As the first European to travel extensively throughout Asia, Marco Polo was the earliest bridge between East and West. His famous journeys took him across the boundaries of the known world, along the dangerous Silk Road, and into the court of Kublai Kahn, where he won the trust of the most feared and reviled leader of his day. Polo introduced the cultural riches of China to Europe, spawning centuries of Western fascination with Asia. In this lively blend of history, biography, and travelogue, acclaimed author Laurence Bergreen separates myth from history, creating the most authoritative account yet of Polo's remarkable adventures. Exceptionally narrated and written with a discerning eye for detail, Marco Polo is as riveting as the life it describes.

A global perspective on the major narratives of world history. Written by leading scholars in their respective fields, The Heritage of World Civilizations offers compelling and thorough coverage of the unique heritage of Asian, African, Middle Eastern, European and American civilizations while highlighting the role of the world's great religious and philosophical traditions. This comprehensive yet accessible survey of world history has been extensively revised to provide an even more global and comparative perspective on the events and processes that have shaped our increasingly interdependent world. Note: MyHistoryLab does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MyHistoryLab at no extra charge, please visit www.MyHistoryLab.com or use ISBN: 9780205207572.

George Soros made billions anticipating seismic changes in the financial markets and has used that money to try and change the world. In this book he brings that commitment to the subject that has preoccupied him since 2001: the state of America. He looks at the fatal flaws not merely of the current Administration - with whom his antagonism is well documented-but with the wider American view of the world. The "stateless statesman," uninhibited by the need to temper his message to suit partisan politics, here delivers his most forceful and penetrating description of how the country that should provide a beacon for good governance around the world has lost direction - such that it believes its own rhetoric and myth-making, in defiance of the facts that will shape all our futures. Soros insists that "America must undergo a change of heart." And if we're looking for somewhere to start, he says, America had better begin by renouncing the "feel-good" misconceptions implicit in the War on Terror.

America is a nation making itself up as it goes along--a story of discovery and invention unfolding in speeches and images, letters and poetry, unprecedented feats of scholarship and imagination. In these myriad, multiform, endlessly changing expressions of the American experience, the authors and editors of this volume find a new American history. In more than two hundred original essays, this book brings together the nation's many voices. From the first conception of a New World in the sixteenth century to the latest re-envisioning of that world in cartoons, television, science fiction, and hip hop, the book gives us a new, kaleidoscopic view of what "Made in America" means. Literature, music, film, art, history, science, philosophy, political rhetoric--cultural creations of every kind appear in relation to each other, and to the time and place that give them shape.--From publisher description.

'You see, if only they didn't speak English in America, then we'd treat it as a foreign country - and probably understand it a lot better' 'the sanest man in America' - Bill Bryson 'Jon Sopel nails it' - Emily Maitlis **With a brand new chapter, charting Trump's first year in power** As the BBC's North America Editor, Jon Sopel has had a pretty busy time of it lately. In the time it's taken for a reality star to go from laughing stock to leader of the free world, Jon has travelled the length and breadth of the United States, experiencing it from a perspective that most of us could only dream of- he has flown aboard Air Force One, interviewed President Obama and has even been described as 'a beauty' by none other than Donald Trump. Through music, film, literature, TV and even through the food we eat and the clothes that we wear we all have a highly developed sense of what America is and through our shared, tangled history we claim a special relationship. But America today feels about as alien a country as you could imagine. It is fearful, angry and impatient for change. In this fascinating, insightful portrait of American life and politics, Jon Sopel sets out to answer our questions about a country that once stood for the grandest of dreams, but which is now mired in a storm of political extremism, racial division and increasingly perverse beliefs.

Dancing in the Dark shows how our worst economic crisis, as it eroded American individualism and punctured the American dream, produced in the 1930s some of the greatest writing, photography, and mass entertainment ever seen in this country.

"Dancing in the Dark shows how our worst economic crisis, as it eroded American individualism and punctured the American dream, produced in the 1930s some of the greatest writing, photography, and mass entertainment ever seen in this country"--OCLC

Some of the most controversial and consequential debates about the legacy of the ancients are raging not in universities but online, where Alt-Right men's groups deploy ancient sources to justify misogyny and a return of antifeminist masculinity. Donna Zuckerberg dives deep to take a look at this unexpected reanimation of the Classical tradition.--

Presents a cultural history of German Jewry from Moses Mendelssohn's arrival in Berlin until the end of the Weimar Republic. Refers to antisemitism in a number of contexts: Mendelssohn is hailed by German intellectuals as an exception among the Jews; acceptance of the Jew was sometimes soon followed by rejection; despite or because of disproportionate Jewish contributions to culture and society, Jews are viewed as foreigners; rights are granted only to rich and useful Jews; despite Jewish patriotism, Jews are often portrayed as traitors and subversives. Among the prominent Jews discussed are Heinrich Heine, whose ambivalence toward Germans reflected their ambivalence toward him, and Walther Rathenau who was assassinated by radical nationalists whose activities the Weimar Republic was unable to curb. The section devoted to the latter reveals how Weimar's weaknesses opened the door of power to the Nazis.

Time magazine called Mortimer J. Adler a ''philosopher for everyman.'' In this guide to considering the big questions, Adler addresses the topics all men and women ponder in the course of life, such as ''What is love?'', ''How do we decide the right thing to do?'', and, ''What does it mean to be good?'' Drawing on his extensive knowledge of Western literature, history, and philosophy, the author considers what is meant by democracy, law, emotion, language, truth, and other abstract concepts in light of more than two millennia of Western civilization and discourse. Adler's essays offer a remarkable and contemplative distillation of the Great Ideas of Western Thought.

"Whether we start from the pandemic, climate change, the inequality engendered by capitalism, the violence of racism and sexism, or any of a number of global crises, it is apparent that we are far from any idea of a common world, a world that is a site of belonging. Such a world would require a fundamental transformation of how we understand value--that everyone's life has value beyond market value and that the world is structured to facilitate everyone's flourishing. Such a world requires, too, the upending and reorientation of everyone's epistemic field, one's very sense of the limit and structure of the world, in order to apprehend the worlds of others and to find connection. Judith Butler draws, surprisingly, on Wittgenstein's sense that the world can be revealed as different than it was-precisely what the pandemic brought about. But what kind of world is it? Phenomenologist Max Scheler would say that it is a world that exhibits itself through its very breath as tragic. And how are we to live in this world? Critically, it must be inhabitable, and here is found the limit of personal freedom, which carried to its extreme makes the world unlivable both for others and for oneself. The world must also be tangible. As Merleau-Ponty describes it, touch is a characteristic of the world rather than a power that we have. We are bodies within a field of interrelated bodies--which has ethical and political consequences, moving beyond an ontology of individuals to an ontology of the world around us. We are asked to accept a vision of an interconnected world in which our breath is shared with others. Can we reimagine what we mean by social equality and inequality in the context of bodily interdependency? We have seen how the natural world begins to restore itself during the restrictions implemented during the pandemic; we have also seen the differential health results due to environmental racism. Together, they suggest that we have an obligation to reorder the world on principles of radical equality. Finally, an inhabitable world is a world where everyone desires to live. To want to live in such a world is to take up the struggle against the conditions that make it impossible for so many. "None of us can accept a world in which some people are protected while others are not," as WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus puts it. Intersubjectivity enmeshes us in the power relations of race, gender, class, and sexuality as they are reproduced, naturalized, and contested in bodies within the complementary crises of pandemic, climate, and systemic racism and sexism. Ultimately, what movements like Black Lives Matter and Ni Una Menos stand for is that all lives are worthy of care and all lives are equally grievable"--

A narrative of the great figures who have created our cultural heritage, from the pyramid builders to Picasso, enriching our world with architecture, painting, sculpture, music, drama, dance, and literature.

Toffler argues that while headlines focus on shifts of power at the global level, equally significant shifts are taking place in our everyday world--supermarkets, hospitals, banks, television, and politics. As old antagonisms fade, Toffler identifies where the next, far more important world division will arise . . . between the "fast" and the "slow". "Thought-provoking on every page".--Newsday.

From the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.

A dictionary of cultural terms, covering a wide range of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and exact sciences. Separate chapters are dedicated to American history, politics and geography.

"An insider's look into the decades of research behind Zecharia Sitchin's books as well as an in-depth overview of his theories and discoveries. Includes carefully selected chapters from the Earth Chronicles series as well as never-before-published letters, articles, and lectures. Each piece includes an introduction, offering context and insight into Sitchin's passionate work and revealing the man behind the theories. Explains the genesis of The 12th Planet, the Anunnaki influences on the Sumerian civilization, the orbit of Nibiru, the prehistory of the Americas, the extraterrestrial origins of modern man, and much more [...] -- provided by publisher

In How to Think about The Great Ideas, Adler summarizes the most important ideas of Western thought, explicating their histories and developments as well as their importance in our lives today. He explains not only what The Great Ideas are, but why they are great.

Seven-year-old Miriam places her baby brother's basket in the Nile River, watches the Pharoah's daughter draw him out and name him Moses, and ponders a vision of other water parting. Includes note on the biblical story on which this is based.

What do Joyce Brothers and Sigmund Freud, Rabbi Harold Kushner and philosopher Martin Buber have in common? They belong to a group of pivotal and highly influential Jewish thinkers who altered the face of modern America in ways few people recognize. So argues Andrew Heinze, who reveals in rich and unprecedented detail the extent to which Jewish values, often in tense interaction with an established Christian consensus, shaped the country's psychological and spiritual vocabulary. Jews and the American Soul is the first book to recognize the central role Jews and Jewish values have played in shaping American ideas of the inner life. It overturns the widely shared assumption that modern ideas of human nature derived simply from the nation's Protestant heritage. Heinze marshals a rich array of evidence to show how individuals ranging from Erich Fromm to Ann Landers changed the way Americans think about mind and soul. The book shows us the many ways that Jewish thinkers influenced everything from the human potential movement and pop psychology to secular spirituality. It also provides fascinating new interpretations of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Western views of the psyche; the clash among Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish moral sensibilities in America; the origins and evolution of America's psychological and therapeutic culture; the role of Jewish women as American public moralists, and more. A must-read for anyone interested in the contribution of Jews and Jewish culture to modern America.

What do Joyce Brothers and Sigmund Freud, Rabbi Harold Kushner and philosopher Martin Buber have in common? They belong to a group of pivotal and highly influential Jewish thinkers who altered the face of modern America in ways few people recognize. So argues Andrew Heinze, who reveals in rich and unprecedented detail the extent to which Jewish values, often in tense interaction with an established Christian consensus, shaped the country's psychological and spiritual vocabulary. Jews and the American Soul is the first book to recognize the central role Jews and Jewish values have played in shaping American ideas of the inner life. It overturns the widely shared assumption that modern ideas of human nature derived simply from the nation's Protestant heritage. Heinze marshals a rich array of evidence to show how individuals ranging from Erich Fromm to Ann Landers changed the way Americans think about mind and soul. The book shows us the many ways that Jewish thinkers influenced everything from the human potential movement and pop psychology to secular spirituality. It also provides fascinating new interpretations of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Western views of the psyche; the clash among Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish moral sensibilities in America; the origins and evolution of America's psychological and therapeutic culture; the role of Jewish women as American public moralists, and more. A must-read for anyone interested in the contribution of Jews and Jewish culture to modern America.