Syracuse, City of Legends
Syracuse, City of Legends

Author: Jeremy Dummett

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2010-03-30

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0857730614

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Dubbed 'the greatest Greek city and the most beautiful of them all' by Cicero, Syracuse also boasts the richest history of anywhere in Sicily. Syracuse, City of Legends - the first modern historical guide to the city - explores Syracuse's place within the island and the wider Mediterranean and reveals why it continues to captivate visitors today, more than two and a half millennia after its foundation. For more than 1600 years, from its settlement by Greeks in 733 BC, Syracuse was the leading city in Sicily and at times one of the most powerful in the world. As a Greek city-state it competed with Athens and Carthage and was for a while an important ally of Rome. When Sicily became Rome's first province, Syracuse was the island's capital and was an important centre for early Christianity. Under Byzantine rule, the Emperor Constans II even moved his court to Syracuse for five years. Capture by the Arabs in 878 AD marked the end of ancient Syracuse but the city continued to evolve and during the Spanish era Caravaggio created one of his masterpieces, The Burial of Santa Lucia, in the city. After a devastating earthquake in 1693, a major rebuilding programme gave the city the characteristic Baroque appearance it retains today. Over its long and colourful life, Syracuse has been home to many creative figures, including Archimedes, the greatest mathematician of the ancient world, as well as host to Plato, Scipio Africanus, conqueror of Hannibal, and Caravaggio, who have all contributed to the rich history and atmosphere of this beguiling and distinctive Sicilian city. Generously illustrated, Syracuse, City of Legends also offers detailed descriptions of the principal monuments from each period in the city's life, explaining their physical location as well as their historical context. This vivid and engaging history weaves together the history, architecture and archaeology of Syracuse and will be an invaluable companion for anyone visiting the city as well as a compelling introduction to its ancient and modern history.

Palermo, City of Kings
Palermo, City of Kings

Author: Jeremy Dummett

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-04-01

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0857737163

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Palermo – the capital of Sicily – is a destination with a difference. The city is a treasure trove of original monuments and works of art, combined with architecture of grand proportions. Yet it also has a grittier side, shown by the continuing influence of the mafia. Jeremy Dummett here provides a concise overview of Palermo's long history, together with a survey of its most important monuments and sites. He looks at the influences of the city's various ancient rulers – the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs and Normans – as well as its more recent incarnation as part of the Italian state. In addition to being an essential companion for visitors to Palermo, this book can be equally enjoyed as a standalone history of the city and its place at the heart of Sicily

Legends of Syracuse Basketball
Legends of Syracuse Basketball

Author: Mike Waters

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-08-01

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1613214677

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A list of legends is significant not only for who makes the list, but who gets left off of it. If there are no obvious omissions, then the list of candidates was probably less than legendary in the first place. Not so in the case of the Syracuse University Orangemen. Calling roll on Syracuse’s all-time basketball greats can take up the greater part of a day. The school produced its first All-American, Lewis Castle, in 1912. More recently, Carmelo Anthony, one of the best freshmen to ever play college basketball, led the 2003 Orangemen to the school’s first NCAA championship. In between there were legends such as the incomparable Dave Bing, Roosevelt Bouie, and Louis Orr, who together formed the Louie and Bouie Show, along with names like Derrick Coleman, Sherman Douglas, Lawrence Moten, and John Wallace. Legends of Syracuse Basketball, now newly revised, features twenty-four players, one coach, and one special team. Of the players mentioned, seventeen played in the NBA. Within the book’s pages are stories straight from the legends’ teammates, their coaches, and the legends themselves.

Where Tomorrows Aren't Promised
Where Tomorrows Aren't Promised

Author: Carmelo Anthony

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2022-10-04

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1982160608

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"From iconic NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony comes a raw and inspirational memoir about growing up in the housing projects of Red Hook and Baltimore-a brutal world Where Tomorrows Aren't Promised"--

Expedition to Disaster
Expedition to Disaster

Author: Philip Matyszak

Publisher: Pen and Sword

Published: 2013-01-19

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 1783036273

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This thrillingly vivid history recounts a pivotal battle of the Peloponnesian War, bringing the drama and personalities of the Sicilian Expedition to life. The Athenian expedition to conquer Sicily was one of the most significant military events of the classical period. At the time, Athens was locked in a decades-long struggle with Sparta for mastery of the Greek world. The expedition to Sicily was intended to win Athens the extra money and resources needed to crush the Spartans. With the aid of new archaeological discoveries, Expedition to Disaster reconstructs the mission, and the ensuing siege, in greater detail than ever before. The cast of characters includes Alcibiades, the flamboyant, charismatic young aristocrat; Nicias, the ageing, reluctant commander of the ill-fated expedition, and Gylippus, the grim Spartan general sent to command the defense of Syracuse. It was he who turned the tables on the Athenian invaders. They were surrounded, besieged, and forced to ask for mercy from a man who had none. Philip Matyszak's combination of thorough research and gripping narrative presents an episode of ancient history packed with colorful characters and dramatic tension.

A Cultural Encyclopedia of Lost Cities and Civilizations
A Cultural Encyclopedia of Lost Cities and Civilizations

Author: Michael Shally-Jensen

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2022-11-11

Total Pages: 533

ISBN-13:

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This volume explores the span of human history-and plenty of prehistory-searching out prominent and fascinating examples of cities or broader civilizations that shifted from a position of influence to a lack thereof. The accelerating threat of climate change challenges us to analyze our own communities' relationships with the wider world and to contemplate their very existence. This single-volume cultural encyclopedia examines lost cities and civilizations from every region of the globe and dated throughout human history. Arranged alphabetically, the compilation allows both students and general readers easy access to detailed entries on specific lost cities and civilizations. Throughout the geographically and chronologically diverse entries, such themes as colonization, migration, and especially climate change are developed and analyzed. Supplementing the main entries are sidebars detailing mythological cities and Investigative Boxes examining present-day cities on the brink of extinction. These round out the book's focus on disappearing cultural centers and reveal the robust relevance this material has to a world facing the crisis of climate change.

Down to the Sunless Sea
Down to the Sunless Sea

Author: Andrew Edwards

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2022-06-06

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1837645582

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Down to the Sunless Sea explores the time Coleridge spent in Gibraltar, Malta, Sicily and mainland Italy, where he had planned to recover his health, escape the clutches of opium and gain inspiration from the landscape; however, the reality would prove very different. After his short sojourn in Gibraltar, Coleridge arrived in Malta, where he became acquainted with the British Governor, Alexander Ball. He settled into Maltese life, initially taking on the role of acting Under-Secretary. Travelling to Sicily, Coleridge embraced the island's landscapes but was shaken to find the opium poppy was an important local crop. The Mediterranean would not prove the solution to his addiction. He visited the Consul, G. F. Leckie, and was invited to stay with him at a house on the site of Timoleon's Greek villa. The poet visited the antiquities of Syracuse and at the opera house encountered the soprano, Anna-Cecilia Bertozzi, nearly succumbing to her charms. Back in Malta, he was offered rooms in the Treasury building (now the Casino Maltese) and took up the post of Public Secretary. Legal pronouncements in Italian bear Coleridge's signature. Leaving behind these matters of state, he drifted through the Italian peninsula, engaging with a coterie of artistic ex-pats when in Rome. His listless, half-hearted, and financially embarrassed attempts at the Grand Tour included a narrow escape from French troops. Coleridge's Mediterranean sojourn impacted on his life and writing, not to mention his health, which saw a marked decline, leading to his final years in Highgate under the roof of a friendly doctor. Down to the Sunless Sea is a literary reflection on the fact that the sun-filled Mediterranean was not the tonic he had first imagined.

Palermo, City of Kings
Palermo, City of Kings

Author: Jeremy Dummett

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-04-01

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1786739747

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Palermo - the capital of Sicily - is a destination with a difference. The city is a treasure trove of original monuments and works of art, combined with architecture of grand proportions. Yet it also has a grittier side, shown by the continuing influence of the mafia. Jeremy Dummett here provides a concise overview of Palermo's eventful history, together with a survey of its most important monuments and sites. He looks at the influences of the city's various ancient rulers - the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs and Normans - as well as its more recent incarnation as part of the Italian state. In addition to being an essential companion for visitors to Palermo, this book can be equally enjoyed as a standalone history of the city and its place at the heart of Sicily.