Ancient

All About Mom From Mark Twain to Maya Angelou--Insights ...

Nothing else in life compares to the one-of-a-kind bond mothers have with their children. Filled with more than 400 heartfelt reflections from such luminaries as Sylvia Plath, Booker T. Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Thomas Edison, Mark Twain, Jamaica Kincaid, Anne Tyler, and Amy Tan, All About Mom is a wise, witty, touching, and always honest look at what it really means to be mom.
Price: $5.98

The War of the Worlds.

Title: The War of the Worlds.

Publisher: British Library, Historical Print Editions

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It is one of the world's largest research libraries holding over 150 million items in all known languages and formats: books, journals, newspapers, sound recordings, patents, maps, stamps, prints and much more. Its collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial additional collections of manuscripts and historical items dating back as far as 300 BC.

The HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT WORLD collection includes books from the British Library digitised by Microsoft. Titles in this series include lectures, compiled sketches, and chronological discourses on Greece, Rome, and other early European and African civilisations. The collection also has a selection of physical and classical geography texts.

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The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:
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British Library
Wells, H. G.;
1898.
viii. 303 p. ; 8º.
012623.f.35.
Price: $18.55

THE MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME non ...

The Greeks believed that the mental qualifications of their gods were of a much higher order than those of men, but nevertheless, as we shall see, they were not considered to be exempt from human passions, and we frequently behold them actuated by revenge, deceit, and jealousy. They, however, always punish the evil-doer, and visit with dire calamities any impious mortal who dares to neglect their worship or despise their rites. We often hear of them visiting mankind and partaking of their hospitality, and not unfrequently both gods and goddesses become attached to mortals, with whom they unite themselves, the offspring of these unions being called heroes or demi-gods, who were usually renowned for their great strength and courage. But although there were so many points of resemblance between gods and men, there remained the one great characteristic distinction, viz., that the gods enjoyed immortality. Still, they were not invulnerable, and we often hear of them being wounded, and suffering in consequence such exquisite torture that they have earnestly prayed to be deprived of their privilege of immortality. (non illustrated)
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Hetaera--Suspense in Ancient Athens Agathon's Daughter

Hetaera--suspense in ancient Athens, is Book One of the Agathon's Daughter Trilogy.

Born a bastard and a slave, Hestia has a gift: the power to read people's hearts. And yet, the secrets of her own heart remain a mystery. Hestia's keen intellect makes her a match for any man. But even a literate slave has little control over destiny. Sold to a prominent statesman with sadistic tendencies, Hestia becomes his hetaera (consort). As her wealth and fame increase so does her despair. She dreams of freedom, but she faces enemies at every turn. When Hestia is accused of murder, the mystery of her past unravels and fate takes another turn.


Hetaera: Agathon's Daughter was awarded third place in the Maui Writers Rupert Hughes writing competition.


Due to the subject matter, there are some sexual scenes--suggestive rather than explicit.
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The Emperor of All Maladies A Biography of Cancer

A magnificent, beautifully written epic "biography" of cancer---in the tradition of Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon, this is a brilliant exploration of the past, present, and future of a complex disease that defines us and our time.
Price: $28.00

The Better Angels of Our Nature Why Violence Has Declined

We’ve all asked, “What is the world coming to?” But we seldom ask, “How bad was the world in the past?” In this startling new book, the bestselling cognitive scientist Steven Pinker shows that the world of the past was much worse. In fact, we may be living in the most peaceable era yet. Evidence of a bloody history has always been around us: the genocides in the Old Testament and crucifixions in the New; the gory mutilations in Shakespeare and Grimm; the British monarchs who beheaded their relatives and the American founders who dueled with their rivals. Now the decline in these brutal practices can be quantified. Tribal warfare was nine times as deadly as war and genocide in the 20th century. The murder rate in medieval Europe was more than thirty times what it is today. Slavery, sadistic punishments, and frivolous executions were unexceptionable features of life for millennia, then were suddenly abolished. Wars between developed countries have vanished, and even in the developing world, wars kill a fraction of the numbers they did a few decades ago. Rape, hate crimes, deadly riots, child abuse — all substantially down. How could this have happened, if human nature has not changed? Pinker argues that the key to explaining the decline of violence is to understand the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away. Thanks to the spread of government, literacy, trade, and cosmopolitanism, we increasingly control our impulses, empathize with others, debunk toxic ideologies, and deploy our powers of reason to reduce the temptations of violence. Pinker will force you to rethink your deepest beliefs about progress, modernity, and human nature. This gripping book is sure to be among the most debated of the century so far.
Price: $21.63

Guns Germs and Steel The Fates of Human Societies

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.

Some images are not available in the Kindle edition due to rights issues.
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The Book of the Dead

Including the Hieroglyphic Transcript and English Translation of the Papyrus of Ani
Fascinating compendium of ancient Egyptian mythology, religious beliefs and magical practices. Includes spells, incantations, hymns, magical formulas and prayers. All explained by one of the most knowledgeable and respected Egyptologists of the early 20th century. B&W illustrations, photographs and hieroglyphics throughout. 704 pages.
Price: $7.50

Legends of the Gods The Egyptian Texts Edited with ...

Contains nine of the most important religious and mythological stories from ancient Egypt. These stories have been told throughout the years, but have rarely been found in their exact translations, all together in one volume. In most cases, the original Egyptian hieroglyphs appear on each facing page of text, making this a great study tool for those interested in ancient Egyptian writing. With practice, one may come away with the ability to read Egyptian hieroglyphs. These essential works include The Legend of the Creation; The Legend of the Destruction of Mankind; The Legend of Ra and the Snake-Bite; The Legend of Horus of Edfu and the Winged Disc; The Legend of the Origin of Horus; A Legend of Khensu Nefer-Hetep and the Princess of Bekhten; The Legend of Khnemu and a Seven Years' Famine; The Legend of the Death and Resurrection of Horus; and The Legend of Isis and Osiris According to Classical Writers. Essential texts for those researching ancient Egyptian history and mythology.
Price: $17.81

Cleopatra and Antony Power Love and Politics in the ...

On a stiflingly hot day in August, 30 B.C., the thirty-nine-year-old Queen of Egypt, Cleopatra, took her own life, rather than be paraded in chains through Rome by her conqueror, Octavian, the future emperor Augustus. A few days earlier, her lover of eleven years, Mark Antony, had died in her arms following his own botched suicide attempt. Oceans of mythology have grown up around them, all of which Diana Preston puts to rest in her stirring history of the lives and times of a couple whose names—more than two millennia later—still invoke passion, curiosity, and intrigue.

This book sets the romance and tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra's personal lives within the context of their political times. There are many contemporary resonances: the relationship between East and West and the nature of empire, the concealment of personal ambition beneath the watchword of liberty, documents forged, edited or disposed of, special relationships established, constitutional forms and legal niceties invoked when it suited. Indeed their lives and deaths had deep political ramifications, and they offer a revealing perspective on a tipping point in Roman politics and on the consolidation of the Roman Empire. Three hundred years would pass before the east would, with the rise of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, once again take a share of political power in the Mediterranean. In an intriguing postscript, Preston speculates on what might have happened had Antony and Cleopatra defeated Octavian at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C.
Price: $3.12