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The third volume in this highly acclaimed series examines world history from 1450 to the beginning of the twentieth century. It begins with an examination of the five newly forming "gunpowder empires" and develops the themes of industrialization and the formation of nation-states. The second half of the book covers Europe's growing global power and concludes on the eve of the twentieth century as Europe, the United States, and Japan develop and become fully modern nations.

The second volume of the series expands upon the concepts and foundations of the first, while introducing new ideas such as complex societies, the empire, and the interplay between cultures that began to take place as the world became more interconnected. The volume also continues the pattern of establishing major concepts as "Acts" and "setting the stage" for each major era of human history.

Chronological events are supplemented by thematic ones, such as the development of cities and trade, the spread of religions and the idea of the law, the use of technology and art, and migrations and invasions. The areas included in volume one are the Ancient Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia, India, China, Iran, Rome, Greece, and Meso-America.

This fascinating collection spans two millennia, beginning with a first-century merchant's guide to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean ports. Primary sources describe ancient and medieval trade routes, China's discovery of Africa, the slave trade, kingdoms and court life in inner East and West Africa, and the experiences of Asian and European settlers, merchants, and colonialists. There are writings by important local authorities and scholars as well as travelers and administrators from other continents. The ideas of leaders who shaped modern Africa are represented in the documents of Jomo Kenyatta, Haile Selassie, Steven Biko, and Nelson Mandela.

Born a princess Sayyida on the African spice island of Zanzibar, Emily Ruete was brought up in a harem in the Sultan's palace, naturalized as a German through marriage, and then manipulated by both Germans and British in their efforts to gain control over the island. Her engrossing memoirs, set against a backdrop of political intrigue in the great age of European colonialism, offer a vivid portrait of nineteenth-century Arab and African life, not only in the palace, but in the city and plantations as well. They also explore relationships within her family and to the Arab and black communities, children's education, and the role of women in a polygamous society.

Medieval Fez was a main center of education, art, and commerce from the 13th to the 16th centuries after the Berber tribe of the Mar¿nids seized power in Morocco and moved the capital from Marrakesh to Fez. As non-Arabs they gained legitimacy by founding medresas, religious universities. They also supported the arts and commerce, and expanded their state into an empire. It was the Golden Age of Fez. Maya Shatzmiller draws a historical panorama of this era, highlighting its movers and shakers in locations from North Africa to the Mediterranean world.

Old New Land forever altered the face of the Middle East. The book was a nineteenth-century utopian blueprint for a modern state of Israel. There were Jewish settlers in Palestine, and Zionist ideas had existed in Eastern Europe before Herzl, but Herzl made Zionism into a cultural and political movement acceptable to Western governments and intellectuals. His prophecy at the end of this book became reality: "If you will it, it is not a fable." The author, founder of the Zionist movement, considered this utopian story his best literary work: an expression of his art, with a political message. His biographer, Amos Elon, placed Old New Land "in the mainstream of fin-de-siècle art. Its pursuit of arcadian bliss within a mystic community and its haunted preoccupation with dreams recall Gustav Mahler's music."

In January 1929, the reigning monarch of Afghanistan, Amir Aman Allah Khan, was driven from his capital by a former soldier turned outlaw. The uprising was a response to the ruler's attempts to modernize the tribal culture of Afghanistan. Kabul, then as now, was of considerable symbolic importance, and its loss sounded the death knell to the king's power and his reforms, much as the defeat of the Soviet-backed government in 1993 spelled the end of Marxist power in Afghanistan as well as its efforts at reforming this unyieldingly tribal society.Until now, there has been no account of the nine-month rule of the outlaw-king, Habib Allah, nicknamed "Son of the Watercarrier," from inside the capital. This account of the occupiers' extortion, confiscation, and the resulting hardships, as well as the actions of those who resisted, is a timely reminder of the drama being played out in Afghanistan today. This edition is also illustrated.

The author presents a short history of a rather complex idea that began around the year 1800. Though the United States was often viewed by the people of Germany as a land of opportunity, a portion of the intelligentsia, with which this book is principally concerned, tended to see the U.S. as the home of greedy hypocrites estranged from and envious of all higher culture. From the beginning of the Romantic period and throughout all the turnings of German history to the end of the Cold War, this theme was embellished differently in each era, but its essence remained remarkably unchanged.Diner has written a popularization of the subject for the nonprofessional reader, but the book is also valuable for presenting ideas that are not usually part of the political and cultural discourse concerning the U.S. The ideas are sometimes made murky by the translator, who unfortunately has retained too much of the phrasing and style of the original German, but the author's outlook remains accessible. It is of particular interest now that the former Iron Curtain countries have begun looking to Germany rather than to the U.S. as the model upon which to rebuild their societies.

CUENTOS is a bilingual anthology of twelve short stories, many of which appeared in the 1960s in the English-language magazine The San Juan Review, co-founded by Kal Wagenheim and Augusto Font. Written by six of Puerto Rico's leading writers, the themes vary in time from the 16th-century Spanish conquest to the migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States. Each story is published in both English and the original Spanish. Sometimes sad and sometimes hilariously comic, these stories represent in many respects an authentic voice of the Puerto Rican people.

The revolt of African slaves in Iraq from 869 to 883 C.E.* - the revolt of the Zanj - was one of the great rebellions of world history and the first major uprising in the history of the African diaspora. The Zanj were black slaves shipped overseas from East Africa to work in salt mines and plantations under the harshest conditions. Their fate resembled that of black slaves in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and their revolt triggered racism against blacks among Arabs. Like the Spartacus revolt, it threatened a world power, in this case the Abbasid empire. The revolt also inspired solidarity among Africans in the diaspora, when black soldiers of the Caliph deserted and joined the revolt.Popovic's book is the only full-length study in any major language on the revolt of the Zanj. Scholars on slavery, the African diaspora, and Middle Eastern studies have lauded and extensively quoted from Popovic's groundbreaking work.*The title refers to the two calendars commonly used to document history in Islamic nations - the Gregorian calendar as well as the Muslim Hijra calendar, which began in 622 C.E. during the migration of Muhammad and his followers to Medina (the Hijra). Thus the revolts from 869 to 883 C.E. took place in the third Hijra century but the ninth Gregorian century.

The Kunstkammer was a programmatic display of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These nascent museums reflected the ambitions of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Kepler to unite the forces of nature with art and technology. Bredekamp advances a radical view that the baroque Kunstkammer is also the nucleus of modern cyberspace.

This book covers significant themes explaining the practice of Islamic law.The first essay treats taqiyyah (literally, "caution"), the concealment of one's religion when to reveal it would incur danger, which is based on a Koranic passage. The author provides not only a legal and religious analysis of taqiyyah, but also, through the detailed examination of a prominent sixteenth-century Shiite scholar and cleric, reveals a complex pattern of behavior that allows Twelver Shi'is and other sectarian groups to reduce the risks entailed by participation in societies dominated by a Sunni majority.The second essay inquires into norms for physical and sexual contacts between individuals, even husbands and wives, defining rights to look, to touch, and even to mutilate.The third essay evaluates the Ottoman records of local fines. This report on legal regulations and their execution as well as on practices of law and tradition in villages of Northern Palestine creates a colorful picture of life in the sixteenth century.

This updated and expanded new collection covers the major problems in the field, incorporating classic texts, the newest research, and recent controversies about the origins of African history and Africa's contributions to non-Western world history. The themes presented include: - Africa and Egypt - African States and Trade - Islam and Africa - The Role of Women in African States and Societies - Slavery in Africa and the Formation of Global African Diasporas Other titles in the "Problems in African History" series, edited by Robert O. Collins and co-editors: - Volume II - Historical Problems of Imperial Africa - Volume III - Problems in the History of Modern Africa