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An accessible, comprehensive and beautifully illustrated guide--the only one to cover all the orchids found in Britain and Ireland Covering more than fifty species as well as hybrids and variants, this is an engaging, intuitive and in-depth identification guide to all the orchids of Britain and Ireland at all stages of development, from first emergence through to setting seed. Drawing on the authors' extensive field experience and the latest scientific research, Britain's Orchids uses multiple techniques to help both beginner and more advanced orchid enthusiasts to identify even the trickiest plants. The book is beautifully illustrated with plates by talented artist Sarah Stribbling as well ...
One of every seven flowering plants on earth is an orchid. Some are stunningly over the top; others almost inconspicuous. The Orchidaceae is the second most widely geographically distributed family, after the grasses, yet remains one of the least understood. This book will profile 600 species, representing the remarkable and unexpected diversity and complexity in the taxonomy and phylogeny of these beguiling plants, and the extraordinary means they have evolved in order to ensure the attraction of pollinators. Each species entry includes life-size photographs to capture botanical detail, as well as information on distribution, peak flowering period, and unique attributes--both natural and cultural. The result is a work which will attract and allure, much as the orchids themselves do.
Written by an established expert on Thailand, this is one of the first books to fully investigate the Thai media’s role during the Thaksin government’s first term. Incorporating political economy and media theory, the book provides a unique insight into globalization in Southeast Asia, analyzing the role of communications and media in regional cultural politics. Examining the period from the mid 1990s, Lewis makes a sustained comparison between Thailand and its neighbouring countries in relation to the media, business, politics and popular culture. Covering issues including business development, tourism, the Thai movie industry and the war on terror, the book argues that globalization as it relates to media, can be patterned on Thai experiences.
A mix of memoir, travelogue, and history, "The Shan" recounts the trials and triumphs of Shan youth, who have escaped slow genocide in Burma by fleeing to Thailand. The refugees' stories are interspersed with reminiscences from the author's own life.
Bangkok is one of Asia's most interesting, varied, controversial and challenging cities. It is a city of contradictions, both in its present and past. This unique book examines the development of the city from its earliest days as the seat of the Thai monarchy to its current position as an infamous contemporary metropolis. Adopting insights from anthropology, urban studies and human geography, this is a powerful account of the city and its dynamic spaces. Marc Askew examines the city's variety from the inner-city slums to the rural-urban fringe, and gives us a keen insight into the daily life of the city's inhabitants, be they middle-class suburbanites or sex workers.
Susan Orlean first met John Laroche when visiting Florida to write for the New Yorker about his arrest for stealing rare ghost orchids from a nature reserve. Fascinated both by Laroche and the world she uncovered of orchid collectors and growers, she stayed on, to write this magical exploration of obsession and the strange world both of the orchid obsessives and of Florida, that haunting and weird 'debatable land' of swamps and condos, retirement communities and real-estate scams. The world of the orchid hunters, breeders and showmen, their rivalries, vendettas and crimes, smuggling, thefts and worse provide the backdrop to a fascinating exploration of one of the byways of human nature, the obsessive world of the collector, and the haunting beauty of the flowers themselves.
India and the Occult explores the reception of Indian spirituality among Western occultists through case studies. Rather than focusing on the activities of Theosophical Society, India and the Occult looks at the 'hard-core' occultism, in particular the British 20th century currents associated with Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, Kenneth Grant, etc.
Burma remains the odd man out in South East Asia. It is a military dictatorship, not part of the region's still-dynamic economy, and has a troubled relationship with the outside world, including that fact that it is the second largest supplier of heroin. This exceptionally readable account of Burma gives a graphic, often moving, and always insightful picture of what life under military rule is like for ordinary Burmese. This survey takes in a wide diversity of ordinary people and communities.
The study of the prehistory of East Asia is developing very rapidly. In uncovering the story of the flows of human migration that constituted the peopling of East Asia there exists widespread debate about the nature of evidence and the tools for correlating results from different disciplines. Drawing upon the latest evidence in genetics, linguistics and archaeology, this exciting new book examines the history of the peopling of East Asia, and investigates the ways in which we can detect migration, and its different markers in these fields of inquiry. Results from different academic disciplines are compared and reinterpreted in the light of evidence from others to attempt to try and generate ...
This volume is based on papers from the second in a series of three conferences that deal with the multi-scalar processes of heritage-making, ranging from the local to the national and international levels, involving different players with different degrees of agency and interests. These players include citizens and civil society, the state, and international organizations and actors. The current volume focuses on the role of citizens and civil society in the politics of heritage-making, looking at how these players at the grass-roots level make sense of the past in the present. Who are these local players that seek to define the meaning of heritage in their everyday lives? How do they negotiate with the state, or contest the influence of the state, in determining what their heritage is? These and other questions will be taken up in various Asian contexts in this volume to foreground the local dynamics of heritage politics.