"I cracked up reading Shawn Wong's witty, tender, wise, and sexy new novel. His lovable but ambivalent protagonist collides memorably with a cast of female characters who are a welcome change from the
Explores how the movement of people, objects, and ideas from 500 to 1000 CE shaped cultures and historiesIn the ninth century CE, an Arabian ship sank off the coast of Indonesia. The objects found in the wreckage, which include Chinese ceramics and precious metals, have provided extraordinary evidence of the nature, scale, and diversity of trade between Tang China and the Islamic Abbasid dynasty. This is just one example of the sprawling and extensive networks of contacts and exchanges spanning Afro-Eurasia. This richly illustrated book challenges the concept of the "Silk Roads" as a simple history of trade between East and West. Focusing on a series of overlapping geographic zones and interspersed with case studies of particular peoples who were active along these networks--seafarers in the Indian Ocean, Sogdians, Vikings, Aksumites, and the peoples of al-Andalus--it reveals remarkable human stories, innovations, and the transfer of knowledge that emerged from these connections. The
As immigrants and laborers, gardeners and artists, activists and vacationers, Asian Americans have played, worked, and worshipped in nature for almost two centuries, forging enduring relationships with diverse places and people. In the process, their actual or perceived ties to the environment have added to and amplified xenophobia and racist tropes. Indeed, white constructions of Asian Americans as the yellow peril, the perpetual foreigner, and the model minority were often intertwined with their environmental activities. At the same time, Asian Americans also harnessed environmental resources for their own needs, challenging restrictions and outmaneuvering their detractors in the process. Expansive and groundbreaking, Nature Unfurled examines the links between Asian American and environmental history from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. With provocative essays on topics such as health in urban Chinatowns, Japanese oysters on Washington tidelands, American
Miller (architecture, U. of Washington) gives plenty of examples of sustainable engineering and architecture practice, but he also allows for the spirit of the Northwest, informed by the trees, rain,
Renee Stout lives and works in Washington, D.C., where she is strongly influenced by the cityOs political, social, and religious composition. She looks to the belief systems of various African peoples
The selection consists of QurOans, illustrated Islamic manuscripts and scientific and religious manuscripts. All are handsomely illustrated and fully discussed. The manuscripts are from all parts of t
