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The pharaoh's treasure : the origin of paper and the rise of Western civilization /
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For our entire history, humans have always searched for new ways to share information. This innate compulsion led to the origin of writing on the rock walls of caves and coffin lids or carving on tablets. But it was with the advent of papyrus paper when the ability to record and transmit information exploded, allowing for an exchanging of ideas from the banks of the Nile throughout the Mediterranean--and the civilized world--for the first time in human history. In The Pharaoh's Treasure, John Gaudet looks at this pivotal transition to papyrus paper, which would become the most commonly used information medium in the world for more than 4,000 years. Far from fragile, papyrus paper is an especially durable writing surface; papyrus books and documents in ancient and medieval times had a usable life of hundreds of years, and this durability has allowed items like the famous Nag Hammadi codices from the third and fourth century to survive. The story of this material that was prized by both scholars and kings reveals how papyrus paper is more than a relic of our ancient past, but a key to understanding how ideas and information shaped humanity in the ancient and early modern world.
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xxi, 356 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 24 cm :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
168177853X
9781681778532
Yet another Europe after 1984 : rethinking Milan Kundera and the idea of Central Europe /
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Much of the debates in this book revolves around Milan Kundera and his 1984 essay "The Tragedy of Central Europe." Kundera wrote his polemical text when the world was pregnant with imminent social and political change, yet that world was still far from realizing that we would enter the last decade of the twentieth century with the Soviet empire and its network of satellite states missing from the political mappages Kundera was challenged by Joseph Brodsky and György Konrád for allegedly excluding Russia from the symbolic space of Europe, something the great author deeply believes he never did. To what extent was Kundera right in assuming that, if to exist means to be present in the eyes of those we love, then Central Europe does not exist anymore, just as Western Europe as we knew it has stopped existing? What were the mental, cultural, and intellectual realities that lay beneath or behind his beautiful and graceful metaphors? Are we justified in rehabilitating political optimism at the beginning of the twenty-first century? Are we able to reconcile the divided memories of Eastern or Central Europe and Western Europe regarding what happened to the world in 1968? And where is Central Europe now?
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International conference proceedings. :
1 online resource (x, 223 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789401208178 :
0929-8436 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Between Worlds : Forging an African Mission Church in Southern Africa /
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Between Worlds expands beyond the focus of the previous volume-the British colony of Natal-to the more challenging framework of the American Zulu Mission and its Congregational churches in southeastern Africa between the 1880s and 1920s. This study rejects arguments by many critical scholars, who see Western missionaries at best as adjuncts of the colonial project, imposing an understanding of Western Christianity that inevitably clashes with alien and resistant African cultures. The mission-church relationship in this era also changes dramatically especially in urban environments. The church in South Africa becomes the dominant partner from the 1880s and by 1900 the mission has become an adjunct of the church-an understanding with far-reaching consequences elsewhere in the subcontinent.
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1 online resource (292 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004733701
A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221 BC - AD 24) /
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This is a unique and conclusive reference work about the 6,000 individual men and women known to us from China's formative first empires. Over decennia Michael Loewe (Cambridge, UK) has painstakingly collected all biographical information available. Not only those are dealt with who set the literary forms and intellectual background of traditional China, such as writers, scholars, historians and philosophers, but also those officials who administered the empire, and the military leaders who fought in civil warfare or with China's neighbours. The work draws on primary historical sources as interpreted by Chinese, Japanese and Western scholars and as supplemented by archaeological finds and inscriptions. By devoting extensive entries to each of the emperors the author provides the reader with the necessary historical context and gives insight into the dynastic disputes and their far-reaching consequences. No comparable work exists for this important period of Chinese history. Without exaggeration a real must for historians of both China and other cultures. See Less
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1 online resource (864 pages) : illustrations. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004490253