Is Italy il bel paese —the beautiful country—where tourists spend their vacations looking for art, history, and scenery? Or is it a land whose beauty has been cursed by humanity’s greed and nature’s cruelty? The answer is largely a matter of narrative and the narrator’s vision of Italy. The fifteen essays in Nature and History in Modern Italy investigate that nation’s long experience in managing domesticated rather than wild natures and off ...
The African National Congress (ANC) is Africa’s most famous liberation movement. It has recently celebrated its centenary, a milestone that has prompted partisans to detail a century of unparalleled achievement in the struggle against colonialism and racial discrimination. Critics paint a less flattering portrait of the historical ANC as a communist puppet, a moribund dinosaur, or an elitist political parasite. For such skeptics, the ANC—now in ...
On the eve of the Civil War and after, Illinois was one of the most significant states in the Union. Its history is, in many respects, the history of the Union writ large: its political leaders figured centrally in the war’s origins, progress, and legacies; and its diverse residents made sacrifices and contributions—both on the battlefield and on the home front—that proved essential to Union victory. The documents in Illinois’s War reveal how ...
Govan Mbeki (1910–2001) was a core leader of the African National Congress, the Communist Party, and the armed wing of the ANC during the struggle against apartheid. Known as a hard-liner, Mbeki was a prolific writer and combined in a rare way the attributes of intellectual and activist, political theorist and practitioner. Sentenced to life in prison in 1964 along with Nelson Mandela and others, he was sent to the notorious Robben Island prison ...
The Marikana Massacre of August 16, 2012, was the single most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since the end of apartheid. Those killed were mineworkers in support of a pay raise. Through a series of interviews conducted with workers who survived the attack, this account documents and examines the controversial shootings in great detail, beginning with a valuable history of the events leading up to the killi ...
Africa supplies the majority of the world’s diamonds, yet consumers generally know little about the origins and history of these precious stones beyond sensationalized media accounts of so-called blood diamonds. Stones of Contention explores the major developments in the remarkable history of Africa’s diamonds, from the earliest stirrings of international interest in the continent’s mineral wealth in the first millennium A.D. to the present d ...
Eine sagenumwobene Bucht, an der Kinder spurlos verschwinden. Ein Bosewicht, der Seelen sammelt. Eine magische Anderwelt. Lily, Red, Max und die Mowe Luigi machen sich auf, das Ratsel um die Verlorene Bucht zu losen. Denn genau hier soll das Tor zur mysteriosen Anderwelt liegen. Eine abenteuerliche Reise in einem kleinen Segelboot beginnt, bei der jede Menge Gefahren auf die vier lauern - ...
Deutschland im Jahre 1722: Charlotte stammt aus einem verarmten Adelshaus und muss sich als eine von acht Tochtern glucklich schatzen, dass Furst Carl Anton sich bereitfindet, sie zur Frau zu nehmen. Fur ihren Brautigam ist sie jedoch nur Mittel zum Zweck, ihm den ersehnten Thronfolger zu schenken – denn nur so kann er das Reich vor seinem gefahrlichen Feind schutzen. Wahrend die junge Furstin alles tut, um die in sie gesetzten Erwartungen zu er ...
