The inhabitants of early medieval Britain and Ireland shared the knowledge that the region held four peoples and the awareness that they must have originally come from 'elsewhere'. The Origin Legends of Early Medieval Britain and Ireland studies these peoples' origin stories, an important genre that has shaped national identity and collective history from the early medieval period to the present day. These multilingual texts share many common features that repay their study as a genre, but have previously been isolated as four disparate traditions and used to argue for the long roots of current nationalisms. Yet they were not written or read in isolation during the medieval period. Individual narratives were in constant development, written and rewritten to respond to other texts. This book argues that insular origin legends developed together to flesh out the history of the insular region as a whole.

Most of the accounts of burial in Medieval Ireland are archaeological, but Fry looks instead at the wealth of written material that throws light on practices and beliefs during the period. In order to appeal to a broad readership, she assumes no knowledge about Irish geography, and identifies and lo

This text looks at the safety of drugs from the beginning of time until 1961, including six marker drugs and the problems of 50 drugs subsequently withdrawn or restricted.

Written by award-winning African novelist Mariama Bâ and translated from the original French, So Long a Letter has been recognized as one of Africa’s 100 Best Books of the 20th Century. The brief narrative, written as an extended letter, is a sequence of reminiscences —some wistful, some bitter—recounted by recently widowed Senegalese schoolteacher Ramatoulaye Fall. Addressed to a lifelong friend, Aissatou, it is a record of Ramatoulaye’s emotional struggle for survival after her husband betrayed their marriage by taking a second wife. This semi-autobiographical account is a perceptive testimony to the plight of educated and articulate Muslim women. Angered by the traditions that allow polygyny, they inhabit a social milieu dominated by attitudes and values that deny them status equal to men. Ramatoulaye hopes for a world where the best of old customs and new freedom can be combined. Considered a classic of contemporary African women’s literature, So Long a Letter is a must-read for anyone interested in African literature and the passage from colonialism to modernism in a Muslim country. Winner of the prestigious Noma Award for Publishing in Africa.

Amazing discoveries and inventions of the last eight years bring this new edition of 1,000 Inventions and Discoveries up to date. Uncover the stories behind 1,000 remarkable inventions and discoveries that have shaped our world, from making fire to the gadgets of the 21st century. This revised and updated edition brings this comprehensive review of humanity's greatest ideas up to date. It is packed with discoveries and innovations in science, space, technology, transportation, medicine, mathematics, and language, along with a history timeline.

Dip into this illustrated account of key inventions and discoveries, listed year by year, with intriguing facts about each invention and the person (or people) who invented it. From the prehistoric hunting tools our early ancestors used to the modern-day smartphones that connect the entire planet, this book provides a fascinating tour through the history of humankind's inventions and discoveries. Fully revised and updated for 2020, 1,000 Inventions and Discoveries explores recent inventions and discoveries - from the Amazon Echo to the first photograph of a black hole - as well as showcasing revolutionary historical inventions such as the wheel. Whether you're a budding inventor, a history buff, or both, this amazing guide is packed with the inventions and discoveries in science, technology, transport, medicine, and mathematics that changed the course of human existence.

As to the first, the last discoveries of Saturn to be tricorporeall, and of the mutations of Figure in Venus, like to those that are seen in the Moon, together with the Consequents depending thereupon, have not so much occasioned the demur, as the investigation of the times of the Conversions of each of the Four Medicean Planets about Jupiter, which I lighted upon in April the year past, 1611, at my being in Rome; where, in the end, I assertained my selfe, that the first and neerest to Jupiter, moved about 8 gr. & 29 m. of its Sphere in an houre, makeing its whole revolution in one naturall day, and 18 hours, and almost an halfe. The second moves in its Orbe 14 gr. 13 min. or very neer, in an hour, and its compleat conversion is consummate in 3 dayes, 13 hours, and one third, or thereabouts. The third passeth in an hour, 2 gr. 6 min. little more or less of its Circle, and measures it all in 7 dayes, 4 hours, or very neer. The fourth, and more remote than the rest, goes in one houre, 0 gr 54 min. and almost an halfe of its Sphere, and finisheth it all in 16 dayes, and very neer 18 hours. But because the excessive velocity of their returns or restitutions, requires a most scrupulous precisenesse to calculate their places, in times past and future, especially if the time be for many Moneths or Years; I am therefore forced, with other Observations, and more exact than the former, and in times more remote from one another, to correct the Tables of such Motions, and limit them even to the shortest moment: for such exactnesse my first Observations suffice not; not only in regard of the short intervals of Time, but because I had not as then found out a way to measure the distances between the said Planets by any Instrument: I Observed such Intervals with simple relation to the Diameter of the Body of Jupiter; taken, as we have said, by the eye, the which, though they admit not errors of above a Minute, yet they suffice not for the determination of the exact greatness of the Spheres of those Stars. But now that I have hit upon a way of taking such measures without failing, scarce in a very few Seconds, I will continue the observation to the very occultation of JUPITER, which shall serve to bring us to the perfect knowledge of the Motions, and Magnitudes of the Orbes of the said Planets, together also with some other consequences thence arising. I adde to these things the observation of some obscure Spots, which are discovered in the Solar Body, which changing, position in that, propounds to our consideration a great argument either that the Sun revolves in it selfe, or that perhaps other Starrs, in like manner as Venus and Mercury, revolve about it, invisible in other times, by reason of their small digressions, lesse than that of Mercury, and only visible when they interpose between the Sun and our eye, or else hint the truth of both this and that; the certainty of which things ought not to be contemned, nor omitted.