World History


Book Description

Annotation World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500 offers a comprehensive introduction to the history of humankind from prehistory to 1500. Authored by six USG faculty members with advance degrees in History, this textbook offers up-to-date original scholarship. It covers such cultures, states, and societies as Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Israel, Dynastic Egypt, India's Classical Age, the Dynasties of China, Archaic Greece, the Roman Empire, Islam, Medieval Africa, the Americas, and the Khanates of Central Asia. It includes 350 high-quality images and maps, chronologies, and learning questions to help guide student learning. Its digital nature allows students to follow links to applicable sources and videos, expanding their educational experience beyond the textbook. It provides a new and free alternative to traditional textbooks, making World History an invaluable resource in our modern age of technology and advancement.




Baden-Powell's Beads


Book Description

"'I've searched for you.' The patient struggled to get the words out. 'There are...more.' 'More what, Mr. Baroni?' Perspiration beaded on the old man's upper lip and his already pale complexion blanched. He pulled Freeman closer and gasped, 'I'm sorry. Find the others...'" In Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. David Freeman is given a strange wooden bead by a dying patient and soon finds himself pursued by a murderous band of Zulus, thought to be responsible for the gruesome murders of three elderly gentlemen in London, England. Homeland Security agents Patrick Dartson and Adnan Fazeph are assigned the case and discover Freeman's bead to be one of twenty-four passed along to the world's first Scoutmasters in 1919 by Lord Baden-Powell in England. The Zulus are not content to merely steal the talisman but feel it necessary to ritually behead the owner in order to restore the bead's power. Much of the beads' history and power remains a mystery-and the Zulus may not be alone in their pursuit. The agents devise a plot to capture the Zulus alive but can they succeed before Freeman and his girlfriend, Pam Blanchard, become their next victims? "Baden-Powell's Beads," the first book in the Beads series, is based on the true story of Zulu beads recovered in the Boer War. Paul Parsons uses historically accurate events and religious history to weave a gripping, fast-paced thriller that keeps readers enthralled until the very end.




Timelines of Nearly Everything


Book Description

This book takes readers back and forth through time and makes the past accessible to all families, students and the general reader and is an unprecedented collection of a list of events in chronological order and a wealth of informative knowledge about the rise and fall of empires, major scientific breakthroughs, groundbreaking inventions, and monumental moments about everything that has ever happened.







Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History


Book Description

The Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History is the first true encyclopedic reference on world history. It is designed to meet the needs of students, teachers, and scholars who seek to explore -- and understand -- the panorama of our shared history of humans. Anyone who loves history -- including those who are making history today -- will find this work an endless source of fascinating, thought-provoking coverage of events, people, patterns, and processes. To assure the highest quality, the encyclopedia was developed by an editorial team of over 30 leading scholars and educators, led by William H. McNeill, Jerry H. Bentley, David Christian, David Levinson, J. R. McNeill, Heidi Roupp, and Judith Zinsser. Its 550 articles were written by a team of 330 historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, geographers and other experts from around the world. Students and teachers at the high school and college levels, as well as scholars and professionals, will turn to this defi




World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterization


Book Description

World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: a characterization introduces the range, history and significance of the archaeological collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.




The Scramble for Art in Central Africa


Book Description

Western attitudes to Africa have been influenced to an extraordinary degree by the arts and artefacts that were brought back by the early collectors, exhibited in museums, and celebrated by scholars and artists in the metropolitan centres. The contributors to this volume trace the life history of artefacts that were brought to Europe and America from Congo towards the end of the nineteenth century, and became the subjects of museum displays. They also present fascinating case studies of the pioneering collectors, including such major figures as Frobenius and Torday. They discuss the complex and sensitive issues involved in the business of 'collecting', and show how the collections and exhibitions influenced academic debates about the categories of art and artefact, and the notion of authenticity, and challenged conventional aesthetic values, as modern Western artists began to draw on African models.







From One to Zero


Book Description

"Traces the development of numerical systems in Sumerian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, Babylonian, and Mayan cultures, and examines the origins of the Hindu-Arabic numerals we use today"--Back cover.




The Soapstone Birds of Great Zimbabwe


Book Description

Beautifully produced and illustrated, this study of the Zimbabwean birds is more than a description or history of the eight soapstone carvings found at the Great Zimbabwe historical site. It offers an insight into an aspect of the cultural heritage of Zimbabwe and an interpretation of the important site of Great Zimbabwe from which it is inherited. The story of the birds is used to explore themes in Zimbabwean historiography. By focusing on the religious symbolism of the birds, the author argues that the Great Zimbabwe site was both a political and religious centre. Practically the work illustrates the central symbolic meaning of the birds to the people and nation of Zimbabwe. And the work is in the context of the construction of an authentic national history. In a foreward, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Zimbabwe says that the birds are constitutents of a living tradition embodying the body spirit of the modern national state of Zimbabwe.