The Vulture and the Phoenix

The Vulture and the Phoenix

Author: Carl Douglass

Publisher: Publication Consultants

Published: 2015-09-30

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 1594333629

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Arthur Koestler, the notable twentieth century playwright said, Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion." Carl Douglass, neurosurgeon turned author, writes with gripping realism about the point in Garven Wilsonhulme, M.D., F.A.C.S's life when he turns the hopes and aspirations of his family, friends, colleagues, and opponents into illusions. In so doing, he realizes that he has become both The Vulture and The Phoenix in his own life. He scrambles to the heights of fame, prestige, riches, and cruelty. There, he meets a wall of opposition and begins the final great fight of his complicated life and career. What he does will surprise and amaze you. This is the finale of the successful Saga of a Neurosurgeon series."


The Gardens of Adonis

The Gardens of Adonis

Author: Marcel Detienne

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2021-10-12

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0691238332

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Rich with implications for the history of sexuality, gender issues, and patterns of Hellenic literary imagining, Marcel Detienne's landmark book recasts long-standing ideas about the fertility myth of Adonis. The author challenges Sir James Frazer's thesis that the vegetation god Adonis-- whose premature death was mourned by women and whose resurrection marked a joyous occasion--represented the annual cycle of growth and decay in agriculture. Using the analytic tools of structuralism, Detienne shows instead that the festivals of Adonis depict a seductive but impotent and fruitless deity--whose physical ineptitude led to his death in a boar hunt, after which his body was found in a lettuce patch. Contrasting the festivals of Adonis with the solemn ones dedicated to Demeter, the goddess of grain, he reveals the former as a parody and negation of the institution of marriage. Detienne considers the short-lived gardens that Athenian women planted in mockery for Adonis's festival, and explores the function of such vegetal matter as spices, mint, myrrh, cereal, and wet plants in religious practice and in a wide selection of myths. His inquiry exposes, among many things, attitudes toward sexual activities ranging from "perverse" acts to marital relations.


Starve the Vulture

Starve the Vulture

Author: Jason Carney

Publisher: Akashic Books

Published: 2015-01-06

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1617753017

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A stirring story of criminality, drug addiction, recovery, and unlikely fame.


Art and Immortality in the Ancient Near East

Art and Immortality in the Ancient Near East

Author: Mehmet-Ali Ataç

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-03-08

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1108688403

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Discussions of apocalyptic thought and its sources in the ancient Near East, particularly Mesopotamia, have a long scholarly history, with a renewed interest and focus in the recent decades. Outside Assyriological scholarship as well, studies of the apocalyptic give significant credit to the ancient Near East, especially Babylonia and Iran, as potential sources for the manifestations of this phenomenon in the Hellenistic period. The emphasis on kingship and empire in apocalyptic modes of thinking warrants special attention paid to the regal art of ancient Mesopotamia and adjacent areas in its potential to express the relevant notions. In this book, Mehmet-Ali Ataç demonstrates the importance of visual evidence as a source for apocalyptic thought. Focusing on the so-called investiture painting from Mari, he relates it to parallel evidence from the visual traditions of the Assyrian Empire, ancient Egypt, and Hittite Anatolia.


The Natural Genesis (Two Volumes in One)

The Natural Genesis (Two Volumes in One)

Author: Gerald Massey

Publisher: Cosimo, Inc.

Published: 2011-12-01

Total Pages: 1108

ISBN-13: 1616405570

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Egyptologist Gerald Massey challenged readers in A Book of the Beginnings to consider the argument that Egypt was the birthplace of civilization and that the widespread monotheistic vision of man and the metaphysical was, in fact, based on ancient Egyptian mythos. In The Natural Genesis, presented here in an omnibus edition, Massey delivers a sequel, delving deeper into his compelling polemic. In Volume I, he offers a more intellectual, fine-tuned analysis of the development of society out of Egypt. From the simplest signs (numbers, the cross) to the grandest archetypes (darkness, the mother figure), Massey carefully and confidently lays the cultural and psychosocial bricks of evolutionism. Volume II provides detailed discourse on the Egyptian origin of the delicate components of the monotheistic creed. With his agile prose, Massey leads an adventurous examination of the epistemology of astronomy, time, and Christology-and what it all means for human culture. British author GERALD MASSEY (1828-1907) published works of poetry, spiritualism, Shakespearean criticism, and theology, but his best known works are in the realm of Egyptology, including The Book of the Beginnings, The Natural Genesis, and Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World.