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  Ethnographic Encounters in...

  Fran Markowitz

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  Essays on the challenges of anthropological work in a complicated country: “A compelling anthology.” —Ruth Behar 
   
  Israel is a place of paradoxes, a small country with a diverse population and complicated social terrain. Studying its culture and social life means confronting a multitude of ethical dilemmas and methodological challenges. 
   
  These first-person accounts by anthropologists engage contradictions of religion, politics, identity, kinship, racialization, and globalization to reveal fascinating and often vexing dimensions of the Israeli experience. Caught up in pressing existential questions of war and peace, social justice, and national boundaries, the contributors explore the contours of Israeli society as insiders and outsiders, natives and strangers, as well as critics and friends.

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  Samuel Adams - A Life

  Ira Stoll

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  "I pity Mr. Sam Adams," his cousin John Adams wrote to his wife, "for he was born a Rebel." At virtually every juncture of the American Revolution, from the Boston Massacre and Tea Party to Lexington and Concord and the ratification of the Constitution, Samuel Adams played a forceful role. With his fiery rhetoric and religious fervor, he was in many respects the moral conscience of the new nation. "The love of liberty," he thundered, "is interwoven in the soul of man, and can never be totally extinguished." 
   
  And yet history has neglected him; today Samuel Adams is best known as a brand of beer. As relations with Great Britain healed in the nineteenth century, historians were all too willing to dismiss him as a zealot; Adams's distrust of secularism (he envisioned America as a "Christian Sparta") has not endeared him to many contemporary scholars, either. Ira Stoll's fascinating biography not only restores this figure to his rightful place in history but portrays him as a man of God whose skepticism of a powerful central government, uncompromising support for freedom of the press, concern about the influence of money on elections, voluble love of liberty, and selfless endurance in a war for freedom has enormous relevance to Americans today.

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  The History of Venezuela -...

  Anya Solace

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  Venezuela’s economic history is deeply intertwined with its political and social landscape, shaped by cycles of prosperity and crisis. While the country has vast natural resources, particularly oil, mismanagement, external pressures, and political instability have contributed to its economic troubles. Understanding the roots of these challenges requires examining Venezuela’s early economic foundations, the role of oil in its development, and the influence of political decisions on its financial stability.  
  In its early history, Venezuela’s economy was primarily based on agriculture and trade. Before the discovery of oil in the early 20th century, the country relied on exports of coffee, cocoa, and other agricultural products. While these industries provided some level of economic growth, wealth distribution remained highly uneven, favoring a small elite class while the majority of the population struggled with poverty. The transition from an agrarian economy to an oil-driven one dramatically altered Venezuela’s financial structure, offering immense opportunities but also creating long-term vulnerabilities.  
  The discovery of vast oil reserves in the early 20th century transformed Venezuela into one of the world’s leading oil producers. By the mid-20th century, petroleum had become the backbone of the national economy, contributing to rapid industrialization, urbanization, and infrastructure development. The influx of oil wealth led to economic booms and improved social programs, but it also fostered dependence on a single commodity. This overreliance on oil made Venezuela’s economy highly sensitive to fluctuations in global oil prices. Whenever oil prices soared, the government expanded public spending and welfare programs, but during downturns, the country faced severe financial instability. 

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  Greek History and Mythology: An...

  Billy Wellman, Enthralling History

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  Two manuscripts in one book:History of Greece: An Enthralling Overview of Greek HistoryGreek Mythology: An Enthralling Overview of Greek Myths, Gods, and Goddesses 
  This concise overview covers Greece’s Stone Age and Bronze Age civilizations, its archaic and classical eras, its centuries under Roman rule, and the fascinating Byzantine Empire. It travels through Greece’s period under the Turkish Ottoman Empire, then its emancipation and formation of a parliamentary democracy that continued into the 20th century. 
  The first part of the book will answer about Greece’s riveting history:How did a catastrophic volcanic eruption impact Greece’s first advanced civilization?Did the Trojan War really happen?How did the Greeks defeat the Persians’ million-man army?Which classical Greeks theorized that constantly moving atoms form all matter?How did Alexander the Great conquer the Persian Empire in less than a decade? 
  Greek mythology has, without a doubt, some of the most well-known legends in the world. Like most people, the Olympians had their fair share of family drama. This part of the book pays strict attention to the genealogy of the Greek gods and the relationships they had with one another, whether they were good, bad, or incestuous. 
  In the second part of this book, you will discover:The intriguing relationships between gods, men, demi-gods, and monstersThe connection between divinity and weakness. Not only men make mistakes; even seemingly perfect beings screw up regularly.The importance of love as a guiding force of nature and life in generalA practical understanding of the motivations of both men and gods behind their less-than-honorable actions 
  Scroll up and click the “add to cart” button to begin learning about Greek History and Mythology!

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  The Valley of the Kings - The...

  Editors Charles River

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  Africa may have given rise to the first humans, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later. From the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria to the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Ancient Egyptians produced several wonders of the world, revolutionized architecture and construction, created some of the world’s first systems of mathematics and medicine, and established language and art that spread across the known world. With world-famous leaders like King Tut and Cleopatra, it’s no wonder that today’s world has so many Egyptologists. Given the abundance of funerary artifacts that have been found within the sands of Egypt, it sometimes seems as though the Ancient Egyptians were more concerned with the matters of the afterlife than they were with matters of the life they experienced from day to day. One of the most abundant sources of these funerary artifacts is the Valley of the Kings, a royal necropolis located on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes. Here, pharaohs of the New Kingdom Period were buried in elaborate, treasure-filled tombs that were cut deep into the cliffs that walled the Nile Valley. In many of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, intricate reliefs were painted on the walls that depicted the sun god and the dead king on their nightly journey through the underworld, which was known in Egyptian as the Duat (Wilkinson 2003, 82). These scenes, which vary slightly from tomb to tomb, are known collectively by modern scholars as The Book of Gates because they depict the sun god’s journey through 12 gates or pylons, one for each hour of the night (Wilkinson 2003, 81). As the sun god and the dead king travel through the night, they have to contend with various demons and a giant snake known as Apophis (Lesko 1991, 119). The Egyptians believed this journey was cyclical, as they viewed time itself, so it took place daily (Lesko 1991, 119). Though these tombs have been extensively plundered, they still stand as gateways to the afterlife that provide a murky window into the past of a fascinating civilization. Most importantly, the relatively untouched tomb of the young King Tutankhamun offered clear insight. Many of the objects that were discovered in Tutankhamun’s tomb were clearly made specifically for him and his burial, such as the coffins, funerary masks, canopic equipment and statues. Other objects, such as the furniture, clothing, and chariots, were obviously items that had been used during Tutankhamun’s lifetime. The motifs found upon many of his possessions depicted him in triumph over his enemies. For example, a painted wooden chest bears a fine example of such a scene; the king is shown in his chariot, followed by his troops, attacking a group of Nubians. Scenes depicting aggression and triumph over Egypt’s enemies by Egypt’s king are classical examples of Egyptian kingship.

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  The Demon in Democracy -...

  Ryszard Legutko

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  Ryszard Legutko lived and suffered under communism for decades—and he fought with the Polish ant-communist movement to abolish it. Having lived for two decades under a liberal democracy, however, he has discovered that these two political systems have a lot more in common than one might think. They both stem from the same historical roots in early modernity, and accept similar presuppositions about history, society, religion, politics, culture, and human nature. 
   
    
   
  In The Demon in Democracy, Legutko explores the shared objectives between these two political systems, and explains how liberal democracy has over time lurched towards the same goals as communism, albeit without Soviet-style brutality. 
   
    
   
  Both systems, says Legutko, reduce human nature to that of the common man, who is led to believe himself liberated from the obligations of the past. Both the communist man and the liberal democratic man refuse to admit that there exists anything of value outside the political systems to which they pledged their loyalty. And both systems refuse to undertake any critical examination of their ideological prejudices.

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