In a world obsessed with the virtual, tangible things are once again making history. Tangible Things invites readers to look closely at the things around them, ordinary things like the food on their plate and extraordinary things like the transit of planets across the sky. It argues that almost any material thing, when examined closely, can be a link between present and past. The authors of this book pulled an astonishing array of materials out of storage--from a pencil manufactur...

In a lively investigation into the boundaries between popular culture and early-modern science, Sara Schechner presents a case study that challenges the view that rationalism was at odds with popular belief in the development of scientific theories. Schechner Genuth delineates the evolution of people's understanding of comets, showing that until the seventeenth century, all members of society dreaded comets as heaven-sent portents of plague, flood, civil disorder, and other calamities. Alt...

Filled with unforgettable stories of emperors, generals, and religious patriarchs, as well as fascinating glimpses into the life of the ordinary citizen, Lost to the West reveals how much we owe to the Byzantine Empire that was the equal of any in its achievements, appetites, and enduring legacy.For more than a millennium, Byzantium reigned as the glittering seat of Christian civilization. When Europe fell into the Dark Ages, Byzantium held fast against Muslim expansion, k...

“A brisk and cheerfully traditional trip through our history, from homo erectus to George W. Bush.” —Kirkus ReviewsIn The Human Story, James C. Davis takes us on a journey to ancient times, telling how peoples of the world settled down and founded cities, conquered neighbors, and established religions, and continues over the course of history, when they fought two nearly global wars and journeyed into space.Davis's account is swift and clear, never dull or dry. He lightens ...

It was the misfortune of Germany in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that, with most of the conditions requisite for the formation of national unity, she had no really national institutions. There was an emperor, who looked something like an English king, and a Diet, or General Assembly, which looked something like an English Parliament, but the resemblance was far greater in appearance than in reality. The Emperor was chosen by three ecclesiastical electors, the Archbishops of Ment...

The definitive sequel to New York Times bestseller How the Scots Invented the Modern World is a magisterial account of how the two greatest thinkers of the ancient world, Plato and Aristotle, laid the foundations of Western culture—and how their rivalry shaped the essential features of our culture down to the present day.Plato came from a wealthy, connected Athenian family and lived a comfortable upper-class lifestyle until he met an odd little ma...

Is it a mere coincidence that pyramids are found throughout our globe? Did cultures ranging across vast spaces in geography and time, such as the ancient Egyptians; early Bud-dhists; the Maya, Inca, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations of the Americas; the Celts of the British Isles; and even the Mississippi Indians of pre-Columbus Illinois, simply dream the same dreams and envision the same structures?Robert M. Schoch-one of the world's preeminent geologists in recasting the date of th...

In the tradition of A History of Reading, this book is an account of Manguel’s astonishment at the variety, beauty and persistence of our efforts to shape the world and our lives, most notably through something almost as old as reading itself: libraries. The Library at Nightbegins with the design and construction of Alberto Manguel’s own library at his house in western France – a process that raises puzzling questions about his past and his reading habits,...

This is an easy to read yet highly informative history of ancient China. It is a classic in the field and covers all aspects of ancient Chinese life and culture. From the dynasties of the kings to the occupations and entertainments of the people, including ancient Chinese religions, sports, literature and customs. As well as the politics, geography and wars of this great civilization. It also includes chapters on ancient japan, human sacrifice, ancestor worship, and many interesting but ge...

The Golden Thread is an enthralling and accessible history of the cultural miracle that is the written word. It is an invention that has been used to share ideas in every field of human endeavour, and a motor of cultural, scientific and political progress.From the simple representative shapes used to record transactions of goods and animals in ancient Egypt, to the sophisticated typographical resources available to the twenty-first-century computer user, the story of writi...

In the widest sense History must be considered the knowledge, the portraying, or the total sum of all that in nature, amongst men, and in the whole circle of experiences, there is, or comes to pass, was, or came to pass, and which accordingly only can he learnt through experience or instruction. History is, consequently, the opposite of Philosophy, which is the knowledge of all needful and universal truths, comprehensible only by the mere reason. But, nevertheless, if the cultivator of His...

This section of the comprehensive history deals with early settlements, Christianity, schools and horse racing