African Exploration

By the mid-15th century, the Byzantine Empire had collapsed and the various Crusades that had taken place in the region had largely disrupted the overland routes of the Silk Road and trade. Compounding the difficulties of trade was the rise of the Ottoman Empire in place of the Byzantines and the outbreak of the Black Death in Europe. This audiobook chronicles the early efforts by the Portuguese that helped initiate the Age of Exploration, and the ramifications the colonization had across the world.

African folktales come in many different types. Some are myths explaining the origins of things, while others are tales of heroes with supernatural abilities. Animal stories are many and varied, and they usually involve some kind of trickster who uses his wiles to get out of sticky situations and sometimes into them. There are also cautionary tales explaining why it is important to behave well and treat others with respect, while other stories have a style and shape similar to that of a fairy tale.

From the creative minds of the scholarly group behind the groundbreaking Jesus Seminar comes this provocative and eye-opening look at the roots of Christianity that offers a thoughtful reconsideration of the first two centuries of the Jesus movement, transforming our understanding of the...

Historian Nigel Cliff delivers a sweeping, radical reinterpretation of Vasco da Gama's pioneering voyages, revealing their significance as a decisive turning point in the struggle between Christianity and Islam. Perfect for fans of Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, Galileo's Daughter, and Atlantic, this first-ever complete account of da Gama's voyages includes new information from the recently discovered diaries of his sailors and an extraordinary series of letters between da Gama and the Zamorin, a king of modern-day Kerala, India.

In 1980, I was thirty years old, and my son, ten, when we traveled to Guinea, then a closed country in West Africa. My fiancé was a geologist working in a diamond exploration camp in Baoule Valley, near Kérouané. During my time there I kept a diary. Once back in the United States, I wrapped the diary in a silk scarf and tucked it away. I had had planned to return to Guinea and the diamond camp, but life took me in a different direction. I didn't open and read the diary until autumn of 2023, forty-four years later.

The unbelievably riveting adventure of an unlikely young explorer who emerged from the jungles of Africa with evidence of a mysterious, still mythical beast—the gorilla—only to stumble straight into the center of the biggest debate of the day: Darwin's theory of evolution In 1856 Paul Du...