The Empire Books

This eloquently written book is more than biography, it is an evocative social-study of one family's travel from a Chesapeake Bay backwater to modernity. Brice and Shirley Phillips were born and raised on a remote island-promontory jutting into the sea on the eastern side of Chesapeake Bay. They grew up in the crab-processing business. While preserving that, they gravitated to the seafood restaurant business, one thing including much hard work led to another, and they prospered. Their son pioneered crab processing in the Phillippines, Malaysia and mainland Asia, and the Phillips enterprise is now respected globally.

But the story is more than economic. Author Cathell depicts the Phillips as genuinely decent people, employers who valued their employees, treated them well, were reciprocated by loyalty in return, and this mutual benevolent synergy was very key to furthering the success of their business including abroad in Asia. The book is a sweet sociological portrait, too. Imagine grizzled old Hoopers Island watermen being transported to distant Asia, some of whom on their first plane rides, to exchange crab-harvesting experiences with counterparts there. That's depicted. Brice served in Europe during World War II while his young bride awaited back home and his letters to her are touching. Those are depicted too, especially Brice's descriptions of angst about prospectively being transferred to the Pacific Theater for the expected invasion of Japan in 1945. Great was the relief when the two atomic bombs ended the war, saving lives of many Americans and Japanese alike.

In sum, this book is a really good yarn as well as a time trip. Highly recommended.

I like this a lot. Details the cities and people of Calimshan. Also tells about the creatures and Wars that have ravaged the land. From Efreeti to the Drow to the Pasha's that rule the land and try to assassinate each other. Great reference and easily incorporated into any of the AD&D editions.

This boxed set couldn't be any better. Detailed history, complex relationships between other lands and the Empires, and amazing hooks for adventures and other lands spring forth from every page.

There is only one reason not to purchase Empires: you have no dreams of living an Arabian night. For the rest of us, though, there really isn't anything that comes closer to bringing the Middle East mysteries closer to our adventurers than Empires of the Shining Sea.

I can`t read this book beacause I`m a chinse student.I wonder if someone woudle help me .

This book provides an excellent brief overview to the historiography of the fall of the British Empire. It looks at the fall from a variety of angles and provides a nice conclusion that reminds readers that no one historiography is correct and that all must be taken together. The first calls for the argument that the British metropole tired of empire and popular opinion went against it. This derives from the Hughes and Cain argument of the gentlemanly class but takes a different viewpoint on it and while useful is probably the weakest of the bunch provided. The second course looked at is the economic course which is a compelling argument that shows that empire was not a profitable way to organize in the post 1945 period and the British abandoned the project. The third argument centers on the emerging bipolar world system which argues that the superpowers made Empire obsolete. A useful subset of this historiography is the fact that both the United States and USSR are anti-imperialist which works against British designs. On this note the last historiography considered is the one that focuses on the colonial localities and their emerging nationalism. The argument here is that too many authors focus on their specific country and lose sight of the bigger picture. This does provide an excellent look overall at the idea of how the empire fell apart and is a must read.

What is it like to be on the run with the CIA looking for you? Well, Eamon McGuire, an Irishman, can tell you something about that, along with what it was like to be member of the IRA's South Armagh Brigade. For over 20 years, McGuire led a double life: one as an aircraft engineer, the other as an IRA operative. His newly-released book, "Enemy of the Empire: Life as an International Undercover IRA Activist," is compelling reading.

A very interesting book about the US relations with Portugal from Kennedy to Ford administrations.

For ages, the contemporary writings of the Venerable Bede, an early Christian churchman, have served as a mainstay for historians attempting to understand 7th Century Britain. Bede was probably Saxon descent, or an Angle as he preferred to call the Germanic invaders of Britain. By the time Bede lived and wrote, the Saxons (Germanic peoples from what is today northern Germany, Holland and Denmark) had established power in Britain, albeit fractured by warring factions. Apparently, the first Saxons had been imported by the Romans to serve as mercenary soldiers and secure Britannia from non-Roman invaders. After official Rome withdrew formal support in the 5th Century, the remaining Romano-British people and Saxon soldiers joined forces. Following waves of invasion from the Germanic areas of Europe, by the 7th Century, Saxons ruled most of Britain.

Higham argues Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum or Ecclesiastical History of the English People is a biased accounting of his times. Bede serves as both apologist and historian for the Saxon invaders, portraying them as a "chosen people" who brought the word of God to the heathen. Never mind that many of the Romano-Britains were probably already Christian. One of Bede's complaints is that the Britains do not reckon Easter using the "Roman" method.

Using the writings of Bede and other contemporaneous material such as the `Tribal Hidage', a tribute list thought to reflect the kingship structure of the period, Higham constructs a population profile. By the 7th Century, the Britains had become mostly rural farmers and slaves or servants, who lived and worked on landed estates controlled by Saxon overlords. Higham deduces their status as much from what Bede says as what he doesn't say. He deconstructs Bede's text, examining his use of various terms such as `pagan' and `imperium', the latter a word used by Bede to equate Saxon rule with that of the Romans.

Several things I like about this book include: 1) Higham's ideas concerning the identity of the great warrior buried at Sutton Hoo; 2) His links to Beowulf ; 3) His investigation of the use of various Latin, British, and German (Angles=English) terms in different contexts; 4) His view of how the Britains moved from Roman domination to Anglo-Saxon serfdom.

We are so beset with Enlightenment critiques that we can fail to look closely at the depth of its defining events. In this engaging book, and surprise find, we discover a veiled side to the Enlightenment in its broad spectrum of seminal anthropology and philosophy of history, as in Kant, Herder. A mysterious balance is built in, witness the counterpoints of Kant and Herder, and the very themes we bring against the period are often born in that period. And that would seem to be the case with the very Eurocentrism brought in evidence against modernity. That a critique of empire emerged at the very moment of expansive imperialism is an important history, and this work exhumes a brighter corner of that. Excellent job.

Dated in scope, maybe, dated in his general belief in a rational approach to history and the world, maybe,..... but still after all this time the absolute master of constitutional and political history of the Roman Empire - which as he states went on till 1453....These essays are nuggets packed with good analysis, and he had pioneered all the research, certainly in English-speaking academic world, to back up his conclusions.