The Shamama Case

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The Shamama Case

Author : Jessica M. Marglin
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691237131
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis The Shamama Case by : Jessica M. Marglin

Download or read book The Shamama Case written by Jessica M. Marglin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2025-01-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How a nineteenth-century lawsuit over the estate of a wealthy Tunisian Jew shines new light on the history of belonging In the winter of 1873, Nissim Shamama, a wealthy Jew from Tunisia, died suddenly in his palazzo in Livorno, Italy. His passing initiated a fierce lawsuit over his large estate. Before Shamama's riches could be disbursed among his aspiring heirs, Italian courts had to decide which law to apply to his estate—a matter that depended on his nationality. Was he an Italian citizen? A subject of the Bey of Tunis? Had he become stateless? Or was his Jewishness also his nationality? Tracing a decade-long legal battle involving Jews, Muslims, and Christians from both sides of the Mediterranean, The Shamama Case offers a riveting history of citizenship across regional, cultural, and political borders. On its face, the crux of the lawsuit seemed simple: To which state did Shamama belong when he died? But the case produced hundreds of pages in legal briefs and thousands of dollars in lawyers’ fees before the man's estate could be distributed among his quarrelsome heirs. Jessica Marglin follows the unfolding of events, from Shamama's rise to power in Tunis and his self-imposed exile in France, to his untimely death in Livorno and the clashing visions of nationality advanced during the lawsuit. Marglin brings to life a Dickensian array of individuals involved in the case: family members who hoped to inherit the estate; Tunisian government officials; an Algerian Jewish fixer; rabbis in Palestine, Tunisia, and Livorno; and some of Italy’s most famous legal minds. Drawing from a wealth of correspondence, legal briefs, rabbinic opinions, and court rulings, The Shamama Case reimagines how we think about Jews, the Mediterranean, and belonging in the nineteenth century.

Across Legal Lines

Author : Jessica M. Marglin
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 030021846X
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Across Legal Lines by : Jessica M. Marglin

Download or read book Across Legal Lines written by Jessica M. Marglin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cover -- Half-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Transliteration and Spelling -- Map of Morocco -- Introduction -- 1 The Legal World of Moroccan Jews -- 2 The Law of the Market -- 3 Breaking and Blurring Jurisdictional Bound aries -- 4 The Sultan's Jews -- 5 Appeals in an International Age -- 6 Extraterritorial Expansion -- 7 Colonial Pathos -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Z

Migration at the End of Empire

Author : Joseph John Viscomi
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009473379
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (94 download)

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Book Synopsis Migration at the End of Empire by : Joseph John Viscomi

Download or read book Migration at the End of Empire written by Joseph John Viscomi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How has migration shaped Mediterranean history? And what role did conflicting temporalities and the politics of departure play in the age of decolonisation? Using a microhistorical approach, Migration at the End of Empire explores the experiences of over 55,000 Italian subjects in Egypt during the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Before 1937, Ottoman-era legal regimes fostered the coupling of nationalism and imperialism among Italians in Egypt, particularly as the fascist government sought to revive the myth of Mare Nostrum. With decolonisation, however, Italians began abandoning Egypt en masse. By 1960, over 40,000 had deserted Egypt; some as 'emigrants,' others as 'repatriates,'and still others as 'national refugees.' The departed community became an emblem around which political actors in post-colonial Italy and Egypt forged new ties. Anticipated, actual, and remembered departures of Italians from Egypt are at the heart of this book's ambition to rethink European and Mediterranean periodisation.

Jews and the Mediterranean

Author : Matthias B. Lehmann
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 0253047994
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (53 download)

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Book Synopsis Jews and the Mediterranean by : Matthias B. Lehmann

Download or read book Jews and the Mediterranean written by Matthias B. Lehmann and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A selection of essays examining the significance of what Jewish history and Mediterranean studies contribute to our knowledge of the other. Jews and the Mediterranean considers the historical potency and uniqueness of what happens when Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews meet in the Mediterranean region. By focusing on the specificity of the Jewish experience, the essays gathered in this volume emphasize human agency and culture over the length of Mediterranean history. This collection draws attention to what made Jewish people distinctive and warns against facile notions of Mediterranean connectivity, diversity, fluidity, and hybridity, presenting a new assessment of the Jewish experience in the Mediterranean.

Jewish Law

Author : Suzanne Last Stone
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110452898
Total Pages : 339 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Jewish Law by : Suzanne Last Stone

Download or read book Jewish Law written by Suzanne Last Stone and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-12-30 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Perspectives on Jewish Law combines the detailed work characteristic of scholarship on Jewish law with an orientation towards its broader academic and cultural significance. It shifts the study of Jewish law from its focus on legal doctrine and history to legal theory, achieving in the process a more sophisticated understanding of law that will benefit both the legal academy and Jewish studies. By employing the framework of legal theory, it similarly corrects an over-emphasis on the metaphysical presuppositions and philosophical implications of Jewish law, which has tended to cast it as exceptional relative to other legal systems. Moreover, it answers to old-new anxieties about law, often symbolized by Judaism, raised by contemporary feminists and by philosophers who are animated by recent interpretations of Paul through actual engagement with the Jewish legal tradition. The volume consists of three parts. The first focuses on the critique of positivism, its implications, and the new directions that it opens up for the analysis of Jewish law. The second part takes stock of recent methodological developments in the study of Jewish legal texts and investigates the relation between Jewish law and the disciplines, including history, literary theory, ritual studies, the digital humanities, as well as traditional approaches to Jewish learning. It concludes with a reflection on these interdisciplinary contributions from the perspective of legal theory. The third part explores the connections among Jewish law, philosophy, and culture critique. It assesses the relation or lack thereof between Jewish law and modern Jewish thought, and examines specific issues of philosophical interest, including truth and normativity. It also investigates the image of Jewish law in the contemporary critique of law as well as how Jewish law could productively contribute to that debate. It concludes with a reflection on these studies from the perspective of philosophy of law.

Boats in a Storm

Author : Kalyani Ramnath
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 1503636100
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (36 download)

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Book Synopsis Boats in a Storm by : Kalyani Ramnath

Download or read book Boats in a Storm written by Kalyani Ramnath and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2023-08-22 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than century before World War II, traders, merchants, financiers, and laborers steadily moved between places on the Indian Ocean, trading goods, supplying credit, and seeking work. This all changed with the war and as India, Burma, Ceylon, and Malaya wrested independence from the British empire. Set against the tumult of the postwar period, Boats in a Storm centers on the legal struggles of migrants to retain their traditional rhythms and patterns of life, illustrating how they experienced citizenship and decolonization. Even as nascent citizenship regimes and divergent political trajectories of decolonization papered over migrations between South and Southeast Asia, migrants continued to recount cross-border histories in encounters with the law. These accounts, often obscured by national and international political developments, unsettle the notion that static national identities and loyalties had emerged, fully formed and unblemished by migrant pasts, in the aftermath of empires. Drawing on archival materials from India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, London, and Singapore, Kalyani Ramnath narrates how former migrants battled legal requirements to revive prewar circulations of credit, capital, and labor, in a postwar context of rising ethno-nationalisms that accused migrants of stealing jobs and hoarding land. Ultimately, Ramnath shows how decolonization was marked not only by shipwrecked empires and nation-states assembled and ordered from the debris of imperial collapse, but also by these forgotten stories of wartime displacements, their unintended consequences, and long afterlives.

The Making of the Modern Muslim State

Author : Malika Zeghal
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 069118903X
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis The Making of the Modern Muslim State by : Malika Zeghal

Download or read book The Making of the Modern Muslim State written by Malika Zeghal and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-03-26 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An innovative analysis that traces the continuity of the state’s custodianship of Islam as the preferred religion in the Middle East and North Africa In The Making of the Modern Muslim State, Malika Zeghal reframes the role of Islam in modern Middle East governance. Challenging other accounts that claim that Middle Eastern states turned secular in modern times, Zeghal shows instead the continuity of the state’s custodianship of Islam as the preferred religion. Drawing on intellectual, political, and economic history, she traces this custodianship from early forms of constitutional governance in the nineteenth century through post–Arab Spring experiments in democracy. Zeghal argues that the intense debates around the implementation and meaning of state support for Islam led to a political cleavage between conservatives and their opponents that long predated the polarization of the twentieth century that accompanied the emergence of mass politics and Islamist movements. Examining constitutional projects, public spending, school enrollments, and curricula, Zeghal shows that although modern Muslim-majority polities have imported Western techniques of governance, the state has continued to protect and support the religion, community, and institutions of Islam. She finds that even as Middle Eastern states have expanded their nonreligious undertakings, they have dramatically increased their per capita supply of public religious provisions, especially Islamic education—further feeding the political schism between Islamists and their adversaries. Zeghal illuminates the tensions inherent in the partnerships between states and the body of Muslim scholars known as the ulama, whose normative power has endured through a variety of political regimes. Her detailed and groundbreaking analysis, which spans Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon, makes clear the deep historical roots of current political divisions over Islam in governance.

Sovereignty and Religious Freedom

Author : Simon Rabinovitch
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300280629
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Sovereignty and Religious Freedom by : Simon Rabinovitch

Download or read book Sovereignty and Religious Freedom written by Simon Rabinovitch and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-11-26 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comparative legal history of Jewish sovereignty and religious freedom, illuminating the surprising ways that collective and individual rights have evolved over the past two centuries It is a common assumption that in Israel, Jews have sovereignty, and in most other places where Jews live today, they have religious freedom instead. As Simon Rabinovitch shows in this original work, the situation is much more complicated. Jews today possess different kinds of legal rights in states around the world; some stem from religious freedom protections, and others evolved from a longer history of Jewish autonomy. By comparing conflicts between Jewish collective and individual rights in courts and laws across the globe, from the French Revolution to today, this book provides a nuanced legal history of Jewish sovereignty and religious freedom. Rabinovitch weaves key themes in Jewish legal history with the individual stories of litigants, exploring ideas about citizenship and belonging; who is a Jew; what makes a Jewish family; and how to define Jewish space. He uses recent court cases to explore problems of conflicting rights, and then situates each case in a wider historical context. This unique comparative history creates a global picture of modern legal development in which Jews continue to use the law to carve out surprising forms of sovereignty.

A Convert’s Tale

Author : Tamar Herzig
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674237536
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (742 download)

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Book Synopsis A Convert’s Tale by : Tamar Herzig

Download or read book A Convert’s Tale written by Tamar Herzig and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-03 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate portrait, based on newly discovered archival sources, of one of the most famous Jewish artists of the Italian Renaissance who, charged with a scandalous crime, renounced his faith and converted to Catholicism. In 1491 the renowned goldsmith Salomone da Sesso converted to Catholicism. Born in the mid-fifteenth century to a Jewish family in Florence, Salomone later settled in Ferrara, where he was regarded as a virtuoso artist whose exquisite jewelry and lavishly engraved swords were prized by Italy’s ruling elite. But rumors circulated about Salomone’s behavior, scandalizing the Jewish community, who turned him over to the civil authorities. Charged with sodomy, Salomone was sentenced to die but agreed to renounce Judaism to save his life. He was baptized, taking the name Ercole “de’ Fedeli” (“One of the Faithful”). With the help of powerful patrons like Duchess Eleonora of Aragon and Duke Ercole d’Este, his namesake, Ercole lived as a practicing Catholic for three more decades. Drawing on newly discovered archival sources, Tamar Herzig traces the dramatic story of his life, half a century before ecclesiastical authorities made Jewish conversion a priority of the Catholic Church. A Convert’s Tale explores the Jewish world in which Salomone was born and raised; the glittering objects he crafted, and their status as courtly hallmarks; and Ercole’s relations with his wealthy patrons. Herzig also examines homosexuality in Renaissance Italy, the response of Jewish communities and Christian authorities to allegations of sexual crimes, and attitudes toward homosexual acts among Christians and Jews. In Salomone/Ercole’s story we see how precarious life was for converts from Judaism, and how contested was the meaning of conversion for both the apostates’ former coreligionists and those tasked with welcoming them to their new faith.

Tunisia

Author : Safwan M. Masri
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231545029
Total Pages : 503 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Tunisia by : Safwan M. Masri

Download or read book Tunisia written by Safwan M. Masri and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arab Spring began and ended with Tunisia. In a region beset by brutal repression, humanitarian disasters, and civil war, Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution alone gave way to a peaceful transition to a functioning democracy. Within four short years, Tunisians passed a progressive constitution, held fair parliamentary elections, and ushered in the country's first-ever democratically elected president. But did Tunisia simply avoid the misfortunes that befell its neighbors, or were there particular features that set the country apart and made it a special case? In Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly, Safwan M. Masri explores the factors that have shaped the country's exceptional experience. He traces Tunisia's history of reform in the realms of education, religion, and women's rights, arguing that the seeds for today's relatively liberal and democratic society were planted as far back as the middle of the nineteenth century. Masri argues that Tunisia stands out not as a model that can be replicated in other Arab countries, but rather as an anomaly, as its history of reformism set it on a separate trajectory from the rest of the region. The narrative explores notions of identity, the relationship between Islam and society, and the hegemonic role of religion in shaping educational, social, and political agendas across the Arab region. Based on interviews with dozens of experts, leaders, activists, and ordinary citizens, and a synthesis of a rich body of knowledge, Masri provides a sensitive, often personal, account that is critical for understanding not only Tunisia but also the broader Arab world.

Chosen Peoples

Author : Christopher Tounsel
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 1478013109
Total Pages : 135 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (78 download)

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Book Synopsis Chosen Peoples by : Christopher Tounsel

Download or read book Chosen Peoples written by Christopher Tounsel and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-22 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On July 9, 2011, South Sudan celebrated its independence as the world's newest nation, an occasion that the country's Christian leaders claimed had been foretold in the Book of Isaiah. The Bible provided a foundation through which the South Sudanese could distinguish themselves from the Arab and Muslim Sudanese to the north and understand themselves as a spiritual community now freed from their oppressors. Less than three years later, however, new conflicts emerged along ethnic lines within South Sudan, belying the liberation theology that had supposedly reached its climactic conclusion with independence. In Chosen Peoples, Christopher Tounsel investigates the centrality of Christian worldviews to the ideological construction of South Sudan and the inability of shared religion to prevent conflict. Exploring the creation of a colonial-era mission school to halt Islam's spread up the Nile, the centrality of biblical language in South Sudanese propaganda during the Second Civil War (1983--2005), and postindependence transformations of religious thought in the face of ethnic warfare, Tounsel highlights the potential and limitations of deploying race and Christian theology to unify South Sudan.

Lies That Matter

Author : Allan Gerson
Publisher : New Acdemia+ORM
ISBN 13 : 1955835128
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (558 download)

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Book Synopsis Lies That Matter by : Allan Gerson

Download or read book Lies That Matter written by Allan Gerson and published by New Acdemia+ORM. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of a DOJ prosecutor’s complicated quest to deport Nazis: “The lessons that Mr. Gerson learns, and shares, could not be more timely.” —Seth Waxman, former US Solicitor General As the son of Holocaust survivors, federal prosecutor Allan Gerson thought his professional assignment to investigate and deport those who persecuted his family and others like them would make his parents proud. But their reaction was not what he expected. This is his memoir of the experience—and the complex emotions and questions it provoked. “It takes a young attorney whose Holocaust survivor parents and uncle had to lie in order to gain admittance into the U.S. to recognize the double-edged dangers of pursuing aging Nazi functionaries with the blunt instruments of American immigration law. Can the same laws be turned against his parents and other Jews like them? Allan Gerson tells the gripping story of his two years at the Department of Justice office charged with investigating and deporting aging Nazis living quietly in our midst. His interrogation of suspected perpetrators forces him to uncover secrets of his family and other anguished victims that he never wanted to know . . . This narrative reads like a bildungsroman, a coming of age story of a lawyer who went on to seek American legal remedies for historic crimes and injustices committed elsewhere.” —Samuel Norich, President, The Forward

Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous

Author : Joan Nathan
Publisher : Knopf
ISBN 13 : 0307594505
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous by : Joan Nathan

Download or read book Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous written by Joan Nathan and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2010-11-02 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Jewish cooking in France? In a journey that was a labor of love, Joan Nathan traveled the country to discover the answer and, along the way, unearthed a treasure trove of recipes and the often moving stories behind them. Nathan takes us into kitchens in Paris, Alsace, and the Loire Valley; she visits the bustling Belleville market in Little Tunis in Paris; she breaks bread with Jewish families around the observation of the Sabbath and the celebration of special holidays. All across France, she finds that Jewish cooking is more alive than ever: traditional dishes are honored, yet have acquired a certain French finesse. And completing the circle of influences: following Algerian independence, there has been a huge wave of Jewish immigrants from North Africa, whose stuffed brik and couscous, eggplant dishes and tagines—as well as their hot flavors and Sephardic elegance—have infiltrated contemporary French cooking. All that Joan Nathan has tasted and absorbed is here in this extraordinary book, rich in a history that dates back 2,000 years and alive with the personal stories of Jewish people in France today.

The Barber of Damascus

Author : Dana Sajdi
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804788286
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis The Barber of Damascus by : Dana Sajdi

Download or read book The Barber of Damascus written by Dana Sajdi and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-09 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about a barber, Shihab al-Din Ahmad Ibn Budayr, who shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the 18th century. The barber may have been a "nobody," but he wrote a history book, a record of the events that took place in his city during his lifetime. Dana Sajdi investigates the significance of this book, and in examining the life and work of Ibn Budayr, uncovers the emergence of a larger trend of history writing by unusual authors—people outside the learned establishment—and a new phenomenon: nouveau literacy. The Barber of Damascus offers the first full-length microhistory of an individual commoner in Ottoman and Islamic history. Contributing to Ottoman popular history, Arabic historiography, and the little-studied cultural history of the 18th century Levant, the volume also examines the reception of the barber's book a century later to explore connections between the 18th and the late 19th centuries and illuminates new paths leading to the Nahda, the Arab Renaissance.

Conundrum Of An Island: Sri Lanka's Geopolitical Challenges

Author : Asanga Abeyagoonasekera
Publisher : World Scientific
ISBN 13 : 9811227861
Total Pages : 249 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (112 download)

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Book Synopsis Conundrum Of An Island: Sri Lanka's Geopolitical Challenges by : Asanga Abeyagoonasekera

Download or read book Conundrum Of An Island: Sri Lanka's Geopolitical Challenges written by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a compilation of essays on several themes intended to provoke thought on and promote understanding about everyday political and social life on an island facing constant geopolitical and domestic political challenges. The themes of this book are: 4/21 Terror Attack and National Security; China, Belt and Road Initiative and Sri Lankan Foreign Policy; Geopolitics; Sustaining Democracy and Facing a Pandemic; and Domestic Political Stability, Leadership and Economic Crime.Most essays have captured the domestic viewpoint from which to begin drawing a wider picture of the global geopolitical tapestry. The chapters enframe a variety of domestic political incidents, conflicts of various actors, and the conundrum of an island in the Indian Ocean, stuck in the triangular maritime power dynamics among the United States, China, and India. They also examine the influences from foreign nations towards Sri Lanka's foreign policy and the dynamics of security challenges in the larger geosphere and marine sphere of South Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively. The chapters offer the reader an Olympian viewpoint of the challenges Sri Lanka faces, attempting to find connections and patterns towards greater external geopolitical influence and how it impacts domestic politics.

Oursi Hu-beero

Author : Lucas Pieter Petit
Publisher : Sidestone Press
ISBN 13 : 9088900671
Total Pages : 292 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (889 download)

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Book Synopsis Oursi Hu-beero by : Lucas Pieter Petit

Download or read book Oursi Hu-beero written by Lucas Pieter Petit and published by Sidestone Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This final report describes the study of an exceptionally well-preserved Iron Age building discovered in northern Burkina Faso, West Africa. The site of Oursi hu-beero, meaning "the big house of Oursi" in the locally spoken Songhay language, was excavated in 2000 and 2001 by a scientific team from the universities of Frankfurt am Main and Ouagadougou. It is situated in the middle of a group of settlement mounds, nearby the modern village of Oursi. In the year 2000, deep erosion gullies were threatening the architectural remains on the surface, which were provisionally dated to the 10th century AD. Scholars from both universities saw the importance of this site and undertook immediate action. But even they were not prepared for what they uncovered under only one metre of destruction debris. The rich diversity of incredible finds in the 25 different rooms rendered their exposure of enormous importance for the archaeology and history of Burkina Faso. Complete storage jars, metal equipment, wooden furniture, rope and textile fragments, grinding stones and charred botanical remains are only a fraction of the total assemblage of finds. Although we are dealing with the results of a single occupation phase and from one building only, the density of finds, the preservation of the architecture and the absence of later disturbances add considerably to our understanding of daily life in this part of West Africa. Up to now the limited contextual information about life in villages and towns prior to the historical periods has promoted divergent and weakly argued interpretations. This volume breaks open new grounds of investigation and calls for further study. Additionally, the editors hope that this report will stimulate and encourage the discussion between historians and archaeologists of the fascinating West African past. The current volume presents an introduction to the expedition, an analysis of the site formation processes, the presentation of the architectural features, in-depth studies of the findings and a lively account of the heritage management project that resulted in an on-site museum. Nine authors contributed to this rich and multifaceted final report. The account of the construction, intensive use, violent destruction and subsequent rediscovery of the building is the enthralling subject of this volume, which is richly illustrated with numerous coloured drawings, photographs, maps and reconstruction drawings. It melds archaeological, historical and environmental data into a thrilling story. A story that reads like a new Crime Scene Investigation episode but happens to have been a real-life tragedy in the African Sahel almost 1,000 years ago.

A Journey to the End of the Millennium

Author : Abraham B. Yehoshua
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780156011167
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (111 download)

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Book Synopsis A Journey to the End of the Millennium by : Abraham B. Yehoshua

Download or read book A Journey to the End of the Millennium written by Abraham B. Yehoshua and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2000 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the year 999, when Ben Attar, a Moroccan Jewish merchant, takes a second wife, he commits an act whose unforeseen consequences will forever alter his family, his relationships, his business-his life. In an attempt to forestall conflict and advance his business interests at the same time, Ben Attar undertakes his annual journey to Europe with both his first wife and his new wife. The trip is the beginning of a profound human drama whose moral conflicts of fidelity and desire resonate with those of our time. Yehoshua renders the medieval world of Jewish and Christian culture and trade with astonishing depth and sensuous detail. Through the trials of a medieval merchant, the renowned author explores the deepest questions about the nature of morality, character, codes of human conduct, and matters of the heart.