The Shogun's Silver Telescope

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0198832036
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (988 download)

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Book Synopsis The Shogun's Silver Telescope by : Timon Screech

Download or read book The Shogun's Silver Telescope written by Timon Screech and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The East India Company, founded in London in 1600, was the world's biggest trading organization until the twentieth century. It was originally a spice trading organization, and its existence was precarious in its early years. But its governors soon began to think bigger. A decade after itsfoundation, they started to plan voyages to more fabulous places, notably Japan. Japan had silver, was cold in winter, and had no sheep, so was a perfect market for England's main export, woollen cloth. The Company planned to add to its spice-runs, sailing back and forth to Japan, exchanging woolfor silver. This could be done quickly and easily, over the top of Russia - or so the maps of the day suggested (these same maps also showed Japan twenty times too large, about the size of India).Knowing the Spanish and Portuguese had got there before them, the Company prepared a special present to impress and win over their Japanese hosts. They chose as their first gift a silver telescope. The expedition carrying the telescope departed in 1611, and the Shogun was finally presented with thetelescope in the name of King James I in 1613. It was the first telescope ever to leave Europe, and the first made as a presentation item. Before this voyage had even returned, the Company had dispatched another with an equally stunning cargo: nearly a hundred oil paintings.This is the story of these two extraordinary cargoes: what they meant for the fortunes of the Company, what the choice of them says about the seventeenth century England from which they came, and what effect they had on the quizzical Asian rulers to whom they were given.

The Shogun's Silver Telescope and the Cargo of the New Year's Gift

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192568027
Total Pages : 303 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis The Shogun's Silver Telescope and the Cargo of the New Year's Gift by : Timon Screech

Download or read book The Shogun's Silver Telescope and the Cargo of the New Year's Gift written by Timon Screech and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-15 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The East India Company, founded in London in 1600, was originally a spice trading organisation. But its governors soon began to think bigger. After a decade, they started to plan voyages to more fabulous places, notably India and Japan. Rich in silver, Japan was a desirable trading partner; crucially, it was also cold in winter. England's main export was woollen cloth, which would not sell in hot places, so the Company envisaged adding to its spice runs by sailing back and forth to Japan, exchanging wool for silver. Maps suggested that this could be done quickly, above Russian. But these maps also made Japan twenty times too large, the size of India in fact. Knowing the Spanish and Portuguese had preceded them, the Company prepared a special present for its first extended sailing to India and Japan. In the end, the Company missed India, but got to Japan in 1613. The Shogun, the military dictator of Japan, was presented with a silver telescope in the name of King James. It was the first telescope ever to leave Europe and the first made as a presentation item. Before this initial ship had even returned, the Company dispatched another, named the New Year's Gift, with an equally stunning cargo: almost 100 oil paintings. These would be given and sold to the Indian and Japanese courts. This book looks at the formation and history of the Company, but mostly examines the meaning of these two extraordinary cargoes. What were they supposed to mean, and what effect did they have on quizzical Asian rulers?

Love and Hate in Jamestown

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Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 030742670X
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Love and Hate in Jamestown by : David A. Price

Download or read book Love and Hate in Jamestown written by David A. Price and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book and aSan Jose Mercury News Top 20 Nonfiction Book of 2003In 1606, approximately 105 British colonists sailed to America, seeking gold and a trade route to the Pacific. Instead, they found disease, hunger, and hostile natives. Ill prepared for such hardship, the men responded with incompetence and infighting; only the leadership of Captain John Smith averted doom for the first permanent English settlement in the New World.The Jamestown colony is one of the great survival stories of American history, and this book brings it fully to life for the first time. Drawing on extensive original documents, David A. Price paints intimate portraits of the major figures from the formidable monarch Chief Powhatan, to the resourceful but unpopular leader John Smith, to the spirited Pocahontas, who twice saved Smith’s life. He also gives a rare balanced view of relations between the settlers and the natives and debunks popular myths about the colony. This is a superb work of history, reminding us of the horrors and heroism that marked the dawning of our nation.

Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy

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Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319977075
Total Pages : 665 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (199 download)

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Book Synopsis Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy by : Neil English

Download or read book Chronicling the Golden Age of Astronomy written by Neil English and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 665 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The invention of the telescope at the dawning of the 17th century has revolutionized humanity's understanding of the Universe and our place within it. This book traces the development of the telescope over four centuries, as well as the many personalities who used it to uncover brand-new revelations about the Sun, Moon, planets, stars and distant galaxies. Starting with early observers such as Thomas Harriot, Galileo, Johannes Hevelius, Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Robert Hooke and Christian Huygens, the book explores how these early observers arrived at essentially correct ideas concerning the objects they studied. Moving into the 18th and 19th centuries, the author describes the increasing sophistication of telescopes both large and small, and the celebrated figures who used them so productively, including the Herschels, Charles Messier, William Lassell and the Earls of Rosse. Many great discoveries were also made with smaller instruments when placed in the capable hands of the Struve dynasty, F.W. Bessel, Angelo Secchi and S.W Burnham, to name but a few. Nor were all great observers of professional ilk. The book explores the contributions made by the 'clerical astronomers,' William Rutter Dawes, Thomas William Webb, T.E.R Philips and T.H.E.C Espin, as well as the lonely vigils of E.E. Barnard, William F. Denning and Charles Grover. And in the 20th century, the work of Percival Lowell, Leslie Peltier, Eugene M. Antoniadi, Clyde Tombaugh, Walter Scott Houston, David H. Levy and Sir Patrick Moore is fully explored. Generously illustrated throughout, this treasure trove of astronomical history shows how each observer's work led to seminal developments in science, and providing key insights into how we go about exploring the heavens today.

The Story of Silver

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691208697
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis The Story of Silver by : William L. Silber

Download or read book The Story of Silver written by William L. Silber and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is the story of silver's transformation from soft money during the nineteenth century to hard asset today, and how manipulations of the white metal by American president Franklin D. Roosevelt during the 1930s and by the richest man in the world, Texas oil baron Nelson Bunker Hunt, during the 1970s altered the course of American and world history. FDR pumped up the price of silver to help jump start the U.S. economy during the Great Depression, but this move weakened China, which was then on the silver standard, and facilitated Japan's rise to power before World War II. Bunker Hunt went on a silver-buying spree during the 1970s to protect himself against inflation and triggered a financial crisis that left him bankrupt. Silver has been the preferred shelter against government defaults, political instability, and inflation for most people in the world because it is cheaper than gold. The white metal has been the place to hide when conventional investments sour, but it has also seduced sophisticated investors throughout the ages like a siren. This book explains how powerful figures, up to and including Warren Buffett, have come under silver's thrall, and how its history guides economic and political decisions in the twenty-first century"--Publisher's description

On Trial for Reason

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0198797923
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis On Trial for Reason by : Maurice A. Finocchiaro

Download or read book On Trial for Reason written by Maurice A. Finocchiaro and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019-07-10 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1633, the Roman Inquisition condemned Galileo as a suspected heretic for defending the astronomical theory that the earth moves, and implicitly assuming the theological principle that Scripture is not scientific authority. This controversial event has sent ripples down the centuries, embodying the struggle between a thinker who came to be regarded as the Father of Modern Science, and an institution that is both one of the world's greatest religions and most ancient organizations. The trial has been cited both as a clear demonstration of the incompatibility between science and religion, and also a stunning exemplar of rationality, scientific method, and critical thinking. Much has been written about Galileo's trial, but most works argue from a particular point of view - that of secular science against the Church, or justifying the religious position. Maurice Finocchiaro aims to provide a balanced historical account that draws out the cultural nuances. Unfolding the intriguing narrative of Galileo's trial, he sets it against its contemporary intellectual and philosophical background. In particular, Finocchiaro focuses on the contemporary arguments and evidence for and against the Earth's motion, which were based on astronomical observation, the physics of motion, philosophical principles about the nature of knowledge, and theological principles about the authority and the interpretation of Scripture. Following both sides of the controversy and its far-reaching philosophical impact, Finocchiaro unravels the complex relationship between science and religion, and demonstrates how Galileo came to be recognised as a model of logical reasoning.

Inventing the English Massacre

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Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0197507735
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis Inventing the English Massacre by : Alison Games

Download or read book Inventing the English Massacre written by Alison Games and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acknowledgments; A Note on Dates and Spelling; Cast of Characters; Introduction; Chapter 1 From Competition to Conspiracy; Chapter 2 The Amboyna Business; Chapter 3 Inventing the Amboyna Massacre; Chapter 4 The Reckoning; Chapter 5 Domesticating Amboyna; Chapter 6 Legacies: Reinvention and the Linchpin of Empire; Epilogue The First English Massacre; Appendix 1 Deposition Abbreviations; Appendix 2 True Relations; Appendix 3 A Note on Sources and Methodology; Notes; Index.

Sovereign Women in a Muslim Kingdom

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Publisher : Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.
ISBN 13 : 9813250054
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (132 download)

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Book Synopsis Sovereign Women in a Muslim Kingdom by : Sher Banu A.L Khan

Download or read book Sovereign Women in a Muslim Kingdom written by Sher Banu A.L Khan and published by Flipside Digital Content Company Inc.. This book was released on 2018-04-27 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Islamic kingdom of Aceh was ruled by queens for half of the 17th century. Was female rule an aberration? Unnatural? A violation of nature, comparable to hens instead of roosters crowing at dawn? Indigenous texts and European sources offer different evaluations. Drawing on both sets of sources, this book shows that female rule was legitimised both by Islam and adat (indigenous customary laws), and provides original insights on the Sultanah's leadership, their relations with male elites, and their encounters with European envoys who visited their court. The book challenges received views on kingship in the Malay world and the response of indigenous polities to east-west encounters in Southeast Asia's Age of Commerce.

Engaging the Other: 'Japan' and Its Alter-Egos, 1550-1850

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 900439351X
Total Pages : 423 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis Engaging the Other: 'Japan' and Its Alter-Egos, 1550-1850 by : Ronald P. Toby

Download or read book Engaging the Other: 'Japan' and Its Alter-Egos, 1550-1850 written by Ronald P. Toby and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2019-01-21 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Engaging the Other: “Japan and Its Alter-Egos”, 1550-1850 Ronald P. Toby examines new discourses of identity and difference in early modern Japan, a discourse catalyzed by the “Iberian irruption,” the appearance of Portuguese and other new, radical others in the sixteenth century. The encounter with peoples and countries unimagined in earlier discourse provoked an identity crisis, a paradigm shift from a view of the world as comprising only “three countries” (sangoku), i.e., Japan, China and India, to a world of “myriad countries” (bankoku) and peoples. In order to understand the new radical alterities, the Japanese were forced to establish new parameters of difference from familiar, proximate others, i.e., China, Korea and Ryukyu. Toby examines their articulation in literature, visual and performing arts, law, and customs.

Untold Night and Day

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Publisher : Abrams
ISBN 13 : 1683359127
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (833 download)

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Book Synopsis Untold Night and Day by : Bae Suah

Download or read book Untold Night and Day written by Bae Suah and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed Korean author weaves a “disturbing, beautifully controlled” metaphysical detective story “of doubles, shadows, and parallel worlds” (Financial Times). It’s Ayami’s final day working the box-office at Seoul’s only audio theater for the blind. Her last shift completed, she walks the streets with her former boss, searching for a missing friend. Their conversations take in art, love, food, and the inaccessible country to the north. The next day, Ayami acts as a guide for a detective novelist visiting from abroad. But as they contend with the summer heat, the edges of reality start to fray. Ayami enters a world of increasingly tangled threads, and the past intrudes upon the present as overlapping realities repeat, collide, change, and reassert themselves. Blisteringly original, Untold Night and Day upends the very structure of narrative storytelling. By one of the boldest and most innovative voices in contemporary Korean literature, and masterfully realized in English by Man Booker International Prize–winning translator Deborah Smith, Bae Suah’s hypnotic novel asks whether more than one version of ourselves can exist at once.

The Tokugawa World

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000427412
Total Pages : 1484 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis The Tokugawa World by : Gary P. Leupp

Download or read book The Tokugawa World written by Gary P. Leupp and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-20 with total page 1484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With over 60 contributions, The Tokugawa World presents the latest scholarship on early modern Japan from an international team of specialists in a volume that is unmatched in its breadth and scope. In its early modern period, under the Tokugawa shoguns, Japan was a world apart. For over two centuries the shogun’s subjects were forbidden to travel abroad and few outsiders were admitted. Yet in this period, Japan evolved as a nascent capitalist society that could rapidly adjust to its incorporation into the world system after its forced "opening" in the 1850s. The Tokugawa World demonstrates how Japan’s early modern society took shape and evolved: a world of low and high cultures, comic books and Confucian academies, soba restaurants and imperial music recitals, rigid enforcement of social hierarchy yet also ongoing resistance to class oppression. A world of outcasts, puppeteers, herbal doctors, samurai officials, businesswomen, scientists, scholars, blind lutenists, peasant rebels, tea-masters, sumo wrestlers, and wage workers. Covering a variety of features of the Tokugawa world including the physical landscape, economy, art and literature, religion and thought, and education and science, this volume is essential reading for all students and scholars of early modern Japan.

Traces of Vermeer

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192506900
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (925 download)

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Book Synopsis Traces of Vermeer by : Jane Jelley

Download or read book Traces of Vermeer written by Jane Jelley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Johannes Vermeer's luminous paintings are loved and admired around the world, yet we do not understand how they were made. We see sunlit spaces; the glimmer of satin, silver, and linen; we see the softness of a hand on a lute string or letter. We recognise the distilled impression of a moment of time; and we feel it to be real. We might hope for some answers from the experts, but they are confounded too. Even with the modern technology available, they do not know why there is an absence of any preliminary drawing; why there are shifts in focus; and why his pictures are unusually blurred. Some wonder if he might possibly have used a camera obscura to capture what he saw before him. The few traces Vermeer has left behind tell us little: there are no letters or diaries; and no reports of him at work. Jane Jelley has taken a new path in this detective story. A painter herself, she has worked with the materials of his time: the cochineal insect and lapis lazuli; the sheep bones, soot, earth and rust. She shows us how painters made their pictures layer by layer; she investigates old secrets; and hears travellers' tales. She explores how Vermeer could have used a lens in the creation of his masterpieces. The clues were there all along. After all this time, now we can unlock the studio door, and catch a glimpse of Vermeer inside, painting light.

The Intercourse Between the United States and Japan

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Publisher : Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Intercourse Between the United States and Japan by : Inazō Nitobe

Download or read book The Intercourse Between the United States and Japan written by Inazō Nitobe and published by Baltimore, Md. : Johns Hopkins Press. This book was released on 1891 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Chinese Lady

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197581986
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

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Book Synopsis The Chinese Lady by : Nancy E. Davis

Download or read book The Chinese Lady written by Nancy E. Davis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2022 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1834, a Chinese woman named Afong Moy arrived in America as both a prized guest and an advertisement for a merchant firm--a promotional curiosity with bound feet and a celebrity used to peddle exotic wares from the East. This first biography of Afong Moy explores how she shaped Americans' impressions of China, while living as a stranger in a foreign land.

The Disappearing Spoon

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Publisher : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 : 9780316089081
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (89 download)

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Book Synopsis The Disappearing Spoon by : Sam Kean

Download or read book The Disappearing Spoon written by Sam Kean and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2010-07-12 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters?* The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. THE DISAPPEARING SPOON masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery--from the Big Bang through the end of time. *Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun

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Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0061971693
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (619 download)

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Book Synopsis Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun by : Rhoda Blumberg

Download or read book Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun written by Rhoda Blumberg and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-06 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1853, few Japanese people knew that a country called America even existed. For centuries, Japan had isolated itself from the outside world by refusing to trade with other countries and even refusing to help shipwrecked sailors, foreign or Japanese. The country's people still lived under a feudal system like that of Europe in the Middle Ages. But everything began to change when American Commodore Perry and his troops sailed to the Land of the Rising Sun, bringing with them new science and technology, and a new way of life.

The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900)

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Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004438653
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

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Book Synopsis The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900) by : Christopher Joby

Download or read book The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900) written by Christopher Joby and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Dutch Language in Japan (1600-1900) Christopher Joby offers the first book-length account of the knowledge and use of the Dutch language in Tokugawa and early Meiji Japan, which had a profound effect on Japan’s language, society and culture.