From Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz: the three magnificent novels—published in an omnibus edition for the first time—that form an ancient-Egyptian counterpart to his famous Cairo Trilogy. Mahfouz reaches back thousands of years to bring us tales from his homeland's majestic early history—tales of the Egyptian nobility and of war, star-crossed love, and the divine rule of the pharoahs. In Khufu's Wisdom, the legendary Fourth Dynasty monarch faces the prospect of the end of his rule and the possibility that his daughter has fallen in love with the man prophesied to be his successor. Rhadopis of Nubia is the unforgettable story of the charismatic young Pharoah Merenra II and the ravishing courtesan Rhadopis, whose love affair makes them the envy of all Egyptian society. And Thebes at War tells the epic story of Egypt's victory over the Asiatic foreigners who dominated the country for two centuries. Three Novels of Ancient Egypt gives us a dazzling tapestry of ancient Egypt and reminds us of the remarkable artistry of Naguib Mahfouz.

The book provides a comprehensive account of the social, religious and economic conditions and policies from the Sultanate to the Mughal period in early medieval India. It details the account of the three centuries known for its Islamic influence and rule and the presence of formidable dynasties. The book provides a sound understanding of the history of the period and also evinces the learnings of mutual quarrels and internecine war.

Draws eight stories from well-known collections of Indian folktales--Hitopadesha tales, Jataka tales, and Panchantra tales--and presents them with cartoon-like illustrations.

Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru helped create the myth of a nonviolent ancient India while building a modern independence movement on the principle of nonviolence (ahimsa). But this myth obscures a troubled and complex heritage: a long struggle to reconcile the ethics of nonviolence with the need to use violence to rule. Upinder Singh documents the dynamic tension between violence and nonviolence in ancient Indian political thought and practice over twelve hundred years. Political Violence in Ancient India looks at representations of kingship and political violence in epics, religious texts, political treatises, plays, poems, inscriptions, and art from 600 BCE to 600 CE. As kings controlled their realms, fought battles, and meted out justice, intellectuals debated the boundary between the force required to sustain power and the excess that led to tyranny and oppression. Duty (dharma) and renunciation were important in this discussion, as were punishment, war, forest tribes, and the royal hunt. Singh reveals a range of perspectives that defy rigid religious categorization. Buddhists, Jainas, and even the pacifist Maurya emperor Ashoka recognized that absolute nonviolence was impossible for kings. By 600 CE religious thinkers, political theorists, and poets had justified and aestheticized political violence to a great extent. Nevertheless, questions, doubt, and dissent remained. These debates are as important for understanding political ideas in the ancient world as for thinking about the problem of political violence in our own time.

India is a land of mystery, richness, and deep spiritual discovery. Every facet of this ancient land seems scented with the famous spices that lured European traders to its shores more than five centuries ago. India is quite unique in the way it has brought its ancient histories and traditions with it into the modern age.

In fourth-century India, King Samudra Gupta's son Rama, born with a harelip that is considered an evil omen, fights to ensure that he, and not his younger brother, will rule his father's empire.

A journey of intense passion that is totally absorbing and ultimately tragic.

Prose fiction, although not always associated with classical antiquity, flourished in the early Roman Empire, not only in realistic Latin novels but also and indeed principally in the Greek ideal romance of love and adventure. Enormously popular in the Renaissance, these stories have been less familiar in later centuries. Translations of the Greek stories were not readily available in English before B.P. Reardon’s first appeared in 1989.Nine complete stories are included here as well as ten others, encompassing the whole range of classical themes: romance, travel, adventure, historical fiction, and comic parody. A foreword by J.R. Morgan examines the enormous impact this groundbreaking collection has had on our understanding of classical thought and our concept of the novel.

In this pathbreaking book, the authors show that the ancient Indians were no primitives but possessed a high spiritual culture, which not only influenced the evolution of the Western world in decisive ways but which still hs much to teach us today. India's archaic spirituality is codified in the rich symbols, metaphors and myths of the magnificent Rig-Veda, which is shown to be much older than has been widely assumed by scholars. The present book also unravels the astonishing mathematical and astronomical code hidden in the Vedic hymns. Anyone interested in ancient cultural history, India, archaeo-astronomy or spirituality will find this well researched and cross-cultural work spellbinding and enriching.