to irrevocably legitimize the fakes while effectively rewriting art history.
The story stretches from London to Paris to New York, from tony Manhattan art galleries to the esteemed Giacometti and Dubuffet associations, to the archives at the Tate Gallery. This enormous swindle resulted in the introduction of at least two hundred forged paintings, some of them breathtakingly good and most of them selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many of these fakes are still out in the world, considered genuine and hung prominently in private houses, large galleries, and prestigious museums. And the sacred archives, undermined by John Drewe, remain tainted to this day.
Provenance reads like a well-plotted thriller, filled with unforgettable characters and told at a breakneck pace. But this is most certainly not fiction; Provenance is the meticulously researched and captivating account of one of the greatest cons in the history of art forgery.
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at
12:41 am
Product Description
From beer to Coca-Cola, the six drinks that have helped shape human history
Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates with authority and charm, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history, becoming the defining drink during a pivotal historical period.
A History of the World in 6 Glasses tells the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the 21st century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. Beer was first made in the Fertile Crescent and by 3000 B.C.E. was so important to Mesopotamia and Egypt that it was used to pay wages. In ancient Greece wine became the main export of her vast seaborne trade, helping spread Greek culture abroad. Spirits such as brandy and rum fueled the Age of Exploration, fortifying seamen on long voyages and oiling the pernicious slave trade. Although coffee originated in the Arab world, it stoked revolutionary thought in Europe during the Age of Reason, when coffeehouses became centers of intellectual exchange. And hundreds of years after the Chinese began drinking tea, it became especially popular in Britain, with far-reaching effects on British foreign policy. Finally, though carbonated drinks were invented in 18th-century Europe they became a 20th-century phenomenon, and Coca-Cola in particular is the leading symbol of globalization.
For Tom Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations. You may never look at your favorite drink the same way again.
Tom Standage is technology editor at The Economist and the author of The Turk, The Neptune File, and The Victorian Internet. He lives in Greenwich, England.
Throughout human history, certain drinks have done much more than just quench thirst. As Tom Standage relates, six of them have had a surprisingly pervasive influence on the course of history during pivotal epochs—from humankind’s adoption of agriculture and the birth of cities to the advent of globalization. A History of the World in 6 Glasses presents a vision of world history, telling the story of humanity from the Stone Age to the twenty-first century through the lens of beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. For Standage, each drink is a kind of technology, a catalyst for advancing culture by which he demonstrates the intricate interplay of different civilizations.
“A History of the World in 6 Glasses is loaded with the kind of data that get talked about at the figurative water cooler . . . Incisive, illuminating and swift.”—Janet Maslin, The New York Times
“[Standage] uses something mundane and everyday to tell vivid and accessible stories about the changing textures of human life.”—Steven Shapin, The New Yorker
“As refreshing as a cool glass of beer on a hot day and as stimulating as that first cup of coffee in the morning. There aren’t many books this entertaining that also provide a cogent crash course in ancient, classical and modern history.”—Wendy Smith, Los Angeles Times
“Historians, understandably, devote most of their attention to war, politics and, not least, money. But history can also be seen through the prism of the commodities that money buys. In A History of the World in Six Glasses, Tom Standage argues that beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea and cola have each, in their own way, helped to shape the course of history.”—Matthew Rees, The Wall Street Journal
“When Standage decided to follow his readable study of an 18th-century chess-playing automaton, The Turk, with a book about six beverages that really did change the world, he had the grace to take both the title and the story in a new direction.”—Stephen Meuse, Boston Globe
“The book makes an easy and agreeable read, never seeming discursive or unwieldy, despite the vast amount of ground it covers. I’ll happily raise my glass to that.”—Yiling Chen-Josephson, Newsday
“Technology historian Standage follows the flow of civilization as humanity guzzles a half-dozen prime beverages. First made by nature in prehistory was beer. Finding it good, and more salubrious than plain water, mankind turned brewer. (And so the stage was set for cartoons set in barrooms eons later). From cuneiform beer ledgers, Standage’s story hops to Dionysus and the oenophiles of Greece and Rome, who knew as much about the pleasures of the grape as any modern wine snob. Here, we learn the vintage that Caligula preferred. In Córdoba, distilled spirits formed rum. Allotments of rum, in turn, enhanced the fighting effectiveness of British tars against foreign sailors debilitated by scurvy. The attempt to pay for the recent revolution by imposing federal taxes on independent stills produced the short-lived Whiskey Rebellion in the new United States. Islam eschewed booze, but a sober gift from the Arab world was coffee. In 17th-century Europe, coffeehouses were not only as ubiquitous as Starbucks, they were ‘information exchanges’ where people traded news as ‘vibrant and unreliable’ as that found on a contemporary Internet blog. Tea, which tradition holds was first brewed some 4,500 years ago (our author dates it closer to the first century), became largely controlled, along with opium, by the East India Company. From British tea-time dominance, beverage history goes to that fizzy badge of American hegemony, Coca-Cola. We learn why drugstores once featured soda fountains and how Coke fought Pepsi in WWII. Don’t drink the water: throughout history, beer, wine, whiskey, coffee, tea and soda pop were all more potable. Ironically, now that it’s bottled and pricey, water seems to making a comeback. Standage offers a distilled account of civilization founded on the drinking habits of mankind from the days of hunter-gatherers to yesterday’s designer thirst-quencher. History, along with a bit of technology, etymology, chemistry and bibulous entertainment. Bottoms up!”—Kirkus Reviews
“Historian Standage explores the significant role that six beverages have played in the world’s history. Few realize the prominence of beer in ancient Egypt, but it was crucial to both cultural and religious life throughout the Fertile Crescent, appearing even in the Gilgamesh epic. Wine’s history has been recounted in many places, and its use to avoid often—polluted water supplies made it ubiquitous wherever grapes could be easily cultivated. Spirits, first manufactured by Arabs and later rejected by them with the rise of Islam, played a fundamental role in the ascendance of the British navy. As a stimulant, coffee found no hostility within Islam’s tenets, and its use spread as the faith moved out of Arabia into Asia and Europe. Tea enjoyed similar status, and it bound China and India to the West. Cola drinks, a modern American phenomenon, relied on American mass-marketing skills to achieve dominance. An appendix gives some modern sources for some of the primitive beers and wines described in the text.”—Booklist
“Standage starts with a bold hypothesis—that each epoch, from the Stone Age to the present, has had its signature beverage—and takes readers on an extraordinary trip through world history. The Econom
A History of the World in 6 Glasses
Monday, January 25th, 2010 at
9:38 pm
Product Description
With shocking revelations that made headlines in papers across the country, Pulitzer-Prize-winner Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers here why nearly every CIA Director has left the agency in worse shape than when he found it; and how these profound failures jeopardize our national security.
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
Monday, January 25th, 2010 at
5:44 pm
Product Description
This second edition of Carol Strickland’s The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern offers an illustrated tutorial of prehistoric to post-modern art from cave paintings to video art installations to digital and Internet media.
Featuring succinct page-length essays, instructive sidebars, and more than 300 photographs, The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern takes art history out of the realm of dreary textbooks, demystifies jargon and theory, and makes art accessible—even at a cursory reading.
From Stonehenge to the Guggenheim and from Holbein to Warhol, more than 25,000 years of art is distilled into five sections covering a little more than 200 pages.
The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern
Monday, January 25th, 2010 at
12:39 pm
Product Description
Mark Kurlansky, the bestselling author of Cod and The Basque History of the World, here turns his attention to a common household item with a long and intriguing history: salt. The only rock we eat, salt has shaped civilization from the very beginning, and its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of humankind. A substance so valuable it served as currency, salt has influenced the establishment of trade routes and cities, provoked and financed wars, secured empires, and inspired revolutions. Populated by colorful characters and filled with an unending series of fascinating details, Kurlansky’s kaleidoscopic history is a supremely entertaining, multi-layered masterpiece.
Salt: A World History
Monday, January 25th, 2010 at
11:38 am
Product Description
In tune with today’s readers–rich but never effete–this is the art history book of choice for a new generation. Presenting a broad view of art through the centuries, it sympathetically and positively introduces the works of all artists. This includes women, artists of color, and the arts of other continents and regions, as well as those of Western Europe and the United States. The new edition contains even more full-color reproductions, larger images, redrawn maps and timelines, and new photographs and higher quality images. Balancing both the traditions of art history and new trends of the present, Art History is the most comprehensive, accessible, and magnificently illustrated work of its kind. Broad in scope and depth, this beautifully illustrated work features art from the following time periods and places: prehistoric art in Europe; ancient art of the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean, and Greece; Roman and Etruscan art; Jewish, early Christian, and Byzantine art; Islamic art; art from ancient India, China, Japan, and the Americas; medieval art in Europe; Romanesque, Gothic, and Renaissance art; Baroque art; art of the Pacific cultures; the rise of modern art; and the international Avant-Garde since 1945. An excellent reference work and beautiful edition for any visual artist.Amazon.com Review
This attractively packaged two-volume set attempts an almost impossible task: to present the art of the entire world, from vibrant cave paintings dating back 30,000 years to the creative trends of the late 20th century. Though the arts of Europe are the most thoroughly analyzed, respected scholars in several specialized fields cover other cultures with cogent essays. A more unusual feature is the space devoted to art created by women, such as the late-Renaissance painters Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana–the latter was invited in 1560 to be an official painter at the Spanish court. Relationships between the art of different cultures are emphasized and, while each section can stand alone, each is shown to fit meaningfully into the overall development of the world’s artistic heritage. Beautiful images grace the production’s 1,200 pages, not only well-known icons but a wealth of lesser-known gems are here, carefully chosen to demonstrate the points made in the text. There are many delightful surprises among the illustrations, many of which are in color, printed to high quality standards in Japan. For instance, line drawings explain technical details, from “Lost-wax Bronze-casting” to “Elements of the Skyscraper.” A vast amount of information is presented, but it is very well organized and easy to access, and an extensive glossary answers many questions. Marilyn Stokstad’s Art History is a true tour de force, and its light and humanistic approach is a refreshing change from previous encyclopedic art-historical studies. –John Stevenson
Art History, Combined
