Search results for ""Author Merchant"

This volume offers an illuminating overview of the work of a pioneering and highly distinguished scholar of early Latin American social and cultural history and philology. Known for the originality of his approach and the variety of his research interests, James Lockhart has gone from studying social history using career pattern methods to an ethnohistory emphasizing indigenous-language philology, all the while stressing general interpretation, synthesis, historiography, and the development of analytical concepts and categories. The present volume illustrates all these interests and activities within the covers of a single book; the reader can see not only common threads running through the individual essays, but also the close relationships between types of scholarship all too often seen as utterly distinct. The "old and new" of the subtitle is meant literally; the first piece was written in 1968, the last in 1998. Some are already well known, while others have appeared in quite obscure venues. Four of the twelve chapters are published here for the first time. They elucidate the reading of texts for social and cultural purposes, expound on aspects of Nahuatl historical linguistics, discuss the problematic nature of the concept of resistance in Western Hemisphere culture encounters, and review the author's experience with the scholarly disciplines, which involves a certain amount of intellectual autobiography. The tone of the volume is generally colloquial, for nine chapters originated as lectures and attempt to interpret for a wider audience the author's research as represented in his monographic books. Previously published pieces have been revised or expanded to a greater or lesser degree. Their subjects include the transition from encomienda to hacienda, the evolution of social history in Latin American studies, the economic rationality of Spanish procedures, the changing role of merchants in Spanish America, the editing of Nahuatl texts, the author's concept of Double Mistaken Identity, and the process of cultural contact in three major Latin American areas.

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Deep in the wild jungles of Rajasthan resides a magical sparrow that grants wishes . . . In Gujarat, a pandit haggles with vendors and chastises merchants as he chases an elusive bargain . . . A bullocky in Multan encounters a mysterious and wise old man who charges money to talk! A pandemonium of fools, geniuses and everyone in between gambol across the deserts of India to amusing and delightful results. So sit back with a bowlful of kheench and get ready to be enchanted by the beauty of the Thar, the nights at Cholistan and the markets of Kutch.

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From one of twentieth-century China's greatest writers and the author of Lust, Caution, this is an unforgettable story of a love affair set in 1930s Shanghai. Manzhen is a young worker in a Shanghai factory, where she meets Shijun, the son of wealthy merchants. Despite family complications, they fall in love and begin to dream of a shared life together - until circumstances force them apart. When they are reunited after a separation of many years, can they start their relationship again? Or is it destined to be the romance of only half a lifetime? This affectionate and captivating novel tells the moving story of an enduring love affair, and offers a fascinating window onto Chinese life in the first half of the twentieth century.Eileen Chang was born in Shanghai in 1920. She studied literature at the University of Hong Kong but returned to Shanghai in 1941 during the Japanese occupation, where she established her reputation as a literary star. She moved to America in 1955 and died in Los Angeles in 1995.Karen S. Kingsbury taught and studied in Chinese-speaking cities for nearly two decades, and currently lives in Pennsylvania, USA. She has translated Love in a Fallen City for Penguin Classics, as well as other essays and stories by Chang.'A giant of modern Chinese literature' The New York Times'Eileen Chang is the fallen angel of Chinese literature' Ang Lee'A dazzling and distinctive fiction writer' New York Times Book Review'Chang's world is a stark and mysterious place where people strive to find their way in love but often fail under the pressures of family, tradition, and reputation' New Yorker

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Picture your downtown vacant, boarded up, while the malls surrounding your city are thriving. What would you do? In 1974 the politicians, merchants, community leaders, and business and property owners, of Ithaca, New York, joined together to transform main street into a pedestrian mall. Cornell University began an Industrial Research Park to keep and attract jobs. Developers began renovating run-down housing. City Planners crafted a long-range plan utilizing State legislation permitting a Business Improvement District (BID), with taxing authority to raise up to 20 percent of the City tax rate focused on downtown redevelopment. Shaping a City is the behind-the-scenes story of one developer’s involvement, from first buying and renovating small houses, gradually expanding his thinking and projects to include a recognition of the interdependence of the entire city—jobs, infrastructure, retail, housing, industry, taxation, banking and City Planning. It is the story of how he, along with other local developers transformed a quiet, economically challenged upstate New York town into one that is recognized nationally as among the best small cities in the country. The lessons and principles of personal relationships, cooperation and collaboration, the importance of density, and the power of a Business Improvement District to catalyze change, are ones you can take home for the development and revitalization of your city.

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From the New York Times bestselling author of Avatar, the Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi and Avatar, the Last Airbender: The Shadow of Kyoshi comes a thrilling new chapter in the Chronicles of the Avatar series Yangchen’s inexperience may prove to be her greatest asset . . . Plagued by the voices of Avatars before her for as long as she can remember, Yangchen has not yet earned the respect felt for Avatar Szeto, her predecessor. In an era where loyalty is bought rather than earned, she has little reason to trust her counsel. When Yangchen travels to BinEr in the Earth Kingdom on political business, a chance encounter with an informant named Kavik leads to a wary partnership. BinEr is a city ruled by corrupt shang merchants who have become resentful of the mercurial Earth King and his whims. To extract themselves from his influence, the shangs have one solution in mind: a mysterious weapon of mass destruction that would place power squarely in their hands. As Yangchen and Kavik seek to thwart the shangs’ plan, their unlikely friendship deepens. But for Yangchen to chart her course as a singularly powerful Avatar, she must learn to rely on her own wisdom above all else. This propulsive third installment in the Chronicles of the Avatar series illuminates Avatar Yangchen’s journey from uncertain young woman to revered leader.

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An Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestseller. “Tracy Crosswhite is one of the best protagonists in the realm of crime fiction today, and there is nothing cold about A Cold Trail.” —Associated Press In New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni’s riveting series, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite returns home to a brutal murder and her haunted past. The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister’s killer put behind bars. Now she’s returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape. Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town’s revitalization. And Tracy is urged by the local PD to put her own skills to work on a new case: the brutal murder of a police officer’s wife and local reporter who was investigating a cold-case slaying of a young woman. As Tracy’s and Dan’s cases crisscross, Tracy’s trail becomes dangerous. It’s stirring up her own haunted past and a decades-old conspiracy in Cedar Grove that has erupted in murder. Getting to the truth is all that matters. But what’s Tracy willing to risk as a killer gets closer to her and threatens everyone she loves?

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In this third volume of a planned five-volume series, David Roy provides a complete and annotated translation of the famous Chin P'ing Mei, an anonymous sixteenth-century Chinese novel that focuses on the domestic life of His-men Ch'ing, a corrupt, upwardly mobile merchant who maintains a harem of six wives and concubines. This work, known primarily for its erotic realism, is also a landmark in the development of narrative art--not only from a specifically Chinese perspective but also in a world-historical context. Written during the second half of the sixteenth century and first published in 1618, The Plum in the Golden Vase is noted for its surprisingly modern technique. With the possible exception of The Tale of Genji (ca. 1010) and Don Quixote (1605, 1615), there is no earlier work of prose fiction of equal sophistication in world literature. Although its importance in the history of Chinese narrative has long been recognized, the technical virtuosity of the author, which is more reminiscent of the Dickens of Bleak House, the Joyce of Ulysses, or the Nabokov of Lolita than anything in earlier Chinese fiction, has not yet received adequate recognition. This is partly because all of the existing European translations are either abridged or based on an inferior recension of the text. This translation and its annotation aim to faithfully represent and elucidate all the rhetorical features of the original in its most authentic form and thereby enable the Western reader to appreciate this Chinese masterpiece at its true worth. Replete with convincing portrayals of the darker side of human nature, it should appeal to anyone interested in a compelling story, compellingly told.

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The dragons are gone, the powerful magics that broke the world diluted to little more than parlour tricks, but the kingdoms of men remain and the great game of thrones goes on. Lords deploy armies and merchant caravans as their weapons, manoeuvring for wealth and influence. But a darker power is rising - an unlikely leader with an ancient ally threatens to unleash again the madness that destroyed the world once already. Only one man knows the truth and, from the shadows, must champion humanity. The world's fate stands on the edge of a Dagger, its future on the toss of a Coin . . .

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It began as a small, slow, and unadorned sailing vessel—in a word, ordinary. Later, it was a weary workhorse in the age of steam. But the story of the Edwin Fox reveals how an everyday merchant ship drew together a changing world and its people in an extraordinary age of rising empires, sweeping economic transformation, and social change. This fascinating work of global history offers a vividly detailed and engaging narrative of globalization writ small, viewed from the decks and holds of a single vessel. The Edwin Fox connected the lives and histories of millions, though most never even saw it. Built in Calcutta in 1853, the Edwin Fox was chartered by the British navy as a troop transport during the Crimean War. In the following decades, it was sold, recommissioned, and refitted by an increasingly far-flung constellation of militaries and merchants. It sailed to exotic ports carrying luxury goods, mundane wares, and all kinds of people: not just soldiers and officials but indentured laborers brought from China to Cuba, convicts and settlers being transported from the British Empire to western Australia and New Zealand—with dire consequences for local Indigenous peoples—and others. But the power of this story rests in the everyday ways people, nations, economies, and ideas were knitted together in this foundational era of our modern world. Readers will never see globalization the same way again.

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Once, Sancia Grado was just a thief with a grudge and a rare talent. Then she learned how to use that talent, and beat the great merchant houses of Tevanne at their own game. With Clef and Berenice, she even saw off an immortal hierophant - but the war they're fighting now is one they know they can't win.'Absolutely riveting . . . A magnificent, mind-blowing start to a series I'm hungry for' - Amal El-Mohtar, co-author of This is How You Lose the Time War, in the New York Times on FoundrysideThis time, they're not facing robber-baron elites or an immortal hierophant, but an entity whose intelligence is spread over half the globe: a ghost in the machine using the magic of scriving to possess and control not just objects, but human minds.Despite all their efforts their enemy marches on, implacable, unstoppable - and it's closing in on its true prize: an ancient doorway that leads to the centre of creation itself. 'One of the best fantasy writers on the scene today' says Kirkus ReviewsSancia and her friends glimpse a last desperate opportunity to stop this unbeatable foe - but to do so, they'll have to unlock the centuries-old mystery of scriving's origins and pull off the most daring heist they've ever attempted.And as if that weren't enough, their adversary might just have a spy in their ranks - and a last trick up its sleeve . . .

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Evelyn Waugh chose the name "Labels" for his first travel book because, he said, the places he visited were already "fully labelled" in people's minds. Yet even the most seasoned traveller could not fail to be inspired by his quintessentially English attitude and by his eloquent and frequently outrageous wit. From Europe to the Middle East and North Africa, from Egyptian porters and Italian priests to Maltese sailors and Moroccan merchants - as he cruises around the Mediterranean his pen cuts through the local colour to give an entertaining portrait of the Englishman abroad.

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Seven classic Shakespeare plays presented in an accessible comic strip format.The Globe Theatre is delighted to announce a new season of Mr. William Shakespeare's plays! Prithee take your place once more for a performance of seven of the Bard's finest tales. See As You Like It, Antony and Cleopatra, Richard III, Twelfth Night, King Lear, The Merchant of Venice and Much Ado About Nothing – each brilliantly presented in dramatic comic-strip form, including Mr Shakespeare's own dialogue and the riotous remarks of the audience. Bravo!

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Like its predecessors in the series, this book is an epic chronicle of previously unpublished topics, including the uniforms and equipment of the submarine force, PT boat squadrons, mine warfare men, gun crews, signalmen, and more. In addition, never-before addressed subjects including the U.S. Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, Public Health Service, Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Samoan Fita-Fita are examined. Clothing, accoutrements, insignia, small arms, knives, life jackets, novelty items and sweetheart jewelry are all covered.

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Centuries ago, a rift was opened that let monsters into the world of Galatea. At least, that's how the story goes. Suri loves monsters-studying their lore, telling stories about them (for a fee), and-she hopes-one day taming them. Unfortunately, no one takes an orphan street urchin who travels with a merchant camp very seriously. But Suri's self-confidence, cleverness, and ambition serve her well when a mysterious new wagon joins her camp-holding something very big, very loud, and very monstrous.

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Centuries ago, a rift was opened that let monsters into the world of Galatea. At least, that's how the story goes. Suri loves monsters-studying their lore, telling stories about them (for a fee), and-she hopes-one day taming them. Unfortunately, no one takes an orphan street urchin who travels with a merchant camp very seriously. But Suri's self-confidence, cleverness, and ambition serve her well when a mysterious new wagon joins her camp-holding something very big, very loud, and very monstrous.

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The recipe for profitability is presented in Merchandise Planning Workbook. Focusing on the development of a six-month merchandise plan, the text explains how to use Excel 2007 as a tool to project sales, manage inventory, calculate the amount of merchandise to purchase, and adjust the price throughout the selling season. Application Exercises throughout the chapters familiarize students with each aspect of the plan, provide practice in inputting formulas and data, and demonstrate the impact of changing variables. Seven end-of-chapter assignments, when completed in sequence, produce a merchandise plan for a selling season. By mastering this important aspect of merchandising math, students can develop a marketable competency to help launch their careers in retailing.Introducing Merchandise Planning Workbook STUDIO--an online tool for more effective study!~Study smarter with self-quizzes featuring scored results and personalized study tips~Enhance your learning with a 6 month merc

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It's easier than you think to perform every retail math calculationquickly, accurately, and with confidence Mathematics is an essential tool for determining every financialarrangement important to a retail business. Whether you're buyingmerchandise, figuring business expenses, pricing merchandise, orrecording transactions, a solid working knowledge of practicalcalculating procedures is indispensable. But don't worry, we're nottalking algebra, trigonometry, or calculus--just simple arithmeticyou can perform using a calculator. Practical Merchandising Math helps you teach yourself all the mathyou need to succeed in the retail industry. You'll learn tocalculate markon, markup, and markdown; plan net sales, purchases,and stock turnover; and determine expenses and gross margin. You'llalso learn the meanings of important terms and discover how thefour retail areas where math is required--buying, selling,expenses, and record-keeping--are interrelated. This easy-to-useguide * Covers all financial considerations relevant to costing andpricing merchandise * Includes sample calculations with solutions * Features handy, quick-reference charts for standard markonpercentages * Presents material in short sections followed by self-checkpractice exercises Don't let math phobia become a roadblock on your way to retailsuccess. Develop the skills you need, quickly and easily, with thehelp of Practical Merchandising Math.

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Poole is the second largest natural harbour in the world and the largest in Europe, resulting in a trading history which dates back to Roman times. In the Middle Ages, commodities for export, particularly wool, were funnelled into Poole and it became a place where merchants could dock, store their goods and display their wares. The port grew in importance during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and the boom years of trade with Newfoundland, but suffered from an economic slump throughout most of the nineteenth century and into the 1920s and ’30s. However, in the decades after the Second World War, many major national companies were attracted to the town, resulting in 10,000 more homes being built in Poole between 1946 and 1966. A major slum clearance scheme also took place during the same period, as over 1,000 condemned homes were demolished, many in the labyrinth of narrow backstreets and alleyways leading from the Eastern Quay into the Old Town. Poole is still a working port, particularly on the Hamworthy side, where Sunseeker yachts off the production line can be seen adjacent to industrial cargo ships moored nearby and the ferry terminal. On the Poole side, the Fishermen’s Dock nestles incongruously adjacent to a yachting marina. The Quay and Old Town has preserved many cobbled streets and alleyways containing historic buildings, some dating back to the fourteenth century, once a haunt of Newfoundland merchants, pirates, smugglers and press gangs. This fascinating A–Z tour of Poole, its interesting people, places and historic events, is fully illustrated with photography and will appeal to all those with an interest in this Dorset coastal town.

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"The greatest novel of physical love which China has produced." —Pearl S. BuckA saga of ruthless ambition, murder, and lust, The Golden Lotus (Jin Ping Mei) has been called the fifth Great Classical Novel in Chinese literature, joining the Four Great Classics: Journey to the West, The Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Dream of the Red Chamber (also known as The Story of the Stone), and is recognized as one of the Four Masterworks of the Ming novel. Golden Lotus tells the story of Ximen Qing, a wealthy, unscrupulous merchant who takes the beautiful and ambitious widow Pan Jinlian as his fifth wife. Jinlian is not content to accept her position and schemes to dominate her husband and improve her standing in society by using sex as her weapon.As the story unfolds, Ximen Qing embarks on a series sexual conquests and Pan Jinlian exploits her husband's lust, ultimately causing the downfall of the entire family. The story's dramatic climax vividly portrays the lengths to which ambitious people will go to gain influence. It also lays bare the rivalries within wealthy families of privilege while chronicling their rise and fall.Iconic in China, Golden Lotus has been alternately banned and lauded for centuries, all the while still avidly read as a popular page-turner. This new Tuttle edition, now available in a single unabridged volume, includes a superb introduction by Robert Hegel of Washington University, who explains the book's importance as the first novel in the Chinese tradition attributable to a single author.

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A thousand years ago, the Chinese government invited merchants from one of the Chinese port synagogue communities to the capital, Kaifeng. The merchants settled there and the community prospered. Over centuries, with government support, the Kaifeng Jews built and rebuilt their synagogue, which became perhaps the world's largest. Some studied for the rabbinate; others prepared for civil service examinations, leading to a disproportionate number of Jewish government officials. While continuing orthodox Jewish practices they added rituals honouring their parents and the patriarchs, in keeping with Chinese custom. However, by the mid-eighteenth century - cut off from Judaism elsewhere for two centuries, their synagogue destroyed by a flood, their community impoverished and dispersed by a civil war that devastated Kaifeng - their Judaism became defunct. The Theology of the Chinese Jews traces the history of Jews in China and explores how their theology's focus on love, rather than on the fear of a non-anthropomorphic God, may speak to contemporary liberal Jews. Equally relevant to contemporary Jews is that the Chinese Jews remained fully Jewish while harmonizing with the family-centred religion of China. In an illuminating postscript, Rabbi Anson Laytner underscores the point that Jewish culture can thrive in an open society, ""without hostility, by absorbing the best of the dominant culture and making it one's own.""

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In this extensively revised and updated second edition of her classic ethnography, Lynn Stephen explores the intersection of gender, class, and indigenous ethnicity in southern Mexico. She provides a detailed study of how the lives of women weavers and merchants in the Zapotec-speaking town of Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca, have changed in response to the international demand for Oaxacan textiles. Based on Stephen’s research in Teotitlán during the mid-1980s, in 1990, and between 2001 and 2004, this volume provides a unique view of a Zapotec community balancing a rapidly advancing future in export production with an entrenched past anchored in indigenous culture.Stephen presents new information about the weaving cooperatives women have formed over the last two decades in an attempt to gain political and cultural rights within their community and standing as independent artisans within the global market. She also addresses the place of Zapotec weaving within Mexican folk art and the significance of increased migration out of Teotitlán. The women weavers and merchants collaborated with Stephen on the research for this book, and their perspectives are key to her analysis of how gender relations have changed within rituals, weaving production and marketing, local politics, and family life. Drawing on the experiences of women in Teotitlán, Stephen considers the prospects for the political, economic, and cultural participation of other indigenous women in Mexico under the policies of economic neoliberalism which have prevailed since the 1990s.

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Packed with rich detail and analysis of what often transpired when merchant ships were sunk by U-boats, this dramatic book highlights the hazards of World War II at sea. At its center, James P. Duffy relates the story of the sinking of the British liner Laconia by the German U-boat U-156. On September 12, 1942, as Laconia sailed crowded with 1,800 Italian prisoners of war, 103 Polish soldiers, 286 mostly severely wounded British military personnel, 80 civilians, and 463 officers and crew, she was hit by two torpedoes fired by U-156. Laconia’s captain ordered the vessel abandoned, and within an hour, she sank. Perhaps surprisingly, the German U-boat then surfaced and sent a signal that brought two other U-boats, an Italian submarine, and three Vichy French warships to assist with rescue operations.The rescue operation by German ships and the subsequent bombing raid by Allied aircraft are both compelling stories and events that had major repercussions for the conduct of the war. In the wake of the incident, German admiral Karl Dönitz issued instructions known as the Laconia Order demanding that all attempts to rescue survivors from Allied merchant ships be ended. The order provoked an international outcry against inhumane treatment of survivors stranded at sea. After the war, Dönitz was charged with and acquitted of war crimes in connection with this order.

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This is the fantastical, yet real, story of the merchants of Bethlehem, the young men who traveled to every corner of the globe in the nineteenth century. These men set off on the backs of donkeys with suitcases full of crosses and rosaries, to return via steamship with suitcases stuffed with French francs, Philippine pesos, or Salvadoran colones. They returned with news of mysterious lands and strange inventions—clocks, trains, and other devices that both befuddled and bewitched the Bethlehemites. With newfound wealth, these merchants built shimmering pink mansions that transformed Bethlehem from a rural village into Palestine's wealthiest and most cosmopolitan town. At the center of these extraordinary occurrences lived Jubrail Dabdoub. The Lives and Deaths of Jubrail Dabdoub tells the story of Jubrail's encounters, offering a version of Palestinian history rarely acknowledged. From his childhood in rural Bethlehem to later voyages across Europe, East Asia, and the Americas, Jubrail's story culminates in a recorded miracle: in 1909, he was brought back from the dead. To tell such a tale is to delve into the realms of the fantastic and improbable. Through the story of Jubrail's life, Jacob Norris explores the porous lines between history and fiction, the normal and the paranormal, the everyday and the extraordinary. Drawing on aspects of magical realism combined with elements of Palestinian folklore, Norris recovers the atmosphere of late nineteenth-century Bethlehem: a mood of excitement, disorientation, and wonder as the town was thrust into a new era. As the book offers an original approach to historical writing, it captures a fantastic story of global encounter and exchange.

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In the late sixteenth century, English merchants and diplomats ventured into the eastern Mediterranean to trade directly with the Turks, the keepers of an important emerging empire in the Western Hemisphere, and these initial exchanges had a profound effect on English literature. While the theater investigated representations of religious and ethnic identity in its portrayals of Turks and Muslims, poetry, Miriam Jacobson argues, explored East-West exchanges primarily through language and the material text. Just as English markets were flooded with exotic goods, so was the English language awash in freshly imported words describing items such as sugar, jewels, plants, spices, paints, and dyes, as well as technological advancements such as the use of Arabic numerals in arithmetic and the concept of zero. Even as these Eastern words and imports found their way into English poetry, poets wrestled with paying homage to classical authors and styles. In Barbarous Antiquity, Jacobson reveals how poems adapted from Latin or Greek sources and set in the ancient classical world were now reoriented to reflect a contemporary, mercantile Ottoman landscape. As Renaissance English writers including Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe, and Chapman weighed their reliance on classical poetic models against contemporary cultural exchanges, a new form of poetry developed, positioned at the crossroads of East and West, ancient and modern. Building each chapter around the intersection of an Eastern import and a classical model, Jacobson shows how Renaissance English poetry not only reconstructed the classical past but offered a critique of that very enterprise with a new set of words and metaphors imported from the East.

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***LONGLISTED: THE HWA GOLD CROWN 2021*** ***A Sunday Times BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021: "An ambitious, epic debut."*** ***A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021*** A Times BOOK OF THE MONTH: "Beautifully written and profoundly insightful." “A memorable tapestry of politics, religion and conflicting human desires.” —The Sunday Times “Cathedral is a masterpiece, one of the best historical novels I’ve read in a long time. Spellbinding and so evocative of place and time. A triumph.”—Dan Jones "Fascinating, fun, and gripping to the very end."—Roddy Doyle A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art, and earthly desire. At the centre of this story, is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 12th and 13th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer to local merchants and lowly stonecutters, everyone, even the town’s Jewish denizens, is implicated and affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s Cathedral, which in no way enforces morality or charity. Around this narrative core, Ben Hopkins has constructed his own monumental edifice, a choral novel that is rich with the vicissitudes of mercantilism, politics, religion, and human enterprise. Ambitious, immersive, a remarkable feat of imagination, Cathedral deftly combines historical fiction, the literary novel of ideas, and a tale of adventure and intrigue. Fans of authors like Umberto Eco, Elif Shafak, Hilary Mantel, Ken Follett and Jose Saramago will delight at the atmosphere, the beautiful prose, and the vivid characters of Ben Hopkins’s Cathedral.

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During the War of 1812, most clashes on the high seas involved privately owned merchant ships, not official naval vessels. Licensed by their home governments and considered key weapons of maritime warfare, these ships were authorized to attack and seize enemy traders. Once the prizes were legally condemned by a prize court, the privateers could sell off ships and cargo and pocket the proceeds. Because only a handful of ship-to-ship engagements occurred between the Royal Navy and the United States Navy, it was really the privateers who fought-and won-the war at sea. In Privateering, Faye M. Kert introduces readers to U.S. and Atlantic Canadian privateers who sailed those skirmishing ships, describing both the rare captains who made money and the more common ones who lost it. Some privateers survived numerous engagements and returned to their pre-war lives; others perished under violent circumstances. Kert demonstrates how the romantic image of pirates and privateers came to obscure the dangerous and bloody reality of private armed warfare. Building on two decades of research, Privateering places the story of private armed warfare within the overall context of the War of 1812. Kert highlights the economic, strategic, social, and political impact of privateering on both sides and explains why its toll on normal shipping helped convince the British that the war had grown too costly. Fascinating, unfamiliar, and full of surprises, this book will appeal to historians and general readers alike.

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'Kay is a genius' Brandon SandersonReturning to the near-Renaissance world of A Brightness Long Ago and Children of Earth and Sky, international bestselling author Guy Gavriel Kay tells a story of vengeance, power, and love.On a dark night along a lonely stretch of coast, a small ship, the Silver Wake, sends two people ashore to a stony strand. Their purpose is assassination. They have been hired to do this by two of the most dangerous men alive. The consequences will affect so many lives both great and small, and possibly alter the balance of power in the world.One of those arriving on that night strand is a woman abducted by corsairs from her home as a child, escaping that fate, that destiny, years after, now trying to chart her own course - and bent upon revenge. Another figure, on the boat, bringing it to meet the secretive landing party at the city where they are going, is a merchant who still remembers being exiled as a child with his family from their home, for their faith.Returning triumphantly to the brilliantly evoked near-Renaissance world of his most recent novels, international bestseller Guy Gavriel Kay deploys his signature 'quarter turn to the fantastic' to offer readers a wide-ranging, vividly memorable set of characters in a story of vengeance, power, and love, built around profoundly contemporary themes of exile, loss, and memory.In a narrative of page-turning drama, All the Seas of the World also offers moving reflections on choices, fate, and the random events that can shape our lives.

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The Harwich Force has made its name and will not be forgotten during the future annals of history'; so said Rear Admiral Sir Reginald Tyrwhitt on Armistice Day 1918. But that fame has not endured. Yet for the whole duration of the First World War, the Harwich Striking Force was the front line of the Royal Navy, a force of cruisers and destroyers defending the seas for the Allies. Under a charismatic and aggressive leader, Reginald Yorke Tyrwhitt, U-boats, German cruisers, destroyers and light craft all met their ends at the hands of the Force, as did enemy seaplanes and Zeppelin airships. The Harwich ships were at sea almost daily throughout the war, haunting the German coast and the Friesian Islands, pioneering aerial attack from the sea, developing naval carrier aviation and combined air/sea operations, and hunting for enemy submarines and minelayers in the North Sea. The Harwich Force also took part in major naval battles alongside the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers, and protected merchant ships operating in the dangerous waters around Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and Britain. The author also assesses the role played by the other Royal Navy formations at Harwich: submarines, auxiliary minesweeping and patrol vessels, the Felixstowe seaplane base and the town itself. And when the war was finally won, the Force gained further fame when the German U-boat fleet was surrendered there. Lavishly illustrated, this book is an enthralling account of the men of the Harwich Force, of their grit and brave sacrifice and the key part that they played in the final Allied victory against Germany.

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The latest action-packed adventure from our indomitable Gauls, Asterix and the Griffin, is out now! When Cacofonix the bard is taken to Rome as a present for Julius Caesar, Asterix and Obelix set out to rescue him, sailing with master salesman Ekonomikrisis, the Phoenician merchant. How do our Gaulish friends come to end up training as gladiators? The next Games in the Circus Maximus are not quite what Caesar and the Roman public expect...

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Explores the challenges of maintaining bonds, living up to ideals, and fulfilling desire in Shakespeare’s plays In Thinking About Shakespeare, Kay Stockholder reveals the rich inner lives of some of Shakespeare’s most enigmatic characters and the ways in which their emotions and actions shape and are shaped by the social and political world around them. In addressing all genres in the Shakespeare canon, the authors explore the possibility of people being constant to each other in many different kinds of relationships: those of lovers, kings and subjects, friends, and business partners. While some bonds are irrevocably broken, many are reaffirmed. In all cases, the authors offer insight into what drives Shakespeare’s characters to do what they do, what draws them together or pulls them apart, and the extent to which bonds can ever be eternal. Ultimately, the most durable bond may be between the playwright and the audience, whereby the playwright pleases and the audience approves. The book takes an in-depth look at a dozen of The Bard’s best-loved works, including: A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Romeo and Juliet; The Merchant of Venice; Richard II; Henry IV, Part I; Hamlet; Troilus and Cressida; Othello; Macbeth; King Lear; Antony and Cleopatra; and The Tempest. It also provides an epilogue titled: Prospero and Shakespeare. Written in a style accessible for all levels Discusses 12 plays, making it a comprehensive study of Shakespeare’s work Covers every genre of The Bard’s work, giving readers a full sense of Shakespeare’s art/thought over the course of his oeuvre Provides a solid overall sense of each play and the major characters/plot lines in them Providing new and sometimes unconventional and provocative ways to think about characters that have had a long critical heritage, Thinking About Shakespeare is an enlightening read that is perfect for scholars, and ideal for any level of student studying one of history’s greatest storytellers.

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This book is a highly original study of transnationalism among immigrants from Taishan, a populous coastal county in south China from which, until 1965, the majority of Chinese in the United States originated. Drawing creatively on Chinese-language sources such as gazetteers, newspapers, and magazines, supplemented by fieldwork and interviews as well as recent scholarship in Chinese social history, the author presents a much richer depiction than we have had heretofore of the continuing ties between Taishanese remaining in China and their kinsmen seeking their fortune in “Gold Mountain.” Long after the gold in California ran out and prejudice confined them to dismal Chinatowns, generations of Chinese—mostly men from rural areas of southern China—continued to migrate to the United States in hopes of bettering the family’s lot by remitting much of the meager sums they earned as laundrymen, cooks, domestic workers, and Chinatown merchants. Economic hardships and U.S. Exclusion laws extended the immigrants’ separation from their families for decades, “sojourns” that in many cases ended only in death. Men lived as bachelors and their wives as widows, parents passed away, and children grew up without ever seeing their fathers’ faces. Families and village communities had to adapt to survive the stress of long-term, long-distance separation from their primary wage-earners. At the same time, men raised in the rural communities of a faltering imperial China had to negotiate encounters with an industrializing, Western-dominated, often hostile world. This history explores the resiliency and flexibility of rural Chinese, qualities that enabled them to preserve their families by living apart from them and to survive the intertwining of their rural world with global systems of race, labor, and capital. The author demonstrates that through migration to dank and narrow enclaves, they came to live, and even to flourish, in a transnational community that persisted despite decades of separation and an ocean’s width of distance.

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A New York Times Notable Book of the Year! “The Alienist meets The City & The City in this brilliant debut that mixes fantasy and mystery. Gilda Carr’s ‘tiny mysteries’ pack a giant punch." --David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of Murder As a Fine ArtA young detective who specializes in “tiny mysteries” finds herself at the center of a massive conspiracy in this beguiling historical fantasy set on Manhattan’s Westside—a peculiar and dangerous neighborhood home to strange magic and stranger residents—that blends the vivid atmosphere of Caleb Carr with the imaginative power of Neil Gaiman.It’s 1921, and a thirteen-mile fence running the length of Broadway splits the island of Manhattan, separating the prosperous Eastside from the Westside—an overgrown wasteland whose hostility to modern technology gives it the flavor of old New York. Thousands have disappeared here, and the respectable have fled, leaving behind the killers, thieves, poets, painters, drunks, and those too poor or desperate to leave. It is a hellish landscape, and Gilda Carr proudly calls it home. Slightly built, but with a will of iron, Gilda follows in the footsteps of her late father, a police detective turned private eye. Unlike that larger-than-life man, Gilda solves tiny mysteries: the impossible puzzles that keep us awake at night; the small riddles that destroy us; the questions that spoil marriages, ruin friendships, and curdle joy. Those tiny cases distract her from her grief, and the one impossible question she knows she can’t answer: “How did my father die?” Yet on Gilda’s Westside, tiny mysteries end in blood—even the case of a missing white leather glove. Mrs. Copeland, a well-to-do Eastside housewife, hires Gilda to find it before her irascible merchant husband learns it is gone. When Gilda witnesses Mr. Copeland’s murder at a Westside pier, she finds herself sinking into a mire of bootlegging, smuggling, corruption—and an evil too dark to face.All she wants is to find one dainty ladies’ glove. She doesn’t want to know why this merchant was on the wrong side of town—or why he was murdered in cold blood. But as she begins to see the connection between his murder, her father’s death, and the darkness plaguing the Westside, she faces the hard truth: she must save her city or die with it.Introducing a truly remarkable female detective, Westside is a mystery steeped in the supernatural and shot through with gunfights, rotgut whiskey, and sizzling Dixieland jazz. Full of dazzling color, delightful twists, and truly thrilling action, it announces the arrival of a wonderful new talent.

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Uses rare surviving records, including fully intact logbooks, to situate the customs-enforcement interceptor Sultana within the wider picture of the British Atlantic in this crucial period. The small Boston-built schooner Sultana served as a customs-enforcement interceptor on the North American eastern seaboard in the period leading up to the American Declaration of Independence, when British taxation of American trade was a hugely contentious issue. As a typical workaday British American merchant ship taken into naval service, Sultana offers a rare opportunity to understand a technology of paramount importance to this world, where records for merchant ships are scarce, but where in this case a wealth of information, from plan drawings to the fully-intact logbooks, has survived. The book provides a detailed narrative of the ship's activities, and reveals the nature of life on board and the day to day business of operating a small sailing ship. It explores the technology of the ship and her sailing qualities as revealed by the ship's logs and also by the performance of a modern replica. In addition, the book situates Sultana's role within the wider picture of the British Atlantic in this crucial period. It is thereby both naval microhistory and also Atlantic history for all scholars interested in the formation and development of the British Atlantic world.

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“Whether you are an avid collector or wine novice, this book offers an extensive resource in an accessible format.” —Charlie Trotter, Acclaimed Chef and Award-Winning Author “This book is an invitation to discover the bountiful wine regions, each different from one another, and is an homage to the beauty and uniqueness of the delicious wines they produced.” —Georges Duboeuf, Les Vins Georges Duboeuf “The diversity of French wine is one of its attractions, but it can seem perplexing...until you pick up this marvelous guide. The route is well -marked, easy-to-follow, and the destinations are delicious.” —Kermit Lynch, Wine Merchant and author, Adventures on the Wine Route “...Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan lead us by the hand down the road of adventure to discover the wines of France that they know so well.... In their relaxed, wise, and mischievous way, they show us the joy and pleasure of drinking French wine.” —Prince Alain de Polignac, Winemaker, Champagne Pommery You no longer need to be confused or intimidated by French wine. Authored by certified wine educators and authors Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan, French Wine For Dummies introduces you to the delicious world of fine French wine. Among other things, you’ll discover how to: Translate wine labels Identify great wine bargains Develop your own wine tastes Match French wines with foods Here’s everything you need to know to sip and savor the best—and the best-value—Bordeaux, Burgundy, Beaujolais, Alsace, and other delicious wines. This lighthearted and informative guide covers: The story of French wine and how it came to dominate the wine world How the French name and label their wines and why France’s most important wine regions—including a region-by-region survey of the best vineyards and their products France’s other wine regions, including Champagne, Alsace, the Loire Valley, and others So pour yourself a big glass of Beaujolais Nouveau, sit back, and enjoy the ride as Ed McCarthy and Mary Ewing-Mulligan take you on an intoxicating journey through the wonderful world of French wine.

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Where do shoppers meet before heading out to browse the stores? Why might they go to a particular shop and not another? What first attracts them to a brand or garment? Visual merchandising is concerned with all these questions, spanning the relationship between consumer, environment, brand and product. As part of the Basics Fashion Management series, Bailey and Baker introduce the principles underpinning successful visual merchandising using examples from budget, mid-range and luxury brands. These real-world examples take the form of detailed case studies and interviews, providing hands-on advice from all levels of industry. This revised edition includes additional coverage of online visual merchandising, lighting techniques, mannequin dressing and integrating technology into displays.

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Based on his daily diary entries that provide a vivid and accurate picture of events, the author candidly recounts his development as a merchant mariner from his early years as an indentured apprentice on the Elysia, followed by two years sailing on a passenger ship to India before the Second World War erupted. At sea the war news is relayed in bits and pieces, feeding the underlying tension that keeps rising to the surface. Daily life is punctuated by terrifying episodes such as seeing ships sunk in convoy or hearing bombs drop beside the ship when in port during heavy air raids and the author also relates the horrific experience of being torpedoed. The extremes of nature that all on board had to contend with - winter storms on the North Atlantic; navigating in convoy through flow ice and avoiding icebergs; fog and the ever-present danger of collision; the extreme heat experienced in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, without air conditioning - are all accurately described. He also relates the problems encountered when sailing on worn-out ships that would normally have been scrapped had it not been for the war, and as a consequence experiencing leaks, engine trouble and bursts of flame spouting from the funnel in areas where submarines were operating! There are glimpses of the author's moods and thoughts, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant and sometimes romantic. He displays a droll sense of humour and there are interesting philosophical comments dotted throughout the book. On a return to peacetime sailing, the author was an officer on cargo ships, qualifying as a Master Mariner before he left the sea. "School of the Sea" is a treasure house of unusual information, the kind not usually included in history books. It's personal, vivid, and entertaining and contains some wonderful descriptions of the dramas and mundane routines of shipboard society; stays in foreign ports; when on leave and the long sequestered life at sea. So much is missing from some existing maritime literature on WWII, where the focus is mainly on danger, excitement and death - this book, like no other, captures every dimension of daily life at sea and in port.

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SAVAGE NEGOTIATIONSUchimura tried to negotiate a deal with the Merchant’s Guild to solve the post-calamity food shortage, but his attempts were all foiled by the wicked Viper and his tricks. Determined to turn the tables, Uchimura pulls out the aces up his sleeve: a former enemy and a frail young girl with the courage to come forward with the truth. “By the power invested in me as a Heavenly King for the Demon Army, you’re under arrest.” Viper finally faces the hammer of justice—only for the Demon Army to find itself in a new and unexpected bind!

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Voltaire's Treatise on Toleration is one of the most important essays on religious tolerance and freedom of thought A powerful, impassioned case for the values of freedom of conscience and religious tolerance, Treatise on Toleration was written after the Toulouse merchant Jean Calas was falsely accused of murdering his son and executed on the wheel in 1762. As it became clear that Calas had been persecuted by 'an irrational mob' for being a Protestant, the Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire began a campaign to vindicate him and his family. The resulting work, a screed against fanaticism and a plea for understanding, is as fresh and urgent today as when it was written.

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Scheming abounds in Kerube, and the fate of the entire town hangs in the balance! Lawrence has gotten swept up in machinations--again--and this time he's not even sure which side he's on. With Holo's help, he's going to have to see through the lies to discover the truth of the plans surrounding the narwhal, and if he fails, not only will crucial information about Holo's homeland slip through his fingers, but the merchant woman Eve could pay the ultimate price!This manga adaptation of Isuna Hasekura's acclaimed Spice & Wolf novel series, also available from Yen Press, is an investment that promises the greatest of entertainment returns!

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Geoffrey Chaucer might be considered the quintessential English writer, but he drew much of his inspiration and material from Italy. In fact, without the tremendous influence of Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio (among others), the author of The Canterbury Tales might never have assumed his place as the ‘father’ of English literature. Nevertheless, Richard Owen’s Chaucer’s Italy begins in London, where the poet dealt with Italian merchants in his roles as court diplomat and customs official. Next Owen takes us, via Chaucer’s capture at the siege of Rheims, to his involvement in arranging the marriage of King Edward III’s son Lionel in Milan and his missions to Genoa and Florence. By scrutinising his encounters with Petrarch, Boccaccio, and the mercenary knight John Hawkwood – and with vividly evocative descriptions of the Arezzo, Padua, Florence, Certaldo, and Milan that Chaucer would have encountered – Owen reveals the deep influence of Italy’s people and towns on Chaucer’s poems and stories. Much writing on Chaucer depicts a misleadingly parochial figure, but as Owen’s enlightening short study of Chaucer’s Italian years makes clear, the poet’s life was internationally eventful. The consequences have made the English canon what it is today.

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"Bill Westbrook's follow-up to The Bermuda Privateer is buoyed by details of history and seamanship that will delight any fan of saltwater yarns and explosive action."—Broos Campbell author of the Matty Graves Novels That dashing British privateer Nicholas Fallon is back again, helping himself to a fistful of mayhem in The Black Ring . The year is 1798. The African slave trade is in brutal flower, and the great powers are fighting for control of the Caribbean's immensely profitable sugar plantations. Nico, meanwhile, has been trying his damnedest to become a salt merchant under Ezra Somers, father of the beautiful Elinore. But when an urgent request arrives from Admiral Davies of the Leeward Island Station, Ezra and Elinore give Nico their blessing to head off in search of plunder and adventure. Sailing aboard the American-built topsail schooner Rascal , Nico takes on the job of slipping a secret agent into Cuba, but soon becomes entangled in numerous dangers—or opportunities, as he likes to call them. There's an escaped slave trying to burn every stalk of sugarcane in Cuba, a pirate running riot with a flotilla of "little wolves," an admiral's lady that needs a bit of rescuing, and a French plot that threatens Britain's very presence in the islands.

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Like its predecessors in the series, this book is an epic chronicle of previously unpublished topics, including the uniforms and equipment of the submarine force, PT boat squadrons, mine warfare men, gun crews, signalmen, and more. In addition, never-before addressed subjects including the U.S. Coast Guard, Merchant Marine, Public Health Service, Coast and Geodetic Survey and the Samoan Fita-Fita are examined. Clothing, accoutrements, insignia, small arms, knives, life jackets, novelty items and sweetheart jewelry are all covered.

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This is an age of deception. Con men ply the roadways. Bogus alchemists pretend to turn one piece of silver into three. Devious nuns entice young women into adultery. Sorcerers use charmed talismans for mind control and murder. A pair of dubious monks extorts money from a powerful official and then spends it on whoring. A rich student tries to bribe the chief examiner, only to hand his money to an imposter. A eunuch kidnaps boys and consumes their "essence" in an attempt to regrow his penis. These are just a few of the entertaining and surprising tales to be found in this seventeenth-century work, said to be the earliest Chinese collection of swindle stories. The Book of Swindles, compiled by an obscure writer from southern China, presents a fascinating tableau of criminal ingenuity. The flourishing economy of the late Ming period created overnight fortunes for merchants-and gave rise to a host of smooth operators, charlatans, forgers, and imposters seeking to siphon off some of the new wealth. The Book of Swindles, which was ostensibly written as a manual for self-protection in this shifting and unstable world, also offers an expert guide to the art of deception. Each story comes with commentary by the author, Zhang Yingyu, who expounds a moral lesson while also speaking as a connoisseur of the swindle. This volume, which contains annotated translations of just over half of the eighty-odd stories in Zhang's original collection, provides a wealth of detail on social life during the late Ming and offers words of warning for a world in peril.

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This is a satirical account of one man's spiritual journey, as told by his spirit guide. Ian is a well-seasoned West Indian merchant sailor who narrates the story of a Chicago stock trader, who goes to the West Indies and buys a 75' catamaran to set out in search of Paradise. Instead, he finds a female captain who turns out to be the love of his life, as well as chaos, mahem, and eventually true happiness—only after he faces unbelievable trials and is stripped of everything he owns along the journey.

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Viking marauders in their longships burst through the defences of ninth-century Europe, striking terror into the hearts of peasants and rulers alike for two centuries. But the Vikings were more than just marine warriors and this atlas shows their development as traders and craftsmen, explorers, settlers and mercenaries. With over sixty full colour maps, it follows the tracks of the Viking merchants who travelled deep into Russia, of Viking mercenaries who served in the emperor’s bodyguard at Constantinople, and Viking mariners who sailed beyond the edge of the known world to North America.

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This Naoki Prize-winning work is a personal yet precise account of the lives of working women in the Edo period (1600-1868). In the latter half of the Edo period, the warrior caste was finding itself pushed out of the top echelons of society by the rising merchant class, and repeated famines swept the countryside. Against this backdrop, a small number of women vigorously built themselves independent lives with unusual careers--working as designers of ornamental hairpins, or even scribes--in the male-dominated society of the day. The stories in The Budding Tree recount the conditions in which these women lived.

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