Western Biography

In 1909, when he was just 14, Krishnamurti was proclaimed the world teacher in whom Maitreya, the Bodhisattva of compassion, would manifest. The proclamation was made by Annie Besant, then president of the Theosophical Society, a movement that combined Western occult philosophy with Buddhist and Hindu teachings. Besant trained Krishnamurti in his role as the chosen one, but 20 years later he chose to disband the order he was head of and set out alone on his endless journey - as a contemporary of Krishnamurti and one of his closest associates. Pupul Jayakar offers an insider's view.

In December 1943, with the rising realization that the Allies are planning to invade Fortress Europe, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is assigned the title of General Inspector for the Atlantic Wall. His mission is to assess their readiness. His superior, theater commander, crusty old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who had led the Reich to victory in the early years of the war, is now fed up with the whole Nazi regime. He lives comfortably in a plush villa in a quiet Paris suburb, waiting for the inevitable Allied invasion that will bring about their final defeat.

G. K. Chesterton was a journalist, playwright, poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, literary commentator, editor, orator, artist, and theologian. Orthodoxy is his great apologia for the Christian faith, which was prompted by a serious attack in 1903 against Christianity by well-known newspaper editor Robert Blatchford.

For fans of The Lost City of Z, Walking the Amazon, and Turn Right at Machu Picchu comes naturalist and explorer Paul Rosolie’s extraordinary adventure in the uncharted tributaries of the Western Amazon - a tale of discovery that vividly captures the awe, beauty, and isolation of this endangered land and presents an impassioned call to save it.

History is rarely kind to women of power, but few have had their reputations quite so brutally shredded as Catherine de’ Medici, Italian-born queen of France and influential mother of three successive French kings during that country’s long sequence of sectarian wars in the second half of the sixteenth century.

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, Defender of the Realm, the third volume of William Manchester’s The Last Lion, picks up shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister - when his tiny island nation stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. The Churchill portrayed by Manchester and Reid is a man of indomitable courage, lightning-fast intellect, and an irresistible will to action.

May 10, 1940. The Netherlands was swarming with Third Reich troops. In seven days it's entirely occupied by Nazi Germany. Joining a small resistance cell in the Dutch city of Haarlem were three teenage girls: Hannie Schaft, and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen, who would soon band together to form a singular female underground squad.

The story of the love affair between Wallis Simpson and King Edward VIII, and his abdication in order to marry the divorcée, has provoked fascination and discussion for decades. However, the full story of the couple's links with the German aristocracy and Hitler has until now remained untold. Meticulously researched, 17 Carnations chronicles this entanglement, starting with Hitler's early attempts to matchmake between Edward and a German noblewoman.

A nominee for the National Book Award, Ivan Doig's brilliant memoir shares the experiences and culture that shaped his early years and made him fall in love with the West. From his childhood in a family of homesteaders through the death of his mother and his move to Montana to herd sheep, Doig shows his intimate connection with the American West.

National Book Award finalist Ivan Doig had only a vague memory of his mother until he discovered a cache of her letters. They revealed a passionate, can-do woman who loved the lilting rhythm of words. A moving prequel to his acclaimed memoir This House of Sky, Doig’s Heart Earth highlights his childhood before his mother’s death and eloquently captures the texture of the American West, the fortunes of a family, and one woman’s indomitable spirit.

The abolitionist legacies of Orville Brown and his son, Spencer, live on in this historic and daring 19th-century account. Journeying apart from each other, but with similar passion, Orville and Spencer's stories span virtually every major abolitionist event: from the battles of Bleeding Kansas and the establishment of the free-soil movement to the river wars of Memphis, Vicksburg, and Shiloh. Listeners will follow Orville west as he strikes out for Kansas Territory to help ensure its entry as a free state.

A stunningly lyrical firsthand account of a life spent hunting, studying, and living alongside caribou, A Thousand Trails Home encompasses the historical past and present day, revealing the fragile intertwined lives of people and animals surviving on an uncertain landscape of cultural and climatic change sweeping the Alaskan Arctic. Author Seth Kantner vividly illuminates this critical story about the interconnectedness of the Iñupiat of Northwest Alaska, the Western Arctic caribou herd, and the larger Arctic region.

Edward Zane Carroll Judson aka Ned Buntline (1821-1886) was responsible for creating a highly romantic and often misleading image of the American West, albeit one that the masses found irresistible in the mid-to-late 19th century. Some scholars estimate that he wrote at least 400 dime novels over his lifetime and perhaps as many as 600. The Notorious Life of Ned Buntline is an open-eyed look at the man who sparked an American legend but whose own scandalous life somehow escaped history's limelight.

The dream of capturing and organizing knowledge is as old as history. From the archives of ancient Sumeria and the Library of Alexandria to the Library of Congress and Wikipedia, humanity has wrestled with the problem of harnessing its intellectual output. The timeless quest for wisdom has been as much about information storage and retrieval as creative genius. In Cataloging the World, Alex Wright introduces us to a figure who stands out in the long line of thinkers and idealists who devoted themselves to the task.

ولد في الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية في أواخر القرن التاسع عشر، وقد أسره الأدب منذ طفولته المبكرة، ورث مهارة والدته الأدبية، وكتب أول أشعار له في سن الرابعة عشرة، لكن لم تبدأ موهبته الأدبية في الازدهار حتى السابعة عشر من عمره في هارفارد حيث بدأ بدراسته الجامعية، وقد حقق انطباعا جيداً من مساهمته الدائمة في المجلة الطلابية الجامعية محامي هارفارد.

جون لوك فيلسوف وطبيب بريطاني. يعد واحدًا من المفكرين الأكثر تأثيرًا في عصر التنوير، حيث يعتبر مصدر المعرفة والأفكار ليس العقل، وإنما التجربة التي نحتك بها ونكتسبها عن طريق الحواس، وهو صاحب القول المشهور «العقل صفحة بيضاء» وأراد من خلاله الاعتراض على العقلانيين القائلين بتوفر العقل على أفكار فطرية، مبيناً أن العقل لا يتوفر على شيء، وأن مصدر أفكاره ومبادئه وقواعده التجربة فقط، وبذلك أسس للفلسفة الحسية التجريبية.

"هيوم" واحد من أشهر فلاسفة الغرب في القرن الثامن عشر وعلى مر العصور. الفيلسوف الأسكتلندي يُعد الأب الروحي للمدرسة "التجريبية العلمية" التي ينتمي إليها العديد من الفلاسفة مثل الفيلسوف الإنجليزي "جون لوك" وغيره.

When they fell in love in 1928, Rika and Waldemar could have not been more different. She was a thirty-seven-year-old Dutch-born mother, estranged from her husband. He was her immigrant boarder, not yet twenty, and a wealthy Surinamese descendant of slaves. The child they have together, brown skinned and blue eyed, brings the couple great joy yet raises some eyebrows. Until the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands explodes their promising life. What unfolds is more than the astonishing story of a love that prevailed over convention. It’s also the quest of a young boy.

The Age of Genius explores the eventful intertwining of outward event and inner intellectual life to tell, in all its richness and depth, the story of the 17th century in Europe. It was a time of creativity unparalleled in history before or since, from science to the arts, from philosophy to politics. Acclaimed philosopher and historian A. C. Grayling points to three primary factors that led to the rise of vernacular (popular) languages in philosophy, theology, science, and literature.

من أهل حماة (بسورية) ولد ونشأ ومات فيها، زار القاهرة والتقى بعلمائها واتصل بملوكها، وكان طويل النفس في النظم والنثر، حسن الأخلاق والمروءة، فيه شي من الزهو والإعجاب.