Stones Of Empire

The attitude of the British to India was compounded partly of arrogance, but partly also of homesickness, and it shows in their constructions. Georgian terraces were adapted to tropical conditions, Victorian railway stations were elaborately orientalised, and seaside villas were adjusted to suit Himalayan conditions. This book, now reissued with a new introduction by Simon Winchester, is the first to describe the whole range of British constructions in India. Stones of Empire charts an enterprise in architecture, engineering, and social adaptation unique in human history.

Written by a geologist rather than an art historian, Inigo’s Stones has a down to earth narrative which reveals Inigo Jones as a stone expert who dealt with masons to became a shrewd businessman, bringing Portland stones to London, and founding the modern Portland stone industry.Why are so many of London’s famous buildings, for example Buckingham Palace, the British Museum, the Bank of England, the government offices in Whitehall, faced with stones from the Isle of Portland, more than a hundred miles away? Until now the reasons that prompted famous architect Inigo Jones to bring blocks of this creamy limestone all the way by sea from the Royal Manor of Portland and thereby found the modern Portland stone industry had been something of a mystery.Working with archival research specialist James Derriman, geologist Tom Williamson has now reconstructed a scenario that solves the mystery. It is a complex tale that involves the marriage of Inigo’s chief Banqueting House mason Nicholas Stone to the daughter of the City Mason of booming Amsterdam, a nasty incident at the stone-loading pier at Portland and Inigo Jones’s struggles to pay stone workers from King James’s bankrupt Treasury.The new findings presented in Inigo’s Stones also see Inigo Jones studying Roman stones and marbles in Italy with Lord and Lady Arundel, initiating the first geological study of Stonehenge, searching for Portland stones big enough to replicate the Carystian marble monoliths of the Roman temple of Antoninus and Faustina in London and procuring Irish marbles to reflect imperial glory on his friend King Charles I. Inigo emerges not just as a Court propagandist and Vitruvian architect, but also as a resourceful businessman doing his best to cope at a time when the government was even shorter of cash than it is today.Reflecting on the questions raised by Inigo’s work for the Stuart kings, the author Tom Williamson extends the story to cover the whole field of how rulers have used stones and marbles to project imperial power. Focusing on the stones of three once-mighty empires, the Roman, the Mughal and the British, the book ends with a surprising twist.

According to legend, the Empire Stone was larger than a fist and could light a man's path in the dark of the moon. Fashioned by gods - or maybe demons - it could give power and riches to anyone who held it. But it was lost when the city of Thyone was destroyed, and now its secrets lay buried in the past.The Year of the Mouse has begun badly for Peirol of the Moorlands. Having fallen in with Koosh Begee and his gang of tricksters, He's fallen to gambling. And he'd lost. Not before it's too late, Peirol realises that he's been trapped. Heavily in debt, Begee forces Peirol to recover a long-lost gem from a ruined temple. And so begins an incredible adventure, full of danger, mystery and magic, which will take Peirol across oceans and kingdoms in search of his destiny - and the fabled Empire Stone.

A new epic begins fueled by visions promising him prolonged life and political power, the dying Corajidin, leader of a millennia-old dynasty, has brought the nation of Shrīan to civil war. But is his bright destiny assured, or do the events unfolding around him promise a more ignoble, and finite, future Indris, warrior-mage of the Sēq Scholars and scion of a rival Great House, is caught in the upheaval. Driven by loyalty and conscience to return to a city that haunts his past, Indris reluctantly accepts the task of finding a missing man, the only one able to steer the teetering nation toward peace? The celebrated warrior-poet, Mari, touches both men's lives: one as daughter, one as lover. As her world unravels around her, can she be true to both her duty to blood, and her own desires for freedom and happiness.

The story of London, told through twelve of its most seminal buildings. 'Excellent ...this is an imaginative book that finds a convincing new way to tell the story of one of the most written-about cities in the world' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'Hollis has a fine eye for architecture, and engagingly describes neo-classical marvels as well as the Labour government's dockside folly of the Millennium Dome... Hollis is good company' SPECTATOR In a sweeping narrative, from its mythic origins to the glittering towers of the contemporary financial capital, THE STONES OF LONDON tells the story of twelve London buildings in a kaleidoscopic and unexpected history of one of the world's most enigmatic cities. From the Roman forum to the Gherkin, Regent Street to the East End, the Houses of Parliament to Greenwich Palace, London's buildings are testament to the richness of its past. Behind the facades of these buildings lie the stories of the people, ideas and events that took place within them and that caused their creation. They all have very human stories, of the men and women who dreamed and lived their lives in London, leaving their imprint upon the fabric of the capital.

From the adorable to the absurd, these playful paintings are a penguin lover’s delight. Penguins hate zombies. They also hate serpents, bad haircuts, sock monkeys, leprechauns, Halloween, oil rigs, vampire penguins, and mermaids. They really hate clowns, but they really like capes, balloons, and free vacations. This quirky collection reveals the discriminating tastes of these adorable flightless Antarctic birds who encounter odd foes (snow sharks, beavers, cowboys, samurai . . .), but still manage to enjoy the little things in life. With wit, humor, and the occasional alien invasion, Greg Stones’s paintings capture the playfully absurd life of penguins. Praise for Greg Stones “Stones’s panels have a cool way of collectively turning a grin into a chuckle (and perhaps, dare it be said, into a hearty guffaw).” —Publishers Weekly