West Africa examines the history, social organization, and contemporary setting of that region. The book looks at the nature and development of African culture and social structure over time and the transformations caused by contact with Western civilization.

Depicts life in a prosperous city of northwestern Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

Seeing the world through shape. How do humans make sense of the world? In answer to this timeless question, award winning documentary filmmaker, Lois Farfel Stark, takes the reader on a remarkable journey from tribal ceremonies in Liberia and the pyramids in Egypt, to the gravity-defying architecture of modern China. Drawing on her experience as a global explorer, Stark unveils a crucial, hidden key to understanding the universe: Shape itself. The...

Why did the Vikings sail to England? Were they indiscriminate raiders, motivated solely by bloodlust and plunder? One narrative, the stereotypical one, might have it so. But locked away in the buried history of the British Isles are other, far richer and more nuanced, stories; and these hidden tales paint a picture very different from the ferocious pillagers of popular repute. Eleanor Parker here unlocks secrets that point to more complex motivations...

"A captivating, surprising history of timekeeping and how it has shaped our world. For thousands of years, people of all cultures have made and used clocks, from the city sundials of ancient Rome to the medieval water clocks of imperial China, hourglasses fomenting revolution in the Middle Ages, the Stock Exchange clock of Amsterdam in 1611, Enlightenment observatories in India, and the high-precision clocks circling the Earth on a fleet of GPS satellites...

"Here is a fresh, provocative look at how a recognizable Europe came into being in the first millennium AD. With sharp analytic insight, Peter Heather explores the dynamics of migration and social and economic interaction that changed two vastly different worlds -- the undeveloped barbarian world and the sophisticated Roman Empire -- into remarkably similar societies and states. The book's vivid narrative begins at the time of Christ, when the Mediterranean...

Vikings: the real warriors. "Discover exciting new insights as historian Neil Oliver digs for clues. You'll travel to archaeological sites in Norway, Sweden and Denmark, where Norsemen launch expeditions and raids. Watch in amazement as the warriors settle Britain, Iceland and Greenland and transform themselves from illiterate pagans into Christian farmers, statesmen and kings--all in less than 200 years! The dramatic truth behind the legends will...