In The Country of Gold-digging Ants

In The Country of Gold-digging Ants
Author: Anu Kumar
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2009-02-20
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 8184758146

Do you think Indian history is boring? Check out what these ancient reporters had to say about our country many centuries ago. In his book, Indika, Megasthenes, a Greek traveller, wrote about giant meat-eating ants that dug for gold in mines somewhere in eastern India! Hiuen Tsang, from China, was witness to an assassination attempt on King Harshavardhana at a religious gathering. The Venetian Marco Polo described how the people of Kashmir could use charms to change the weather and bring about darkness. Athanasius Nikitin, from Russia, was amazed by the sultan of Bidar, who went hunting accompanied by 10,000 men on horseback, 50,000 on foot, 200 elephants, 100 dancers, 300 horses, 100 monkeys and 100 concubines! Read astonishing stories about India written by explorers who came to the country as pilgrims, students, traders, voyagers and fortune-seekers from the 3rd century BC till the mid-twentieth century. These visitors left behind fascinating accounts of their perilous journeys in an unknown land; descriptions of what the people ate, wore and thought; who ruled them and how; the strange animals of this land, and many more startling facts which are often the only written historical records of those times. Filled with incredible stories and nuggets of information, In the Country of Gold-digging Ants brings alive the exciting adventures of eleven intrepid men and women, and may just make history your most favourite subject!

Snakes with Wings and Gold-digging Ants

Snakes with Wings and Gold-digging Ants
Author: Herodotus
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 95
Release: 2007-02-01
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0141964839

So much of what we know of the Ancient World comes from Herodotus (c.490 BC - c.420 BC) that he will always remain the greatest of historians. But in addition such a large part of the entertainment value of the Ancient World comes from his enormous, omnivorous, sometimes credulous appetite for stories of distant lands and strange creatures. Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back through the centuries – but also back into ideas and worlds frightening, ruthless and cruel in different ways from our own. Few reading experiences can begin to match that of engaging with writers who saw astounding things: Great civilisations, walls of ice, violent and implacable jungles, deserts and mountains, multitudes of birds and flowers new to science. Reading these books is to see the world afresh, to rediscover a time when many cultures were quite strange to each other, where legends and stories were treated as facts and in which so much was still to be discovered.

The Ants' Gold

The Ants' Gold
Author: Michel Peissel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 204
Release: 1984
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

The Madness of Cambyses

The Madness of Cambyses
Author: Herodotus
Publisher: Penguin UK
Total Pages: 54
Release: 2015-02-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 0141398787

'Do you see your son, standing over there, in the antechamber? Well, I am going to shoot him.' The story of the great and mad Cambyses, King of Persia, told by part-historian, part-mythmaker Herodotus of Halicarnassus. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Herodotus (c.484-425 BCE). Herodotus's The Histories is also available in Penguin Classics.

The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great

The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great
Author: John Watson McCrindle
Publisher: DigiCat
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2023-11-24
Genre: History
ISBN:

This book was created when John Watson McCrindle lived and worked in India as a schoolteacher. His interest in the state poured into years-long research of the ancient Greek and Latin text, where he collected the mentions of India. For this research, he collected materials from the works by Arrian, Q. Curtius, Diodoros, Plutarch, and Justin. The book follows Alexander's invasion in India, with all the great leader's campaigns on his way, including his invasion in Afghanistan, the Panjâb, Sindh, Gedrosia, and Karmania.