From the frontiers of Iran to the heart of India, architects, landscape gardeners, calligraphers, miniaturists & weavers have made their mark on the Islamic tradition. Turquoise marble cupolas; arches adorned with flowers & arabesques; motionless basins reflecting the slender minarets in the form of glittering stalactites; scintillating enamels of floral bouquets
- all of these components are an integral part of the luxury, refinement & spirituality that can be defined as ` Persian style`. Islamic Art & Architecture explores & celebrates the cities of Islam, from Tabriz & Yazd to Kerman to Khiva, from Lahore to Fatehpur Sikri & Sikandra. Henri Stierlin offers a key to an intimate understanding of this immense heritage in a thorough text closely allied to crisp, full-colour illustrations.
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The religious thinkers, political leaders, law-makers, writers & philosophers of the early Muslim world helped to shape the 1, 400-year-long development of today`s second-largest world religion. But who were these people? What do we know of their lives, & the ways in which they influenced their societies? Chase F. Robinson draws on the long tradition in Muslim scholarship of commemorating in writing the biographies of notable figures, but weaves these ambitious lives together to create a rich narrative of early Islamic civilization, from the Prophet Muhammad to fearsome Tamerlane. Beginning in Islam`s heartl&, Mecca, we move across Arabia to follow Islam`s journey across North Africa, as far as Spain in the West, & eastwards through Central & East Asia; we see the rise & fall of Islamic states through the political & military leaders working to secure peace or expand their power, &, within this political climate, the development of Islamic law, scientific thought & literature through the words of the scholars who devoted themselves to these pursuits. Alongside the famous characters who coloured this landscape, including Muhammad`s controversial cousin, ` Ali; the first Sultan of Egypt, Saladin; & the poet Rumi, the reader will also meet less well-known figures, such as Shajar al-Durr, slave-turned-Sultana of Egypt, & Ibn Fadlan, whose travels in Eurasia brought first-hand accounts of the Volka Vikings to the Abbasid Caliph. ...

The religious thinkers, political leaders, law-makers, writers & philosophers of the early Muslim world helped to shape the 1, 400-year-long development of today`s secondlargest world religion. But who were these people? What do we know of their lives, & the ways in which they influenced their societies? Chase F. Robinson draws on the long tradition in Muslim scholarship of commemorating in writing the biographies of notable figures, but weaves these ambitious lives together to create a rich narrative of early Islamic civilization, from the Prophet Muhammad to fearsome Tamerlane. Beginning in Islam`s heartl&, Mecca, we move across Arabia to follow Islam`s journey across North Africa, as far as Spain in the West, & eastwards through Central & East Asia; we see the rise & fall of Islamic states through the political & military leaders working to secure peace or expand their power, &, within this political climate, the development of Islamic law, scientific thought & literature through the words of the scholars who devoted themselves to these pursuits. Alongside the famous characters who coloured this landscape, including Muhammad`s controversial cousin, ` Ali; the first Sultan of Egypt, Saladin; & the poet Rumi, the reader will also meet less wellknown figures, such as Shajar al-Durr, slave-turned-Sultana of Egypt, & Ibn Fadlan, whose travels in Eurasia brought first-hand accounts of the Volka Vikings to the Abbasid Caliph. ...

Islamic geometric designs are admired worldwide for their beauty & marvellous intricacy, yet in truth they are seldom understood. Indeed, their complexity & artistry can seem almost beyond the powers of human ingenuity. In this handsomely illustrated volume, artist & teacher Eric Broug analyses & explains these complex designs in their historical & physical context. His own original drawings accompany magnificent photographs of mosques, madrasas, palaces & tombs from the Islamic world, ranging from North Africa to Iran & Uzbekistan, & from the 8th to the 19th centuries. Chapters are devoted to each of the main families of geometric design fourfold, fivefold & sixfold & to the complex combined patterns. Every design is carefully explained, & illustrated with a wealth of stunning photographs & clear, meticulously detailed drawings. Readers can follow the design processes by which these patterns were created & even learn to reproduce & invent geometric patterns for themselves, using exactly the same tools as the Islamic craftsmen of old: a ruler & a pair of compasses. ...

From the first Arab-Islamic Empire of the mid-seventh century to the Ottomans, the last great Muslim empire, the story of the Middle East has been the story of the rise & fall of universal empires &, no less important, of imperialist dreams. So argues Efraim Karsh in this highly provocative book. Rejecting the conventional Western interpretation of Middle Eastern history as an offshoot of global power politics, Karsh contends that the region's experience is the culmination of long-existing indigenous trends, passions, & patterns of behaviour, & that foremost among these is Islam's millenarian imperial tradition. The author explores the history of Islam's imperialism & the persistence of the Ottoman imperialist dream that outlasted World War I to haunt Islamic & Middle Eastern politics to the present day. September 11 can be seen as simply the latest expression of this dream, & such attacks have little to do with U.S. international behaviour or policy in the Middle East, says Karsh. The House of Islam's war for world mastery is traditional, indeed venerable, & it is a quest that is far from over. ...

Shipwreck! A father, daughter & their dog wash up on a small isl&. Little do the castaways know that the island isn`t what it seems at all. The island shows the family the wonders of life at sea. Colourful fish dart in the waves & birds swoop in the sky. Island life is full of the unexpecte d. The i sland protects the family against all kinds of dangers, from tropical storms to arctic snow. Menacing animals lurk underwater, too. The island has its own secret, too. Eventually, the family is rescued. & there`s a heart
- warming surprise when the little girl says farewell to the large kind turtle
- the real island
- whose shell has provided the family with their happy island home. Island is a wordless picture book. Children are encouraged to study the wonderful illustrations & tell the story in their own words. Mark Janssen `s painterly illustrations come alive on the page. S un hi ts the water & sparkles. S plashes of paint become shoals of fish. This is a charming picture book full of imagination.


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South Georgia is remote, inhospitable, beautiful & the burial place of Antarctica's hero, Shackleton, inspiration for Stephen Venables' odyssey. Over December 1989 & January 1990 he & four friends were able to travel south with Endurance, the Antarctic survey & supply vessel reprieved from the scrapyard by its Falklands war service. Ostensibly it was a climbing expedition, but in South Georgia they discovered a world of primeval wonder in which the elements dictated the puny activities of mere men. As an exploratary base they excavated themselves a large ice cave in a wind scoop recommended by explorer Duncan Carse. From here they snatched breaks in the blizzard to make ski forays to unclimbed peaks, & explored the coastlines with their colonies of elephant seals & penguins, their bleak memorials to a past whaling industry & even starker graffiti of the Falklands War. Stephen Venables has woven the whole story of exploration & exploitation, of a fragile ecological chain set in a precarious political scenario, into an account of a small team battling against the world's worst weather across the most magnificent terrain at the edge of Antarctica. The author is one of Britain's leading climbers with a new route on Everest to his credit. He is also the Boardman Tasker prize-winning author of Painted Mountains & Everest, Kangshung Face. ...

Famed for its breathtaking isolation, Easter Island was a verdant South-Sea idyll when a small canoeful of Polynesians arrived in c. AD 700. Centuries later the island`s statues were famous throughout the world. This book presents a comprehensive history of Easter Island told by a writer who is intimately familiar with the isl&, its people & their extraordinary story. When voyaging in the South Pacific became far less widespread around 1500, Easter Islanders became stranded on their desert-like isle, & were forced to adapt to survive. The first European visitors, in 1722, encountered a people thriving in total isolation, surrounded by huge architectural platforms of fitted stones topped by hundreds of monolithic busts. Subsequent intruders brought trade, disease, violence, & the Easter Islanders adapted to this change, too, through cultural re-invention: new leaders, new rituals, new gods. Steven Roger Fischer relates the compelling history of this unique region: how wars, smallpox & the Great Death decimated the isl&, how Catholic missionaries arrived in 1866 to relieve the suffering of the dying people, & how a despotic Frenchman claimed the island for himself, but who was then killed by the remaining islanders a population of only 111. The author also examines the modern history of the isl&, its colonization & annexation by Chile, & its peaceful but insistent civil rights movement in 1964-65. Today, the population has increased, as has tourism of the island from 2, 000 visitors in 1991 to 20, 000 in 2001 & continues to be managed by the indigenous Rapanui people. Foreign interest in Easter Island has never been so keen, & this book is a much-needed history of this little-known but remarkable isl&. ...

From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, Isabel Allende`s latest novel tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave & concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible. Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue
- now known as Haiti -Tete is the product of violent union between an African mother she never knew & one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it`s with powdered wigs in his trunks & dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father`s plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Against the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of Tete & Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When bloody revolution arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the island for the decadence & opportunity of New Orleans. There, Tete finally forges a new life
- but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows & not so easily severed. Spanning four decades, ` Island Beneath the Sea` is the moving story of one woman`s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, & to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.

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Island biogeography is the study of the distribution & dynamics of species in island environments. Due to their isolation from more widespread continental species, islands are ideal places for unique species to evolve, but they are also places of concentrated extinction. Not surprisingly, they are widely studied by ecologists, conservationists & evolutionary biologists alike. There is no other recent textbook devoted solely to island biogeography, & a synthesis of the many recent advances is now overdue. This second edition builds on the success & reputation of the first, documenting the recent advances in this exciting field & explaining how islands have been used as natural laboratories in developing & testing ecological & evolutionary theories. In addition, the book describes the main processes of island formation, development & eventual demise, & explains the relevance of island environmental history to island biogeography. The authors demonstrate the huge significance of islands as hotspots of biodiversity, & as places from which disproportionate numbers of species have been extinguished by human action in historical time. Many island species are today threatened with extinction, & this work examines both the chief threats to their persistence & some of the mitigation measures that can be put in play with conservation strategies tailored to islands. ...