World History Books

The AZTEC TREASURE HOUSE: New and Selected Essays
by Evan S. Connell. Condition: NEW 2001 Counterpoint large hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Tiny edge wear to DJ edges. Remainder mark bottom edges. Content: A collection of new and selected essays by master craftsman Connell. He has long been attracted to the visionary and eccentric, to those people and events slightly outside the mainstream of human experience. His subjects are people of passion and purpose, events of legend and desire. He offers stories of the Anazasi, the "old ones" of the southwestern desert, of the grand explorers Marco Polo, Columbus, Magellan, and Ibn Batuta, of heretics, fanatics, scientists, cranks, and geniuses. There are tales of fabulous advances made in anthropology, archeology, astronomy, and linguistics. This is a book of great "celebrations of man's insatiable drive to probe unknown frontiers [that] read like superb novels," says Grover Sales. "[They] establish Connell as an important writer-poet-thinker with a truly original mind." The book comprises two previous collections, The White Lantern and A Long Desire, and two new essays never published in trade book form. The whole amounts to a dazzling monument to the career of one of America's finest writers. A few pieces consider historic clashes between "those traditional opponents Science and Religion." Fascinated by people who probe the outer limits of knowledge and geography, Connell provides a blow-by-blow account of the famous debate between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce over evolution and describes the searing conflict between Galileo and the Catholic Church over heliocentrism. "White Lantern" the best essay of the bunch passionately (even enviously) details the amazing race to the South Pole between pragmatic Norwegian Roald Amundsen and romantic Englishman Captain Robert Scott, in a narrative even Jon Krakauer would admire. Connell sagely points out that "Amundsen, the victor, is not as renowned as the loser," because a dead hero (Scott died on the return trip) is more likely to captivate the public's imagination. Confessing a hopeless attraction to "buried treasure, monsters, ghosts, derelict ships, inexplicable footprints, and luminous objects streaking through the sky," Connell chronicles journeys of absolute, disastrous futility the searches for Atlantis, the Seven Cities of Gold and the Northwest Passage. These skillfully crafted essays will please any history, science or adventure buff. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 9.49 + $ 3.39 media shipping.

THE GARDENS OF THEIR DREAMS: Desertification and Culture in World History
by Brian Griffith. Condition: NEW 2001 Zed Books Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: This magnificent history of the desert relates the human consequences of its relentless expansion. As a result of the past several thousand years, the Great Desert now stretches in almost unbroken continuity from Mauritania's Atlantic seaboard through the Middle East and Central Asia to the Great Wall of China. The author seeks to understand how the great civilizations in the original "green lands" of North Africa, Ancient Egypt, the Middle East, South Asia, and China responded and changed under the pressure of invaders fleeing growing environmental degradation in the surrounding deserts. In fascinating detail, Brian Griffith's cultural history of the deserts of Africa and Asia shows how the expanding wasteland fundamentally reshaped people's images of nature, women, politics, and religion. Questions welcome. [3 copies available]
$ 7.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

HAZARDOUS HISTORY
by English Heritage. Cover art by Rowan Barnes-Murphy. Condition: NEW 2006 English Heritage (UK) small hardcover (pictorial boards - no DJ issued), first printing. Content: Life today has its problems, but it wasn't so long ago that everyday life in the home, let alone going out to public spaces, was fraught with danger. Put a foot wrong and you could be in deep trouble. Walking down a medieval street ran the risk of being doused from above in someone else's slops, or being crushed in a game of mob football in which several hundred took part. Hygiene as we know it was non-existent. The meting out of law and order leant a brutal and terrible meaning to the concept of rough justice. As late as 1819 people could be hanged in Britain for such minor transgressions as cutting down a tree in any avenue, garden or plantation, impersonating a Chelsea pensioner, or for damaging Westminster Bridge. Disease was an ever-present menace in Victorian streets, especially in overcrowded areas. Set against this backcloth, history was hazardous indeed, as this absorbing and gruesomely detailed book reveals. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 8.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

THE MEDICI GIRAFFE And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power
by Marina Belozerskaya. Beautiful wrap-around cover art by Marc Burkhardt. B&W woodcuts and photos illustrate. Condition: NEW 2006 Little Brown hardcover & DJ (in mylar jacket), first printing. Small remainder mark top edges at spine. Content: Exotic animals have always been symbols of power, and the gift of exotic animals was a common way for rulers to cement alliances. he title of this masterful and beguiling book is misleading. In Belozersakya's adept hands, exotic animals are mere jumping off points for marvelous adventures through worlds ranging from bustling, heroic Alexandria, Egypt, circa 300 B.C., to the creepy confines of William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon in the mid-20th century. While each of the seven sections revolves around exotic animals—a giraffe in Medici Florence, menageries in 16th-century Prague and Napoleonic France—it's the story that Belozersakya weaves around these beasts that draws the reader on. A common thread is the obsession caused by these fanciful beasts. Rudolf II, spent so much of his kingdom's fortune on collecting animals that there wasn't always enough money to feed his voracious lions. . "This might explain why on several occasions the Emperor had to recompense servants and subjects mauled by his felines." A meticulous researcher, the Russian-born Belozersakya, an art historian who has taught at Harvard and Tufts, uses these tales to consider how exotic animals have served as diplomatic gifts, as "symbols of power and learning," as mirrors of the cultures that prized them. This is a sumptuous read - smart, funny and utterly compelling. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 5.59 + $ 3.29 media shipping.

THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE SECRET SOCIETIES
by J. M. Roberts. Condition: NEW 2008 Watkins (UK) Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: Reviewer: "Roberts has given us a valuable insight into the "spectre that haunted European politics in the 18th and early 19th centuries." This is not an history of secret societies, real and imagined. This is an history of the mythology that grew out of a belief that everything had a cause--therefore behind everything that happened in the world, there was someone causing it. John M. Roberts clearly demonstrates that much of the direction of 19th century politics was influenced, not by secret societies, but by a belief on the part of rulers in their existence and power. A fine read, well researched and footnoted. The wisdom in leaving out detailed bibiographical citations is questionable. The lack of a full index is also awkward. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 9.00 + $ 3.19 media shipping. International shipping available.

SECRET WISDOM: Occult societies and arcane knowledge through the ages
by Ruth Clydesdale. B&W photos and art work. Condition: NEW 2009 Arcturus large soft cover, no printing given. Content: Throughut the course of our history a select few have sought to acquire profound knowledge of other worlds and different dimensions. This book is an exhilarating exploration of the ideas of initiates into this magical ealm of occult knowledge. {1 copy available.}
$ 6.89 + $ 3.39 media shipping.