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Jan 28
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Halloween
Category : Educational, History
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This is a book about Halloween. Halloween (also spelled Hallowe’en) is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31. It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Christian holy day of All Saints, but is today largely a secular celebration. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, carving jack-o’-lanterns, ghost tours, bonfires, apple bobbing, visiting haunted attractions, pranks, telling scary stories, and watching horror films.
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Now revised — the easy-to-understand guide to the story of America
Will America come to own the twenty-first century? Will its power and ideas dominate the globe? Or will the United States buckle underneath the pressure of new international challenges? This groundbreaking book looks at changing patterns of American thought and culture at the dawn of the new millennium, a time in which the world’s richest nation has never been more powerful or controversial. The volume brings together eminent North American and European thinkers to investigate the crucial issues and challenges facing the United States. From the subterranean political shifts of the electoral landscape to the latest biomedical advances, from the literary response to 9/11 to the rise of reality television, this collection explores the political, social, and cultural contours of contemporary American life.
Despite only existing for two centuries, the Aztec managed to found their civilization on an island in the Valley of Mexico, link causeways to the mainland, develop far-reaching trade agreements, and build Tenochtitlan, one of the world’s largest cities at the time of the Spanish invasion. Today, many people living in Mexico can trace their roots back to the Aztec Empire, which serves as a bridge between the modern and ancient worlds. “Empire of the Aztec” opens with a summary of the rise and fall of the empire, placing it within the context of its time period and geographical location. The second half of this new book explores the daily lives of the Aztec people, focusing on their social customs, religious practices, family and community structure, and cultural accomplishments, and includes primary sources to offer firsthand accounts. The volume concludes with the legacy of the Aztec and how it is maintained today.
Mesopotamia, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers, was the site of the world’s first stable civilizations, including Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria. As people settled permanently along the Fertile Crescent, they built irrigation systems to bring water to crops and constructed levees as protection against the flooding rivers. For the first time, humans had some control over the natural world around them, providing them with the stability and time needed to develop governments, religion, and legendary heroes such as Gilgamesh. As various city-states sprang up along the rivers, the first trade routes were laid among them. Cuneiform, the first writing system, eventually developed into various dialects and spread throughout western Asia and beyond. Although the empires of ancient Mesopotamia ended with the Persian conquest in the sixth century BCE, their importance cannot be underestimated. From a legal system to a school system, these ancient inhabitants of modern-day Iraq pioneered the groundwork that forms the basis for modern societies. “Empires of Ancient Mesopotamia” details the development of this area, the growth of its city-states, the daily life of its peoples, and how their influence is still felt today.
Long before European boats reached the shores of the Americas, sophisticated civilizations had already developed throughout the continents. The empire of the Maya, located in modern Mexico and Central America, influenced civilization there for centuries. The ancient Maya had fully developed the idea of the calendar, detailed a writing system, pioneered new ideas in agriculture, and built towering palaces and temples that still stand today. “Empire of the Ancient Maya” gives a brief summary of the history of the empire, placing it within the context of its time period and geographical location, and then explores the evolution of Maya civilization from its origin through the classic period to the Spanish conquest. Delving into daily life, the book includes Maya achievements in mathematics, astronomy, technology, political organization, commerce, architecture, and the arts.
The Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism was conceived as a jargon-free reference companion for students engaged in the history of the modern world, with special attention to the interconnectedness of these themes. Such a book cannot hope to be exhaustive, but it must at least strive to be comprehensive. The period with which it deals has today such a dense and varied historiography that it would require an author of extraordinary talent or conceit possibly both to undertake alone the composition of a reference work that both scholars and educated citizens curious about the past will fi nd reliably useful. The editor of the Encyclopedia has instead drawn on the knowledge of more than 60 senior and junior scholars to provide the reader with a selection of entries covering the Great Powers in rise and decline, the wars that attended their fortunes along with the treaties that recorded them, the statesmen and political leaders whose ambitions steered them, the great political and cultural changes that influenced them, and the places and peoples most profoundly affected by them.
