The rainbow is a compelling spectacle in nature—a rare, evanescent, and beautiful bridge between subjective experience and objective reality—and no less remarkable as a cultural phenomenon. A symbol of the Left since the German Peasants’ War of the 1520s, it has been adopted by movements for gay rights, the environment, multiculturalism, and peace around the globe, and has inspired poets, artists, and writers including John Keats, Caspar David Friedrich, Edgar Allan Poe, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. In this book, the first of its kind, Daniel MacCannell offers an enlightening and instructive guide to the rainbow’s multicolored relationship with humanity. The scientific “discovery” of the rainbow is a remarkable tale, taking in ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Persia, and Islamic Spain. But even as we’ve studied rainbows, adopted their image, and penned odes to them for millennia, rainbows have also been regarded as ominous or even dangerous in myth and religion. In the twentieth century, the rainbow emerged as kitsch, arcing from the musical film version of The Wizard of Oz to 1980s sitcoms and children’s cartoons. Illustrated throughout in prismatic color, MacCannell’s Rainbows explores the full spectrum of rainbows’ nature and meaning, offering insight into what rainbows are and how they work, how we arrived at our current scientific understanding of the phenomenon, and how we have portrayed them in everything from myth to the arts, politics, and popular culture.

Rainbows: Nature and Culture (Earth)

Science & Math

MacCannell, Daniel

Earth Sciences

Reaktion Books

A compelling and imaginative journey into the past, packed with anecdotes, facts, and fascinating characters, Lost Banff and Buchan uncovers many aspects of the region north of Aberdeen and east of Moray that is neither highland nor lowland, depopulated nor populous. In addition to buildings, transportation networks, industries, and ways of life that no longer exist, from whaling to whiskey smuggling, the book also considers other elements that have been forgotten over time. There are lost people, such as the pilots of the Banff Strike Wing who fought valiantly against the German Navy during World War II; the lost University of Fraserburgh, founded in 1595 but defunct by 1605; the village of Burnhaven, destroyed to make room for Peterhead Prison; and a lost literary master—the Turriff man who wrote Argenis, arguably the first novel ever written by a British person. This chronicle revives the dormant history that has shaped this region to reveal a land of surprising contrasts.

Lost Banff and Buchan

History

Europe

Birlinn Ltd.

Scotland has a huge and diverse amount of built heritage. Yet most writing about this fascinating subject is overly technical - an alphabet soup of L-plans, Z-plans and bartizans. How to Read Scottish Buildings is a unique, informative and refreshing companion to Scottish architecture that dispenses with jargon to enable us to appreciate Scottish buildings with regard to their ages, styles, influences, and functions, as well as the messages that their builders, owners and occupants intended them to convey. Readers will be able to answer for themselves a whole host of questions about function, style, age and building techniques that will make a visit to any historic Scottish building a rewarding and enriching experience.

How To Read Scottish Buildings

Birlinn

Maps can tell much about the story of a place that traditional histories fail to communicate. This is particularly true of Edinburgh, one of the most visually stunning cities in the world and a place rich in historical and cultural associations. This lavishly illustrated book features 71 maps of Edinburgh which have been selected for the particular stories they reveal about the political, commercial and social life of Scotland and her capital. Many are reproduced in book form for the first time. Together, they present a fascinating insight into how Edinburgh has changed and developed over the last 500 years, and will appeal to all those with an interest in Edinburgh and Scottish history, as well as anyone interested in urban history, architectural history, town planning or the history of cartography.

Edinburgh: Mapping the City

Fleet, Christopher

Illicit distilling in Scotland was seen as a 'right of man' at the end of the 17th century. Attempts to enforce excise duty on the spirit were therefore met with resistance, ranging from riots to more and more ingenious ways of avoiding paying tax.In this book and Charles MacLean and Daniel MacCannell give a fascinating insight into the day-to-day struggles that led to the increase in illicit distilling from the mid-1600s, then to its eventual demise in the early twentieth century. The Cabrach, a wild and sparsely populated part of Aberdeenshire, became renowned for its production of illicit whisky. Local inhabitants mixed farming and distilling with great skill, creating a network of stills and distribution to evade customs. Using new research first-hand historical accounts and official records, the authors show how spirits from this small parish were made and travelled far and wide, across the border to England and across the North Sea to France, firing up revolution and lending solidarity to the struggles of the Jacobites.Features: Making Whisky (Dennis McBain), The Jacobite Legacy (Murray Pittock), The Bard and the Bottle (David Purdie), The Dram In Folklore (Tom McKean), A Smuggler's Paradise (David Ferguson); Banff - The Smuggler's Royal Burgh (Jay Wilson), Scotland's Lost Distilleries (Brian Townsend).

Scotland's Secret History: The Illicit Distilling and Smuggling of Whisky

MacLean, Charles

Americas

Over the past four and a half centuries, the magnificent city of Oxford has been mapped for many reasons, few of which have involved the mere finding of one’s way through the streets. For the first time, this lavishly illustrated volume brings together sixty of the most remarkable maps and views of the area that have been made by friend and foe since 1575.

Oxford: Mapping the City

Fleet, Chris

Origin

In addition to physical things, he also considers much else that has been 'lost' from the history, landscape and collective memory of the area - such as people who played an important part in its history; the local Gaelic of the area which has now died out; the wolf, which lived freely there until the 1680s; and the ways of life of past generations of Deeside people. The result is a vivid and stimulating insight into the way Deeside has changed over many centuries.

Lost Deeside

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MacCannell, Daniel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by MacCannell, Daniel

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MacCannell, Daniel. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Rainbows: Nature and Culture (Earth)

Lost Banff and Buchan

How To Read Scottish Buildings

Edinburgh: Mapping the City

Scotland's Secret History: The Illicit Distilling and Smuggling of Whisky

Oxford: Mapping the City

Edinburgh: Mapping the City

Lost Deeside