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In the past the Northern frontiers of India were not only dangerous to mountaineers, but because of the suspicion and hosility of the people of Tibet, Nepal and Afghanistan. The survey of India - twenty seven times larger than England and Wales - was a vast undertaking of two hundred years and an adventurous odyssey. The author, who has climbed in the Himalayas, tells the story of India's survey and of the men who completed it against appalling handicaps and dangers. -
A vivid description of the author's experiences while living with the BaMbuti Pygmies, not as a clinical observer, but as their friend: learning their customs and sharing their daily life. Turnbull conveys the lives and feelings of the BaMbuti whose existence centers on their intense love for their forest world, which, in return for their affection and trust, provides their every need. He witnesed their hunting parties and nomadic camps; their love affairs and ancient ceremonies - the molimo, in which they praise the forest as provider, protector and deity; the elima, in which the young girls come of age; and the nkumbi circumcision rites, in which the villagers of the surrounding non-Pygmy tribes attempt to impose their culture on the Pygmies, whose forest home they dare not enter. An eloquent record of a people who have found in the forest that which makes their life more than just living - a life that, with all its hardships and problems and tragedies, is a wonderful thing of happiness and joy. Photographic illustrations. -
Was Botany Bay meant to be a dumping ground for almost 800 items of human refuse, in an virtually unexplored destination? Or a trading post for the China Trade? A southern plantation with white serfs? A naval base, with a future conflict with the French, Spanish or Dutch a possibility? In this one volume, eleven distinguished historians argue the roots of the Australian nation and arrive at some surprising possibilities. -
Since that first brave adventurer left the great Afro-Asian homeland to travel the long chain of islands to Australasia, human beings have consumed the resources they would need for their own future. The Aboriginals, Maoris and Polynesian peoples were the world’s original future eaters. They changed the flora and fauna in ways that now seem inconceivable. Europeans have made a much great impact. Today, future eating is a universal occupation. In this illustrated ecological history, acclaimed scientist and historian Flannery follows the environment of the islands through the age of dinosaurs to the age of mammals and the arrival of humans, to the European colonisers and industrial society. Penetrating, gripping, and provocative, this book combines natural history, anthropology, and ecology on an epic scale. -
Volume II of Varè's Chinese 'ambassadorial odyssey'. Short stories, sketches, personal experiences - and delightful reading that recalls Somerset Maugham's East and West. Some of the stories tie in with the enchanting The Maker of Heavenly Trousers. -
The Gay Genius: Lin Yutang
$65.00The biography of Su Tungpo, the celebrated and famous philosopher, poet, artist, government official and gourmand of 10th century China. He was a product of a centuries-old social system - a member of the literati. Taught to absorb the classics of Chinese literature at a young age, he rose to prominence by his remarkable performance at the national examinations, the entry point into a life of participation in the upper levels of the Chinese government. He was outspoken in his criticism of corrupt practices of government officials. From the book: ...an incorrigible optimist, a great humanitarian, a friend of the people, a prose master, an original painter, a great calligraphist, an experimenter in wine making, an engineer, a hater of puritanism, a yogi, a Buddhist believer, a Confucian statesman, a secretary to the emperor, a confirmed winebibber, a humane judge, a dissenter in politics, a prowler in the moonlight, a poet, and a wag. He sounds like someone we'd all love to know. Illustrated with black and white photographs of truly beautiful Chinese art of the period.
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A magnificent pictorial biography of brothers George and Ira. George died in 1937 at the age of 39, at the peak of his career. His works ranged from Swanee to Rhapsody In Blue, from An American in Paris to Porgy and Bess in a career unparalleled in the history of American music and his talent in combining popular musical elements with traditional symphonic structure or the jazz beat with the classical form is yet unmatched. Ira was the lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother to create some of the most memorable songs in the English language of the 20th century. Together, they wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring the hits I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, The Man I Love and Someone to Watch Over Me. After George's early death. Ira continued to write with composers Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, Harry Warren and Harold Arlen. Lavishly illustrated with colour and black and white photographs, including photogrpahs of the rarely-seen Gershwin art collection. Large, heavy book. -
It takes more than a fit of the vapours for a giant airline to ground a multimillion-dollar jumbo jet. What investigative writer John Fuller stumbled upon was a jet-age ghost story – crews refused to fly the plane because of the recurring apparitions of a dead pilot and flight engineer from a crashed sister ship. It was the famed Lockheed Tristar; the first jumbo jet ever to crash, in the Florida Everglades, with the loss of 101 persons. In his investigation, Fuller is led inexorably to repeated eyewitness experiences of the dead men’s reappearances before flight crews. After a classic reconstruction of the mysterious crash itself, he interviews scores of airline flight personnel and explores every facet of every “ghost” report. A confirmed skeptic who has always written with professional thoroughness on both scientific and life subjects, Fuller uncovers startling evidence of contact with the spirit of the dead flight engineer Don Repo. It is a spine-tingling, persuasive account with implications of spiritual realities that are of increasing interest in today’s world of ever more extraordinary scientific breakthroughs. -
Selected from Dyson's three best works, some of the stories herein are mining yarns from 1870s and 1880s, from the author's personal experience of the Victorian diggings, ranging in mood from nervous suspense to humour as patrons fight for the favour of the local barmaid.. Other stories are from Fact'ry 'Ands - about city life in the 1890s and 1900s. In this volume: A Golden Shanty; A Visit to Scrubby Gully; An Incident of the Old Pioneer; At the Yards; A Sabbath Morn at Waddy; The Trucker's Dream; Hebe of Grasstree; The Conquering Bush; A Zealot in Labour; The Elopement of Mrs. Peters; Deadman's Lode; A Vain Sacrifice; Spicer's Courtship; After the Accident; Benno's Little Boshter; a Hot Day at Spats'; The Wooing of Minnie; The Packer's 'Little Silly'; A Saturday at Spats'; The Fickle Dolly Hopgood; At a Boxing Bout; Susie Gannon's Young Man; The Rivals; The Man-Eater; A Question of Propriety; The Haunted Corner; A Little Love Affair; The Morbid Boy; The Toucher. Selection and introduction by Norman Lindsay.
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