Kirjahaku

In the most extensive work to date on major poets from the mountain South, John Lang takes as his point of departure an oft-quoted remark by Jim Wayne Miller: ""Appalachian literature is - and has always been - as decidedly worldly, secular, and profane in its outlook as the [region's] traditional religion appears to be spiritual and otherworldly."" Although this statement may be accurate for Miller's own poetry and fiction, Lang maintains that it does not do justice to the pervasive religious and spiritual concerns of many of the mountain South's finest writers, including the five other leading poets whose work he analyses along with Miller's. Fred Chappell, Robert Morgan, Jeff Daniel Marion, Kathryn Stripling Byer, and Charles Wright, Lang demonstrates, all write poetry that explores, sometimes with widely varying results, what they see as the undeniable presence of the divine within the temporal world. Like Blake and Emerson before them, these poets find the supernatural within nature rather than beyond it. They all exhibit a love of place in their poems, a strong sense of connection to nature and the land, especially the mountains. Yet while their affirmation of the world before them suggests a resistance to the otherworldliness that Miller points to, their poetry is nonetheless permeated with spiritual questing. Dante strongly influences both Chappell and Wright, though the latter eventually resigns himself to being simply ""a God-fearing agnostic,"" whereas Chappell follows Dante in celebrating ""the love that moves the sun and other stars."" Byer, probably the least orthodox of these poets, chooses to lay up treasures on earth, rejecting the transcendent in favour of a Native American spirituality of immanence, while Morgan and Marion find in nature what Marion calls a ""vocabulary of wonders"" akin to Emerson's conviction that nature is the language of the spiritual. Employing close readings of the poets' work and relating it to British and American Romanticism as well as contemporary eco-theology and eco-criticism, Lang's book is the most ambitious and searching foray yet into the worlds of these renowned post-World War II Appalachian poets.

Captain James Cook FRS RN (1728-1779) born Yorkshire, England, died in Hawaii 1779. Was an English explorer, navigator and cartographer, rising to the rank of Captain in the Royal Navy. Cook was the first to map Newfoundland prior to making three voyages to the Pacific Ocean during which he achieved the first European contact with the eastern coastline of Australia and the Hawaiian Islands as well as the first recorded circumnavigation of New Zealand. Book includes 6 illustrations.

The sinking of the Titanic on her maiden voyage in April 1912 was one of the defining moments of the twentieth century. Books and films about the disaster that befell the iconic liner are commonplace, and it seems almost inconceivable that anything fresh can emerge. But there is one angle that has not been covered, and Titanic: A Fresh Look at the Evidence by a Former Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents examines the events of April 1912 from that completely new perspective. John Lang brings the standards of a twenty-first-century accident investigation to bear on the events of April 1912, using his expertise and his investigator's instinct to determine exactly what happened a century ago, and what important lessons still need to be learned.

More than anyone else, the English-born Lord Clive of India was responsible for the colonization, ordering, and remaking of the British Empire in India-and for laying the foundation of much of present-day India's internal political organization.Appointed as a lowly writer in service of the English East India Company, his chance involvement in a battle during the 1746 First Carnatic War between France and Britain saw him enlist with the army. His daring exploits and bravery were soon rewarded with promotions and advancement through the ranks at breakneck speed, and his defense at the siege of Arcot-where his small force of just 200 men repelled an attack by thousands of Indians-made him famous and a hero in England.Although elected to the British parliament, Clive could not resist renewed calls back to India, and within a short time he was once again back in that country, suppressing rebellions and witnessing dramatic events such as the Black Hole of Calcutta. Finally, Clive's career culminated in the 1757 Battle of Plassey which was a decisive victory for the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies. This established British rule in Bengal which expanded over much of India for the next hundred years. This immensely readable book provides a full insight and account of Lord Clive's life, right from his earliest childhood to his untimely death.