![]() Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all the history of human interaction across a region that has brought together many of the great civilizations of antiquity as well as the rival empires of medieval and modern times. David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires and the remarkable cast of characters - sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims - who have crossed and recrossed it. ![]() ![]() Situated at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millenia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced, and absorbed one another. ![]()
0 Comments
![]() ![]() To the Indians it seemed that these Europeans hated everything in nature - the living forests and their birds and beasts, the grassy glades, the water, the soil, and the air itself. ![]() Already the once sweet-watered streams, most of which bore Indian names, were clouded with silt and the wastes of man the very earth was being ravaged and squandered. (Only Uncas was remembered.) Their musical names remained forever fixed on the American land, but their bones were forgotten in a thousand burned villages or lost in forests fast disappearing before the axes of twenty million invaders. Machapungas, Catawbas, Cheraws, Miamis, Hurons, Eries, Mohawks, Senecas, and Mohegans. (Only Pocahontas was remembered.) Scattered or reduced to remnants were the Pequots, Montauks, Nanticokes. On the mainland of America, the Wampanoags of Massasoit and King Philip had vanished, along with the Chesapeakes, the Chickahominys, and the Potomacs of the great Powhatan confederacy. ![]() ![]() ![]() Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian are leaving behind their childhood home and taking a house in the leafy heart of avant-garde Bloomsbury. London, 1905: The city is alight with change, and the Stephen siblings are at the forefront. Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as “an uncanny success” and based on meticulous research, this stunning novel illuminates a little-known episode in the celebrated sisters’ glittering bohemian youth among the legendary Bloomsbury Group.įind your next book club pick, read special features, and more. What if Virginia Woolf’s sister had kept a diary? For fans of The Paris Wife and Loving Frank comes a spellbinding new story of the inseparable bond between Virginia and her sister, the gifted painter Vanessa Bell, and the real-life betrayal that threatened to destroy their family. “Quite simply astonishing.”-Sarah Blake.“Prepare to be dazzled.”-Paula McLain. ![]() An Entertainment Weekly “Must List” Pick. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Russell contends that we can avert the worst threats by reshaping the foundations of AI to guarantee that machines pursue our objectives, not theirs. In brilliant and lucid prose, he explains how AI actually works and its enormous capacity to improve our lives - and why we must never lose control of machines more powerful than we are. In this groundbreaking book, Stuart Russell sets out why he has come to consider his own discipline an existential threat to humanity, and how we can change course before its too late. Unfortunately, according to the worlds pre-eminent AI expert, it could also be the last. But what happens if we actually succeed?Ĭreating superior intelligence would be the biggest event in human history. Humans dream of super-intelligent machines. The most important book I have read in quite some time Daniel Kahneman A must-read Max Tegmark The book weve all been waiting for Sam Harris ![]() ![]() The choices we make about what to say and who to say it to are decisive factors in whether we get promoted, or side-lined. Our day-to-day conversations define how we see ourselves and how were seen. Speak Up helps you to navigate power differences so you can speak up with confidence and enable others to find their voice in a way that will be heard. What you say or dont say in a conversation can have life-defining consequences on ourselves and those around us. Amy Edmondson, Professor, Harvard Business School, Author, The Fearless Organization (Wiley, 2019) Their TRUTH framework which is as practical as it is rigorous identifies essential elements to help individuals find their voice. Speak Up helps us understand the subtle elements that contribute to our holding back valuable ideas and observations. ![]() ![]() ![]() Based on the true story of the Mexican-American author and educator Tomás Rivera, a child of migrant workers who went on to become the first minority Chancellor in the University of California system, this inspirational story suggests what libraries-and education-can make possible. The very next day, Tomás meets the library lady and a whole new world opens up for him. "There are more stories in the library," Papa Grande tells him. But before long, Tomás knows all the stories by heart. At night they gather around to hear Grandfather's wonderful stories. Every summer he and his family follow the crops north from Texas to Iowa, spending long, arduous days in the fields. Knopf Books for Young Readers, illustrated by Raúl Colónĭownload a hi-res jpeg of the book jacket. ![]() ![]() Members of the Rivera Family, the cast and director, and the Center Coordinator Rebekah Manley are in this happy photo. Thanks to the Texas State Library and Archives and the Center for the Book of Texas, Pat enjoyed a wonderful production of the play based on Tomás and the Library Lady at the ZACH Theatre in Austin in February 2016. ![]() ![]() ![]() She hates that she needs a man’s help to do it-so she’s delighted to discover the clever, charming baron at her side is in fact a woman. All Philippa desires is to decode a centuries-old manuscript to keep a modern-day villain from claiming credit for work that wasn’t his. Her heart didn’t pitter-patter when she was betrothed to a duke, nor did it break when he married someone else. īluestocking Miss Philippa York doesn’t believe in love. ![]() But when Tommy’s beautiful new client turns out to be the highborn lady she’s secretly smitten with, more than her mission is at stake. She’ll do whatever it takes to solve the cases her family takes on. ISBN-13: 978-1538719541 | $8.99 USD | 346 pages | Regency Romanceįans of Bridgerton will love this “delightful” Regency romp (Julia Quinn, New York Times bestselling author) in which a proper Society miss recruits a very improper lady investigator in a quest for vengeance, only to find love instead.Īs a master of disguise, Thomasina Wynchester can be a polite young lady-or a bawdy old man. ![]() ![]() ![]() She also encounters the possibility of new love with Elam, whose gentle encouragement awakens hopes and dreams she thought she'd lost forever. Sifting through fields of berries and memories of a marriage that was broken long before her husband died, Ruth finds solace in the beauty of the land and healing through hard work and budding friendship. Ruth and her family are welcomed by Elam, her husband's cousin, who invites them to stay at his cranberry farm through the harvest. ![]() She hopes the Mennonite community will be a quiet place to grieve and piece together next steps. ![]() When Ruth Neufeld's husband and father-in-law are killed working for a relief organization overseas, she travels to Wisconsin with her young daughters and mother-in-law Mabel to bury her husband. From the highly acclaimed author of The Outcast and The Alliance comes an engrossing novel about marriage and motherhood, loss and moving on. ![]() ![]() Then, he finds out that she's not the free-spirited gypsy he believed her to be. Lochlan and Catarina aren't exactly friends, but he helps her escape - after all, she's saved his brother Ewan's life and he feels obliged to help her in return. During his journey, he comes upon Catarina, his sister-in-law Nora's cousin, while she's trying to escape from her "kidnappers". ![]() ![]() ![]() Laird Lochlan MacAllister is in France on a quest to find his missing brother Kieran, who may or may not be alive after all these years when everyone thought he had killed himself. I know I've complained about this trait of hers before, but I do find it irritating so I'll keep going at it until she stops doing it, LOL. They appear left and right and we're supposed to know who they are, just like that. MacGregor has the very annoying habit of bringing characters from the previous books without so much as an introduction. The Warrior is the latest installment in the MacAllister and Brotherhood of the Sword series and, although it can be read as a standalone, I don't recommend it because Ms. up until the very end, when things got very, very strange. Everything went well and I quite enjoyed this read. I'd been dying to read Lochlan MacAllister's story since Taming the Scotsman, so I was "predisposed" to like The Warrior even though I'd been a bit disappointed with the previous 2 books in this series. ![]() ![]() ![]() Though he fought passionately for the French Resistance against the Germans, Camus lived amidst widespread fear that the senseless horrors of World War I would be repeated. By the time he wrote The Stranger in the early 1940s, World War II had begun and the Nazi regime occupied France, where Camus had recently moved from Algeria. ![]() Born during World War I, Camus lost his father to the fighting and grew up to be an integral member of the Lost Generation. In the wake of the war rose the Lost Generation, a group of artists who addressed the collapse of traditional structures of meaning-both secular and religious-and conveyed their sense of life’s meaninglessness. Fought between 19, World War I introduced the world to unprecedented violence and gave rise to a new sense of disaffection and doubt, producing art very different than the art of the past. ![]() |