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African Textiles Today illustrates how African history is read, told, and recorded in cloth. All artifacts or works of art hold within them stories that range far beyond the time of their creation or the lifetime of their creator, and African textiles are patterned with these hidden histories. In Africa, cloth may be used to memorialize or commemorate something - an event, a person, a political cause - which in other parts of the world might be written down in detail or recorded by a plaque or monument. History in Africa can be read, told, and recorded in cloth. Making and trading numerous types of cloth have been vital elements in African life and culture for at least two millennia, linking...
Christopher Nibble loves munching dandelion leaves. And he's not alone. All the guinea pigs in Dandeville eat dandelion leaves for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But no-one seems to do anything when the dandelions begin to dwindle. They just carry on munching. In fact the guinea pigs of Dandeville are heading for eco-disaster . . . But that's where Christopher Nibble steps in. He discovers the last dandelion growing outside his bedroom window and, rather than eat it, he does his horticultural research in the library and then nurtures the dandelion patiently until it has produced a perfect head of tiny seeds. Then he blows the seeds from a hill high over Dandeville so that each dandelion seedling takes root and grows into a new plant. Charlotte Middleton has illustrated her witty, quirky story with charming collage illustrations and her guinea pigs are the most endearing, funky little characters you are ever likely to meet.
'One of the best history books you will read this decade' History Today 'Fascinating, suspenseful, revelatory, alive' The Times There can be few more exciting or frightening moments in European history than the spring of 1848. As if by magic, in city after city, from Palermo to Paris to Venice, huge crowds gathered, sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent, and the political order that had held sway since the defeat of Napoleon simply collapsed. Christopher Clark's spectacular new book recreates with verve, wit and insight this extraordinary period. Some rulers gave up at once, others fought bitterly, but everywhere new politicians, beliefs and expectations surged forward. The role of women in society, the end of slavery, the right to work, national independence and the emancipation of the Jews all became live issues. Clark conjures up both this ferment of new ideas and then the increasingly ruthless and effective series of counter-attacks launched by regimes who still turned out to have many cards to play. But even in defeat, exiles spread the ideas of 1848 around the world and - for better and sometimes much worse - a new and very different Europe emerged from the wreckage.
The pacy, sensitive and formidably argued history of the causes of the First World War, from acclaimed historian and author Christopher Clark SUNDAY TIMES and INDEPENDENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2012 The moments that it took Gavrilo Princip to step forward to the stalled car and shoot dead Franz Ferdinand and his wife were perhaps the most fateful of the modern era. An act of terrorism of staggering efficiency, it fulfilled its every aim: it would liberate Bosnia from Habsburg rule and it created a powerful new Serbia, but it also brought down four great empires, killed millions of men and destroyed a civilization. What made a seemingly prosperous and complacent Europe so vulnerable to the impact ...
Using eyewitness accounts of travelers and missionaries to Africa, the oral history of Africans, and the visual evidence of the weapons themselves, Spring builds a comprehensive cultural and ethnographic survey of traditional arms and armor from several centuries ago to the present.
Hong Kong, 2012. Dimitri Johnson learns that he is dying. Stunned by his doctor’s prognosis, he nevertheless makes his ritual annual pilgrimage to the candlelight vigil for the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre. But this year, he thinks, may be his last. So little time remains. Over on the mainland, Chinese academic Yu Guodong is arrested for protesting against an official land grab in his ancestral village. Guodong’s wife appeals to Dimitri’s family for help, but taking on the forces of the state is fraught with danger. And isn’t it simply a fool’s errand, anyway? A powerful family drama set against the backdrop of the burgeoning protest movement that led to Hong Kong’s Umbrella Revolution, Chinese Spring explores the reality of democracy and dissent in modern China. And begs the question: have things really changed for the post-Tiananmen generation?
A thought-provoking collection of contemporary short stories from the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke award 2013. Chris Beckett's thought-provoking and wide-ranging collection of contemporary short stories is a joy to read, rich in detail and texture. From stories about first love, to a man who discovers a labyrinth beneath his house, to an angel left alone at the end of the universe, Beckett displays both incredible range and extraordinary subtlety as a writer. Every story is a world unto itself - each one beautifully realized and brilliantly imagined.
This book opens with the question, What is African art? The answer is a brilliantly colorful and detailed look at the myriad materials and genres, forms and meanings, cultural contexts and expressions that comprise artistic traditions across this vast and varied continent. Viewing artworks in their contexts--ancient and modern, urban and rural, western and eastern, decorative and functional--the book is nothing less than a virtual tour of African culture. Masks, textiles, royal art, sculpture, ceramics, tools and weapons--in each instance, the book features examples that reveal the most significant aspects of workmanship, materials, and design in objects of wood, stone, ivory, clay, metalwor...