Sun Tzu’s Art of War has been read and appreciated by a host of military men and philosophers down through the ages. More recently, it has become popular as a manual for business success and guide to boardroom battles, seen by many as a lodestar in achieving success in the ruthless world of competitive capitalism – a text so currently fashionable that even Paris Hilton has been photographed reading it.Yet what makes the present study so valuable is not just...

The Book of Kells is a magnificently illuminated manuscript Gospel in Vulgate Latin containing the four Gospels of the New Testament - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John - together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created by Celtic monks on the small Island of Iona off the coast of western Scotland in about 800 CE. The text is mainly in Vulgate Latin dating from the 4th century CE, though there are passages in Vetus Latin or ‘Old Latin’ that predate the Vulgate Bible....

During the latter half of the twentieth century the little-known and often lawless region where Laos, Burma, Thailand and China meet has become known and widely romanticised as ‘The Golden Triangle’. Originally a Western designation applied to the region because of its wealth in jade, silver, rubies, lumber, rare animal products and, above all, opium, the name has stuck and is today accepted both in Chinese and in Thai.By reputation, by very definition, the area is off the beaten t...

The beautiful old walled city of Chiang Mai, set amid the forested mountains and fertile valleys of northern Thailand, is the historic capital of the former Lanna Kingdom. Founded in 1296 by King Mangrai the Great, it did not become fully part of Thailand until 1939, and even today the region retains a distinctly different character, with its own language, culture, cuisine and even temperament.Although around 40 times smaller than Bangkok, with perhaps four percent of the Thai capi...

Utagawa Hiroshige’s ‘One Hundred Famous Views of Edo’, actually composed of 118 woodblock landscape and genre scenes of mid-19th century Tokyo, is one of the greatest achievements of Japanese art. The series, which includes many of Hiroshige’s most famous prints, represents a celebration of the style and world of Japan’s finest cultural flowering at the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate.Hiroshige was nothing if not prolific, creating more than 8,000 art works in the course of his life,...

The beautiful old walled city of Chiang Mai, set amid the forested mountains and fertile valleys of northern Thailand, is the historic capital of the former Lanna Kingdom. Founded in 1296 by King Mangrai the Great, it did not become fully part of Thailand until 1939, and even today the region retains a distinctly different character, with its own language, culture, cuisine and even temperament.Although around 40 times smaller than Bangkok, with perhaps four percent of the Thai capi...

The beautiful old walled city of Chiang Mai, set amid the forested mountains and fertile valleys of northern Thailand, is the historic capital of the former Lanna Kingdom. Founded in 1296 by King Mangrai the Great, it did not become fully part of Thailand until 1939, and even today the region retains a distinctly different character, with its own language, culture, cuisine and even temperament.Although around 40 times smaller than Bangkok, with perhaps four percent of the Thai capi...

The Tacuinum Sanitatis is a medieval handbook on Health and Well Being. First produced in Italy around 1380, it was aimed at an educated secular readership and offered concise and sensible advice on how to live a long, healthy and enjoyable life. Five handsomely illustrated manuscripts of the Tacuinum survive, all produced in Lombardy and now housed, respectively, at libraries in Rome, Vienna, Paris, Rouen and Liège.The Latin text describes in detail the beneficia...

From lowering the ramps of landing ships at Normandy on June 6, 1944, to crawling on the snow on their bellies and enduring extremely harsh weather at the Battle of the Bulge, our veterans showed great intrepidness and bravery when facing the enemy. We may never see a generation of men and women like the ones who served during World War II to ensure the world was a safer place — free from the tyranny of leaders and nations. Slowly, the number of World War II veterans diminishes with each p...

The story of the 47 Ronin is perhaps the most popular and best known legend of traditional Japan. Set in the early 18th century, it tells a tale of honour and bloody revenge as the brotherhood of 47 masterless Samurai pursue the ruthless killing of Lord Kira, the official who brought about the downfall and suicide of their master, Lord Asano.This edition of the story is illustrated by the full set of masterful woodblock prints created by celebrated artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi in 1838-...

In 2011 former US Rebublican Senator Rick Santorum stated that: 'All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They are not Palestinians. There is no Palestinian'. This was echoed by another former Rebublican Senator, Newt Gingrich, who claimed: 'I think we have had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs'.Such statements are symptomatic of both ignorance and racism and deserve to be treated with the same disdain as Holocaust denial.Of course there ar...

Between 1866 and 1868 the celebrated Japanese artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, in collaboration with his colleague Utagawa Yoshiiku, produced a series of images of graphic horror and cruelty entitled '28 Famous Murders with Verse'.The series of 28 ukiyo-e woodblock prints shocked, horrified and delighted the citizens of Edo - or at least those of a voyeuristic and morbid disposition.Known as the muzan-e, 'atrocious' or 'cruel pictures', all 28 are reproduced here together with o...