Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness

Author: Ibn Fadlan
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141975040
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
In 922 AD, an Arab envoy from Baghdad named Ibn Fadlan encountered a party of Viking traders on the upper reaches of the Volga River. In his subsequent report on his mission he gave a meticulous and astonishingly objective description of Viking customs, dress, table manners, religion and sexual practices, as well as the only eyewitness account ever written of a Viking ship cremation. Between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Arab travellers such as Ibn Fadlan journeyed widely and frequently into the far north, crossing territories that now include Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Their fascinating accounts describe how the numerous tribes and peoples they encountered traded furs, paid tribute and waged wars. This accessible new translation offers an illuminating insight into the world of the Arab geographers, and the medieval lands of the far north.

The Book of Marvels and Travels

Author: Sir John Mandeville
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199600600
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
In his Book of Marvels and Travels, Sir John Mandeville describes a journey from Europe to Jerusalem and on into Asia, and the many wonderful and monstrous peoples and practices in the East. A captivating blend of fact and fantasy, Mandeville's Book is newly translated in an edition that brings us closer to Mandeville's worldview.

Mission to the Volga

Author: Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479829757
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 178

Book Description
The earliest surviving instance of sustained first-person travel narrative in Arabic Mission to the Volga is a pioneering text of peerless historical and literary value. In its pages, we move north on a diplomatic mission from Baghdad to the upper reaches of the Volga River in what is now central Russia. In this colorful documentary from the tenth century, the enigmatic Ibn Fadlan relates his experiences as part of an embassy sent by Caliph al-Muqtadir to deliver political and religious instruction to the recently-converted King of the Bulghars. During eleven months of grueling travel, Ibn Fadlan records the marvels he witnesses on his journey, including an aurora borealis and the white nights of the North. Crucially, he offers a description of the Viking Rus, including their customs, clothing, body painting, and a striking account of a ship funeral. Together, these anecdotes illuminate a vibrant world of diversity during the heyday of the Abbasid Empire, narrated with as much curiosity and zeal as they were perceived by its observant beholder. An English-only edition.

Ancient Accounts of India and China

Author: Abū Zayd Ḥasan ibn Yazīd Sīrāfī
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 426

Book Description

Polynesia, 900-1600

Author: Madi Williams
Publisher: Past Imperfect
ISBN: 9781641892148
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
A historical overview and thematic examination of Polynesia (especially New Zealand and its outlying islands), 900-1600.

The Book of Contemplation

Author: Usama ibn Munqidh
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141919175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

Book Description
The volume comprises lightly annotated translation of a key medieval Arabic text that bears directly on the Crusades and Crusader society and the Muslim experience of them.

Two Arabic Travel Books

Author: Tim Mackintosh-Smith
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479803502
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
In its ports, we find a priceless cargo of information; here are the first foreign descriptions of tea and porcelain, a panorama of unusual social practices, cannibal islands, and Indian holy men--a marvelous, mundane world, contained in the compass of a novella. In Mission to the Volga, we move north on a diplomatic mission from Baghdad to the upper reaches of the Volga River in what is now central Russia. This colorful documentary by Ibn Fadlan relates the trials and tribulations of an embassy of diplomats and missionaries sent by caliph al-Muqtadir to deliver political and religious instruction to the recently-converted King of the Bulghars. During eleven months of grueling travel, Ibn Fadlan records the marvels he witnesses on his journey, including an aurora borealis and the white nights of the North. Crucially, he offers a description of the Viking Rus, including their customs, clothing, tattoos, and a striking account of a ship funeral.

Eaters of the Dead

Author: Michael Crichton
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307816435
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 179

Book Description
From the bestselling author of Jurassic Park, Timeline, and Sphere comes an epic tale of unspeakable horror. It is 922 A.D. The refined Arab courtier Ibn Fadlan is accompanying a party of Viking warriors back to their home. He is appalled by their customs—the gratuitous sexuality of their women, their disregard for cleanliness, and their cold-blooded sacrifices. As they enter the frozen, forbidden landscape of the North—where the day’s length does not equal the night’s, where after sunset the sky burns in streaks of color—Fadlan soon discovers that he has been unwillingly enlisted to combat the terrors in the night that come to slaughter the Vikings, the monsters of the mist that devour human flesh. But just how he will do it, Fadlan has no idea.

The New Penguin Russian Course

Author: Nicholas J. Brown
Publisher: Circassian
ISBN: 9780140120417
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 532

Book Description
This updated version of the Penguin Russian Course introduces the learner, through translation extracts, to the culture and life of the modern (post Glasnost) Soviet Union that was, as well as to the Russian language.

The Book of John Mandeville

Author: Sir John Mandeville
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
The Book of John Mandeville has tended to be neglected by modern teachers and scholars, yet this intriguing and copious work has much to offer the student of medieval literature, history, and culture. [It] was a contemporary bestseller, providing readers with exotic information about locales from Constantinople to China and about the social and religious practices of peoples such as the Greeks, Muslims, and Brahmins. The Book first appeared in the middle of the fourteenth century and by the next century could be found in an extraordinary range of European languages: not only Latin, French, German, English, and Italian, but also Czech, Danish, and Irish. Its wide readership is also attested by the two hundred fifty to three hundred medieval manuscripts that still survive today. Chaucer borrowed from it, as did the Gawain-poet in the Middle English Cleanness, and its popularity continued long after the Middle Ages.