A Journey Into History

Download or read book Beneath Another Sky written by Norman Davies and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2017-12-07 with total page 712 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'He writes history like nobody else. He thinks like nobody else ... He sees the world as a whole, with its limitless fund of stories' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times Where have the people in any particular place actually come from? What are the historical complexities in any particular place? This evocative historical journey around the world shows us. 'Human history is a tale not just of constant change but equally of perpetual locomotion', writes Norman Davies. Throughout the ages, men and women have endlessly sought the greener side of the hill. Their migrations, collisions, conquests and interactions have given rise to the spectacular profusion of cultures, races, languages and polities that now proliferates on every continent. This incessant restlessness inspired Davies's own. After decades of writing about European history, and like Tennyson's ageing Ulysses longing for one last adventure, he embarked upon an extended journey that took him right round the world to a score of hitherto unfamiliar countries. His aims were to test his powers of observation and to revel in the exotic, but equally to encounter history in a new way. Beneath Another Sky is partly a historian's travelogue, partly a highly engaging exploration of events and personalities that have fashioned today's world - and entirely sui generis. Davies's circumnavigation takes him to Baku, the Emirates, India, Malaysia, Mauritius, Tasmania, Tahiti, Texas, Madeira and many places in between. At every stop, he not only describes the current scene but also excavates the layers of accumulated experience that underpin the present. He tramps round ancient temples and weird museums, summarises the complexity of Indian castes, Austronesian languages and Pacific explorations, delves into the fate of indigenous peoples and of a missing Malaysian airliner, reflects on cultural conflict in Cornwall, uncovers the Nazi origins of Frankfurt airport and lectures on imperialism in a desert oasis. 'Everything has its history', he writes, 'including the history of finding one's way or of getting lost.' The personality of the author comes across strongly - wry, romantic, occasionally grumpy, but with an endless curiosity and appetite for knowledge. As always, Norman Davies watches the historical horizon as well as what is close at hand, and brilliantly complicates our view of the past.

Download or read book Exit Into History written by Eva Hoffman and published by Faber & Faber. This book was released on 2010 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A book that takes you on an intimate journey through Eastern Europe at a time when the dust was still settling from the collapse of the Berlin Wall. Eva Hoffman travels from the Baltic to the Black Sea, building a compelling portrait of a region uncertain about its future.' Independent Shortly after the epochal events of 1989 Eva Hoffman spent several months in her native Poland and four other countries: the then-Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. She visited capital cities, wayside villages and provincial towns; stopped at shipyards, museums, and the coffee-houses of the intelligentsia; and talked to a great variety of people about the tumult they had lived through. Exit into History was the result: a portrait of the mosaic of the new Eastern Europe, a reconstruction of the turbulent post-war decades, and a meditation on the uses and misuses of historical memory.

Download or read book Journey written by DK and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-05-27 with total page 1525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Follow the voyages of the Vikings, pursue plundering pirates, trace the Hippie Trail, or set off on a flight to the Moon. A thrilling expedition awaits you on every page. Journeys have arisen from all manner of impulse, from migration and the search for food to pilgrimages, trade, scientific curiosity, or simply the quest for adventure. Includes stories of human movement and endeavor, Journey lets you experience the excitement and romance of travel, covering everything from quests across the Silk Road and the adventures of Marco Polo to explorations in space and underwater. Discover ancient maps, biographies of conquerors, explorers and travelers, stories of scientific discovery and technological innovation, stunning works of art, and catalogs of travel-related memorabilia. This truly worldwide account is a glorious celebration of human journeys and will make an impressive gift for any lover of travel and history.

Download or read book A Journey Through Art written by Aaron Rosen and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A child’s introduction to art history through the centuries and across the globe A Journey Through Art is a global history of art with a time- travel twist, taking young readers on a expedition from the Paleolithic period to the present day, voyaging to thirty locations around the world. As readers travel from one incredible destination to the next, they discover the amazing network of caves carved into the rock in AD 500 at Ajanta, India; Cambodia’s Angkor Wat as it stood in AD 1200; the glories of Renaissance Florence in AD 1500; and the remarkable energy of New York in the 1950s. At every location readers encounter stories of artworks and the cultures that surrounded them. The journey is chronological with three sections: prehistoric and ancient; medieval and early modern; and modern and contemporary. Two beautifully illustrated spreads showcase each destination, allowing children to engage with the art, artifacts, and culture of a unique place in time as Aaron Rosen tells the story of how art developed across the world.

Download or read book Borderland written by Anna Reid and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2023-02-07 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A beautifully written evocation of Ukraine's brutal past and its shaky efforts to construct a better future.”—Financial Times Borderland tells the story of Ukraine. A thousand years ago it was the center of the first great Slav civilization, Kievan Rus. In 1240, the Mongols invaded from the east, and for the next seven centuries, Ukraine was split between warring neighbors: Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Austrians, and Tatars. Again and again, borderland turned into battlefield: during the Cossack risings of the seventeenth century, Russia's wars with Sweden in the eighteenth, the Civil War of 1918-1920, and under Nazi occupation. Ukraine finally won independence in 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Bigger than France and a populous as Britain, it has the potential to become one of the most powerful states in Europe. In this finely written and penetrating book, Anna Reid combines research and her own experiences to chart Ukraine's tragic past. Talking to peasants and politicians, rabbis and racketeers, dissidents and paramilitaries, survivors of Stalin's famine and of Nazi labor camps, she reveals the layers of myth and propaganda that wrap this divided land. From the Polish churches of Lviv to the coal mines of the Russian-speaking Donbass, from the Galician shtetlech to the Tatar shantytowns of Crimea, the book explores Ukraine's struggle to build itself a national identity, and identity that faces up to a bloody past, and embraces all the peoples within its borders.

Download or read book The Journey of Life written by Thomas R. Cole and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-11-27 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Journey of Life envisions growing up and growing old as a voyage down a river flowing inexorably to the sea. With this image of the human life cycle, the author explores the historical shoreline of later life, charting its cultural forms and sounding their depths. The result is both a cultural history of aging and a contribution to public dialogue about the meaning and significance of later life. The core of the book shows how central texts and images of Northern.

Download or read book A Journey into Florida Railroad History written by Gregg M. Turner and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2012-03-25 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is safe to say that without railroads, Florida wouldn't be what it is today. Railroads connected the state's important cities and towns, conquered the peninsula's vast and seemingly impenetrable interior, ushered in untold numbers of settlers and tourists, and conveyed to market--faster than any previous means of transportation--the myriad products of Florida's mines, forests, factories, farms, and groves. Gregg Turner traces the long, slow development of Florida railroads, from the first tentative lines in the 1830s, through the boom of the 1880s, to the maturity of the railroad system in the 1920s. At the end of that decade nearly 6,000 miles of labyrinthine track covered the state. Turner also examines the decline of the industry, as the automobile rose to prominence in American culture and lines were abandoned or sold for hiking trails and green spaces. Meticulously researched and richly illustrated--including many never-before-published images--A Journey into Florida Railroad History is a comprehensive, authoritative history of the subject. Written by one of the nation's foremost authorities on Florida railroads, it explores all the key players and companies, and every significant period of development. This engaging and lively story will be savored and enjoyed by generations to come.