At the heart of the Khmer city stands the palace of the gods, a replica on earth of the heavenly world. Built of stone and brick, these monumental temples were erected throughout Thailand between the 7th and 14th centuries to link man magically to the gods. Today, the harmony of these microcosms remains for the visitor following the footsteps of the ancient Khmer.

This is a new release of the original 1940 edition.

"Terrific."—Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes and Letters to Camondo "Makes you want to travel, do somersaults and stretches, drink champagne in evening dress, read, think ... Intoxicating."—Publishers Weekly Along the French Riviera in the early 1900s, an illustrious family in thrall to classical antiquity builds a fabulous villa—a replica of a Greek palace, complete with marble columns and frescoes depicting mythological gods. The Reinachs--related to other wealthy Jews like the Rothschilds and the Ephrussis—attempt to recreate a "pure beauty" lost in the 20th century. The narrator of this brilliant novel calls the imposing house an act of delirium, "proof that one could travel back in time, just like resetting a clock, and resist the outside world." The story of the villa and its glamorous inhabitants is recounted by the son of a servant from the nearby estate of Gustave Eiffel, designer of the Paris tower, and the two contrasting structures present opposite responses to modernity. The son is adopted by the Reinachs, initiated into the era of Socrates and instructed in classical Greek. He joins a family pilgrimage to Athens, falls in love with a married woman, and survives the Nazi confiscation of the house and deportation to death camps of Reinach grandchildren. This is a Greek epic for the modern era.

The mythology of the two epics of India, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa.

This scripture was revealed through spirit writing in 1181. It traces Wenchang's development through his many transformations culminating in his apotheosis as director of the Wenchang Palace and custodian of the Cinnamon Record that determines men's and women's fates. The god has since assumed a high position in the Taoist pantheon, has been introduced into the school system and Confucian temples, and now controls the all-important civil service examinations in China. The text translated here provides a unique window into the religious world of Traditional China. Numerous anecdotes of good- and evil-doers reveal the ethical dilemmas facing men and women of the time, from social questions like infanticide and discrimination against women to more purely religious issues such as how evil gods are punished and how China's divergent religious traditions can be reconciled.

An in-depth survey of Indian palaces. It contains photographs to display the beauty and atmosphere of these buildings, and George Michell evokes life within the palaces and describes their many elements: halls, courtyards, temples, mosques, private apartments and service quarters.