Discover the rich history and culture of some of the world¿s most influential historical places with these highly illustrated books, packed with informative and enlightening descriptions and information

A complete guide to the art and history of this part of Italy

Changing Heritage presents the most comprehensive analysis of heritage issues available today. Critically analysing the complexity of the current and forthcoming issues faced by heritage, it presents insightful directions for the future. Drawing on the author’s many years of experience working in senior positions at UNESCO, the book presents discussions of heritage sites all around the world. Today, our cultural and natural legacies face significant threats due to social and economic developments, political pressures, and unresolved historical issues. This book delves into these threats from two distinct perspectives: internal tensions and external pressures. The internal tensions include the disregard for human rights and gender equality; the increasing exploitation of heritage for political purposes; the development of post-colonial perspectives; and the necessity to reassess the established notion of "universal value." External pressures stem from global processes, unsustainable tourism, political conflicts, ethnic clashes, and religious strife that are causing destruction in numerous parts of the world. Examining the dynamics between heritage and these internal tensions and external pressures, Bandarin offers insights into the challenges faced and emphasises the imperative role of civil society in safeguarding the value of heritage for present and future generations. Changing Heritage explores a wide range of issues surrounding the crisis in heritage management on an international level. It will be essential reading for heritage scholars, students, and professionals

This book was turned into a feature film which scooped international awards throughout Europe. It finally solves that question that has vexed us for centuries; "Why did the Egyptians build their insane pyramids?". They were the World's first skyscrapers. One of them in particular, the 'Great Pyramid' is the last of the Seven Wonders of the World and it’s a miracle that it still stands. Many have tried to destroy it, even today, ISIS sought to do the same. And while Cleopatra seems remote to us, she lived closer to our time than she did to that of the pyramid builders... mammoths still roamed the Earth when the Great Pyramid was created!! Despite it being the most incredible structure that humans have ever built, we still have no idea what its function was. Most assume it was to be the tomb for King Khufu, but then again, most agree that he was never buried there!? So why then did they spend two decades building what was to be the World’s tallest building for the next 4,000 years? Surely, even the Ancient Egyptians weren’t so vain as to devote so much time and effort to simply proving the greatness of Pharaoh Khufu? Its measures are so precise that my distant ancestor 'Isaac Newton' studied its dimensions to gauge the size of the planet. Others are so overwhelmed by its exactitude and its immense size that they feel that they have to attribute it to aliens, or Atlanteans. It's understandable then, that we struggle to understand its purpose. This book though, finally reveals the truth and its stranger than any fiction we could conjure––they believed that their pyramids were necessary to save Pharaoh's life, but also, to turn him into a god!

Documents all sides of the Rushdie controversy, providing an international chronology of events, early reviews of the book, and more reflective articles drawn from the huge, worldwide coverage, fairly and fully representing all points of view.

Best known for its World Heritage program committed to "the identification, protection and preservation of cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity," the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded in 1945 as an intergovernmental agency aimed at fostering peace, humanitarianism, and intercultural understanding. Its mission was inspired by leading European intellectuals such as Henri Bergson, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, H. G. Wells, and Aldous and Julian Huxley. Often critiqued for its inherent Eurocentrism, UNESCO and its World Heritage program today remain embedded within modernist principles of "progress" and "development" and subscribe to the liberal principles of diplomacy and mutual tolerance. However, its mission to prevent conflict, destruction, and intolerance, while noble and much needed, increasingly falls short, as recent battles over the World Heritage sites of Preah Vihear, Chersonesos, Jerusalem, Palmyra, Aleppo, and Sana'a, among others, have underlined. A Future in Ruins is the story of UNESCO's efforts to save the world's heritage and, in doing so, forge an international community dedicated to peaceful co-existence and conservation. It traces how archaeology and internationalism were united in Western initiatives after the political upheavals of the First and Second World Wars. This formed the backdrop for the emergent hopes of a better world that were to captivate the "minds of men." UNESCO's leaders were also confronted with challenges and conflicts about their own mission. Would the organization aspire to intellectual pursuits that contributed to the dream of peace or instead be relegated to an advisory and technical agency? An eye-opening and long overdue account of a celebrated yet poorly understood agency, A Future in Ruins calls on us all to understand how and why the past comes to matter in the present, who shapes it, and who wins or loses as a consequence.