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Author: Robert Henderson Fuson
Publisher:
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 264
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn account of ealy maritime exploration and the new lands, both real and mythical, that were charted by pre-Columbian seamen in the Atlantic and the fleets of the Ming Dynasty in the Pacific.
Author: Stephen C. Jett
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
Published: 2017-06-06
Total Pages: 529
ISBN-13: 0817319395
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPaints a compelling picture of impressive pre-Columbian cultures and Old World civilizations that, contrary to many prevailing notions, were not isolated from one another In Ancient Ocean Crossings: Reconsidering the Case for Contacts with the Pre-Columbian Americas, Stephen Jett encourages readers to reevaluate the common belief that there was no significant interchange between the chiefdoms and civilizations of Eurasia and Africa and peoples who occupied the alleged terra incognita beyond the great oceans. More than a hundred centuries separate the time that Ice Age hunters are conventionally thought to have crossed a land bridge from Asia into North America and the arrival of Columbus in the Bahamas in 1492. Traditional belief has long held that earth’s two hemispheres were essentially cut off from one another as a result of the post-Pleistocene meltwater-fed rising oceans that covered that bridge. The oceans, along with arctic climates and daunting terrestrial distances, formed impermeable barriers to interhemispheric communication. This viewpoint implies that the cultures of the Old World and those of the Americas developed independently. Drawing on abundant and concrete evidence to support his theory for significant pre-Columbian contacts, Jett suggests that many ancient peoples had both the seafaring capabilities and the motives to cross the oceans and, in fact, did so repeatedly and with great impact. His deep and broad work synthesizes information and ideas from archaeology, geography, linguistics, climatology, oceanography, ethnobotany, genetics, medicine, and the history of navigation and seafaring, making an innovative and persuasive multidisciplinary case for a new understanding of human societies and their diffuse but interconnected development.
Author: William Henry Babcock
Publisher:
Published: 1922
Total Pages: 228
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAuthor: David Abulafia
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 1115
ISBN-13: 0199934983
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"David Abulafia's new book guides readers along the world's greatest bodies of water to reveal their primary role in human history. The main protagonists are the three major oceans-the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian-which together comprise the majority of the earth's water and cover over half of its surface. Over time, as passage through them gradually extended and expanded, linking first islands and then continents, maritime networks developed, evolving from local exploration to lines of regional communication and commerce and eventually to major arteries. These waterways carried goods, plants, livestock, and of course people-free and enslaved-across vast expanses, transforming and ultimately linking irrevocably the economies and cultures of Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas"--
Author: Sergio Perosa
Publisher: IOS Press
Published: 2000
Total Pages: 132
ISBN-13: 9781586030551
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThroughout the long course of literature, islands have accumulated uncanny connotations of death, together with peculiarities of linguistic definition and expression. Since the age of discovery, after the Caribbean Islands, America itself, and later the archipelagos and atolls in the Pacific became known to travellers and conquistadores, islands have been sought, searched, explored and physically possessed as women; cultural recognition takes the form of sexual and physical possession (Venus was born from the sea, and is identified with an island). These are the themes of the first two variations discussed in this book.
Author: Steven Sora
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2007-06-19
Total Pages: 229
ISBN-13: 1594777527
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn investigation of the geographical incongruities in Homer’s epics locates Troy on the coast of Iberia, in a conflict that changed history • Cites the rise in sea level in 1200 B.C. as leading to the invasion and victory of the Atlantean sea people over the goddess-worshipping Trojans who ruled the coasts • Identifies Troia (Troy) as part of a tri-city area that later became Lisbon, Portugal In The Triumph of the Sea Gods, Steven Sora argues compellingly that Homer’s tales do not describe adventures in the Mediterranean, but are adaptations of Celtic myths that chronicle an Atlantic coastal war that took place off the Iberian Peninsula around 1200 B.C. It was a war between the pro-goddess Celtic culture that presided over what is now Portugal and the patriarchal culture of the sea-faring Atlanteans. The invasion of the Atlantean sea peoples brought destruction to the entire region stretching from Western Europe’s Atlantic border to Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. This was a turning point not only politically but also spiritually. The goddess became demonized, as seen in myths such as Pandora’s Box in which woman was seen as the source of evil, not the origin of life, and Homer’s tale of the epic Greek and Trojan war, which was triggered by the abduction of a woman. The actual historical struggle described in Homer’s stories, Sora explains, occurred during what was the last in a series of rises in sea level that inundated various land masses (Atlantis) and permitted sea passage to areas previously accessible only by land. The “Sea Gods” (Atlanteans) attacked the tri-city region of Troia (Troy), near present-day Lisbon, which, shortly thereafter, fell victim to a devastating series of seaquakes and tsunamis. The war and the subsequent destructive weather broke the power of this seaboard civilization, leading to a wholesale invasion by the sea peoples and the rapid decline of the region’s goddess-worshipping culture that had reigned there since Neolithic times. Sora shows how Homer’s tales allow the modern world to glimpse this ancient conflict, which has been obscured for centuries.
Author: Benjamin B. Olshin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2014-10-29
Total Pages: 197
ISBN-13: 022614996X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat’s the truth behind the travels of Marco Polo? “A fascinating tale about maps, history and exploration.”—Times Literary Supplement (UK) In the thirteenth century, Italian merchant and explorer Marco Polo traveled from Venice to the far reaches of Asia, a journey he chronicled in a narrative titled Il Milione, later known as The Travels of Marco Polo. While Polo’s writings would go on to inspire the likes of Christopher Columbus, scholars have long debated their veracity. Some have argued that Polo never even reached China—while others believe that he came as far as the Americas. Now, there’s new evidence for this historical puzzle: a very curious collection of fourteen little-known maps and related documents said to have belonged to the family of Marco Polo himself. Here, historian of cartography Benjamin B. Olshin offers the first credible book-length analysis of these artifacts, charting their course from obscure origins in the private collection of Italian-American immigrant Marcian Rossi in the 1930s; to investigations of their authenticity by the Library of Congress, J. Edgar Hoover, and the FBI; to the work of the late cartographic scholar Leo Bagrow; to Olshin’s own efforts to track down and study the Rossi maps, all but one of which are in the possession of Rossi’s great-grandson. Are the maps forgeries, facsimiles, or modernized copies? Did Marco Polo’s daughters—whose names appear on several of the artifacts—preserve in them geographic information about Asia first recorded by their father? Or did they inherit maps created by him? Did Marco Polo entrust the maps to an admiral with links to Rossi’s family line? Or, if the maps have no connection to Marco Polo, who made them, when, and why? Regardless of the maps’ provenance, this tale takes us on a fascinating journey, offering insights into Italian history, the age of exploration, and the wonders of cartography. “Olshin’s book tugs powerfully at the imagination of anybody interested in the Polo story, medieval history, old maps, geographical ideas, European voyages of discovery, and early Chinese legends.”—The Wall Street Journal
Author: James Robert Enterline
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
Published: 2003-05-01
Total Pages: 521
ISBN-13: 0801875471
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis revealing analysis of Medieval cartography and native American travel upends conventional narratives about discovering the New World. For generations, American schools have taught children that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. But evidence shows that Leif Erikson set foot on the continent centuries earlier. As debate continues over which explorer deserves the credit, early maps of North America suggest that we may be asking the wrong questions. How did medieval Europeans have such specific geographic knowledge of North America, a land even their most daring adventurers had not yet discovered? In Erikson, Eskimos, and Columbus, James Robert Enterline presents new evidence that traces this knowledge to the cartographic skills of indigenous people of the high Arctic, who, he contends, provided the basis for medieval maps of large parts of North America. Drawing on an exhaustive chronological survey of pre-Columbian maps, including the controversial Yale Vinland Map, this book boldly challenges conventional accounts of Europe’s discovery of the New World.
Author: Graham Hancock
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2009-11-18
Total Pages: 846
ISBN-13: 0307548562
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhat secrets lie beneath the deep blue sea? Underworld takes you on a remarkable journey to the bottom of the ocean in a thrilling hunt for ancient ruins that have never been found—until now. Graham Hancock is featured in Ancient Apocalypse, a Netflix original docuseries In this explosive new work of archaeological detection, bestselling author and renowned explorer Graham Hancock embarks on a captivating underwater voyage to find the ruins of a mythical lost civilization hidden for thousands of years beneath the world’s oceans. Guided by cutting-edge science, innovative computer-mapping techniques, and the latest archaeological scholarship, Hancock examines the mystery at the end of the last Ice Age and delivers astonishing revelations that challenge our long-held views about the existence of a sunken universe built on the ocean floor. Filled with exhilarating accounts of his own participation in dives off the coast of Japan, as well as in the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Arabian Sea, we watch as Hancock discovers underwater ruins exactly where the ancient myths say they should be—submerged kingdoms that archaeologists never thought existed. You will be captivated by Underworld, a provocative book that is both a compelling piece of hard evidence for a fascinating forgotten episode in human history and a completely new explanation for the origins of civilization as we know it.
Author: Alexander Lee
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2015-10-27
Total Pages: 450
ISBN-13: 0345802926
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Ugly Renaissance is a delightfully debauched tour of the sordid, gritty reality behind some of the most celebrated artworks and cultural innovations of all time. Tourists today flock to Italy by the millions to admire the stunning achievements of the Renaissance—paintings, statues, and buildings that are the legacy of one of the greatest periods of cultural rebirth and artistic beauty the world has ever seen. But beneath the elegant surface lurked a seamy, vicious world of power politics, perversity, and corruption. In this meticulously researched and lively portrait, Renaissance scholar Alexander Lee illuminates the dark and titillating contradictions that existed alongside the enlightened spirit of the time: the scheming bankers, greedy politicians, bloody rivalries, murderous artists, religious conflicts, rampant disease, and indulgent excess without which many of the most beautiful monuments of the Renaissance would never have come into being.
