The bamboo is a unique fusion of wood & metal. As the name suggests, bamboo wood is combined with the white painted metal to form the base. Bamboo wood globe• Bamboo wood & painted metal base• Oriental design of the Vision Globe series• Illuminated globe ball ...

Greg Marinovich & Jaro Silva’s “ Bang-Bang Club” doesn’t have a foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu for no reason – this is a searing, at times uncomfortable & above all honest look at apartheid as soon the through the eyes of photo-journalists who were there. The Bang-Bang Club was a group of photographers who covered the last years of apartheid in South Africa. Two surviving members tell the story of the four remarkable young men who made up the original group, the relations between them, & also the story of the end of apartheid. Recently made into a Hollywood film with some very questionable South African accents, the original & true story contained within these pages couldn’t be more highly recommended. ...

Bangladesh is the world`s eighth most populous country. It has more inhabitants than either Russia or Japan, & its national language, Bengali, ranks sixth in the world in terms of native speakers. Founded in 1971, Bangladesh is a relatively young nation, but the Bengal Delta region has been a major part of international life for more than 2, 000 years, whether as an important location for trade or through its influence on Buddhist, Hindu, & Muslim life. Yet the country rarely figures in global affairs or media, except in stories about floods, poverty, or political turmoil. The Bangladesh Reader does what those portrayals do not: It illuminates the rich historical, cultural, & political permutations that have created contemporary Bangladesh, & it conveys a sense of the aspirations & daily lives of Bangladeshis. Intended for travelers, students, & scholars, the Reader encompasses first-person accounts, short stories, historical documents, speeches, treaties, essays, poems, songs, photographs, cartoons, paintings, posters, advertisements, maps, & a recipe. Classic selections familiar to many Bangladeshis
- & essential reading for those who want to know the country
- are juxtaposed with less-known pieces. The selections are translated from a dozen languages; many have not been available in English until now. Featuring 100 images, including seventeen in color, The Bangladesh Reader is an unprecedented, comprehensive introduction to the South Asian country`s turbulent past & vibrant present.

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In 2008 I came back to England after ten years away & was horrified at the extent of the clampdown on Civil Liberties. To me the effects were visible. People looked small, depressed & tamped down. They looked like children who`d just been slapped. Vast tracts of British existence that had been just fine before were suddenly regulated, restricted or illegal. Signs & lines were everywhere, kids were being searched at airports, & Health & Safety was wringing the life out of anything with a heart. So when I saw the queue for the Banksy v Bristol Museum show start looping round the block, I rushed down to the People`s Republic of Stokes Croft H.Q., & said to Chris Chalkley: No art show by one artist has ever attracted so much interest, because they`re not really queuing for art, they`re queuing to see the work of an outlaw who has the balls to say the things they`re all thinking. They`re queuing for voice!
- I`m going to ask them to draw or write something while they wait.A” I was a bit hysterical, but Chris liked the idea, & we made a special card for the people to express themselves on. About three thousand five hundred queuers were kind enough to contribute. This book contains just a few of those images. All of the cards will be exhibited at the PRSC in November 2010. This book is dedicated to all those who queued.
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The extraordinary narrator of The Banner of the Passing Clouds is born on the day Stalin dies & is given his name
- Iosif Dzhugashvili
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Two old friends find themselves side by side on the flight from Algiers to Constantine. There is a lot of history between them, as well as bad blood. They have lived very different lives, even though they are bound by shared experiences from their youth, chief among them the Algerian War of Independence. The flight will last only an hour
- an hour during which both their stories will be told, interspersed & peppered by anecdotes about Algeria`s struggle to release itself from the French colonial grip. Rashid, the narrator, has always both admired & resented Omar, his cousin, who has become an architect, studied in Chicago, & led a successful life. Despite his success, Omar has always been on the run from the ghosts of his earlier life, ghosts that Rashid has set himself the task of exorcising. The title, The Barbary Figs, is a symbol of the `old` Algeria since their landowner grandfather once grew them on his estate. The `new` Algeria is less straightforward, & has produced far more bitter fruit.
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A fascinating narrative excursion into a bizarre episode in 19th century Ethiopian & British imperial history featuring a remote African despot & his monstrous European-built gun. On one of Addis Ababa`s main roundabouts today sits a huge recently installed mortar. This is a replica of ` Sevastopol`, a 70-ton lump of ordnance commissioned by one of the most extraordinary leaders Africa has ever produced -- King of Kings of Ethiopia, the Emperor Theodore. In 1867, as his kingdom collapsed around him, Theodore retreated to his mountain-top stronghold in Magdala. It took his army six months to haul ` Sevastopol` through the gauges & passes of the highlands. Sixty miles to the north, a British expeditionary force under Sir Robert Napier -- consisting of more than 10, 000 fighting men, at least as many followers & 20, 000 pack-animals, including a number of Indian elephants -- had been ferried to the Red Sea Coast & built a railway line through the desert. Their object: to rescue the British consul & sixty Europeans, held prisoner by the increasingly erratic Theodore, who had taken to massacring his prisoners-of-war & pitching captives over the cliffs of Magdala. The resulting fate of Theodore & his mortar forms the climax to this strange extravaganza, in which an isolated medieval kingdom came dramatically face-to-face with an ascendant Europe. Philip Marsden tells the tale with all his proven narrative skill, deep love & first hand knowledge of Ethiopia. ...

It was like a scene out of a thriller: one morning in April 2012, China`s most famous political activist-a blind, self-taught lawyer-climbed over the wall of his heavily guarded home & escaped. For days, his whereabouts remained unknown; after he turned up at the American embassy in Beijing, a furious round of high-level negotiations finally led to his release & a new life in the United States. Chen Guangcheng is a unique figure on the world stage, but his story is even more remarkable than we knew. The son of a poor farmer in rural China, blinded by illness when he was an infant, Chen was fortunate to survive a difficult childhood. But despite his disability, he was determined to educate himself & fight for the rights of his country`s poor, especially a legion of women who had endured forced sterilizations under the hated `one child` policy. Repeatedly harassed, beaten, & imprisoned by Chinese authorities, Chen was ultimately placed under house arrest. After a year of fruitless protest & increasing danger, he evaded his captors & fled to freedom. Both a riveting memoir & a revealing portrait of modern China, this passionate book tells the story of a man who has never accepted limits & always believed in the power of the human spirit to overcome any obstacle. ...

The Barefoot Navigator is an unusual & fascinating exploration of the skills of navigation employed by the ancients & transferrable to the present day. The first half of the book investigates the navigation capabilities of seafarers long before modern navigation instruments or charts became available. For example, how did the Polynesians manage to populate an area of ocean larger than North America simply by analysing clouds, currents, wind direction, sun, stars & the flight patterns of ocean birds? & how did the Vikings routinely travel between Icel&, Greenland & Scandinavia
- huge tracts of treacherous water? The second part of the book analyses how the techniques of the ancients can be employed by 21st century seafarers to supplement today`s navigational hardware
- especially in survival situations. This is a unique analysis of practical technology-free navigation, whose techniques can easily be employed by modern navigators to supplement their personal navigation skills in order to just `know` where they are. It will fascinate navigators & landlubbers alike.

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` Navigation with sextant & almanac is as user-friendly as a cornered rat.` Barefoot Navigator introducesus to a unique take on navigation
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