Over 700,000 copies of the original hardcover and paperback editions of this stunningly popular book have been sold. Karen Armstrong’s superbly readable exploration of how the three dominant monotheistic religions of the world – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – have shaped and altered the conception of God is a tour de force. One of Britain’s foremost commentators on religious affairs, Armstrong traces the history of how men and women have perceived and experienced God, from the time of Abraham to the present. From classical philosophy and medieval mysticism to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the modern age of skepticism, Armstrong performs the near miracle of distilling the intellectual history of monotheism into one compelling volume.
In 1935, with a doctorate in art history and no prospect of a job, the 26-year-old Ernst Gombrich was invited by a publishing acquaintance to attempt a history of the world for younger readers. Amazingly, he completed the task in an intense six weeks, and , was published in Vienna to immediate success, and is now available in seventeen languages across the world. Toward the end of his long life, Gombrich embarked upon a revision and, at last, an English translation. , presents his lively and involving history to English-language readers for the first time. Superbly designed and freshly illustrated, this is a book to be savored and collected. In forty concise chapters, Gombrich tells the story of man from the stone age to the atomic bomb. In between emerges a colorful picture of wars and conquests, grand works of art, and the spread and limitations of science. This is a text dominated not by dates and facts, but by the sweep of mankind’s experience across the centuries, a guide to humanity’s achievements and an acute witness to its frailties. The product of a generous and humane sensibility, this timeless account makes intelligible the full span of human history.
More than two hundred extracts from literature, biographies, memoirs, reportage, and poetry introduce the giants of science and explore the impact of science on the world.
This volume completes the immensely learned three-volume A History of Religious Ideas. Eliade examines the movement of Jewish thought out of ancient Eurasia, the Christian transformation of the Mediterranean area and Europe, and the rise and diffusion of Islam from approximately the sixth through the seventeenth centuries. Eliade’s vast knowledge of past and present scholarship provides a synthesis that is unparalleled. In addition to reviewing recent interpretations of the individual traditions, he explores the interactions of the three religions and shows their continuing mutual influence to be subtle but unmistakable.,As in his previous work, Eliade pays particular attention to heresies, folk beliefs, and cults of secret wisdom, such as alchemy and sorcery, and continues the discussion, begun in earlier volumes, of pre-Christian shamanistic practices in northern Europe and the syncretistic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. These subcultures, he maintains, are as important as the better-known orthodoxies to a full understanding of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
“A wonderful, splendid book???a book that should be read by every American, student or otherwise, who wants to understand his country, its true history, and its hope for the future.” ???Howard Fast,With a new introduction by Anthony Arnove, this edition of the classic national bestseller chronicles American history from the bottom up, throwing out the official narrative taught in schools???with its emphasis on great men in high places???to focus on the street, the home and the workplace.,Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People’s History of the United States is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of???and in the words of???America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers. As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles???the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality???were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance.,Covering Christopher Columbus’s arrival through President Clinton’s first term, A People’s History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in our history.
In this groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology, Charles C. Mann radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492.,Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man???s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.
Barack Obama, via Facebook: ???A compelling story of how the transformative events of history weigh on individual lives and relationships.???,The Nobel Prize???nominated Kenyan writer???s best-known novel.,Set in the wake of the Mau Mau rebellion and on the cusp of Kenya’s independence from Britain, A Grain of Wheat follows a group of villagers whose lives have been transformed by the 1952???1960 Emergency. At the center of it all is the reticent Mugo, the village’s chosen hero and a man haunted by a terrible secret. As we learn of the villagers’ tangled histories in a narrative interwoven with myth and peppered with allusions to real-life leaders, including Jomo Kenyatta, a masterly story unfolds in which compromises are forced, friendships are betrayed, and loves are tested.
This history of technology from Graeco-Roman times through the early twentieth century is told through contemporary writings by technologists, churchmen, naturalists, poets, economists, and statesman. These writings reveal how historical circumstance altered the direction of technical development, and how the intellectual forces of a period influenced and were in turn modified by technical progress.,Topics covered include the position of technology in ancient Greece; early Christianity and technology; Islamic technology; engineering artists in the Renaissance; technical undertakings in the Baroque period; eighteenth-century England’s lead in technology ; the factory system of the industrial age; and automation in the twentieth century. Each section of the book contains numerous illustrations.
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Now with a new introduction describing the fallout of America???s consumer credit boom, 1994???s wildly acclaimed bestseller A Piece of the Action tells the story of how millions of middle class Americans went from being savers to borrowers and investors through the invention of credit cards, mutual funds, and IRAs???resulting in profound societal change.,???America began to change on a mid-September day in 1958, when the Bank of America dropped its first 60,000 credit cards on the unassuming city of Fresno, California.??? So begins Joe Nocera???s riveting account of one of the most astonishing revolutions in modern American life???what Nocera labels ???the money revolution.??? In the decades since, the middle class has gained access to credit cards, to mutual funds, to retirement accounts???and to hundreds of other financial vehicles that have allowed everyone to get ???a piece of the action.??? In this lively, engaging book, some of the great financial characters of modern times???from Charles Merrill to Charles Schwab to Peter Lynch???strut across the stage as the course of this great financial shift is charted.,In an all-new introduction, Nocera takes a look back at the consequences of the money revolution. Were members of the middle class as prepared as the innovators claimed to take control of their financial lives? Or did events like the dot-com and the housing bubbles suggest something else: that far too many of us lacked the wherewithal to make sound investment decisions?
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| Published By |
Now with a new introduction describing the fallout of America???s consumer credit boom, 1994???s wildly acclaimed bestseller A Piece of the Action tells the story of how millions of middle class Americans went from being savers to borrowers and investors through the invention of credit cards, mutual funds, and IRAs???resulting in profound societal change.,???America began to change on a mid-September day in 1958, when the Bank of America dropped its first 60,000 credit cards on the unassuming city of Fresno, California.??? So begins Joe Nocera???s riveting account of one of the most astonishing revolutions in modern American life???what Nocera labels ???the money revolution.??? In the decades since, the middle class has gained access to credit cards, to mutual funds, to retirement accounts???and to hundreds of other financial vehicles that have allowed everyone to get ???a piece of the action.??? In this lively, engaging book, some of the great financial characters of modern times???from Charles Merrill to Charles Schwab to Peter Lynch???strut across the stage as the course of this great financial shift is charted.,In an all-new introduction, Nocera takes a look back at the consequences of the money revolution. Were members of the middle class as prepared as the innovators claimed to take control of their financial lives? Or did events like the dot-com and the housing bubbles suggest something else: that far too many of us lacked the wherewithal to make sound investment decisions?
