Markus wiener publishing inc us (428 risultati)

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Second Edition.

Paperback. Condizione: New. illustrated Edition. The Ottoman Empire was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state encompassing most of the modern Middle East and for much of its 600-year existence managed to rule its diverse peoples effectively. The study of minorities in the Ottoman Empire traditionally has had a narrow, statecentered focus or has ignored the state completely. Religious diversity has been examined in terms of institutions imposed by the state while communal histories have presented a picture of self-regulating and autonomous communities divorced from their Ottoman context. The authors of this book move beyond these approaches and instead seek to explore the unknown terrain that falls between the internal life of the community and the formal structures of the state. Topics in this volume include the fiscal functions of territorial communities on the Greek mainland in the 18th century; the use of Islamic courts by the religious minorities of Istanbul; the relationship of religion and urban segregation in Damascus; and the life of a Jewish educator in Edirne in the 19th century.…

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. The Ottoman Empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic. It included islands such as Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, and many smaller ones in the Aegean, Adriatic, and Black Seas. These islands were its frontiers, and many of the battles against Christian enemies were fought here; they were also bridges to the outside world beyond the empire. They were often fortified by magnificent castles, and sometimes served as bases for corsairs. The chapters deal with significant events in naval history, collective punishments by invaders, and many aspects of economic and cultural life on the islands.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. This stimulating and timely collection examines the Taino revival movement, a grassroots conglomeration of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos who promote or have adopted the culture and pedigree of the pre-Columbian Taino Indian population of Puerto Rico and the western Caribbean. The Tainos became a symbol of Puerto Rican identity in the 19th century, when local governments and intellectuals began to appropriate the Tainos for the conception of a socially and racially balanced Puerto Rican society. Modern critics now claim that the Taino heritage has been canonized through state-sponsored institutions, such as festivals, museums, and textbooks, at the expense of blacks. In the past, officials, alarmed at the black majorities on other the Caribbean Islands, tried to ""whiten"" Puerto Rican society by calling all people of color Tainos. Others complain that the Taino revival lost its fervor, evolving from an anti-colonialist movement to a mere fashionable trend.…

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Konstantin Mihailovic, born a Christian Serb in the early 15th century, was kidnapped by Ottoman Turks and brought to Anatolia, where he was trained as a Janissary -- a member of the elite corps of the Ottoman army made up entirely of converted Christian boys. As a Janissary, Mihailovic was an eyewitness to important events such as Sultan Mehmet II's sieges of Belgrade and Constantinople in 1453 and the campaign against Count Dracula. In 1463, his garrison of Janissaries was captured by the Hungarian king, and he opportunistically redeclared his Christian faith. He drew on his unique first-hand experience with the Turks to write his memoirs, which became a "bestseller" in Central and Eastern Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. These memoirs were published as a cautionary tale about the heathen customs of the Turks, and as a guide to military practices and customs of the Turkish army. One reason for its success was that the Turks had not only overrun the Balkans but also threatened the heart of Europe with sieges of Vienna between 1529 and 1683. Mihailovic provides salient details of Turkish military subterfuge, the Turks' disregard for truce agreements, and their shocking actions during the battles and beyond, including the standard beheading of the captured kings. The siege and conquest of Constantinople and Trebizond reads like a chronicle of treachery, yet also of military genius. Mihailovic describes magnificent court scenes and encounters with the great Khans of the Tatars and with Hungarian and Serbian kings, as well as scenes from daily life in the Ottoman Empire.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. When the threat of political revolution lurked behind the shadows of the Spanish colonial state in Puerto Rico, one of the earliest casualties of anti-independence persecution in San Juan was a woman - Maria de las Mercedes Barbudo. But as the 19th century advanced, economic and urban changes weakened patriarchal structures and provided spaces of autonomy for sanjuaneras. Women in San Juan locates the historical roots of women's contributions to urban modernization, showing how women reacted to and shaped the effort to transform San Juan into a modern, progressive city. Elite and professional women fought to limit the impact of economic changes on their lives from within the city, while poor women and women of color created survival strategies in their newly formed extramural barrios once they had been relocated as part of the state's modernizing agenda. Beneficence afforded elite women opportunities to support their class-based privilege and leisure while serving as a control mechanism to police poor women. The author moves beyond the standard focus on rural and agricultural issues to explore issues of Puerto Rican urban social history. …

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. American ed. Northern Nigeria, just before the turn of the century: a time of unrest and civil war, when the trans-Saharan slave trade still flourished. Against this turbulent backdrop is set the story of the Hausa, a black African people who practice the Islamic religion. This great African family saga, written by the first Federal Prime Minister of Nigeria, focuses on the struggles of young Umar and his mother and describes Umar's dramatic journey across the desert with a slave caravan. Rich in adventure, it also provides a rare and vivid glimpse into the lives of women and children in a black Islamic society and their survival in a troubled age.…

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. illustrated Edition.

Paperback. Condizione: New. The Kunstkammer was a programmatic display of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These nascent museums reflected the ambitions of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Kepler to unite the forces of nature with art and technology. Bredekamp advances a radical view that the baroque Kunstkammer is also the nucleus of modern cyberspace.…

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. illustrated Edition. This is the first English translation of the famous risala, letters by the tenth-century traveler Ibn Fadlan, one of the great Medieval travelers in world history, akin to Ibn Batutta. Ibn Fadlan was an Arab missionary sent by the Caliph in Baghdad to the king of the Bulghars. He journeyed from Baghdad to Bukhara in Central Asia and then continued across the desert to the town of Bulghar, near present Kazan. He describes the tribes he meets on his way and gives an account of their customs. His is the earliest account of a meeting with the Vikings, called Rus, who had reached the Volga River from Sweden. His description of the Rus, or Rusiya as he calls them, has produced much discussion about their origins, shockingly free sexual morals standards, customs, treatment of slaves and women, burial traditions, and trading habits, all explained in detail by Ibn Fadlan. The story of his travels has fascinated scholars and even prompted Michael Chrichton to write the popular novel ""Eaters of the Dead,"" which was made into a film entitled ""The 13th Warrior.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. African cults and religions enrich all aspects of Cuba's social, cultural and everyday life, and encompass all ethnic and social groups. Politics, art, and civil events such as weddings, funerals, festivals and carnivals all possess distinctly Afro-Cuban characteristics. Miguel Barnet provides a concise guide to the various traditions and branches of Afro-Cuban religions. He distinguishes between the two most important cult forms - the Regla de Ocha (Santeria), which promotes worship of the Oshira (gods), and the traditional oracles that originated in the old Yoruba city of lle-lfe', which promote a more animistic worldview. Africans who were brought to Cuba as slaves had to recreate their old traditions in their new Caribbean context. As their African heritage collided with Catholicism and with Native American and European traditions, certain African gods and traditions became more prominent while others lost their significance in the new Afro-Cuban culture. This book, the first systematic overview of the syncretization of the gods of African origin with Catholic saints, introduces the reader to a little-known side of Cuban culture. …

Paperback. Condizione: New. Cuentos is a bilingual anthology of twelve short stories, many of which appeared in the 1960s in the English-language magazine ""The San Juan Review"", co-founded by Kal Wagenheim and Augusto Font. Written by six of Puerto Rico's leading writers, the themes vary in time from the 16th-century Spanish conquest to the migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States. Each story is published in both English and the original Spanish. Sometimes sad and sometimes hilariously comic, these stories represent in many respects an authentic voice of the Puerto Rican people.…

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. illustrated Edition. Native Americans supplied the maracas, African slaves brought drums and ritual music, and Spaniards brought guitars, brass instruments, and clarinets along with European ballroom dancing. The advent of blues and jazz gave new forms to styles of songs, notably feeling songs, which joined the more traditional styles of trova and bolero. Cuban culture represents a convergence of these diverse backgrounds, and the musical heritage presented in this book reflects these traditions as well. In colonial times, African ritual sounds mixed with Catholic liturgies and brass bands of the Spanish military academies. Ballroom dances, including French music from Haiti popular in 18th-century Havana society, existed side by side with the cabildos (guilds and carnival clubs) and the plantations. The son, considered the expression of Cuban musical identity, had its origins in a rural setting in which African slaves and small farmers from Andalusia worked and played music together, developing many variations over the years, including big band music. Cuban music is now experiencing a major renaissance, and is enjoyed throughout the world. …

Paperback. Condizione: New. On May 30, 1961, a hail of bullets ended the life of Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, known to his countrymen as ""The Goat"" for his many revolting excesses, after thirty-one years of brutal rule over the Dominican Republic. This book is a riveting, minute-by-minute account of the plot to kill Trujillo, who was then the Western Hemisphere's most ruthless dictator, and the ferocious wave of revenge that ensued before his regime collapsed. The book also reveals the vacillating role of the United States - and the CIA - in first propping up the dictator, and then supplying weapons to slay him. …

Paperback. Condizione: New. Second Edition. An account of the golden trade of the Moors, and a source book on Saharan trade routes, caravan organization and Sudanese history. The author covers anthropology and economic geography as well as history, as he examines and explores the hot little towns, sharp traders and the brutal rulers. He seeks to encourage and inspire a generation of scholars to discover more about parts of Africa still surprisingly little known to the outside world. …

Paperback. Condizione: New. illustrated Edition. Capoeira is a unique music-dance-sport-play activity created by African slaves, and Candomble is a hybrid religion combining Catholic and African beliefs and practices. And while there are numerous books on Candomble and kindred Afro-American religions, none of them effectively combines Candomble and Capoeira. Actually, Capoeira and Candomble are closely tied to one another. Together, they make up a coherent form of life in Brazil within the current process of globalization about which there has been much ballyhoo, eulogies, and condemnation. This study involves the author's practice of and reflections on the arts of Capoeira and Candomble; it culminates in the idea of an ""other logic,"" an alternative culture ""logic,"" about which much lip service is being paid in academic circles, with little to no concrete details. This book, consequently, is one of a kind insofar as it bears on the interdependency of two Afro-Brazilian practices while grounding them in a theoretical framework and at the same time interrelating them with topics of great concern in the initial years of a new millennium: post-colonial and diaspora studies.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. 2nd. Osterhammel's book represents a new approach to the subject. The concise but sweeping study encompasses the process of colonization and decolonization from the early modern period to the twentieth century. Virtually all other studies to date have looked at strategies of colonial conquest, exploitation, and rule from the imperial point of view. Osterhammel shows that the colonial situation developed in ways that duplicated neither the metropolis nor the pre-colonial society, but instead blended these and added a new direction characteristic only of colonial realms. He emphasizes that the Europeans were normally not considered dangerous invaders by local populations until they threatened the traditional cultures with missionaries, European schools, and bureaucracy.…

Hardback. Condizione: New. illustrated Edition. This study of eunuchs guides readers as they travel through various lands and periods, familiarizing themselves with the duties and responsibilities, the unspeakable torments and the passions and joys of these individuals. Eunuchs were not simply ""bedchamber attendants"", as the Greek term suggests. Nor were they always slaves. They could just as well be ascetics, priests, magicians, scholars, physicians, military commanders, admirals or senior officials at the courts of both eastern and western rulers. In the Byzantine empire, the only office they were precluded from attaining was that of emperor. The rich and varied forms of religious, social and sexual life associated with eunuchs and castrati embrace a wealth of myths relating to gods and demons, initiation rites, rituals and magic. They touch on the history of law and medicine, various systems of government, and secret societies. And they are presented to us in terms of the cruellest punishments and tortures. On the one hand, they facilitated unique developments in the evolution of vocal music, and on the other, they gave rise to a multiplicity of human behavioural patterns that reflect every aspect of good and evil. Readers should become acquainted with various forms of sexuality, such as androgyny, transvestism, transsexualism and homosexuality, and learn about the historical, religious and social issues associated with their characteristic ""life settings"". Whether out of a sense of shame or because of moral considerations, these phenomena appear only on the margins of the history of customs and mores.…

Paperback. Condizione: New. illustrated Edition. The Ottoman Empire was a multi-ethnic, multi-religious state encompassing most of the modern Middle East and for much of its 600-year existence managed to rule its diverse peoples effectively. The study of minorities in the Ottoman Empire traditionally has had a narrow, statecentered focus or has ignored the state completely. Religious diversity has been examined in terms of institutions imposed by the state while communal histories have presented a picture of self-regulating and autonomous communities divorced from their Ottoman context. The authors of this book move beyond these approaches and instead seek to explore the unknown terrain that falls between the internal life of the community and the formal structures of the state. Topics in this volume include the fiscal functions of territorial communities on the Greek mainland in the 18th century; the use of Islamic courts by the religious minorities of Istanbul; the relationship of religion and urban segregation in Damascus; and the life of a Jewish educator in Edirne in the 19th century.…

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. The contemporaries of Hildegard of Bingen called her ""prophetissa teutonica"", honouring her philosophical writings and interpretation of the cosmos. Mediaevalists still consider her one of the leading mystics, and point to her active spiritual and artistic life in the 12th century as the finest example of what a woman can achieve. The abbess Hildegard of Bingen was the first composer to sign her musical works. As a playwright and author, she witnessed and shaped the time of the Crusades, the literary minnesang, and political and theological debate. The author of this text draws a complex picture of her life and work, as he ""translates"" Hildegard's ideas and her mysterious world of symbols from mediaeval Latin into contemporary concepts. Heinrich Schipperges delineates this remarkable thinker's view of the human being as a microcosm of the universe, intricately bound by the senses to the life of the soul, nature, and God.…