Showing results for "Stasiland"

“Stasiland demonstrates that great, original reporting is still possible. . . . A heartbreaking, beautifully written book. A classic.” — Claire Tomalin, Guardian “Books of the Year”Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction: a powerfully moving account of people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship of East Germany, and of people who worked for its secret police, the Stasi.Anna Funder delivers a prize-...

East Germany may have been—until now—the most perfected surveillance state of all time. In Stasiland Anna Funder tells extraordinary stories of ordinary people who heroically resisted the communist dictatorship, and of those who worked for its vicious secret police, the Stasi.She meets Miriam, who as a sixteen-year-old was accused of trying to start World War III. She visits the regime’s cartographer, a man obsessed to this day with the Berlin Wall, then gets drunk with th...

Bella Duffy's *Madame de Staël* presents a concise yet intellectually ambitious study of Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, tracing the formation of her mind, her literary career, and her interventions in the political crises of revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe. Duffy attends to Staël's novels, critical writings, and political reflections, showing how works such as *Delphine* and *Corinne* unite personal feeling with arguments about liberty, gender, national character, and artistic...

In "Serpent-Worship, and Other Essays, with a Chapter on Totemism," C. Staniland Wake offers a profound exploration of ancient religious practices centered around serpent veneration, epitomizing the intricate interplay between mythology and ethnology. The essays adopt a multi-disciplinary literary style, combining vivid descriptions with analytical rigor that situates these beliefs within a broader cultural and historical framework. Wake skillfully balances scholarly critique with accessib...

In "Serpent-Worship, and Other Essays, with a Chapter on Totemism," C. Staniland Wake delves into the intricate tapestry of animal symbolism in human belief systems, focusing particularly on the pervasive motif of serpents across cultures. The essays present a compelling analysis of how serpent worship intersects with religious practices and totemic beliefs, utilizing a comparative approach that embraces folklore, anthropology, and psychology. Wake's prose, rich in scholarly insight yet ac...

What if the Garden of Eden and Atlantis was one and the same? For centuries, humanity has searched for the origins of existence, weaving together threads of science, history, religion, and myth. From the mistranslations of ancient texts to the buried truths revealed by archaeology, the puzzle of our past remains unsolved - yet tantalizing clues lie hidden in plain sight. This groundbreaking book challenges conventional timelines and reexamines myths long dismissed as fantasy. Drawing on as...

An electrifying debut crime thriller. "A page-turner for sure and darn hard to put down . . . Readers of mysteries will not be disappointed."—Donald J. Porter, author of Flight FailurePilot Jake Silver is haunted by a cruel irony—he secretly suspects that he's the reason Swede Bergstrom, the hero who saved his life, has fallen on hard times. Upon learning that Swede has been killed during the commission of a crime, the guilt-driven Jake too-willingly agrees...

In the beginning, when the beautiful and sunny world was first made, there stood, in the very midst of all its beauty, Mt. Ida—a mountain so high, so far away up among the snowy clouds, that its summit was lost in the shining light of the rays of the sun. At its base, stretching away to the north, the south, the east, and the west, as far as even the eyes of the gods could reach, lay the soft, green valleys and the great, broad plain beyond. Encircling the whole great plain, and curling lo...

Here is a storybook for everyone—with lions and kings, rogues and saints, a boy who can stop an elephant, and a milkmaid who can walk on water! Filled with wisdom, adventure, and surprises, these timeless tales remind us of what is important in our daily lives.At once entertaining and instructive, these simple, practical stories have been related by Sri Swami Satchidananda. Sri Swamiji is well-known and well-loved for his deep spiritual insight, as well as his sense of humor. Some ...

The subject treated of in the following pages has during the last few years attracted much attention, thanks to the influence of Prof. C. Piazzi Smyth's important work, "Life and Work at the Great Pyramid." It was to test, by the light of history, the conclusion accepted by that writer as to the inspired origin of the Great Pyramid that I entered upon a consideration of the subject. That such an origin was required by the facts, I did not suppose, but the conviction was forced on me that t...

Sæmund, son of Sigfus, the reputed collector of the poems bearing his name, which is sometimes also called the Elder, and the Poetic, Edda, was of a highly distinguished family, being descended in a direct line from King Harald Hildetonn. He was born at Oddi, his paternal dwelling in the south of Iceland, between the years 1054 and 1057, or about 50 years after the establishment by law of the Christian religion in that island; hence it is easy to imagine that many heathens, or baptized fav...

A "thoroughly researched, stranger-than-fiction" history of the world's tiniest rebel nation, filled with intrigue, armed battles, and radio pirates (Robert Jobson, author of Prince Philip's Century).In 1967, a retired army major and self-made millionaire named Paddy Roy Bates cemented his family's place in history when he inaugurated himself ruler of the Principality of Sealand, a tiny dominion of the high seas. And so began the peculiar story of the worl...