Films: Documentaries, Discoveries of Our Ancestry and Ancient Civilizations

The Real Eve (DVD): a Granada production for the Discovery Channel

Mitochondrial DNA is passed from mother to children, both male and female, unchanged and it mutates at a predictable rate; i. e., the more the genetic mutations in the DNA, the more ancient the origin of the population. Using these facts, some scientists are studying mitochondrial DNA to try to trace back the origins of the human race. Using this method, the scientists have traced the human race to one female in Africa several million years ago. Then they traced the migration patterns of her descendants as they spread across the earth.

The Real Eve is a fascinating documentary presenting a new and controversial theory of human evolution. It does what all good documentaries do, it makes you think, and it entertains at the same time. I enjoyed it very much and anyone interested in human evolution would probably enjoy it also.

Time Life's Lost Civilizations (DVD): by Time-Life Video and Television

Never before could you get this close to 7,000 years of history. Digital effects technology and dramatizations re-create rituals and events, from the bloodletting of Maya kings and a pharaoh's last journey to the secret pleasures of a Roman empress. Original location cinematography in 25 countries takes you from Cuzco in Peru to Petra in Jordan, from ancient Mesopotamia to modern Tibet. Computer graphics restore Egypt's pyramids and the Great Wall of China.

Public Relations, Marketing: How to Create a Design Strategy

Building Design Strategy: Using Design to Achieve Key Business Objectives (BOOK): edited by Thomas Lockwood & Thomas Walton

How can design be used to solve business problems?

That’s the question answered by Building Design Strategy. Mark Dziersk, EunSool Kwon, Arnold Levin, Laura Weiss, and many more top-name contributors share their experience and insights exploring topics on a full range of modern issues including; thinking ahead, adapting to challenges, developing tangible strategies, using design to convey ideas, choosing worthwhile projects to help growth, and using design to create fiercely loyal customers.

Film: Class Lecture from Yale Literature entitled "Introduction to Dante"

Lecture Description

Professor Mazzotta introduces students to the general scheme and scope of the Divine Comedy and to the life of its author. Various genres to which the poem belongs (romance, epic, vision) are indicated, and special attention is given to its place within the encyclopedic tradition. The poem is then situated historically through an overview of Dante's early poetic and political careers and the circumstances that led to his exile. Professor Mazzotta concludes by discussing the central role Dante's exile was to play in his poetic project.

Course Description

The course is an introduction to Dante and his cultural milieu through a critical reading of the Divine Comedy and selected minor works (Vita nuova, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Epistle to Cangrande). An analysis of Dante's autobiography, the Vita nuova, establishes the poetic and political circumstances of the Comedy's composition. Readings of Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise seek to situate Dante's work within the intellectual and social context of the late Middle Ages, with special attention paid to political, philosophical and theological concerns. Topics in the Divine Comedy explored over the course of the semester include the relationship between ethics and aesthetics; love and knowledge; and exile and history.

History, Political Science: Spain, the Age of Revolution, the Nationalist Movement, and the British Monarchy and Ireland

A History of Spain (BOOK): by Simon Barton

Simon Barton provides a highly readable and up-to-date analysis of the historical development of Spain from its origins to modern times. Today, as Spain has become firmly integrated into the political and economic structures of the European Union, the long-held notion that the country's 'historical destiny' has been somehow out of step with those of its neighbours no longer seems valid. Barton probes the extent to which Spain should be regarded as an exceptional case and provides a clear and balanced account of its strikingly rich and diverse history.

Aristocracy and Its Enemies in the Age of Revolution (BOOK): by William Doyle

Since time immemorial Europe had been dominated by nobles and nobilities. In the eighteenth century their power seemed better entrenched than ever. But in 1790 the French revolutionaries made a determined attempt to abolish nobility entirely. "Aristocracy" became the term for everything they were against, and the nobility of France, so recently the most dazzling and sophisticated elite in the European world, found itself persecuted in ways that horrified counterparts in other countries.

Bulmer Hobson and the Nationalist Movement in Twentieth-Century Ireland (BOOK): by Marnie Hay

Bulmer Hobson (1883-1969) abandoned the pacifism of his Ulster Quaker roots to become a key leader in the Irish nationalist movement in the period leading up to the 1916 Easter Rising. Sidelined at a critical time and maligned by some republican colleagues, Hobson has not been the subject of a published study until now. This book outlines and assesses Hobson’s nationalist career in the period 1900-16, exploring his contributions to the Gaelic League, the Gaelic Athletic Association, the Sinn Féin movement, Na Fianna Éireann and the Irish Volunteers. It also examines his lesser-known activities as a publisher, civil servant and economic propagandist in the years after the Rising.

Franks, Northmen, and Slavs: Identities and State Formation in Early Medieval Europe (BOOK): edited by Ildar H. Garipzanov, Patrick J. Geary & Przemyslaw

In recent decades, historians attempting to understand the transition from the world of late antiquity with its unitary imperial system to the medieval Europe of separate kingdoms have become increasingly concerned with the role of early medieval gentes, or peoples, in the end of the former and the constitution of the latter. Eleven specialists examine here the role of ethnic identity in the formation of medieval polities on the periphery of the Frankish world in the eighth through eleventh centuries.

Somewhere in the Sand: In Search of Timbuktu (BOOK): by Chris Berggren

Chris and his fellow adventurers embark on a wild, four-month journey as they travel the world. Together, they climb Mount Sinai, ride donkeys through the Valley of Kings and party every step of the way. The young men become addicted to adventure, and it isn't long before they are plotting their next trip - this time to Timbuktu, a place of seemingly mythical proportions in the West African country of Mali. Before long, their group gets larger in number, and soon, a small army of nine is making plans to head to Africa. They don't know what to expect, but then again, they don't care. Once in Africa, they will need to navigate the desert, deal with corrupt officials and stomach extreme images of hardship and poverty. Along the way, they find quite a bit of adventure but also quite a bit of trouble. Through it all, this group of adventure junkies finds out that the perfect place to quench their thirst for excitement is Somewhere in the Sand.

The Amaroc News: The Daily Newspaper of the American Forces in Germany, 1919-1923 (BOOK): by Alfred E. Cornebise

The peacetime doughboy had little desire to be part of an occupying force in Germany. Nobody did. Not the French, not the Belgians, not the British. The Germans decidedly did not want them there. Yet American soldiers at least had the Amaroc News, a highly color­ful newspaper that gave them a blend of the concerns of most young American men—women, sports, jobs, travel, education. But it gave them more: soldiers who read Amaroc came away with an expanded sense of the world’s events and of America’s changing position in the international picture.

The British Monarchy and Ireland: 1800 to the Present (BOOK): by James Loughlin

A broad-ranging political and social history of the relationship of the British monarchy with Ireland from 1800 to the present. James Loughlin demonstrates how this relationship was shaped by the personalities of individual monarchs and by government policies in Ireland, especially during the nineteenth century when the state sought to quell Irish demands for independence.

The Russian Civil War, 1918-22 (BOOK): by David Bullock

The Russian Civil War was the most important event of its kind in the 20th century. It changed the lives of over half a billion people and dramatically shaped the political, human and economic geography of Europe, the Far East and Central Asia. Over a tempestuous four-year period the Communist Red Army and the loosely formed, anti-Bolshevist White Army battled in a war that would totally transform the vast Eurasian heartland and lead to Communist revolutions worldwide as well as the Cold War. David Bullock offers a fresh perspective on this conflict, examining the forces of both sides, the intervention of non-Russian forces, including American, Canadian, British, and Japanese troops, and the involvement of female soldiers and partisans.

The military story of massed infantry and cavalry actions, mechanized warfare with tanks, armored cars and trains, and air combat, all along rapidly shifting fronts, is told against the incredible backdrop of political and social revolution. It is an account that is interwoven with tragedy - 30 million people died during the Civil War - and the author skillfully places the battles in the context of human suffering as he explores the cruel sacrifice of a huge population on the altar of political power.

The absorbing text includes dramatic first-hand accounts, and is vividly illustrated with carefully selected previously unpublished photographs. This new insight into history's most significant civil war, which

began 90 years ago, will be welcomed by all students of history seeking a compact account of the conflict that brought into being a new superpower - the USSR - and its threatening ideology.