Showing titles in Civilisation

A smart and thought-provoking cultural history of heaven. What do we think of when we think about heaven? What might it look like? Who or what might be there? Since humans began to huddle together for protection thousands of years ago, these questions have been part of how civilizations and...

From the city sundials of ancient Rome to the era of the smartwatch, clocks have been used throughout history to wield power, make money, govern citizens and keep control. Sometimes, also with clocks, we have fought back. In About Time, time expert David Rooney tells the story of timekeeping, and how it continues to shape our modern world. In 12 chapters, demarcated like the hours of time, we meet the greatest inventions in horological history, from medieval water clocks to monumental sundials, and from coastal time signals to satellites in Earth's orbit. 

Als gebürtiger Jude und promovierter Philosoph aus Wien war Friedell vieles: Essayist, Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, Theaterkritiker, Schauspieler, Kulturphilosoph und Kabarettist – seine universelle Karriere endete am 16. März 1938 mit seinem Freitod beim Einmarsch der Nationalsozialisten in Österreich. Geblieben ist neben Friedells berühmt gewordener "Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit" auch die weniger bekannte "Kulturgeschichte Ägyptens und des Alten Orients" und die "Kulturgeschichte Griechenlands", welche er nicht vollenden konnte.

For much of recorded history, people considered the heart to be the most important organ in the body. In cultures around the world, the heart—not the brain—was believed to be the location of intelligence, memory, emotion, and the soul. Over time, views on the purpose of the heart have transformed. Modern medicine and science dismissed what was once the king of the organs as a mere blood pump subservient to the brain, yet the heart remains a potent symbol of love and health and an important part of our cultural iconography.

For hundreds of years, the history of the conquest of Mexico and the defeat of the Aztecs has been told in the words of the Spanish victors. Miguel León-Portilla has long been at the forefront of expanding that history to include the voices of indigenous peoples. In this new and updated edition...

'Glenny does the sort of history I wish I had been taught at school' Jemima Lewis, The Telegraph Former BBC Central European correspondent Misha Glenny investigates the borders, stories and people of nine countries worldwide, and asks how they acquired the shape and character they have today...

In Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud delivers one of the most provocative examinations of modern life ever written. In this concise yet profound work, Freud explores the tension between our instinctual drives and the demands of society—arguing that the very structures that protect us also generate deep, unavoidable dissatisfaction.

Con Augusto acaba la República y se inicia el Imperio. Acaba el mundo antiguo y la civilización romana se hace universal, así comienza el mundo moderno. Con el Imperio, la ciudadanía dejará de ser un privilegio de una minoría opresora para convertirse en un derecho de nacimiento que integrará a todos por igual, y las viejas ciudades-estado como Atenas, Esparta, Cartago, o incluso Roma, serán sustituidas por el concepto de nación.

Atlantis and Other Lost Worlds is the most up-to-date and comprehensive investigation of history's infamous sunken city. Nowhere else will you find a more dramatic and convincing presentation of the evidence for its archaeological reality.

Esta es la historia del encuentro entre dos mundos: Oriente y Occidente conectados por una red de caminos conocida como la Ruta de la Seda, por la que circularon la ambición, las riquezas, el poder y, sobre todo, el conocimiento. Todo comenzó con un puñado de objetos. Valiosas posesiones que pasaban de mano en mano y recorrían miles de kilómetros a través de océanos, desiertos y montañas. Su inmenso valor no dependía solo de su belleza o de la pericia necesaria para elaborarlas; aquellas mercancías exóticas poseían la capacidad de hacer soñar a los que las contemplaban con tierras...

Books preserve ideas, yes, but they also provoke new ones— they are true tools for thinking. In The Idea Machine, Joel J. Miller shows that books are one of the most important but overlooked factors in the making of our contemporary world.

Quando si parla di storia, il primo pensiero va quasi sempre ai grandi eventi, agli imperi, alle guerre, ai potenti che dominano i manuali scolastici e le fonti storiografiche. Ma, guardando oltre la superficie, tra le pieghe del tempo compaiono anche le persone comuni che spesso sono state protagoniste di avventure ed emozioni degne di essere scoperte e raccontate. Proprio per questo Costantino Andrea De Luca - giovane storico e divulgatore - riporta alla luce quelle "vite senza nome" che hanno attraversato i secoli e che presentano incredibili somiglianze con la contemporaneità.

Focusing on key characters from the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries, including Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Newton, Descartes, Spinoza, Louis XIV and Charles I, Dark Brilliance is a fascinating and wide-ranging history that explores the human costs of imposing progress and modernity.

Best-selling author Brian Fagan brings early humans out of the deep freeze with his trademark mix of erudition, cutting-edge science, and vivid storytelling. Cro-Magnon reveals human society in its infancy, facing enormous environmental challenges - including a rival species of humans, the Neanderthals. For ten millennia, Cro-Magnons lived side by side with Neanderthals, an encounter that Fagan fills with drama.

Modernity developed only in the West - in Europe and North America. Nowhere else did science and democracy arise; nowhere else was slavery outlawed. Only Westerners invented chimneys, musical scores, telescopes, eyeglasses, pianos, electric lights, aspirin, and soap. The question is, why? Unfortunately, that question has become so politically incorrect that most scholars avoid it. But acclaimed author Rodney Stark provides the answers in this sweeping new look at Western civilization.

This final volume of V-50, subtitled V-50: The Bridge to Freedom, consists of sessions thirteen through sixteen and workshops two and three of V-50. Also included is the Joe Pyne interview of Professor Galambos, several appendices of course-related material, and the Concordex (Master Index) for the three volumes of SIC ITUR AD ASTRA: V-50.

Conquérants, rois, chefs d'États, révolutionnaires ou idéologues, l'inhumanité est leur triste point commun. Au côté des trop biens connus Hitler, Staline, Mao ou encore Néron, découvrez ces autres monstres qui ont offert à la grande Histoire ses moments les plus inhumains, les plus tragiques et les plus détestables. Sous la plume précise et érudite de Philippe Valode, vous parcourez quelques siècles de sièges, de massacres et de guerres.

In this comprehensive work, David Eltis offers a two-thousand-year perspective on the trafficking of people, and boldly intervenes in the expansive discussions about slavery in the last half-century. Using new and underexplored data made available by slavevoyages.org, Eltis offers compelling explanations of why the slave trades began and why they ended, and in the process debunks long-held assumptions, including how bilateral rather than triangular voyages were the norm, and how the Portuguese rather than the British were the leading slave traders.

In Up the Youth Club, Emma Warren maps the shifting story of youth clubs in the UK and Northern Ireland, from factory workers in Victorian Boys' and Girls' clubs to renegade self-emancipatory spaces in the 1970s and the music-generating youth clubs of more recent decades. With a mixed lineage in church evangelism, the patronage of the upper classes, grassroots' DIY, and erratic state funding, the youth club has had a huge, yet almost invisible, effect on music, sport, culture and society.

Take an astonishing, amusing, and charmingly unconventional tour through the curious everyday lives of humans past. No need to spend the day at an archaeological dig when you can simply make a cup of tea, clamber into your comfiest chair, and settle in with The Encyclopedia of the Weird and...