Islamabad with Rawalpindi at 1:30, 000 from the Pakistani national survey organization, providing an overview map of the two cities. Principal traffic arteries are highlighted & selected streets & neighbourhoods are named. Within Islamabad sector numbers are also shown. Buildings are annotated with names of various organizations, educational establishments, embassies, services, etc. The map has no index. ...

This history of Islamic art surveys the magnificent achievement of Muslim arists & craftsmen over 1200 years, from the 7th to the 19th centuries AD. Architecture, manuscripts, ceramics & glass, metalwork, textiles & carpets, with their distinctive subtlety of outline & sumptuous decoration, formed the basis of a cultural heritage of extraordinary richness. & yet under different local conditions
- in Arabia or Turkey, central Asia or Spain, North Africa, India or Iran
- & in the hands of Arabs, Seljuks, Mamluks, Mongols, Timurid & Ottoman Turks, Safavids or Mughals, this shared heritage produced a great diversity of styles, which the author examines region by region. Also considered is the specific character of Islamic art & its influence in the West, as well as modern developments. The book contains a useful glossary of Arabic, Turkish & Persian terms.

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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. ...

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. ...

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID BRADSHAW For over a hundred years the Pacific island of Pala has been the scene of a unique experiment in civilisation. Its inhabitants live in a society where western science has been brought together with eastern philosophy & humanism to create a paradise on earth. When cynical journalist, Will Farnaby, arrives to search for information about potential oil reserves on Pala, he quickly falls in love with the way of life on the isl&. Soon the need to complete his mission becomes an intolerable burden. In counterpoint to Brave New World & Ape & Essence, in Island Huxley gives us his vision of utopia. ...

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&. ...