Death Of A Moai

What do Mongolians smuggle on board the Trans-Siberian Express? Where is Paradise and why is it cursed? How do you confuse a mugger in Brazil? In TRAVELS WITH MENSANS, you can find out. You'll also get an insider's perspective on what it feels like to sail a tall ship around the Canaries, to be a guest at a family wedding in Pakistan and to visit some of the world's most beautiful and strangest places. This special collection of travel writing, by members of the high IQ society Mensa, remembers bygone worlds and considers the nature of travel memories, the pros and cons of travelling alone and the effects of tourists on the places they visit. TRAVELS WITH MENSANS -- travel writing to make you think. Net proceeds from the sale of this book go to Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as it is known to its inhabitants, is located in the Pacific Ocean, 3600 kilometres west of South America. Annexed by Chile in 1888, the island has been a source of fascination for the world beyond the island since the first visit by Europeans in 1722 due to its intriguing statues and complex history. Inventing 'Easter Island' examines narrative strategies and visual conventions in the discursive construction of 'Easter Island' as distinct from the native conception of 'Rapa Nui.' It looks at the geographic imaginary that pervaded the eighteenth century, a period of overwhelming imperial expansion. Beverley Haun begins with a discussion of forces that shaped the European version of island culture and goes on to consider the representation of that culture in the form of explorer texts and illustrations, as well as more recent texts and images in comic books and kitsch from off the island. Throughout, 'Easter Island' is used as a case study of the impact of imperialism on the view of a culture from outside. The study hinges on three key points - an inquiry into the formation of 'Easter Island' as a subject; an examination of how the constructed space and culture have been shaped, reshaped, and represented in discursive spaces; and a discussion of cultural memory and how the constraints of foreign texts and images have shaped thought and action about 'Easter Island.' Richly illustrated and unique in its findings, Inventing 'Easter Island' will appeal to cultural theorists, anthropologists, educators, and anyone interested in the history of the South Pacific.

The Nephilim, a mystic and ancient order, will go to any length to protect their mysteries and the greatest secret of all-the very knowledge of their existence. Ty Roland, stuck in an unsatisfying and routine job, spends his life avoiding responsibility. Life changes suddenly for Ty when his estranged grandfather dies, leaving him and a forgotten cousin Debbie, an unlikely inheritance-and a mysterious note with a cryptic code they must decipher. As they unravel the mysteries of their grandfather's past, a bazaar world of knowledge, power, and deceit threatens everything they believed to be true while bringing Ty and Debbie dangerously close to the shadowy secrets of the Nephilim.

Anne Geraghty was a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist when her son, Tim Guest, author of My Life in Orange died suddenly. Her old life ended. She went on a search for her lost son. Where was he? What was he? Did he live on in some other realm? Or had he fallen into the darkness of oblivion? Her search for Tim became an exploration into the nature of death itself. We die as we have lived. Our lives are not like those of a C12th Tibetan, a C15th Cardinal or a Zen monk; we cannot, therefore, simply turn to old maps and myths of what happens when we die. We need a new narrative of death that embraces our modern understandings of our humanity and the workings of the universe. This book is the story of a grieving mother looking for her dead son, an investigation into death in our modern world, and an exploration of our struggles to live well in the ever-present shadow of death. It is not a book with answers; it is an invitation to look at death differently. This book offers fresh and original ideas about death and dying. And it will radically change your understanding of what death is.

The people of the Pacific known by most as "Polynesians" remain a mystery to scholars and the public alike as to their origins. While most academics in the fields of archaeology and anthropology strongly insist that they exclusively came from 121 P a g e south east Asia, other researchers, and the oral traditions of the people themselves often differ with this opinion. The presence of red hair, called "Ehu" in Hawaii and "Uru Kehu" in some of the ancient and present populations suggest connections, in the distant past, with sea farers from coastal Peru, especially the Paracas, to account for this. The famous explorer Thor Heyerdahl was insistent that there were ancient connections between Peru and the Pacific Islands, and this book attempts to solve this riddle, without delving into Celtic or other possible European ancestry. Come explore the possibilities through science, wind directions, sea currents, sculpture, and oral traditions.

This is a new release of the original 1948 edition.