The story of an uncovered voyage as colorful and momentous as any on record for the Age of Discovery--and of the Black mariner whose stunning accomplishment has been until now lost to history It began with a secret mission, no expenses spared. Spain, plotting to break Portugal's monopoly trade with the fabled Orient, set sail from a hidden Mexican port to cross the Pacific--and then, critically, to attempt the never-before-accomplished return, the vuelta. Four ships set out from Navidad, each one carrying a dream team of navigators. The smallest ship, guided by seaman Lope Martín, a mulatto who had risen through the ranks to become one of the most qualified pilots of the era, soon pulled far ahead and became mysteriously lost from the fleet. It was the beginning of a voyage of epic scope, featuring mutiny, murderous encounters with Pacific islanders, astonishing physical hardships--and at last a triumphant return to the New World. But the pilot of the fleet's flagship, the Augustine friar mariner Andrés de Urdaneta, later caught up with Martín to achieve the vuelta as well. It was he who now basked in glory, while Lope Martín was secretly sentenced to be hanged by the Spanish crown as repayment for his services. Acclaimed historian Andrés Reséndez, through brilliant scholarship and riveting storytelling--including an astonishing outcome for the resilient Lope Martín--sets the record straight.

Brief comments on Australian prehistory.

This important new text examines the crucial social and cultural factors associated with the rise of the Asia- Pacific region at the end of the Twentieth Century. It takes a close look at those areas which have affected the everyday life of the people most directly. These include: * the family * gender relations and the position of women * religion * the arts, with specific reference to film * ethnic relations and population migration * education, and the images of the Asia-Pacific. The authors discuss real tensions between tradition and modernity in different nations of the Asia-Pacific, exploring the effects that economic growth has on powerful traditional cultures.

In what may be the last memoir to be published by a living veteran of the pivotal invasion of Guadalcanal, which occurred almost seventy years ago, Marine Jim McEnery has teamed up with author Bill Sloan to create an unforgettable chronicle of heroism and horror McErery’s Rifle Company—the legendary K/3/5 of the First Marine Division, made famous by the HBO miniseries The Pacific—fought in some of the most ferocious battles of the war. In searing detail, the author takes us back to Guadalcanal, where American forces first turned the tide against the Japanese; Cape Gloucester, where 1,300 Marines were killed or wounded; and bloody Peleliu, where McEnery assumed command of the company and helped hasten the final defeat of the Japanese garrison after weeks of torturous cave-to-cave fighting. McEnery’s story is a no-holds-barred, grunt’s-eye view of the sacrifices, suffering, and raw courage of the men in the foxholes, locked in mortal combat with an implacable enemy sworn to fight to the death. From bayonet charges and hand-to-hand combat to midnight banzai attacks and the loss of close buddies, the rifle squad leader spares no details, chronicling his odyssey from boot camp through twenty-eight months of hellish combat until his eventual return home. He has given us an unforgettable portrait of men at war.

New York Times Bestseller and Notable Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Book of the Year (Nonfiction) Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence (Nonfiction) From the most celebrated heir to Darwin comes a groundbreaking book on evolution, the summa work of Edward O. Wilson's legendary career. Sparking vigorous debate in the sciences, The Social Conquest of Earth upends “the famous theory that evolution naturally encourages creatures to put family first” (Discover). Refashioning the story of human evolution, Wilson draws on his remarkable knowledge of biology and social behavior to demonstrate that group selection, not kin selection, is the premier driving force of human evolution. In a work that James D. Watson calls “a monumental exploration of the biological origins of the human condition,” Wilson explains how our innate drive to belong to a group is both a “great blessing and a terrible curse” (Smithsonian). Demonstrating that the sources of morality, religion, and the creative arts are fundamentally biological in nature, the renowned Harvard University biologist presents us with the clearest explanation ever produced as to the origin of the human condition and why it resulted in our domination of the Earth’s biosphere.

Regional approaches to past human adaptations have generated much new knowledge and understanding. Researchers working on problems of adaptations in the Holocene, from those of simple hunter-gatherers to those of complex sociopolitical entities like the state, have found this approach suitable for comprehension of both ecological and social aspects of human behavior. This research focus has, however, until recently left virtually un touched a major spatial and temporaI segment of prehistory-the Old World during the Pleistocene. Extant literature on this period, by and large, presents either detailed site speeific accounts or offers continental or even global syntheses that tend to compile site speeific information but do not integrate it into whole c~nstructs of funetioning so ciocuhural entities. This volume presents our current state of knowledge about a variety of regional adaptations that charaeterized prehistoric groups in the Old World before 10,000 B. P. The authors of the chapters consider the behavior of humans rather than that of objects or features and present data and models for variaus aspects of past cultures and for culture change. These presentations integrate findings and understandings derived from a number of related disciplines actively involved in researching the past. Data and interpretations are offered on a range of Old \yorld regions during the PaIeolithic, induding Africa, Asia, Australia, and Europe, and chronological coverage spans from the Early to Late PIeisto cene.

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