Among the magnificent gems and jewels left behind by the great Islamic empires, emeralds stand out for their size and prominence. For the Mughals, Ottomans, and Safavids green was—as it remains for all Muslims—the color of Paradise, reserved for the Prophet Muhammad and his descendants. Tapping a wide range of sources, Kris Lane traces the complex web of global trading networks that funneled emeralds from backland South America to populous Asian capitals between the sixteenth and the eight...

This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of the ancient world find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consu...

In 1719, a deadly and highly contagious disease took hold of the Imperial Villa of Potosí, a silver mining metropolis in what is now Bolivia. Within a year, the pathogen had killed some 22,000 people, just over a third of the city’s residents. Victims collapsed with fever, body aches, and effusions of blood from the nose and mouth. Most died within days. The great Andean pandemic of 1717–22 was likely the most destructive disease to strike South America since the days of the Spanish conque...

"For anyone who wants to learn about the rise and decline of Potosí as a city . . . Lane's book is the ideal place to begin."—New York Review of BooksIn 1545, a native Andean prospector hit pay dirt on a desolate red mountain in highland Bolivia. There followed the world’s greatest silver bonanza, making the Cerro Rico, or “Rich Hill,” and the Imperial Villa of Potosí instant legends, famous from Istanbul to Beijing. The Cerro Rico alone provided over half...

Few milestones in human history are as momentous as the meeting of three great civilizations on American soil in the sixteenth century. The fully revised textbook Latin America in Colonial Times presents that story in an engaging but informative new package, revealing how a new civilization and region - Latin America - emerged from that encounter. The authors give equal attention to the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors and settlers, to the African slaves they brought across the Atlantic, ...

En el primer libro de la colección se compilan una serie de artículos que abordan, desde distintas perspectivas, algunos de los enigmas que aquella geografía especulativa planteó a los expedicionarios, que buscaron resolverlos con sus sorprendentes viajes, en los que se conjugaban los intereses, ambiciones, ilusiones, imaginarios, mentiras y conocimientos que con tanto cuidado luego fueron registrados en los maravillosos mapas producidos a partir del siglo XVI.Cada artículo del lib...

Between 1500 and 1750, European expansion and global interaction produced vast wealth. As goods traveled by ship along new global trade routes, piracy also flourished on the world’s seas. Pillaging the Empire tells the fascinating story of maritime predation in this period, including the perspectives of both pirates and their victims. Brushing aside the romantic legends of piracy, Kris Lane pays careful attention to the varied circumstances and motives that led to the rise of this...

This text demonstrates that there is a politics model that unifies the discipline and structures its relationship to the other social sciences. It shows how this model underlies important works of applied research in all the main political science subfields.

Brought to you by Penguin.A revelatory historical indictment of the long after-life of slavery in the Atlantic worldTo understand why the shadow of slavery still haunts our society today, we must look at the unfinished way it ended. We celebrate the abolition of slavery - in Haiti after the revolution, in the British Empire in 1833, in the United States during the Civil War. Yet in Black Ghost of Empire, acclaimed historian Kris Ma...

Practical Keys to Transforming the World around YouIn a world where evil dominates the headlines, we are often left wondering, Will good really triumph over evil? Or are we hurtling toward oblivion?It's here, during this very hour--when political chaos seems to reign and the media persecutes anyone who disagrees with them--that God is searching for men and women who long for an infusion of boldness that possesses their souls, who will take a stand ...

Starring a tough-as-nails female investigator, and set in Sacramento over just 48 hours, this “suspenseful, complex, and engaging” action thriller keeps the twists and turns coming (Meg Gardiner, Edgar Award–winning author).Emma Lawson must race against the clock to rescue a kidnapped child—and stop a killer whose master plan only begins with murder.The body shot and killed in the early morning hours by the Sacramento River would have been ...