The eminent China scholar delivers a landmark study of Chinese culture's relationship to the natural environment across thousands of years of history.Spanning the three millennia for which there are written records, The Retreat of the Elephants is the first comprehensive environmental history of China. It is also a treasure trove of literary, political, aesthetic, scientific, and religious sources, which allow the reader direct access to the views and feeli...

This volume is a collection of papers originally delivered by an international group of researchers at a conference organized in April 2000 by Dr. F. J. Brüggemeier and Dr. Wolfgang Schenkluhn. The World in the Year 1000 is organized in four thematic sections covering five world regions: Europe, the Islamic world, India, China, and Mesoamerica. All contributions in this volume are original works by many of today's leading scholars. Unlike most works on pre-modern world history, wh...

"An ethical and accessible introduction to a historical period often implicated in racist narratives of nationalism and imperialism." —Sierra Lomuto, Assistant Professor of Global Medieval Literature, Rowan UniversityA collection of twenty-two essays, Whose Middle Ages? gives nonspecialists access to the richness of our historical knowledge while debunking damaging misconceptions about the medieval past. Myths about the medieval period are especially belove...

The "definitive" book on the U-2 episode and its disastrous impact on the future of the Cold War ( Kirkus Reviews).On May Day 1960, Soviet forces downed a CIA spy plane flown deep into Soviet territory by Francis Gary Powers two weeks before a crucial summit. This forced President Dwight Eisenhower to decide whether, in an effort to save the meeting, to admit to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev—and the world—that he had secretly ordered Powers's flight, or ...

A history of the world's first democracy from its beginnings in Athens circa fifth century B.C. to its downfall 200 years later.The first democracy, established in ancient Greece more than 2,500 years ago, has served as the foundation for every democratic system of government instituted down the centuries. In this lively history, author Thomas N. Mitchell tells the full and remarkable story of how a radical new political order was born out of the revolutionary move...

This "brilliant and erudite" history by the award-winning Arabist provides vital context for understanding the contemporary Middle East (Patrick Seale, author of Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East).From Algeria and Libya to Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, the Arab world commands Western headlines. Nowhere else does the unfolding of events have such significant consequences for America. And yet its complex politics and cultures elude the grasp of most W...

"Shines a floodlight on a topic that has been cloaked in obscurity . . . a landmark work in both intellectual history and political theory" ( The Wall Street Journal).Philosophical esotericism—the practice of communicating one's unorthodox thoughts "between the lines"—was a common practice until the end of the eighteenth century. Despite its long and well-documented history, however, esotericism is often dismissed today as a rare occurrence. But by ignorin...

A new edition of the "brilliantly original and highly sophisticated" study of saint worship after the fall of the Roman Empire ( Library Journal).In this groundbreaking work, Peter Brown explores how the worship of saints and their corporeal remains became central to religious life in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. During this period, earthly remnants served as a heavenly connection, and their veneration is a fascinating window into the...

"[A] wide-ranging and nuanced group portrait of the Founding Fathers" by a Pulitzer Prize winner ( The New Yorker).In the early 1770s, the men who invented America were living quiet, provincial lives in the rustic backwaters of the New World, devoted to family and the private pursuit of wealth and happiness. None set out to become "revolutionary." But when events in Boston escalated, they found themselves thrust into a crisis that moved quickly from protest...

A "gripping, colorful" history of China's Great Wall that explores the conquests and cataclysms of the empire from 1000 BC to the present day ( Publishers Weekly).Over two thousand years old, the Great Wall of China is a symbolic and physical dividing line between the civilized Chinese and the "barbarians" at their borders. Historian Julia Lovell looks behind the intimidating fortification and its mythology to uncover a complex history far more fragmented ...

"Emma Griffin gives a new and powerful voice to the men and women whose blood and sweat greased the wheels of the Industrial Revolution" (Tim Hitchcock, author of Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London).This "provocative study" looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class ( The New Yorker). The era didn't just bring ...

"Written with great accuracy, detail, enthusiasm, and insight . . . a new perspective on the well-trodden story of the Arab Revolt" ( Military History Matters on its Book of the Year, Silver Award–winner).Striking where the enemy is weakest and melting away into the darkness before he can react. Never confronting a stronger force directly, but using audacity and surprise to confound and demoralize an opponent. Operations driven by good intelligence, area kn...