Free eBooks - Social Science
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CHAPTER I.
THE VALUE OF ARCHÆOLOGY.
The archæologist whose business it is to bring to light by pick and spade the relics of bygone ages, is often accused of devoting his energies to work which is of no material profit to mankind at the present day. Archæology is an unapplied science, and, apart from its connection with what is called culture, the critic is inclined to judge it as a pleasant ... more...
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CHAPTER I
OPENING THE DOOR
Long before men awoke to the vision of America, the Old World was the scene of many stupendous migrations. One after another, the Goths, the Huns, the Saracens, the Turks, and the Tatars, by the sheer tidal force of their numbers threatened to engulf the ancient and medieval civilization of Europe. But neither in the motives prompting them nor in the effect they produced, nor yet ... more...
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UNGUARDED GATES
Wide open and unguarded stand our gates,
And through them presses a wild, motley throng—
Men from the Volga and the Tartar steppes,
Featureless figures of the Hoang-Ho,
Malayan, Scythian, Teuton, Celt, and Slav,
Flying the old world's poverty and scorn;
These bringing with them unknown gods and rites,
Those, tiger passions, here to stretch their claws. ... more...
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Chapter I
The Sociology of the Chinese
Racial Origin
In spite of much research and conjecture, the origin of the Chinese people remains undetermined. We do not know who they were nor whence they came. Such evidence as there is points to their immigration from elsewhere; the Chinese themselves have a tradition of a Western origin. The first picture we have of their actual history shows us, not a people ... more...
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Lang, Andrew
Lang, Andrew
Andrew Lang (March 31 1844 - July 20 1912) was a prolific Scots poet, novelist, and literary critic but is best known as the collector of folk and fairy tales.
His first publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France [1872], and this was followed at intervals by other volumes of dainty verse, Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888), Ballads and Verses Vain [1884], Rhymes a la Mode [1884], Grass of Parnassus [1888], Ban and Arriere Ban [1894], New Collected Rhymes [1905].
He collaborated with S.H. Butcher in a prose translation [1879] of the Odyssey, and with E Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version ...
His first publication was a volume of metrical experiments, The Ballads and Lyrics of Old France [1872], and this was followed at intervals by other volumes of dainty verse, Ballades in Blue China (1880, enlarged edition, 1888), Ballads and Verses Vain [1884], Rhymes a la Mode [1884], Grass of Parnassus [1888], Ban and Arriere Ban [1894], New Collected Rhymes [1905].
He collaborated with S.H. Butcher in a prose translation [1879] of the Odyssey, and with E Myers and Walter Leaf in a prose version ...
PREFACE TO NEW IMPRESSION.
When this book first appeared (1886), the philological school of interpretation of religion and myth, being then still powerful in England, was criticised and opposed by the author. In Science, as on the Turkish throne of old, "Amurath to Amurath succeeds"; the philological theories of religion and myth have now yielded to anthropological methods. The centre of the anthropological ... more...
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THE PRIMARY aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which regulated the succession to the priesthood of Diana at Aricia. When I first set myself to solve the problem more than thirty years ago, I thought that the solution could be propounded very briefly, but I soon found that to render it probable or even intelligible it was necessary to discuss certain more general questions, some of which had ... more...
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CHAPTER I
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH
§ 1. Not to touch the Earth
[The priest of Aricia and the Golden Bough]
We have travelled far since we turned our backs on Nemi and set forth in quest of the secret of the Golden Bough. With the present volume we enter on the last stage of our long journey. The reader who has had the patience to follow the enquiry thus far may remember that at the outset two ... more...
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INTRODUCTION
Three thousand years ago the world was still young. The western continent was a huge wilderness, and the greater part of Europe was inhabited by savage and wandering tribes. Only a few nations at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in the neighbouring parts of Asia had learned to dwell in cities, to use a written language, to make laws for themselves, and to live in a more orderly fashion. ... more...
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FAR AWAY AND LONG AGO
Once there was another Sun and another Moon; a different Sun and a different Moon from the ones we see now. Sol was the name of that Sun and Mani was the name of that Moon. But always behind Sol and Mani wolves went, a wolf behind each. The wolves caught on them at last and they devoured Sol and Mani. And then the world was in darkness and cold.
In those times the Gods lived, Odin and ... more...
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Hakon's Lay
By James Russell Lowell
"O Skald, sing now an olden song,Such as our fathers heard who led great lives;And, as the bravest on a shield is borneAlong the waving host that shouts him king,So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!"
Then the old man arose: white-haired he stood,White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afarFrom their still region of perpetual snow,Over the little smokes and ... more...
