Pacaritambo

ANTARCTICA: Firsthand Accounts of Exploration and Endurance
edited by Charles Neider. Condition: NEW 2000 Cooper Square Press Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: Antarctica is a fascinating collection of vivid accounts from the journals of fourteen explorers. Reviewer: "This is a fascinating compliation of true stories about some of the bravest people ever! Their stories of death, suffering and discovery in THE final frontier of our planet are absolutely riveting! If you "get" why they did it, you'll treasure this book. Even if you don't understand their reasons for having to explore Antarctica, you'll still be i for a great read and find a special respect for these true warriors." Accounts from: Captain Cook, George Forster, Belllinghausen, Weddell, Wilkes, James Ross, Amundsen, Robert Scott, Shackleton, Pointing, Cherry-rrard, Byrd, Siple, and Edmund Hillary. Great first-hand history! Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 6.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority shipping available.

THE GARDENS OF THEIR DREAMS: Desertification and Culture in World History
by Brian Griffith. Condition: NEW 2001 Zed Books Trade Paperback, first printing. Content: This magnificent history of the desert relates the human consequences of its relentless expansion. As a result of the past several thousand years, the Great Desert now stretches in almost unbroken continuity from Mauritania's Atlantic seaboard through the Middle East and Central Asia to the Great Wall of China. The author seeks to understand how the great civilizations in the original "green lands" of North Africa, Ancient Egypt, the Middle East, South Asia, and China responded and changed under the pressure of invaders fleeing growing environmental degradation in the surrounding deserts. In fascinating detail, Brian Griffith's cultural history of the deserts of Africa and Asia shows how the expanding wasteland fundamentally reshaped people's images of nature, women, politics, and religion. Questions welcome. [3 copies available]
$ 7.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.

HAZARDOUS HISTORY
by English Heritage. Cover art by Rowan Barnes-Murphy. Condition: NEW 2006 English Heritage (UK) small hardcover (pictorial boards - no DJ issued), first printing. Content: Life today has its problems, but it wasn't so long ago that everyday life in the home, let alone going out to public spaces, was fraught with danger. Put a foot wrong and you could be in deep trouble. Walking down a medieval street ran the risk of being doused from above in someone else's slops, or being crushed in a game of mob football in which several hundred took part. Hygiene as we know it was non-existent. The meting out of law and order leant a brutal and terrible meaning to the concept of rough justice. As late as 1819 people could be hanged in Britain for such minor transgressions as cutting down a tree in any avenue, garden or plantation, impersonating a Chelsea pensioner, or for damaging Westminster Bridge. Disease was an ever-present menace in Victorian streets, especially in overcrowded areas. Set against this backcloth, history was hazardous indeed, as this absorbing and gruesomely detailed book reveals. Questions welcome. [1 copy available]
$ 8.49 + $ 3.19 media shipping. Priority & International shipping available.