In 1918, as the First World War ravaged the European continent, young American journalist Lowell Thomas traveled to the Ottoman Empire to report on the revolts breaking out as an indirect result of the savage European conflict. While in Jerusalem, he met and struck up a friendship with the infamous young British captain, T.E. Lawrence. Based on his travels and interviews with Lawrence, Thomas wrote the now classic With Lawrence in Arabia, the book...

The relationship between Jews and Muslims has been a flashpoint that affects stability in the Middle East with global consequences. In this eloquent book, Martin Gilbert presents a fascinating account of the hope and fear that have characterized these two peoples through the 1,400 years of their intertwined history. Harking back to the Biblical story of Ishmael and Isaac, Gilbert takes the reader from the origins of the fraught relationship-the refusal...

The Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor is the earliest known surviving story of a shipwrecked sailor, and as such is the forerunner of many stories of nautical adventure encountering strange magical creatures, from Homer's Odyssey to Sinbad the Sailor. In a broader sense, it is generally considered the oldest piece of Egyptian fiction to survive to the present. Only one copy has been found to date, a single papyrus manuscript that resides at the Hermitage...

The life of Harkhuf is one of the better-documented lives from the era of the Old Kingdom era of Egyptian history. Harkhuf lived during the reigns of kings Merenre I and Pepi II of the 6th Dynasty, at the same time as the more famous Weni, whom he may have mentioned in his autobiography. Like Weni, he is primarily known from the inscriptions on his tomb, however, unlike Weni, he only seems to have had one tomb. On the front of his tomb were carved...

The life of Weni, also called Uni, is one of the best-documented lives from the era of the Old Kingdom era of Egyptian history. Weni experienced significant upward mobility during the reigns of kings Teti, Userkare, Pepi I, and Merenre I, and as a result had a second tomb prepared for himself later in life, resulting in two of his tombs surviving to the present. His tombs were not extravagant like the king's pyramids of the era, and seem to have generally...

From Algeria and Libya to Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, the Arab world commands Western headlines. Nowhere else does the unfolding of events have such significant consequences for America. And yet its complex politics and cultures elude the grasp of most Western readers and commentators. A Concise History of the Arabs provides an essential road map to understanding the Arab world today, and in the years ahead. Noted Arab scholar John McHugo guides...

This classic of anthropological literature is a dramatic, revealing account of an anthropologist's first year in the field with a remote African tribe. Simply as a work of ethnographic interest, Return to Laughter provides deep insights into the culture of West Africa-me subtle web of its tribal life and the power of the institution of witchcraft. However, the author's fictional approach gives the book its lasting appeal. She focuses on the human...

Henry M. Stanley - Explorer and journalist; born 28 January 1841 at Denbigh, Wales, where baptised John Rowlands. After troubled childhood, including eight years in workhouse at St Asaph, travelled to Liverpool and embarked as cabin-boy on American packet ship 1858; in New Orleans adopted name Henry Morton Stanley (ostensibly after early benefactor); pursued a variety of occupations and enlisted on both sides in American Civil War before beginning...

East Africa and Its Invaders, originally published in 1938, covers the history of mid-East Africa-the area between Mozambique and Cape Guardafui-from its beginnings down to the death of the greatest Arab ruler in East Africa, Seyyid Said, in 1856.The author-prominent British Empire historian Sir Reginald Coupland (1884-1952) and a longtime Oxford professor, best known for his scholarship on African history-describes in detail, and mainly from hitherto...

THIS small volume contains some of the letters I have received during the last thirty years or more from well-known big-game hunters and field-naturalists, many of whom have now passed away. They were so interesting to me that I thought they might interest others who have shot in wilder Africa. Moreover, they describe conditions which are no longer possible considering the way many parts of that continent have been opened up since the Great War. Whether...