Life:75 Years The Very Best Of Life by Life Books

Life:75 Years The Very Best Of Life
Life Books
AED 176.00
ISBN 9781603202121

Description

In this deluxe commemorative edition, LIFE's editors focus on the publication's achievements more tightly than they ever have before: This is truly the best of everything LIFE has accomplished. In these pages are the best war photos ever taken for LIFE; the best photo essays ever to grace our pages (including the works of Capa and Parks and Smith); the loveliest pictures from Hollywood (in fact, the best pictures of Marilyn Monroe ever taken by such as Halsmann, Eisenstaedt and her dear friend Milton Greene), the best sports pictures, the funniest pictures we ever ran. The best pictures from the space race, and the most significant pictures to the human race, including Lennart Nilsson's "Life Before Birth."

This is a premium volume of LIFE, and beyond its 200-plus pages, which include a review of every LIFE cover ever published, there is, included here, the ultimate premium: The first-ever LIFE issue, with the Margaret Bourke-White photograph of the Fort Peck Dam on the cover, reprinted in its entirety, at actual size (which was really big 10 1/2" x 14") and able to be detached.

We've come a long way: We, you, those places, LIFE itself. This book tells, and celebrates, that voyage.

About the Author

The editors at LIFE vigorously carry on the traditions of excellence in photography, in journalism, and in telling the story of our country and our world which began with LIFE magazine in 1936 by founding editor and publisher, Henry R. Luce. They have published books on a broad range of subjects, including New York Times bestsellers One Nation, LIFE Picture Puzzle and The American Journey of Barack Obama.

In an Antique Land by Amitav Ghosh

In an Antique Land
Amitav Ghosh
AED 66.00
ISBN 9781847081940

Description

In an Antique Land is a subversive history in the guise of a traveller's tale. When the author stumbles across a slave narrative in the margins of an ancient text, his curiosity is piqued. What follows is a ten year search, which brings author and slave together across 800 hundred years of colonial history. Bursting with anecdote and exuberant detail, it offers a magical, intimate biography of the private life of a country, Egypt, from the Crusades to Operation Desert Storm.

The Better Angels Of Our Nature by Steven Pinker

The Better Angels of Our Nature
Steven Pinker
AED 108.00
ISBN 9780670023158

Description

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence. For most of history, war, slavery, infanticide, child abuse, assassinations, pogroms, gruesome punishments, deadly quarrels, and genocide were ordinary features of life. But today, Pinker shows (with the help of more than a hundred graphs and maps) all these forms of violence have dwindled and are widely condemned. How has this happened?

This groundbreaking book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly nonviolent world. The key, he explains, is to understand our intrinsic motives- the inner demons that incline us toward violence and the better angels that steer us away-and how changing circumstances have allowed our better angels to prevail. Exploding fatalist myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious and provocative book is sure to be hotly debated in living rooms and the Pentagon alike, and will challenge and change the way we think about our society.

About the Author

Steven Pinker is Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. A two-time Pulitzer finalist and the winner of many prizes for his research, teaching, and books, he has been named one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world today and Foreign Policy's 100 Global Thinkers. He lives in Cambridge.

Ghosts Of Afghanistan:The Haunted Battleground by Jonathan Steele

Ghosts of Afghanistan:The Haunted Battleground
Jonathan Steele
AED 169.00
ISBN 9781846274305

Description

Yes, there are dozens of books on the Afghan wars. Most of them are all about firefights and heroics. But this is the first to take the events of the war Bush and Blair started and put them in the context of the Soviet war and even the British imperial wars that preceded them, and draw the lessons out, and make a sharp summary of what should happen next. No war is ever won against the Afghans. The only option is to give up, but the military never want to give up. The politicians eventually resume control, but Obama has not overruled his generals yet. Read Steele to see how the Russians coped; how Gorbachev ended the wasteful war, and see how Obama might. This is an extremely well-written modern history -- clear, coherent, with real explanatory power. It's a synthetic work, drawing on Steele's deep experience of the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1988 during which period he was the Guardian's man in Moscow, and using that to illuminate the course of war since the post-9/11 invasion. As Steele makes plain in reporting the views of all sides on the ground, almost all Afghans simply want all foreigners off their soil whether they be jihadist Arabs or ignorant Texans, and will fight until that happens. This is, as Steele demonstrates, like all previous foreign invasions of the country, an unwinnable war for the Western allies. Ghosts of Afghanistan stands out for the combination of its calm clarity and comprehensibility, the firmness of its arguments, Steele's stature as an analyst of the region of 30 years standing, his position as the one UK journalist who had first access to the WikiLeaks cache on Afghanistan, and his interpretation of what he found there.

About the Author

Jonathan Steele is a British journalist, author of several books on international affairs. Jonathan Steele was educated at King's College, Cambridge (BA) and Yale University (MA). He has reported on Afghanistan, Russia, Iraq, and other countries. He was Washington Bureau Chief, Moscow Bureau Chief, and Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Guardian. He is currently a columnist on international affairs. In January 2008 his book Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq was published by I.B. Tauris in the UK and Counterpoint in the US.

The Women Of The Cousins War by Philipa Gregory

The Women of the Cousins War
Philippa Gregory
AED 82.00
ISBN 9780857201782

Description

PHILIPPA GREGORY and her fellow historians describe the extraordinary lives of the heroines of her Cousins’ War books: Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford; Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV; and Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII.

In her essay on Jacquetta, Philippa Gregory uses original documents, archaeology, and histories of myth and witchcraft to create the first-ever biography of the young duchess who survived two reigns and two wars to become the first lady at two rival courts. David Baldwin, established authority on the Wars of the Roses, tells the story of Elizabeth Woodville, the first commoner to marry a king of England for love; and Michael Jones, fellow of the Royal Historical Society, writes of Margaret Beaufort, the almost-unknown matriarch of the House of Tudor.

In the introduction, Gregory writes revealingly about the differences between history and historical fiction. How much of a role does speculation play in writing each? How much fiction and how much fact should there be in a historical novel? How are female historians changing our view of women in history?

The Women of the Cousins’ War is beautifully illustrated with rare portraits and source materials. As well as offering fascinating insights into the inspirations behind Philippa Gregory’s fiction, it will appeal to all with an interest in this period.

About the Author

Born in Kenya in 1954, Philippa Gregory moved to England with her family and was educated in Bristol and at the National Council for the Training of Journalists course in Cardiff. She worked as a senior reporter on the Portsmouth News, and as a journalist and producer for BBC radio.

Philippa obtained a BA degree in history at the University of Sussex in Brighton and a PhD at Edinburgh University in 18th-century literature. Her first novel, Wideacre, was written as she completed her PhD and became an instant world wide bestseller. On its publication, she became a full-time writer, and now lives with her family on a small farm in the North of England

Pakistan: A Personal History by Imran Khan

Pakistan: A Personal History
Imran Khan
AED 93.00
ISBN 9780593067758

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Description

Born only five years after Pakistan was created in 1947, Imran Khan has lived his country's history. Undermined by a ruling elite hungry for money and power, Pakistan now stands alone as the only Islamic country with a nuclear bomb, yet it is unable to protect its people from the carnage of regular bombings from terrorists and its own ally, America. Now with the revelation that Pakistan has been the hiding place of Osama bin Laden for several years, that relationship can only grow more strained. How did it reach this flashpoint of instability and injustice with such potentially catastrophic results for Pakistan?

Recounting his country's history through the prism of his own memories, Imran Khan starts from its foundation, ripped out of the dying British Raj. He guides us through and comments on subsequent historical developments which shook the Muslim world – the wars with India in 1965 and 1971, the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and America's retribution 10 years later with the assassination of bin Laden – to the current controversial and intractable war in Afghanistan.We see these events viewed not only through the eyes of Westerners, but through those of ordinary Pakistanis.

Drawing on the experiences of his own family and his wide travels within his homeland, Pakistan: A Personal History provides a unique insider's view of a country unfamiliar to a western audience. Woven into this history we see how Imran Khan's personal life – his happy childhood in Lahore, his Oxford education, his extraordinary cricketing career, his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, his mother's influence and that of his Islamic faith – inform both the historical narrative and his current philanthropic and political activities. It is at once absorbing and insightful, casting fresh light upon a country whose culture he believes is largely misunderstood by the West.

About the Author

Imran Khan was born in 1952 and grew up playing cricket in Lahore, Pakistan. He played his first international match for his country in 1971. In 1972, he began his studies at Oxford University, where he was a contemporary of Benazir Bhutto. He went on to play cricket for Pakistan until 1992, and was captain of the team from 1982. In 1994 he established a hospital in Pakistan offering free cancer treatment to the poor and is in the process of setting up a second. He also founded Namal College (2007), the only private sector university outside the cities. In April 1996 Imran Khan established his own political party, the Tehrik-e-Insaf, which aims to bring good governance and social justice to the people of Pakistan, and make Pakistan a just and humane society.

Moscow December 25, 1991 by Conor O'Clery

December 25, 1991
Conor O'Clery
AED 89.00
ISBN 9781848271135

Description

History always comes down to the details. And when it comes to the fall of the Soviet Union, the details are crucial, especially when such an era-defining event hinged on the bitter personal relationship between two powerful men, Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. On the twentieth anniversary of the end of the Cold War, Conor O'Clery has built his compelling and brilliantly reconstructed narrative of the fall of the Soviet Union around one day, December 25, 1991, the date Gorbachev resigned and the USSR was effectively consigned to history. From there, O'Clery looks back over the events of the previous six years: Gorbachev's reform policies of glasnost and perestroika; Yeltsin's ignominious fall and then rise to the top; the defiance of the once docile Soviet republics; the failed August coup by the hardliners; and, the events that swiftly followed until a secret meeting in a central European forest sealed the fate of the communist monolith and the clock ticked down to the last day. The result is an intricately detailed, thoroughly researched book, based on interviews with many of the key figures in a drama of Shakespearean intensity as well as contemporary reportage, the memoirs and diaries of key political figures and official documents. The book is written at a breathtaking, dramatic pace, drawing the reader in as it focuses equally on the personal and historical stories. "Moscow, December 25, 1991" is set to become the defining book on the fall of the Soviet Union.

About the Author

Conor O'Clery is an Irish journalist and writer. He was born in Belfast and educated at Queen's University Belfast. He worked for The Irish Times for over 30 years in various positions, including news editor and foreign correspondent based in London, Moscow, Washington, D.C., Beijing and New York City. He wrote for The New Republic from Moscow, contributed columns to Newsweek International, and has been a frequent commentator on broadcast channels BBC, NPR and CNN. He was won several awards, including Journalist of the Year, twice, in Ireland: first, in 1987, for his reporting of the Soviet Union, and, secondly, in 2002, for reporting the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, which he witnessed from his office three blocks away. O'Clery has written a number of books. He is currently Ireland correspondent for GlobalPost. He lives in Dublin with his Russian-born Armenian…

1001 Days:That Shaped The World by Peter Furtado

1001 Days:That Shaped the World
Peter Furtado
AED 148.00
ISBN 9781844036158

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Description

Although in a way, history is being made every day, some stand out in the memory or learning more than others. These are the days that had the most impact on the people who witnessed them and the greatest consequences for society in the months and years to follow. These are the discoveries that opened up eyes to a wider world, the decisions and acts that steered people from one possible future to another, and the disasters that shocked people into working together for support and community. Man has always recorded history, from the creation of Alexandria, the Roman empire and the ancient classical world, to the calendar, and the first newspaper.

Reach For The Skies by Richard Branson

Reach for the Skies
Richard Branson
AED 44.00
ISBN 9780753519875

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Description

As far back as stories go, pioneers have reached for the skies. In the last two hundred years, they have mastered the air and made the modern world possible. Today they are bringing outer space within our reach. They're inventors and toymakers, amateurs and adventurers, visionaries, dreamers and, yes, crackpots. Some have called them irresponsible, even dangerous. But I have met many of them. I have worked with them, and funded them, and flown with them. I admire them, and trust them, and I think they and their kind are our future. In this book I look at the history of flight through the stories and people who have inspired me throughout my life. In these pages you will find stories of miraculous rescues; of records made and broken; of surprising feats of endurance and survival, including some of my own adventures, as well as developments in the future of air (and space) travel. It is a story of pioneers, and of course it includes the world famous Montgolfiers and the Wright brothers, but I also want to describe some of the lesser-known trailblazers. People like Tony Jannus, who in 1914 created the first scheduled commercial flight in the world, flying his passengers over the waters of Tampa Bay at an altitude of just fifty feet! The ‘bird man’ Leo Valentin, who in the 1950s jumped from 9,000 feet with wooden wings attached to his shoulders. And my friend Steve Fossett, who dedicated his life to breaking records and having adventures..

About the Author

Sir Richard Branson is a hugely successful international entrepreneur, adventurer and icon, and is founder of the Virgin Group. His autobiography, Losing My Virginity, and his books on business, Screw It, Let's Do It and Business Stripped Bare, are all international bestsellers. He lives on Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands and is married to Joan and has two grown-up children - Holly and Sam.

Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder

Bloodlands
Timothy Snyder
AED 56.00
ISBN 9780099551799

Description

In the middle of Europe, in the middle of the twentieth century, the Nazi and Soviet regimes starved, shot and gassed fourteen million people in a zone of death between Berlin and Moscow. These were the bloodlands - today's Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, western Russia and the eastern Baltic coast. In a twelve-year period - 1933 to 1945 - as a result of deliberate polices unrelated to combat, an average of more than a million civilians were murdered annually. At the end of the Second World War the bloodlands fell behind the iron curtain, leaving their history in darkness. In this revelatory book Timothy Snyder offers a groundbreaking investigation of Europe's killing fields and a sustained explanation of the motives and methods of both Hitler and Stalin. He anchors the history of Hitler's Holocaust and Stalin's Terror in their time and place and provides a fresh account of the relationship between the two regimes. Using scholarly literature and primary sources in all relevant languages, Snyder pays special attention to the testimony of the victims: the letters home, the notes flung from trains, the diaries found on corpses. Brilliantly researched, profoundly humane, authoritative and original, Bloodlands re-examines the greatest tragedy in European history and forces us to rethink our past.

About the Author

Timothy D. Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American professor of history at Yale University, specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Holocaust. He is also affiliated with the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna and the College d'Europe in Natolin. Snyder received his doctorate from the University of Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar, in 1997. He has held fellowships in Paris, Vienna, Warsaw, and as an Academy Scholar at Harvard University. He is the author of five books: a biography of a Marxist revolutionary and sociologist, a study of the emergence of four modern east European nations, a history of interwar espionage, a life-and-times portrait of a Habsburg archduke, and a synthetic account of German and Soviet mass killing. He is the co-editor of two further books, and helped Tony Judt to compose a history of the life of…