November 2002 Issue
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| FEATURES | ||||||||
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Book Feature: Shire Books reaches another milestone and celebrates three anniversaries! In June of this year Shire Books celebrated forty years in publishing. More recently they published their 1000th title, rather appropriately named Milestones, and released their 400th "Shire Album". | |||||||
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Book Feature: The Invention of Death "Nothing whatsoever historically links the monuments of the ancient Egyptians and the Aztecs". It is with this refreshing attitude that Timothy Taylor in The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death tackles one of the most basic needs of humanity that is common to all civilisations no matter how many miles or years separate them - the need to know that this is not all there is, that there is life after death. As Taylor explains, there is no great mystery behind the religious architecture of the ancient world, it is just human nature. | |||||||
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Book Feature: Art and archaeology of the "Hellenistic world" Those of you interested in ancient Greek culture may be interested to hear about the recent publication of some new English language books focusing on the Hellenistic period ... books which are sure to become fundamental academic texts. | |||||||
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Quirky Book of the Month On Monday 28th October 2002, BBC1 in the UK screened a much heralded documentary in which computer graphics were used to recreate the construction of the Great Pyramid in Egypt through the eyes of one of its builders. The pyramids are as popular a subject for archaeologists and historical detectives as they are for filmmakers - possibly the most unusual new book to appear on our shelves this month tackles the same issue from a rather strange angle. It is Ralph Ellis' K2: Quest of the Gods. Ellis maintains that a great ancient library is preserved deep within the K2 mountain on the India-Pakistan border and the map for its location can be found in the internal structure of the Great Pyramid. Needless to say, it was this that inspired Alexander the Great's quest to conquer the Himalayas. Follow the book-link for a fuller description. It's certainly different. | |||||||
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Of all the new books that have passed over the desks of the Oxbow staff this month, these, for whatever reason, are the ones that grabbed their attention.
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| INTERVIEWS | ||||||||
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Meet the Publisher: Mitch Allen of AltaMira Press Mitch Allen created Altamira Press in 1995, as the humanities division of Sage Publications. In less than a decade AltaMira has developed into a well-respected publisher in the humanities and social sciences, producing numerous important and innovative publications in the fields of archaeology, museum studies, and local history, particularly in North America. We wanted to find out how macho they really are in the American west ... so we emailed some questions to Mitch at the AltaMira headquarters in Walnut Creek, California - an area better known for its dot.coms, soccer moms and expensive real estate, than for its publishers ... | |||||||
Obituary: Ewart Oakeshott (1916-2002)
Ewart Oakeshott died on September 30th of this year. He was a leading researcher and renowned expert on European arms and armour, and a prolific writer for both adults and children.
Conferences: A Reminder
November is a busy month for conferences. Here's where we will be:
On November 17 to 19, The David Brown Book Co will set up a book display at The 21st International Conference of the Haskins Society in Ithaca, New York. This is a lively meeting of international scholars with an interest in Viking, Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman and Angevin matters. Among the highlights are the interval snacks, provided by the catering students at Ithaca College! Further details are available at the conference website: http://www.haskins.cornell.edu/cfp01.html
On November 20 to 24, The Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research will be held in Toronto, Canada. A quick drive across the border from Ithaca, stopping only to admire Niagara Falls, and the boys from The David Brown Book Co will be there. For more details on the habits of Near Eastern Archaeologists and their meeting rituals, check out the ASOR website at: http://www.asor.org/AM/am.htm
On November 23 to 26, demonstrating our unique talent for being in two places simultaneously, The David Brown Book Co will rock up to the The Middle Eastern Studies Association Meeting, which is taking place in Washington, DC. Here we will feature a diverse display of books on the medieval Middle East and beyond. And of course, the conference organisers have a website: http://fp.arizona.edu/mesassoc/MESA02/mesa02.htm
For other forthcoming conferences see our list of meetings:
http://www.oxbowbooks.com/confernc.cfm?&mid=
New Catalogue: Egypt and the Near East 2002-2003
We are pleased to announce the launch of our new Egypt and the Near East 2002-2003 catalogue, thousands of which have just been mailed out to customers in the UK, Europe and to the rest of the world. (Customers in North America will have to wait a little while longer for their edition which is being produced by The David Brown Book Company).
The catalogue contains more than one thousand books on all aspects of ancient Egypt and the Near East - history, daily life, religion and magic, gods and myths, tombs and graves, mummies, monuments, art, language, literature and texts, archaeology and excavations. It contains an eclectic mix of brand new books and others that may be a few years old, but which remain key, or popular books on the subject. The range of books is diverse, from glossy exhibition catalogues, to translated texts in a range of ancient languages, as well as detailed excavation and survey reports. There is something here for everyone, whatever their background knowledge in the subject.
All of the books in the catalogue are also on our website and the entire catalogue can now be
downloaded straight to your home computer. Of course, if you prefer a paper copy to browse in the
bath or on the train home, we will be happy to send you one.
Download in PDF format:
Main catalogue (545 Kb)
Bargains & Special Offers
Request a paper version
New Releases
Two new publications have arrived at the Oxbow Books warehouse during the past month. The first to be mentioned is hot of the press:
Practitioners, Practices and Patients:
New Approaches to Medical Archaeology and Anthropology
Medical archaeologists and anthropologists are both interested in the cultural constructions of
disease, healing and medicine, but the interpretative methods used by the two groups are often quite
different and interdisciplinary discussion is rare. The papers presented in this volume aim to bridge
the disciplinary gap, to widen the field of interpretation, and to reconsider the cultural complexities
of medical ideologies, beliefs and practices. The themes addressed include: cultural constructions of
the body in sickness and in health; the various instruments of medicine and the tools of healing; the
meaning of disease and possible ways of dealing with it; divination and shamanism in medical diagnosis
and healing; and concepts of auspicious and inauspicious time.
And on behalf of the Association of Environmental Archaeology, Oxbow Books has just published Volume 7 of
Environmental Archaeology:
The journal of human palaeoecology
This journal is supplied to members of the AEA as part of their subscription, but individual copies can also be purchased directly from Oxbow Books. The price for individuals is £24.00 / $30.00; the price for institutions is £30.00 / $45.00.
For more information about the AEA, take a look at their website: http://www.envarch.net/
Oxbow Books and British Museum Press get closer!
If you thought that the British Museum Press produced Viking Helmets to colour in and attractive exhibition catalogues, then you are not getting the whole picture! They also publish some extremely academic studies and works of reference, and Oxbow is the new distributor of the scholarly titles and the Occasional Papers.