Approximately how many languages compose the Bantu language group of central and southern Africa? What is the name of the language spoken in Hawaii by an estimated two thousand people? What Western European language is not known to be related to any other language family in the world -- and is considered by linguists to be one of the most ...
Scholar Andrew Dalby delves into the world that first heard the "Odyssey" and the "Iliad", and asks new questions about the poet Homer. Dalby follows the growth of the legend of Troy from its kernel of historical truth and retraces the succession of singers who re-created the unforgettable story for generations of audiences. He asks why the two ...
Dalby projects that 2,500 languages will be lost over the course of this century, and makes the case for the vital importance of linguistic diversity. He presents a far-ranging history of how languages have ceased to exist, and what can be done to combat the loss of a variety of distinctive voices.
A geography of luxury runs through the literature of Imperial Rome - Persica , the golden peaches whose Latin name pinpointed Persia as the source of their world-wide migration - Caecubum , a fine, rare, dry red wine from Campanian vineyards that were once prized, afterwards neglected; these flavours were identified, evaluated and tasted in a ...
This text offers a look at the way trade and the search for exotic spices are woven into human history. The author shows how each region became part of what is now a worldwide network of trade - with local consequences ranging from disaster to triumph.
This text provides the first serious social history of Greek food. Cheese, wine, honey and olive oil - four of Greece's best known contributions to culinary culture - were already well known 4000 years ago. Remains of honeycombs and of cheeses have been found under the volcanic ash of the Santorini eruption of 1627 BC. Over the millennia, Greek ...
This is the life story of the wine god Bacchus-seducer, magician, and merrymaker-as never told before. Tales of his bizarre birth from a womb fashioned in his father Zeus's thigh led to even stranger stories, passed down through generations of dramatists, poets, storytellers, and historians. Bacchus is best remembered, however, for his gift of ...
Sensual yet pre-eminently functional, food is of intrinsic interest to us all. This exciting new work by a leading authority explores food and related concepts in the Greek and Roman worlds. In entries ranging from a few lines to a couple of pages, Andrew Dalby describes individual foodstuffs (such as catfish, gazelle, peaches and parsley), ...
"A Guide to World Language Dictionaries" covers 276 languages with a written literature. Organized in alphabetical order by language, the "Guide" appraises the main dictionaries, assessing the special value of each, its strengths and weaknesses, and how different dictionaries complement one another. Dictionaries of slang, colloquialisms, and ...
Cheese, wine, honey and olive oil - four of Greece's best known contributions to culinary culture - were already well known 4,000 years ago. Remains of honeycombs and of cheeses have been found under the volcanic ash of the Santorini eruption of 1627 BC. Over the millennia, Greek food diversified and absorbed neighbouring traditions, yet retained ...
This is a study of the food that was eaten at the court of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople in the Middle Ages. For centuries it has tempted and fascinated the West, yet very little has been written in English about the foods they ate or the recipes they cooked from. Dalby gives an entertaining account of the dining customs of the ...
Providing insights into classical Roman domestic economy, this lengthy Latin prose work by Cato the Elder is presented here in a modern translation by Andrew Dalby, in a detailed edition composed with the culinary historian in mind. It includes information on, among many other topics, planting and maintaining olive groves, supervising the staff, ...
If you ever wondered how cheese was invented - and where, and when, and even why - then "Cheese" is the book for you. If you ever guessed that Roquefort, Cheshire and Gorgonzola might not be quite as ancient as their publicists claim, this book will confirm your guess. Until now there has been no global history of cheese: here it is at last, ...
Take any article on Wikipedia. Who wrote it? Where did it come from? Now take a closer look at those unconvincing, badly written sentences in the middle. Why did someone add them? How long will it be before someone else deletes them? And how many people will have read them before they are removed? Five years ago such questions didn't matter; ...
This guide evaluates the widely scattered fund of material available in Southeast Asia in such areas as politics, religion, society, history language, geography, economics, and development. Even the simple listings of reference sources within this guide bring to light much indispensable and fascinating information; information that risks being ...
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