The history of our world can be told through numbers. Numbers can illuminate the broad sweep of history, from vast movements of populations & the expansion of empires to the effects of technological achievements or climatic change. They also allow us to drill into the real detail of history, from the page count, the cost & the time it took to produce the Gutenberg Bible (the West`s first mass-produced book) to the price of Virginian tobacco in the 1620s, both of which had an immediate & lasting effect on the course of world history. &, just occasionally, numbers have the power to blow our minds. For example: in 2003, US research showed that one in every 200 men across Eurasia shared genetic material from a single male from 900 years ago; the likely progenitor was Mongol emperor, Genghis Khan. A History of the World in Numbers will span the early civilizations of man, from the plains of Mesopotamia & the Indus Empire, right through to the modern day. The numbers, statistics & figures will dictate the topic of each entry, shining a light on each subject, whether it`s the development of early writing in China or the number of Brodie helmets issued in World War One. ...

Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, & lives: these are the seven things that have made our world & will shape its future. In making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, & devastated Earth. In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, Raj Patel & Jason W. Moore present a new approach to analyzing today`s planetary emergencies. Bringing the latest ecological research together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, & other rebellions & uprisings, Patel & Moore demonstrate that throughout history, crises have always prompted fresh strategies to make the world cheap & safe for capitalism. At a time of crisis in all seven cheap things, innovative & systemic thinking is urgently required. This book proposes a radical new way of understanding-and reclaiming-the planet in the turbulent twenty-first century. ...

A History of the World in Twelve Maps by Jerry Brotton, published by Allen Lane to much praise from its reviewers, takes us on a time journey showing how maps reflected our view of the world & our place in it. Using twelve maps drawn from global history, from the mystical representations of ancient times to the modern satellite-derived imagery, the author ...

Throughout history, maps have been fundamental in shaping our view of the world, & our place in it. But far from being purely scientific objects, maps of the world are unavoidably ideological & subjective, intimately bound up with the systems of power & authority of particular times & places. Mapmakers do not simply represent the world, they construct it out of the ideas of their age. In this scintillating book, Jerry Brotton examines the significance of 12 maps
- from the almost mystical representations of ancient history to the satellite-derived imagery of today. He vividly recreates the environments & circumstances in which each of the maps was made, showing how each conveys a highly individual view of the world. Brotton shows how each of his maps both influenced & reflected contemporary events & how, by reading it, we can better understand the worlds that produced it. Although the way we map our surroundings is changing, Brotton argues that maps today are no more definitive or objective than they have ever been, but that they continue to define, shape & recreate the world. Readers of this book will never look at a map in quite the same way again.
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Renowned historian, & author of ”A Short History of Byzantium”, John Julius Norwich`s classic history of Venice ”A History of Venice” tells the story of this most remarkable of cities from its founding in the fifth century, through its unrivalled status for over a thousand years as one of the world`s busiest & most powerful city states, until its fall at the hands of Napoleon in 1797. Rich in fascinating historical detail, populated by extraordinary characters & packed with a wealth of incident & intrigue, this is a brilliant testament to a great city
- & a great & gripping read. ” Norwich has loved & understood Venice as well as any other Englishman has ever done.” (” Sunday Times”). ” Will become the standard English work of Venetian history.” (” Financial Times”). ” The standard Venetian history in English.” (” The Times”). ” Norwich has the gift of historical perspective, as well as clarity & wit. Few can tell a good story better than he.” (” Spectator” John Julius Norwich was born in 1929). He was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, at Eton, at the University of Strasbourg &, after a spell of National Service in the Navy, at New College, Oxford, where he took a degree in French & Russian. In 1952 he joined the Foreign Service, where he remained for twelve years, serving at the embassies in Belgrade & Beirut. In 1964 he resigned from the service to write. He is the author of histories of Norman Sicily, the Republic of Venice & the Byzantine Empire. He has written & presented some thirty historical documentaries on television, & is a regular lecturer on Venice & numerous other subjects.
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A history of warfare distilled into 100 momentous battles
- epic moments that have shaped our world. From the earliest recorded
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Combining current scholarship with cutting-edge pedagogy, the Ninth Edition of A History of Western Music is the text that students & professors have trusted for generations. Because listening is central to music history, the new Total Access program provides a full suite of media resources including an ebook & premium streaming recordings of the entire Norton Anthology of Western Music repertoire with every new text. Combining thoughtful revisions particularly to chapters on the twentieth & twenty-first centuries with exceptional media resources, A History of Western Music provides all the resources that students need in a text that will last a lifetime.” ...

New from Dave Eggers, National Book Award finalist A Hologram for the King. In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter`s college tuition, & finally do something great. In A Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself & his splintering family together in the face of the global economy`s gale-force winds. This taut, richly layered, & elegiac novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment
- & a moving story of how we got here. Praise for A Hologram for the King: ” Absorbing.. .modest & equally satisfying: the writing of a comic but deeply affecting tale about one man`s travails that also provides a bright, digital snapshot of our times”. (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times). ”A fascinating novel”. (New Yorker). ”A spare but moving elegy for the American century”. (Publishers Weekly). ” Eggers understands the pressures of American downward-mobility, & in the protagonist of his novel, Alan Clay, has created an Everyman, a post-modern Willy Loman... The novel operates on a grand & global scale, but it also is intimate”. (Chicago Tribune). ” Completely engrossing”. (Fortune). ” Eggers can do fiction as well as he likes”. (Los Angeles Times). Dave Eggers is the author of six previous books: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, How We Are Hungry, You Shall Know Our Velocity, What is the What, The Wild Things & Zeitoun. Zeitoun was the winner of the American Book Award & the Dayton Literary Peace Prize & What is the What was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award & won France`s Prix Medicis. Eggers is the founder & editor of Mc Sweeney`s, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco. A native of Chicago, he lives in Northern California with his wife & two children.
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` It was the start of my second new life, in a city that had a spin of its own
- a wilder orbit inside the earth`s calm blue-green
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When George Alagiah was dropped off at a Hampshire boarding school as a child back in 1967 he was confronted with an extreme version of the private struggle faced by all immigrants
- the battle to leave the past behind & fit into a new culture. His arrival in Britain coincided with the unhappy intrusion of race into politics. A key part of the ensuing fight against racism was the concept of multiculturalism. But in a closely argued & forthright chapter, Alagiah suggests that, far from improving the prospects for some immigrants, multiculturalism may be an impediment to integration. All too often these are the poor & isolated communities who most need the help of the state to break out of what is fast becoming a version of ghetto life. Above all, this book is a tender & evocative portrayal of the immigrant experience. Alagiah brings colour & life to a subject that is too often reduced to screaming tabloid headlines, & sheds light on the controversial question of British identity.
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