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Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine
The future of our food depends on tiny seeds in orchards and fields the world over. In 1943, one of the first to recognize this fact, the great botanist Nikolay Vavilov, lay dying of starvation in a Soviet prison. But in the years before Stalin jailed him as a scapegoat for the country’s famines, Vavilov had traveled over five continents, collecting hundreds of thousands of seeds in an effort to outline the ancient centers of agricultural diversity and guard against widespread hunger. Now, another remarkable scientist—and vivid storyteller—has retraced his footsteps. In Where Our Food Comes From, Gary Paul Nabhan weaves together Vavilov’s extraordinary story with his own expeditions to Earth’s richest agricultural landscapes and the cultures that tend them. Retracing Vavilov’s path from Mexico and the Colombian Amazon to the glaciers of the Pamirs in Tajikistan, he draws a vibrant portrait of changes that have occurred since Vavilov’s time and why they matter. In his travels, Nabhan shows how climate change, free trade policies, genetic engineering, and loss of traditional knowledge are threatening our food supply. Through discussions with local farmers, visits to local outdoor markets, and comparison of his own observations in eleven countries to those recorded in Vavilov’s journals and photos, Nabhan reveals just how much diversity has already been lost. But he also shows what resilient farmers and scientists in many regions are doing to save the remaining living riches of our world. It is a cruel irony that Vavilov, a man who spent his life working to foster nutrition, ultimately died from lack of it. In telling his story, Where Our Food Comes From brings to life the intricate relationships among culture, politics, the land, and the future of the world’s food. .
Price: $14.95
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Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana Through India
The three-thousand-year-old epic Ramayana chronicles Lord Rama's physical voyage from one end of the Indian subcontinent to the other and his spiritual voyage from Man to God. In Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God, anthropologist and journalist Jonah Blank gives a new perspective to this Hindu classic -- retelling the ancient tale while following the course of Rama's journey through present-day India and Sri Lanka. Ultimately, Blank's journey -- like that of Lord Rama -- evolves into a quest: to understand the chimerical essence of India itself, in all its overwhelming beauty and paradox. "Quite possibly the most perceptive book that I have come across on India since the British Raj ended." -- Pranay Gupte Washington Post; "What Hollywood attempted on the big screen with casts of thousands in Gandhi and A Passage to India, Jonah Blank has achieved in 350 stylistically rich pages." -- Los Angeles Times; "This informative and entertaining book is something to be thankful for." -- The New York Times Book Review..
Price: $10.38
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Retracing the Journey: Teaching and Learning in an American High School (0) (0)
Leila Christenbury is well known as a writer and researcher in English education. Her classic book Making the Journey, now in its third edition, has been a guide to countless middle and high school language arts teachers. In her new book, this veteran teacher and teacher educator reveals what did and more surprisingly did not happen when she returned to the high school classroom after a hiatus of many years. Exploring her experiences in light of current teacher preparation reform efforts, the author's compelling narrative is a continuation of her earlier work that will resonate with those concerned about the state of secondary education in the United States today..
Price: $18.96
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Silk, Scents, And Spice: Retracing the World's Great Trade Routes,the Silk Road, the Spice Route, the Incense Trail
From the earliest days of mankind, the movement of peoples and intercultural exchanges have played a crucial role in the development of civilization. Three legendary routes have been particularly influential: the Silk Road, the Spice Route, and the Incense Trail. Established to transport exotic merchandise, they also carried new ideas, technologies, and religions vast distances. As pathways of conquering armies and armadas, they helped shape the history of the world. In Silk, Scents, and Spice, adventurer John Lawton retraces the world’s greatest trade routes. Through journeys across the steppes, deserts, mountains, and oceans of Asia, Europe, and the Far East, his book recalls the glorious past of these storied passages, documenting the legacy of art, architecture, and religion they left behind. The Incense Trail linked the aromatic growing regions of Arabia with the incense-craving empires of antiquity, including Egypt, Babylon, and Rome. The Silk Road stretched some 7,500 miles across the mountains, deserts, and steppes of Central Asia, joining the markets of China with those of Europe and the Middle East. Along it two of the world’s major religions—Buddhism and Islam—were spread, and basic technologies including printing and papermaking were transferred. The Spice Route, a network of sea lanes that joined Europe, India, and the Orient, created intense international rivalries over the lucrative trade of Southeast Asian spices. The search for their source sent Columbus across the Atlantic and Magellan around the globe. Lawton vividly recounts his adventures and discoveries during a series of land and sea expeditions across the globe. Filled with fascinating historical details, descriptions of exotic locales, and breathtaking photographs, Silk, Scents, and Spice reveals the importance of these ancient trade routes—not just in the past, but for societies and cultural identities throughout the world today..
Price: $42.46
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Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment
In 629, the revered Buddhist monk Hsuan Tsang set out across Asia in search of the Ultimate Truth, and to settle what he called “the perplexities of my mind.” From the Tang dynasty capital at Xian through ancient Silk Road oases, over forbidding mountain passes to Tashkent, Samarkand, and the Amu-Darya River, across Pakistan to the holiest cities of India–and back again–his sixteen-year journey was beset with every hardship imaginable. Pilgrimage complete, Hsuan Tsang wrote an account of his trek that is still considered one of the classics of Chinese literature. In 1998, Richard Bernstein, venerated journalist and Time magazine’s first Beijing bureau chief, retraced the steps of Hsuan Tsang’s long and sinuous route, comparing present and past. Aided by modern technology but hampered by language barriers, harried border crossings, hostile Islamic regimes, and the accidental U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Bernstein follows the monk’s path not only in physical but in contemplative ways. Juxtaposing his own experiences with those of Hsuan Tsang, Bernstein has crafted a vivid account of two stirring adventures in pursuit of illumination. Inspiring and profoundly felt, Ultimate Journey is a marvelous amalgamation of travelogue and history, cultural critique and spiritual meditation..
Price: $4.80
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Lillie Devereux Blake: Retracing a Life Erased
Fiction writer, journalist, and essayist, Lillie Devereux Blake (1833-1913) published seven novels, two collections of stories and essays, and hundreds of other pieces during her lifetime She also played a major role in the struggle for women's rights, eventually becoming Elizabeth Cady Stanton's candidate to succeed Susan B. Anthony as president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Yet for all her remarkable accomplishments, Lillie Blake's story has been all but forgotten. As Grace Farrell reveals in this richly textured biography, Blake's creative writings did not survive the canonical purges of women authors at the turn of the twentieth century, and her contributions to the suffrage movement were simply ignored in the official histories sanctioned by Susan B. Anthony. From the traces that remain, Farrell reconstructs an extraordinary life of passion and purpose. She chronicles Blake's literary career from Civil War correspondent to novelist and provides an inside view of suffrage politics, correcting some long-held misconceptions perpetuated by Anthony and her supporters. At the same time, Farrell expands the generic boundaries of biography by recounting not only a life and the causes of its erasure but also her own process of recovering that life. She brings the reader along with her as she follows Blake's path in the world, touches her diary, reads her letters, and campaigns to prevent Yale University from demolishing Blake's childhood home in New Haven..
Price: $32.58
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Retracing the Past: Readings in the History of the American People, Volume I (To 1877) (6th Edition)
Retracing the Past is an engaging collection of both primary and secondary sources that emphasizes social history and cultural diversity. The anthology leads students to consider the role of women, ethnic/racial groups, and laboring Americans in weaving the nation's social fabric, and allows them to explore life at the individual and community level. It also introduces students to individuals and groups who made a critical difference in shaping American history. This edition extends its reach to cover the question of diversity more fully, incorporating it into the political and social history of the United States. .
Price: $20.00
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Chicago to Lake Geneva: A 100-Year Road Trip: Retracing the Route of H. Sargent Michaels' 1905 Photographic Guide for Motorists
In 1905 Homer Sargent Michaels, an automobile agent based in Chicago, developed an unusual solution to one of the thorniest problems facing early motorists: how to find one’s way from one city to another along the poorly marked rural roads of the time. Michaels’s solution was to take photographs of every major intersection or turning point along a given route. The resulting books—ancestors of today’s digital in-car navigation systems—were remarkably useful, but few copies survive.
Now the Chicago Map Society, in collaboration with the Newberry Library, has compiled a new edition of one of Michaels’s 1905 guides showing the route from Chicago to Lake Geneva, a resort town in southern Wisconsin. This new edition reproduces the entire guide, along with brief explanations and new photographs of the same locations today, as well as an introduction by the Newberry Library’s curator of maps, Robert W. Karrow Jr. Chicago to Lake Geneva: A 100-Year Road Trip is a stellar presentation of a historical artifact—and a fascinating drive down memory lane. .
Price: $16.05
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An Illustrated Viking Voyage: Retracing Leif Erikssons Journey In An Authentic Viking Knarr
Featuring the breathtaking images of award-winning photographer Russell Kaye, "An Illustrated Viking Voyage" tells the tale of an awe-inspiring modern expedition. In 1997, journalist and history buff W. Hodding Carter, along with a ragtag band of amateur sailors, set out to retrace Leif Eriksson's journey to North America. They sailed a handmade ship modeled after a traditional Viking "knarr." It was the first voyage by Westerners to precisely follow the Vikings' route in nearly a thousand years. Beginning in a small boathouse in Maine, Carter's fifty-four-foot open-decked Viking boat, the Snorri, took shape from wooden planks and individually pounded iron rivets. Over the next year, the Snorri sailed from the ports and fjords of Greenland through the Arctic circle to a victorious landing at l'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Through the extraordinary images of photographer Russell Kaye, and a colorful running text from Carter, the chronicle of this remarkable voyage is captured in rich detail. Experience the feat of building an authentic Viking vessel; the power of sublime Arctic landscapes; the beauty and treachery of icebergs; and the fishermen of local villages who offered advice and companionship despite language barriers. An unforgettable adventure as seen through a celebrated photographer's lens, "An Illustrated Viking Voyage" chronicles a once-in-a-millennium occurrence, one which fans of Viking lore and seafaring journeys will come back to time and again..
Price: $9.99
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