Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas write by Alexander von Humboldt. This book was released on 2013-01-25. Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In 1799, Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland set out to determine whether the Orinoco River connected with the Amazon. But what started as a trip to investigate a relatively minor geographical controversy became the basis of a five-year exploration throughout South America, Mexico, and Cuba. The discoveries amassed by Humboldt and Bonpland were staggering, and much of today’s knowledge of tropical zoology, botany, geography, and geology can be traced back to Humboldt’s numerous records of these expeditions. One of these accounts, Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, firmly established Alexander von Humboldt as the founder of Mesoamerican studies. In Views of the Cordilleras—first published in French between 1810 and 1813—Humboldt weaves together magnificently engraved drawings and detailed texts to achieve multifaceted views of cultures and landscapes across the Americas. In doing so, he offers an alternative perspective on the New World, combating presumptions of its belatedness and inferiority by arguing that the “old” and the “new” world are of the same geological age. This critical edition of Views of the Cordilleras—the second volume in the Alexander von Humboldt in English series—contains a new, unabridged English translation of Humboldt’s French text, as well as annotations, a bibliography, and all sixty-nine plates from the original edition, many of them in color.
The Island of Cuba
The Island of Cuba - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Island of Cuba write by Alexander von Humboldt. This book was released on 1856. The Island of Cuba available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Selected Writings of Alexander von Humboldt
Selected Writings of Alexander von Humboldt - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Selected Writings of Alexander von Humboldt write by Alexander von Humboldt. This book was released on 2018-11-06. Selected Writings of Alexander von Humboldt available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A new hardcover selection of the best writings of the visionary German naturalist whose ideas changed the way we see the natural world. Selected and introduced by Andrea Wulf. Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was an intrepid explorer and the most famous scientist of his age. His life was packed with adventure and discovery, whether he was climbing volcanoes in the Andes, racing through anthrax-infected Siberia, or publishing groundbreaking bestsellers. Ahead of his time, he recognized nature as an interdependent whole and he saw before anyone else that humankind was on a path to destroy it. His visits to the Americas led him to argue that the indigenous peoples possessed ancient cultures with sophisticated languages, architecture, and art, and his expedition to Cuba prompted him to denounce slavery as “the greatest evil ever to have afflicted humanity.” To Humboldt, the melody of his prose was as important as its empirical content, and this selection from his most famous works—including Cosmos, Views of Nature, and Views of the Cordilleras and Monuments of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, among others—allows us the pleasure of reading his own accounts of his daring explorations. Humboldt’s writings profoundly influenced naturalists and poets including Darwin, Thoreau, Muir, Goethe, Wordsworth, and Whitman. The Selected Writings is not only a tribute to Humboldt’s important role in environmental history and science, but also to his ability to fashion powerfully poetic narratives out of scientific observations.
Journeys to the United Mexican States
Journeys to the United Mexican States - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Journeys to the United Mexican States write by Kalman Dubov. This book was released on 2022-06-22. Journeys to the United Mexican States available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Mexico's history reaches back 4,000 years, beginning with the Olmecs who lived in the Yucatan Peninsula. That remarkable civilization created those huge stone heads with developments that spearheaded and vitalized every subsequent Mesoamerican civilization that followed. The Olmecs, and the Maya, who succeeded them, created the concept of zero, an incredible development in mathematical computation. This book begins with the Olmecs, tracing successor civilizations to the last Mesoamerican Empire, the Aztecs. I describe Aztec life, ritual, cuisine, and development until, in August 1521, this civilization was conquered by Spanish conquistadors. Much of the Aztecs, their people, and royalty are known today by way of Spanish ethnographers and historians who authored codices writing and describing what they saw even as that civilization was changed. That change was permanent. Aztec ritual and its polytheism were altered by Spanish missionaries and enforced by the Inquisition. From 1521 until 1821, Spanish Colonial authorities imposed forced labor in varying forms. Colonialism was overthrown in 1821, and Mexico now entered a new era. This book describes those changes as well as the challenges the government today faces in addressing many disparities in its policies. Healthcare challenges, with systemic poverty as well as the drug war preoccupies much energy in the government's efforts to address them. Mexico also has a large Jewish population whose history was marked by secrecy and Spanish efforts to eradicate this ancient religion. Today's Zocalo, in the heart of Centro Historico, was the place where Jews were burned to death in public admonition against Jewish practice. Another site for such death was the nearby ex-Convento of San Diego, opposite the Grand Palace de Belles Artes. Today's Jews are thriving, and Mexico-Israel relations are strong. This book would not be complete without describing my visits to the country. In My Visit, I describe the different ports I visited while aboard cruise ships. But many more months in the country were spent in San Miguel de Allende and in Mexico City. I describe these visits, their people, and the many nuances of Mexican life. The Mexican constitution recognizes 69 ethnic languages and speakers who are scattered but who primarily live in its southern states. Many ethnic languages are so diverse, that their dialects are unintelligible to the same language group. Language creates the core bonds of society and such multiplicity provides insight into the huge diversity of identity and of life in Mexico. This book is the 14th in the Journey series and is my first book on the American continent. I hope I have done justice to the vast complexity of this society.
Calculating Brilliance
Calculating Brilliance - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Calculating Brilliance write by Gerardo Aldana. This book was released on 2022-03-15. Calculating Brilliance available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. To the modern eye, the architects at Chich’en Itza produced some of the most mysterious structures in ancient Mesoamerica. The purpose and cultural influences behind this architecture seem left to conjecture. The people who created and lived around this stunning site may seem even more mercurial. Near the structure known today as the Great Ball Court and within the interior of the Lower Temple of the Jaguar, a mural depicts a female Mayan astronomer called K'uk'ul Ek' Tuyilaj. Weaving together archaeology, mathematics, history, and astronomy, Calculating Brilliance brings to light the discovery by this Mayan astronomer, which is recorded in the Venus Table of the Dresden Codex. As the book demonstrates, this brilliant discovery reverberated throughout Mayan science. But it has remained obscured to modern eyes. Jumping from the vital contributions of K'uk'ul Ek' Tuyilaj, Gerardo Aldana y Villalobos critically reframes science in the pre-Columbian world. He reexamines the historiography of the Dresden Codex and contextualizes the Venus Table relative to other Indigenous literature. From a perspective anchored to Indigenous cosmologies and religions, Aldana y Villalobos delves into how we may understand Indigenous science and discovery—both its parallels and divergences from modern globalized perspectives of science. Calculating Brilliance brings different intellectual threads together across time and space, from the Classic to the Postclassic, the colonial period to the twenty-first century to offer a new vision for understanding Mayan astronomy.
