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78 books match the query 'North' and 4 start with b

cover of Between Sahara and Sea: Africa in the Roman Empire

Between Sahara and Sea

Africa in the Roman Empire

David J. Mattingly

University of Michigan Press, 2023

Winner of the 2024 Association of American Publishers PROSE Award for Classics

  • Winner of the 2025 Vinson Sutlive Book Prize and Lecture

Between Sahara and Sea: Africa in the Roman Empire challenges orthodox views of the story of Africa under Roman domination. It presents a new framework for understanding this and other territories incorporated in the Roman Empire. Based on decades of research in North Africa, David Mattingly’s book is a cleverly constructed and innovative account of the history and archaeology of ancient North Africa (roughly equivalent to Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya) from the first century BCE to the third century CE. He charts a new path toward a bottom-up understanding of North African archaeology, exploring in turn the differing material cultures and experiences of the Roman communities of the military and the urban and rural areas. Regional and societal differences emerge as significant and of long duration in the fascinating story of one of the most important sectors of the Roman Empire. 

This important book is the most comprehensive in English on Roman North Africa. It is remarkably rich, with up-to-date references and a host of new ideas and perspectives. Well written and illustrated, with a plethora of maps, it will be required reading for anyone interested in the subject. Rather than emphasizing the role of external actors, as studies of “Roman Africa” have traditionally done, Between Sahara and Sea focuses on local contributions to the making of Africa in the Roman Empire. The author demonstrates that the multiple populations encountered by Rome were not an indistinct bloc, but had different identities and cultures.

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cover of Blue Men and River Monsters: Folklore of the North

Blue Men and River Monsters

Folklore of the North

John Zimm

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2014

The north is a treasure trove of folklore. From magical creatures of the old country to legends of the mysterious and macabre, such lore is a fascinating record of the stories people held on to and the customs, foods, and cures that filled their lives. Collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers’ Program, a Depression-era works project, these are the stories of Norwegian and Swiss immigrants, Native American medicine men and storytellers, and pioneers with memories of the earliest days of settlement in the Old Northwest. In search of stories, legends, songs, and other scraps of traditional knowledge, researchers fanned out across Wisconsin and other states. The resulting handwritten notes, thousands of pages in length, capture history as people remembered it. Blue Men and River Monsters collects the most interesting and noteworthy of these tales, placing them alongside stunning artwork collected by the Federal Art Project in Wisconsin. Peruse these pages and discover a new history of the people and places of the old north.
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cover of Building in the North

Building in the North

Eb Rice

University of Alaska Press, 2008

Building in the North is a fully updated edition of the classic work by Elbert F. Rice, a professor at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who with a steady supply of wit, charm, and his own hands-on experience helped to invent Northern engineering. Easily readable and accessible to anyone with a healthy sense of humor and a willingness to live in the beautiful North, this guide is essential for those who dream of building that longed-for cabin in the woods—or simply find themselves needing to learn to cope with the threat of permafrost in a frigid climate. Illustrated with Rice’s own drawings and filled with invaluable folk knowledge, this contribution to science and human experience in the Great North will delight adventurers and natives alike.
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cover of By Fire: Writings on the Arab Spring

By Fire

Writings on the Arab Spring

Tahar Ben Jelloun, translated and with an introduction by Rita Nezami

Northwestern University Press, 2016

Tahar Ben Jelloun’s By Fire, the first fictional account published on the Arab Spring, reimagines the true-life self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, an event that has been credited with setting off the Tunisian revolt. The novella depicts the days leading up to Bouazizi’s self-immolation. Ben Jelloun’s deliberate ambiguity about the location of the story, set in an unnamed Islamic country, allows the reader to imagine the experiences and frustrations of other young men who have endured physical violence and persecution in places beyond Tunisia. The tale begins and ends in fire, and the imagery of burning frames the political accounts in The Spark, Ben Jelloun’s nonfiction writings on the Tunisian events that provide insight into the despotic regimes that drove Bouazizi to such despair. Rita S. Nezami’s elegant translations and critical introduction provide the reader with multiple strategies for approaching these potent texts.

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