Matteo Ricci, an early recruit of the Jesuit order, was sent to China as a missionary in 1582. If he approached the Emperor with a Bible in one hand, in the other he carried much of the accumulated technological and philosophical wisdom of the late Renaissance Europe, and thus found favour among the Mandarins, the men of learning who enjoyed high status at the Imperial Court. He learned Chinese the better to discuss with them the problems in science and technology, as also questions of religion and the hereafter. But his progress was not unopposed, for the Wise Man from the West came to be seen as an unsettling element in a too-settled society. Ricci died in 1610, disappointed in his ambition to convert the Emperor, and with him the whole of China, to Christianity. But the seed was sown and the crop, even after almost a century of atheistic communism, continues to grow in present-day China. This story of the first fully documented contact between West and East offers a fascinating insight into the history of ideas during one of the most fertile eras in European and Chinese history. Vincent Cronin has built up a reputation with his scholarly, elegantly written works of history and biography, as one of the finest popular historians of his generation. This early book proves his gift as an acutely observant and sensitive historian.

This is the amazing story of the famous Jesuit missionary priest to China, Fr. Matteo Ricci, revered as a "Wise Man" by the Chinese. He arrived in China in 1582 and died there twenty-eight years later, having developing a deep knowledge of and love for the country, the culture and the people. Before Ricci's heroic mission, China was an unexplored land bordering on the vague, mysterious Cathay, and the West was no more than a rumor to the learned Mandarins, a distant unknown region lying beyond the bounds of geography. In the person of Father Ricci these two worlds met, and Vincent Cronin dramatically recreates the romance, the crossed purposes, the potential tragedy of that meeting. He shows us ancient China, the timeless state, with a civilization older than that wherein Christianity first found expression. Because Ricci loved this civilization and honored it, he was able to teach his strange new Christian doctrine with tact and sympathy. He carried much of the technological and philosophical wisdom of the late Renaissance Europe, and thus found favor among the Mandarins, the men of learning who enjoyed high status at the Imperial Court. He learned Chinese to discuss with them the problems in science and technology, and also questions of religion and the hereafter. He lived as a great scholar among great scholars and left behind him a memory worthy of the Christian faith he served. Well researched and written with an enchanting style, Cronin relied almost entirely on contemporary material only recently assembled, including Father Ricci's own letters and reports, and his account of China written in Peking before his death. The seed of Faith was sown and the crop, even after a century of atheistic communism, continues to grow in present-day China.

Boudinot's attempt to prove that the North American Indians were descended from the Jews. Includes information on Indian language and customs. Boudinot, a prominent figure in Congress during the Revolution, was convinced that American Indians were the Lost Tribes. He was one of the 19th-century revivers of the theory, and this book became one of the foremost texts for advocates of the idea.

Students of Religious history know it as The Great Disappointment. Author Jay Tyson's Historical Novel captures what caused hundreds of thousands of laypeople to look to the skies in joyous anticipation -- or dread, and asks the question... what if they weren't completely wrong? What if, despite their zeal, they missed something very important..

R. M. Ballantyne is best known for his westerns. As a young boy Ballantyne spent few years on American continent learning the local customs, trading for fur with Native Americans, sleighing and canoeing across the America. These experiences served as a source for his western novels that span from cowboy tales and gold mining stories to tales from Canadian wilderness._x000D_ Content:_x000D_ Snowflakes and Sunbeams (The Young Fur Traders)_x000D_ The Dog Crusoe and his Master_x000D_ The Golden Dream_x000D_ Away in the Wilderness_x000D_ The Wild Man of the West_x000D_ Silver Lake_x000D_ Over the Rocky Mountains _x000D_ Digging for Gold_x000D_ The Pioneers_x000D_ Fort Desolation_x000D_ The Red Man's Revenge_x000D_ The Prairie Chief_x000D_ Charlie to the Rescue_x000D_ The Buffalo Runners_x000D_ Wrecked but not Ruined

The diary of Philip Henslowe, owner of the Rose Theatre in London during the 1590s, remains the most valuable source of information about the workings of the Elizabethan public theatres. Discussions of theatres and drama in the age of Shakespeare routinely refer to Henslowe, whose 'diary' touches on every aspect of the day-to-day operations of the Rose and the companies of actors, especially the Admiral's Men. The diary preserves the account-book of an Elizabethan theatre owner who was also the father-in-law of the leading actor, Edward Alleyn, and contains many miscellaneous and personal entries. The first edition of Henslowe's Diary, published in 1961, has long been out of print. It provides a thorough introduction to the manuscript, a full transcription of the document itself and several helpful appendices and indexes. For this second edition one of the original editors, R. A. Foakes, has added a new preface and reading list.

Set in the Welsh Borders in 1980, "The Claude Glass" charts an unlikely friendship between two neighbours: Robin, the seven year old son of English hippie sheep farmers, and Andrew, a child so neglected by his impoverished parents that he is left almost mute, seeking solace among the farm dogs. Exploring his parents' semi-derelict farmhouse, Andrew finds an antique convex mirror - a Claude Glass - and, gazing into it, the two boys see their wild, rural landscape strangely ordered. But this comforting vision proves fragile as tensions and sexual jealousy rock the adult world around them. Written with a lyricism and freshness that echoes the work of Bruce Chatwin and Esther Freud, "The Claude Glass" draws you into the lives of its startling characters and their tarnished romance with nature.