Company Curiosities

Download or read book Company Curiosities written by Arthur MacGregor and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For nearly three hundred years, the East India Company dominated British trade and relations with Asia. It made handsome profits for shareholders but also provided collectors in Europe with natural specimens and man-made rarities that were prized for their scientific, aesthetic or cultural value. An array of administrators, soldiers, surveyors spent much of their lives attempting to inventory and to comprehend India's vast country, its teeming populations and its myriad rituals and wildlife: nearly forty species of mammals and over 120 species of birds were discovered in the Katmandu valley alone; astonishing wall paintings from the fifth-century were unearthed in caves at Ajanta; and spectacular fossil fauna arrived from the Siwalik Hills. Company Curiosities: Nature, Culture and the East India Company, 1600-1874 offers the first-ever overview of the remarkable role of the East India Company and its servants in collecting and showcasing a treasure-house of natural specimens and man-made objects - craft materials, paintings and sculptures, weapons, costumes, jewels and ornaments - that established the look and the feel of India for those who had never ventured abroad. Arthur MacGregor tells the stories behind the remarkable discoveries and collections, and those responsible for them, and their impact on natural science, commerce and industry, and personal taste.

Download or read book Stats and Curiosities written by Harvard Business Review and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2013-09-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fascinating stats... useful tips... entertaining topics. Did you know that to make a task seem easier, all you have to do is lean back a little? Or that retail salespeople who mimic the way their customers speak and behave end up selling more? If you like stats like this, are intrigued by ideas, and find connecting the dots to be a critical part of your skill set—this book is for you. Culled from Harvard Business Review’s popular newsletter, The Daily Stat, this book offers a compelling look at insights that both amuse and inform. Covering such managerial topics as teams, marketing, workplace psychology, and leadership, you’ll find a wide range of business statistics and general curiosities and oddities about professional life that will add an element of trivia and humor to your learning (and will make you appear smarter than your colleagues). Highly quotable and surprisingly useful, Stats and Curiosities: From Harvard Business Review will keep you on the front lines of business research—and ahead of the pack at work.

Download or read book Curiosities of London written by John Timbs and published by . This book was released on 1868 with total page 904 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A World of Curiosities written by John Oldale and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 622 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe: everything you never knew you never knew about every country on Earth.A scientist by training and an explorer by passion, Dr. John Oldale has logged half a million miles visiting more than ninety nations. Now, he celebrates our weird and wonderful world in a cornucopia of fascinating facts brought vividly to life through the unexpected stories behind them. Touching on history, travel, politics, natural history and more, he paints a unique portrait of each country from the mightiest to the most miniscule. You won't find the following in your average travel guide: · Why is kissing on trains banned in France? · In what country are litigants expected to present their case at court in the form of a poem? · Which war did women win in 1929 just by sitting down? · If Panama hats aren’t from Panama, where are they from? · Who eat fresh camel dung as a cure for dysentery (and why does it work)? · Why were US disk jockeys once told they could play birthday requests on any day except the one requested? · Which modern dictator banned old age, libraries and gold teeth, and was later replaced by his dentist? · And 2,000 more funny, trivial, poignant, and telling facts A must for active and armchair globe-trotters alike, A World of Curiosities will engross anyone who is at all curious about the world beyond their door. Explore and enjoy.

Download or read book The Cabinet of Curiosities written by Douglas Preston and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2002-07-01 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In one of NPR's 100 Best Thrillers Ever, FBI agent Pendergast discovers thirty-six murdered bodies in a New York City charnel house . . . and now, more than a century later, a killer strikes again. In an ancient tunnel underneath New York City a charnel house is discovered. Inside are thirty-six bodies--all murdered and mutilated more than a century ago. While FBI agent Pendergast investigates the old crimes, identical killings start to terrorize the city. The nightmare has begun. Again.

Download or read book A Compendium of Curiosities written by Tim Holtz and published by . This book was released on 2014-01-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not your typical how to book, but inspirational papercraft and mixed media projects designed by Tim Holtz.

Download or read book A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities written by Jan Bondeson and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long ago, curiosities were arranged in cabinets for display: a dried mermaid might be next to a giant's shinbone, the skeletons of conjoined twins beside an Egyptian mummy. In ten essays, Jan Bondeson brings a physician's diagnostic skills to various unexpected, gruesome, and extraordinary aspects of the history of medicine: spontaneous human combustion, colonies of snakes and frogs living in a person's stomach, kings and emperors devoured by lice, vicious tribes of tailed men, and the Two-Headed Boy of Bengal. Bondeson tells the story of Mary Toft, who gained notoriety in 1726 when she allegedly gave birth to seventeen rabbits. King George I, the Prince of Wales, and the court physicians attributed these monstrous births to a "maternal impression" because Mary had longed for a meal of rabbit while pregnant. Bondeson explains that the fallacy of maternal impressions, conspicuous in the novels of Goethe, Sir Walter Scott, and Charles Dickens, has ancient roots in Chinese and Babylonian manuscripts. Bondeson also presents the tragic case of Julia Pastrana, a Mexican Indian woman with thick hair growing over her body and a massive overgrowth of the gums that gave her a simian or ape-like appearance. Called the Ape Woman, she was exhibited all over the world. After her death in 1860, Julia's husband, who had also been her impresario, had her body mummified and continued to exhibit it throughout Europe. Bondeson tracked the mummy down and managed to diagnose Julia Pastrana's condition as the result of a rare genetic syndrome.