Charles River

*Includes pictures *Includes ancient accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading On his deathbed, some historians claim that when he was pressed to name a successor, Alexander the Great muttered that his empire should go "to the strongest". Other sources claim that he passed his signet ring to his general Perdiccas, thereby naming him successor, but whatever his choices were or may have been, they were ignored. Alexander's generals, all of them with the loyalty of their own corps at their backs, would tear each other apart in a vicious internal struggle that lasted almost half a century before four factions emerged victorious: Macedonia, the Seleucid Empire in the east, the Kingdom of Pergamon in Asia Minor, and the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. During the course of these wars, Alexander's only heir, the posthumously born Alexander IV, was murdered, extinguishing his bloodline for ever. Despite the infighting among them, one thing Alexander's generals did agree upon was their Hellenistic culture. Most famously, Ptolemy's line firmly established the Hellenistic culture of the Greeks while ruling over Egypt, and by marrying within their family line, the Ptolemaic pharaohs kept their Hellenistic heritage until the very end of Ptolemy's line, which died with Cleopatra in 30 BCE. Although the Seleucid Empire is less well known, Alexander's general Seleucus was no less successful in "Hellenizing" Persia and parts of Asia Minor. The Greek influence is still readily visible in the region thousands of years later. Anthropologists have found that some of the earliest Buddha statues constructed in India bear an uncanny resemblance to Ancient Greek depictions of Apollo, and local legend has it that the wild olive trees that grow in some regions of Afghanistan sprang from the olive seeds that Macedonian soldiers spat out on the march - not to mention the presence of Balkan features such as red hair and blue eyes among a significant amount of the locals there to this day. Legends of Alexander crop up amid the popular mythology of half the world, and while some among the Persian Empire called him "the accursed", it is now widely believed that the story of the prophet Dhul-Qarnayn ("The Two-Horned One") in the Qur'an is a reference to Alexander. For a time, the Seleucids commanded the largest empire in the world as it stretched from the high plains and deserts of what is now Afghanistan in the east to parts of the Levant and Asia Minor in the west. The empire's early kings were strong and shrewd and committed to the ideas of Hellenism as much as holding power and expanding the realm of their empire, but later rulers did not prove as capable. In time, the Seleucid royal house often descended into orgies of violence which were driven by ambitious men and women. Antioch served as the most important city of the Seleucid kingdom from the 3rd century BCE onwards, and by the 1st century CE Antioch had grown into a well-fortified and cosmopolitan Roman city, famous throughout the Roman Empire alongside its neighboring town of Daphne. This rich, beautiful city was the setting of the major gods, goddesses, myths, and legends of the Classical world; a city beloved by divine and mortal, pagan and Christian alike. This was approximately the same time that the Christian Church was founded in Antioch by those fleeing Jerusalem after the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, and it was from this city that Saint Paul left on his missionary journeys. Antioch continued to serve as an iconic Christian city during the Crusades. It was one of the first cities to be captured by the European armies of the First Crusade, and from that point forward, two powerful dynasties - the house of Hauteville and the house of Poitiers - ruled from there over the principality of Antioch.

"Como las hojas de los rboles as es la raza del hombre, - Ahora con el verdor de la juventud, ahora marchit ndose en el suelo; La siguiente primavera otra raza: A su turno caen, y a su turno surgen." - La Il ada Quiz s los m s famosos poemas picos jam s escritos, la Il ada y la Odisea han sido le dos por cerca de 3.000 a os, haciendo de ambos, dos de los escritos m s antiguos del mundo occidental. Los poemas hicieron f cilmente reconocibles a personajes como P ris, Helena, Odiseo, Aquiles, H ctor, y yax, y han influenciado a otros poetas antiguos como Virgilio, cuya Eneida claramente est modelada a partir de ellos. Los poemas picos literalmente pusieron a Troya en el mapa, motivando a Heinrich Schliemann a buscar y finalmente a encontrar la ciudad de Troya en el siglo XIX. Escritas seg n se cree hacia el siglo VIII o VII AEC, la Il ada y la Odisea sirvieron al entretenimiento y gu a moral de toda clase a los antiguos griegos, y a la fundaci n de la literatura occidental. Aunque hay debates acad micos acerca de la autor a de esta pica, por lo general se la atribuye a Homero. Dado que vivi hace casi 2800 a os, no es mucho lo que en realidad se sabe de Homero; incluso su lugar de nacimiento es objeto de discusi n, mas debido al dialecto griego en el que las obras que se le atribuyen fueron escritas, la creencia generalizada es que vivi en Jonia. El otro aspecto de la vida de Homero sobre la que casi todos concuerdan es que era un poeta ciego, posiblemente tambi n un bardo. Esto hace surgir la pregunta de c mo escribi su poes a pica, pero los especialistas asumen que probablemente la dict a un escriba, ya que el formato sugiere que est n compuestas por varias formas mucho m s breves de poes a oral. Incluso la gente que no sabe mucho de mitolog a griega antigua puede identificar a Aquiles, el Caballo de Troya, y a varios dioses que juegan un papel en la historia de la Guerra de Troya. La naturaleza sempiterna de la historia llev a que muchas grandes personalidades proclamaran ser descendientes de algunos de los personajes contenidos en ella; por ejemplo, se dice que Alejandro Magno dorm a cada noche, durante sus campa as, con una copia de la Il ada, una descripci n de la legendaria guerra que describe el ep tome de la guerra pre-hoplita, y que todav a se ense a en las academias militares de todo el mundo. La historia completa, desde sus caprichosos comienzos a su catastr fico final, ha llegado a los lectores modernos a trav s de las fuentes que han sobrevivido, y combinadas, ofrecen una biopsia del antiguo mito griego y de muchos de sus m s bellos elementos. A la mayor a de la gente se le podr a perdonar el creer equivocadamente que la Il ada abarca la historia completa de la Guerra de Troya, pero la Il ada cuenta la historia de apenas cuatro d as en el noveno a o de la contienda. En muchos aspectos, la Il ada es la historia de la "c lera de Aquiles," y de hecho es el subt tulo de algunas ediciones, pero para tener una idea completa de lo que ocurri en Troya entre los antiguos h roes Aquiles, H ctor, Menelao, y P ris, entre otros, los lectores deben acudir a fuentes (a menudo fragmentarias) que se extienden desde el siglo VIII AEC al per odo romano en el siglo I EC. De hecho, armar la historia es una de las intenciones de este poema pico. Otra intenci n de la Il ada es destacar la naturaleza del relato como un trabajo de mitolog a no de historia. Aunque sin duda hay elementos hist ricos en el relato, as como tambi n momentos que son como la semilla de la actividad cultual en la antigua Grecia, el nfasis est en los m todos narrativos que lo hacen mezcla perdurable e ic nica de mito, leyenda y folclore. Ya que la Guerra de Troya incide en muchos de los antiguos mitos recogidos en la literatura y el teatro desde el Per odo Arcaico en adelante, siempre es importante comprender que la Guerra de Troya en s e

"La Revoluci n Industrial fue otro de esos extraordinarios saltos en la historia de la civilizaci n.: --Stephen Gardiner La dominaci n mundial es una visi n que la mayor a de los reyes, reinas y emperadores solo pueden tener en sue os y es un camino poco recorrido por una raz n muy simple. Requiere, sobre todo, paciencia, lo mismo que habilidad, tenacidad y un plan de acci n impenetrable. El nico que alguna vez estuvo cerca de este imposible nivel de prestigio no es otro que el legendario Imperio Brit nico. Fue en el reinado de Enrique VII de Inglaterra cuando se plante por primera vez esta ambiciosa idea de expansi n global. En marzo de 1496, el rey otorg una carta de exploraci n a John Cabot, que pilotear a exitosamente un viaje que dar a como resultado la ocupaci n de una isla deshabitada en Terranova. Aunque el segundo viaje de Cabot termin en desastre, el coraje y la determinaci n que demostr en estas empresas inspiraron a los exploradores ingleses a organizar m s operaciones y a adue arse de los mares, ya que esperaban ver hasta qu l mites pod an llegar. El Imperio Brit nico: Historia y legado del surgimiento y ca da del Imperio m s famoso del mundo moderno examina la historia y legado de una de las eras m s importantes de la historia moderna. Junto con fotos de gente importante, lugares y eventos, usted aprender acerca del Imperio Brit nico como nunca antes.

*Includes pictures *Includes ancient accounts *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading On his deathbed, some historians claim that when he was pressed to name a successor, Alexander the Great muttered that his empire should go "to the strongest". Other sources claim that he passed his signet ring to his general Perdiccas, thereby naming him successor, but whatever his choices were or may have been, they were ignored. Alexander's generals, all of them with the loyalty of their own corps at their backs, would tear each other apart in a vicious internal struggle that lasted almost half a century before four factions emerged victorious: Macedonia, the Seleucid Empire in the east, the Kingdom of Pergamon in Asia Minor, and the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. During the course of these wars, Alexander's only heir, the posthumously born Alexander IV, was murdered, extinguishing his bloodline for ever. Despite the infighting among them, one thing Alexander's generals did agree upon was their Hellenistic culture. Most famously, Ptolemy's line firmly established the Hellenistic culture of the Greeks while ruling over Egypt, and by marrying within their family line, the Ptolemaic pharaohs kept their Hellenistic heritage until the very end of Ptolemy's line, which died with Cleopatra in 30 BCE. Although the Seleucid Empire is less well known, Alexander's general Seleucus was no less successful in "Hellenizing" Persia and parts of Asia Minor. The Greek influence is still readily visible in the region thousands of years later. Anthropologists have found that some of the earliest Buddha statues constructed in India bear an uncanny resemblance to Ancient Greek depictions of Apollo, and local legend has it that the wild olive trees that grow in some regions of Afghanistan sprang from the olive seeds that Macedonian soldiers spat out on the march - not to mention the presence of Balkan features such as red hair and blue eyes among a significant amount of the locals there to this day. Legends of Alexander crop up amid the popular mythology of half the world, and while some among the Persian Empire called him "the accursed", it is now widely believed that the story of the prophet Dhul-Qarnayn ("The Two-Horned One") in the Qur'an is a reference to Alexander. For a time, the Seleucids commanded the largest empire in the world as it stretched from the high plains and deserts of what is now Afghanistan in the east to parts of the Levant and Asia Minor in the west. The empire's early kings were strong and shrewd and committed to the ideas of Hellenism as much as holding power and expanding the realm of their empire, but later rulers did not prove as capable. In time, the Seleucid royal house often descended into orgies of violence which were driven by ambitious men and women. Antioch served as the most important city of the Seleucid kingdom from the 3rd century BCE onwards, and by the 1st century CE Antioch had grown into a well-fortified and cosmopolitan Roman city, famous throughout the Roman Empire alongside its neighboring town of Daphne. This rich, beautiful city was the setting of the major gods, goddesses, myths, and legends of the Classical world; a city beloved by divine and mortal, pagan and Christian alike. This was approximately the same time that the Christian Church was founded in Antioch by those fleeing Jerusalem after the martyrdom of Saint Stephen, and it was from this city that Saint Paul left on his missionary journeys. Antioch continued to serve as an iconic Christian city during the Crusades. It was one of the first cities to be captured by the European armies of the First Crusade, and from that point forward, two powerful dynasties - the house of Hauteville and the house of Poitiers - ruled from there over the principality of Antioch.

*Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the fighting *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means." - Carl von Clausewitz, On War In May 2011, President Barack Obama gave speeches about the Middle East that discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, using terms like "final status issues," "1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps," and "demographic realities." Obama's speeches were strongly denounced by both the Palestinians and the Israelis, while political commentators across the world debated what Obama's speeches actually meant. Welcome to the Middle East conflict, a conflict that is technically 63 years old and counting but has its roots in over 2,000 years of history. With so much time and history, the peace process has become laden with unique, politically sensitive concepts like the right of return, contiguous borders, secure borders, demilitarized zones, and security requirements, with players like the Quartet, Palestinian Authority, Fatah, Hamas, the Arab League and Israel. Over time, it has become exceedingly difficult for even sophisticated political pundits and followers to keep track of it all. On October 6, 1973, Syria and Egypt caught Israel off guard during the Jewish holy holiday of Yom Kippur, surprise attacking the Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights. Although they initially made gains, the Israelis turned the tide within a week, going on the counteroffensive and winning the war within 3 weeks. The Yom Kippur War was the last concerted invasion of Israel by conventional Arab armies, but it underscored how entangled the West and the Soviet Union had gotten in the region. The British and French had been allied with Israel in the 1950s, including during the Suez Canal War, and the United States assisted Israel by providing weapons as early as the 1960s. As a way of counteracting Western influence, the Soviets developed ties with the Arab nations. After the Yom Kippur War, President Jimmy Carter's administration sought to establish a peace process that would settle the conflict in the Middle East, while also reducing Soviet influence in the region. On September 17, 1978, after secret negotiations at the presidential retreat Camp David, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed a peace treaty between the two nations, in which Israel ceded the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in exchange for a normalization of relations, making Egypt the first Arab adversary to officially recognize Israel. Carter also tried to create a peace process that would settle the rest of the conflict vis- -vis the Israelis and Palestinians, but it never got off the ground. For the Camp David Accords, Begin and Sadat won the Nobel Peace Prize. Begin had once been a leader of the paramilitary group Irgun, while Sadat had succeeded Nasser. Ultimately, the peace treaty may have cost Sadat his life: he was assassinated in 1981 by fundamentalist military officers during a victory parade. The Yom Kippur War: The History and Legacy of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and Its Impact on the Middle East Peace Process looks at the last conventional war fought between the Israelis and Arabs, and the aftermath. Along with pictures and a bibliography, you will learn about the Yom Kippur War like never before.

"La Revoluci n Industrial fue otro de esos saltos en la historia de la civilizaci n." -Stephen Gardiner Entre el siglo 18 y principios del 19, la Gran Breta a experiment unos saltos masivos en el avance tecnol gico, cient fico y econ mico. Este per odo poderoso ha sido desde entonces inmortalizado como la gran Revoluci n Industrial, durante la cual la Gran Breta a se convirti en una fuerza formidable que presum a de un crecimiento econ mico inigualado, de dr sticos cambios en las condiciones de vida y a n del surgimiento de una desatendida clase social. Vastas porciones de territorios rurales fueron transformadas en ciudades interconectadas, complejas y con diferentes tareas. Docenas de inventos innovadores y de productos fueron producidos en serie y vendidos a las masas por primera vez. Algunos de los m s grandes pensadores e inventores se arriesgaron a salir de las sombras. Los cient ficos, los ingenieros, los comerciantes y los productores por igual estaban en su mejor momento, nutridos por una cultura que abrazaba la visi n de crecimiento, progreso y unidad industrial. La Revoluci n Industrial vio como la Gran Breta a se elevaba a la cumbre y se convert a en la envidia de las m s prestigiosas naciones del mundo. Al mismo tiempo, esta era fundamental estaba muy lejos de ser perfecta, presentando unos oscuros puntos d biles y un ej rcito de h roes an nimos. La Revoluci n Industrial: Historia y legado de los r pidos avances cient ficos y tecnol gicos que dieron comienzo al mundo moderno examina la historia y legado de una de las pocas m s importantes de la historia moderna. Junto con fotos de gente importante, lugares y eventos, usted conocer la Revoluci n Industrial como nunca antes.

*Includes pictures *Includes contemporary accounts of the slave trade *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "It is certain that large numbers of slaves were exported from eastern Africa; the best evidence for this is the magnitude of the Zanj revolt in Iraq in the 9th century, though not all of the slaves involved were Zanj. There is little evidence of what part of eastern Africa the Zanj came from, for the name is here evidently used in its general sense, rather than to designate the particular stretch of the coast, from about 3 N. to 5 S., to which the name was also applied." - Ghada Hashem Talhami "The Zanj Rebellion Reconsidered". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 10 (3): 443-461. (1977). It has often been said that the greatest invention of all time was the sail, which facilitated the internationalization of the globe and thus ushered in the modern era. Columbus' contact with the New World, alongside European maritime contact with the Far East, transformed human history, and in particular the history of Africa. It was the sail that linked the continents of Africa, Asia, and Europe, and thus it was also the sail that facilitated the greatest involuntary human migration of all time. The Transatlantic Slave Trade was founded by the Portuguese in the 15th century for the specific purpose of supplying the New World colonies with African slave labor. It was soon joined by all the major trading powers of Europe, and it reached its peak in the 18th century with the founding and development of plantation economies that ran from the South American mainland through the Caribbean and into the southern states of the United States. Toward the end of the 18th century, it began to fall into decline, and by the beginning of the 19th century, various abolition movements heralded its eventual outlawing. It was, throughout its existence, however, a purely commercial phenomenon, supplying agricultural power to vast plantations on an industrial scale. In every respect, it was unaffected and uninfluenced by history, sentimentality, tradition, or common law. Slaves transported across the Atlantic Ocean remained a commodity with a codified value, like a horse or a steam engine, existing often within an equation of obsolescence and replacement that was cheaper than nurturing and maintenance. The East African Slave Trade on the other hand, or the Indian Ocean Slave Trade as it was also known, was a far more complex and nuanced phenomenon, far older, significantly more widespread, rooted in ancient traditions, and governed by rules very different to those in the western hemisphere. It is also often referred to as the Arab Slave Trade, although this, specifically, might perhaps be more accurately applied to the more ancient variant of organized African slavery, affecting North Africa, and undertaken prior to the advent of Islam and certainly prior to the spread of the institution south as far as the south/east African coast. It also involved the slavery of non-African races and was, therefore, more general in scope. The African slave trade is a complex and deeply divisive subject that has had a tendency to evolve according the political requirements of any given age, and is often touchable only with the correct distribution of culpability. It has for many years, therefore, been deemed singularly unpalatable to implicate Africans themselves in the perpetration of the institution, and only in recent years has the large-scale African involvement in both the Atlantic and Indian Ocean Slave Trades come to be an accepted fact. There can, however, be no doubt that even though large numbers of indigenous Africans were liable, it was European ingenuity and greed that fundamentally drove the industrialization of the Transatlantic slave trade in response to massive new market demands created by their equally ruthless exploitation of the Americas.

Embora os sum rios continuem recebendo o segundo ou mesmo o terceiro faturamento em compara o aos babil nios e ass rios, - talvez porque eles nunca constru ram um imp rio t o grandioso quanto os ass rios ou nunca estabeleceram uma cidade t o grande e duradoura como a Babil nia - eles foram o povo que forneceu o modelo de civiliza o no qual todos os posteriores mesopot micos basearam-se. Os sum rios s o creditados como sendo o primeiro povo a inventar a escrita e construir bibliotecas, cidades e escolas na Mesopot mia (Ziskind 1972, 34), e muitos argumentariam que eles foram os pioneiros do mundo a cumprirem tais feitos. Para um povo t o grandioso, lament vel que suas realiza es e contribui es, n o s para a civiliza o mesopot mica mas para a civiliza o em geral, passem em grande parte despercebidas pela maioria do p blico. Talvez os sum rios tenham sido v timas de seu pr prio sucesso; eles gradualmente entraram no registro hist rico, estabeleceram uma grandiosa civiliza o, a ent o lentamente submergiram no mosaico cultural de suas redondezas. Eles tamb m nunca sofreram um grande e repentino colapso assim como os outros povos do Oriente Pr ximo - como aconteceu com os hititas, ass rios e neobabil nicos. Um exame minucioso da cultura e cronologia sum rias revela que os mesmos determinaram o modelo cultural na Mesopot mia por s culos, nos campos da pol tica, governos, artes, literatura e religi o. Os sum rios foram verdadeiramente um grande povo, cujo legado perdurou por muito tempo, mesmo depois de seu fim. Mesmo nos dias de hoje, o mundo deve muito aos sum rios. Quando a Europa Ocidental ainda estava na Idade M dia, foram os sum rios que inventaram a escrita e a roda, dividiram o tempo em minutos e segundos, dominaram a natureza e constru ram cidades gigantescas. Eles abra aram a cultura e as artes, e suas caravanas cruzaram os desertos, abrindo as primeiras rotas de com rcio. Seus mitos e lendas inspiraram diversas hist rias de origem, e sua mem ria ainda vive no Antigo Testamento. Eles escreveram a hist ria do nascimento da humanidade. A heran a da civiliza o sum ria e de seus sucessores est em todas as partes. Nenhum local melhor representa a import ncia dos sum rios do que a cidade de Uruk. Entre o quarto e o terceiro mil nio a. C., Uruk era uma das diversas cidades-estado da terra da Sum ria, localizada no extremo sul do Crescente F rtil, entre os dois grandes rios Tigre e Eufrates. Descoberta ao final do s culo XIX pelo arque logo brit nico William Loftus, o local que revelou muito do que hoje conhecido sobre os povos sum rios, acadianos e neo-sum rios. Embora Uruk n o tenha sido a nica cidade constru da pelos sum rios pelos durante o per odo, era de longe a mais grandiosa e tamb m a fonte da maioria das evid ncias arqueol gicas e escritas no que diz respeito cultura sum ria prim ria (Kuhrt 2010, 1:23). Uruk passou de primeira cidade do mundo para primeiro centro pol tico e cultural mais importante do Oriente Pr ximo em relativamente pouco tempo. Por volta de 3200 a. C., a cultura de Uruk come ou a expandir-se al m das fronteiras da Sum ria, o que coincidiu com a emerg ncia da escrita (Kuhrt 2010, 1:23). A forma de escrita desenvolvida pelos sum rios tornou-se conhecida por seu nome grego, "cuneiforme", pelos caracteres em estilo de cunha que a mesma empregava (Van de Mieroop 2007, 28). A escrita, assim como diversas outras inven es ao longo da hist ria do mundo, parece ter sido criada por necessidade; medida que a cultura de Uruk crescia, os sum rios precisavam desenvolver uma forma sofisticada de manter registros, o que apenas poderia ser feito atrav s da escrita (Van de Mieroop 2007, 28). Apesar de ter sido usado exclusivamente para a linguagem sum ria a princ pio, o sistema de escrita cuneiforme foi posteriormente adaptado e usado por uma s rie de diferentes l nguas do Antigo

*Includes pictures*Includes historic descriptions of Broadway theaters and plays*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further readingOf all the great cities in the world, few personify their country like New York City. As America's largest city and best known immigration gateway into the country, NYC represents the beauty, diversity and sheer strength of the United States, a global financial center that has enticed people chasing the "American Dream" for centuries. America's prototypical metropolis was once a serene landscape in which Native American tribes farmed and fished, but when European settlers arrived its location on the Eastern seaboard sparked a rapid transformation. Given its history of rapid change, it is ironic that the city's inhabitants often complain about the city's changing and yearn for things to stay the same. The website EV Grieve, whose name plays on the idea that the East Village "grieves" for the history and character the neighborhood loses every day to market forces and gentrification, regularly features a photo of some site, usually of little interest: an abandoned store, a small bodega, a vacant lot. The caption says, simply, that this is what the site looked like on a given day. The editors of the website are determined to document everything and anything for future generations. That is hardly a modern phenomenon. New Yorkers have always grieved over the city's continuous upheavals and ever-increasing size and complexity. By the 1820s, Wall Street had lost whatever charm it might have had; former residents complained that two-story houses had given way to intimidating five-story office buildings. The New York Commercial Advertiser noted in 1825 that "Greenwich is no longer a country village," but rather an up-and-coming neighborhood. Today, it's hard to find a history of New York City that doesn't refer to Henry James's famous 1908 story The Jolly Corner, in which a man returns to New York after decades abroad only to be horrified by an unfamiliar hellscape of commercial growth. He finds his once-jolly childhood home nearly buried "among the dreadful multiplied numberings which seemed to him to reduce the whole place to some vast ledger-page, overgrown, fantastic, of ruled and criss-crossed lines and figures." The once-beloved city has transformed itself into "the mere gross generalisation of wealth and force and success." That childhood home-an 1830s townhouse-in fact belonged to the James family on Washington Square in Greenwich Village. It was destroyed to make way for New York University, which is today embroiled in yet another real estate saga as it plans to expand once again. Broadway is more than just jazz hands, glittering costumes, tap numbers, and catchy show tunes that loop in one's mind for hours on end with the mildest provocation. Every year, thousands upon thousands of Broadway hopefuls climb on top of one another to hoist themselves onto the grand stage. Countless hours of training, coupled with blood, sweat, and tears, are poured into the craft, all for a chance to see their names emblazoned across the playbills and marquees - not to mention, perform for potential millions. Behind the dazzling lights and razzle and dazzle of Manhattan's legendary theater district is an equally colorful and riveting history. While hers is a story seasoned with innovative triumphs and remarkable firsts, it is also one plagued with scandal and controversy. Broadway: The History and Legacy of New York City's Theater Center and Cultural Heart examines the history and legacy of the Big Apple's theater. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Broadway like never before.

*Includes pictures *Includes historical accounts describing the site *Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading "Tiahuanaco is not a very large village, but it is celebrated for the great edifices near it, which are certainly things worth seeing. Near the buildings there is a hill made by the hands of men, on great foundations of stone. Beyond this hill there are two stone idols, of the human shape and figure, the features very skillfully carved, so that they appear to have been done by the hand of some great master. They are so large that they seem like small giants, and it is clear that they have on a sort of clothing different from those now worn by the natives of these parts." - Cieza de L on, 1883 Few ancient ruins capture the imagination like the mighty holy site of Tiwanaku, located on the high Andean altiplano plateau outside of La Paz, Bolivia. Unlike some ancient sites, such as Machu Picchu in neighboring Peru or Chichen Itz in Mexico, Tiwanaku has never been "lost"; on the contrary, it has been marveled over for centuries by Incan nobles, Spanish Conquistadores, modern backpackers, and UFO fanatics alike. Despite this history of amazement, Tiwanaku has remained something of an enigma until recently, but it appears that this would have probably been pleasing to its creators. It was created to be a mysterious, sacred, and beautiful place, one with many secrets and a public face characterized by PT Barnum-like showmanship. Skillful modern archaeology has allowed people to look behind the facade and see, for the first time in many, many centuries, some of the secrets behind it. The story is fascinating, complex, and thoroughly human. The modern visitor arriving to Tiahuanaco finds him or herself in, as Cieza de L on noted almost 130 years ago, a not very notable, dusty, chilly settlement south of Lake Titicaca. The place would not be of any great interest except that to the east and south of the modern village, within walking distance of the center, rise a number of remarkable ruins. The eastern complex is the larger of the two and encompasses the ceremonial heart of the ancient settlement, including the massive Akapana Pyramid, the Kalasaya Temple, and the famed Puerta del Sol (Gate of the Sun). Visitors typically pose before this remarkable gateway, carved out of a single 10-ton block of andesite and decorated with elaborate carvings, including a curious figure in the center of a man bearing two rods or staffs in its hands. Visitors leaving this central complex travel south - perhaps stopping at the Ceramic Museum, containing typical works of red and white geometric and zoomorphic images on red earthenware - to the southern complex, centered on the famed ruins of Puma Punku. While this typically makes up the entirety of a visitor's time in the ruins, what is often overlooked is that these ceremonial buildings were surrounded by a vast array of lesser structures, many of which appear to have been cannibalized for their stone to build the modern town, especially the church of San Pedro in the main square (Bolivia es Turismo 2016). Beyond this was an impressive system of aqueducts and irrigation, broad expanses of carefully controlled fields, outlying settlements, and a vast network of dependent, conquered territories. Together they make up the political, spiritual, economic, and artistic world which today is called "Tiwanaku," a place, empire, and cultural tradition that is the focus of this text. Tiwanaku: The History and Legacy of the Ancient Pre-Colombian Site in the Heart of the Andes chronicles the history and archaeology of the famous site. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about Tiwanaku like never before.