Books with title Exploring Southwestern Europe

Some 150 years ago, the newly formed Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company rewarded loyal customers with gifts of colorful picture cards. Each card was a work of art; before long, thousands of them were circulating. Their beautiful images and associated commentary captivated people and new editions were eagerly awaited. As a group, they told fascinating stories about every conceivable aspect of life on earth and, similar to what the internet might do in our time, came to embody the sum total of human knowledge. With the help of these cards, collectors could travel the globe, meet people from any country on earth and learn about their customs. They could visit lost civilizations, too, or marvel at natural and man-made wonders around the globe. They could study up on plants and animals or the evolution of commerce and transport, learn about geography and history and natural science. They could discover the secrets of agriculture, forestry and fishing or trace the origin of new inventions that were transforming industry and life in general. They could familiarize themselves with music and literature, great art and architecture, with famous men and women of all ages and, most importantly perhaps, with children’s favorite world of giants and dwarfs, elves and gnomes, riddles and fairy tales! As a result, strange as it may sound, the company’s most important contribution, perhaps, was not to the kitchens of the world, but to the education of millions of people of all ages who could not go to school or afford books! The author’s grandmother was one of them and, many years later, when he was a child, she used her large collection of Liebig cards, as one might the modern-day internet, to satisfy his urge to find out everything about the big wide world. This ninth volume of the SURFING A MAGICAL INTERNET series, resurrects another portion yet of grandmother’s magical internet. Over 300 pictures illustrate her imaginary trip to some of Europe’s Mediterranean lands. When joining her, well over a century ago, to visit Gibraltar, Spain, Southern France, Monaco, Malta, and, finally, Italy and San Marino, we enter something like a time machine, which makes for an especially intriguing tour. To be sure, finding ourselves, in, say, 1880, the Blue Grotto of Capri or the Leaning Tower of Pisa or the Fountains of Rome may look the same as they do now and so will, perhaps, mountain ranges and volcanoes, great rivers and lakes and famous villas along the coast. But city streets with no automobiles in sight and people dressed in unfamiliar ways may well strike us as odd—not to mention their different customs, music, and dance. Still, if we are willing to stay around, we can marvel at grand structures from Europe’s Baroque, Gothic or Renaissance times—city gates, cathedrals and bell towers, town halls, court houses, castles and palaces, and houses of parliament---but we certainly won’t be able to hail a cab or find a plane to fly home. In fact, as we will discover, grandmother’s Liebig cards can take us further back beyond her time as well. We can inspect amazing structures from the days of ancient Rome, explore fortresses and palaces from a time when Spain and Sicily belonged to the Moors, and even visit the Medieval world and come to know artists, explorers, and scientists like Dante, Columbus, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael, and more. We can meet them all using grandmother’s Liebig-cards time machine and we can feel the excitement in the air when Galileo insists that the earth is rotating around the sun rather than the sun around the earth, or when Garibaldi’s Expedition of the Thousand helps create the Kingdom of Italy in 1861. This kind of time travel is anything but scary; it’s captivating and so much fun!

Some 150 years ago, the newly formed Liebig’s Extract of Meat Company rewarded loyal customers with gifts of colorful picture cards. Each card was a work of art; before long, thousands of them were circulating. Their beautiful images and associated commentary captivated people and new editions were eagerly awaited. As a group, they told fascinating stories about every conceivable aspect of life on earth and, like our internet, came to embody the sum of human knowledge. With the help of these cards, collectors could travel the globe, meet people from any country on earth and learn about their customs. They could visit lost civilizations, too, or marvel at natural and man-made wonders around the globe. They could study up on plants and animals or the evolution of commerce and transport, learn about geography and history and natural science. They could discover the secrets of agriculture, forestry and fishing or trace the origin of new inventions that were transforming industry and life in general. They could familiarize themselves with music and literature, great art and architecture, with famous men and women of all ages and, most importantly perhaps, with children’s favorite world of giants and dwarfs, elves and gnomes, riddles and fairy tales! As a result, strange as it may sound, the company’s most important contribution, perhaps, was not to the kitchens of the world, but to the education of millions of people of all ages who could not go to school or afford books! The author’s grandmother was one of them and, many years later, when he was a child, she used her large collection of Liebig cards, as one might the modern-day internet, to satisfy his urge to find out everything about the big wide world. This twelfth volume of the SURFING A MAGICAL INTERNET series resurrects another portion yet of grandmother’s collection. In Book 12, Exploring Southeastern Europe, over 100 pictures illustrate her imaginary trip to the pre-World War I world of what is now known as Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and European Turkey---pictures taken at a time when some of the areas visited here were still part of the Austro-Hungarian or Ottoman Empires or when people considered themselves to be citizens of what are now almost forgotten places like Boeotia, Dacia, Dalmatia, Istria, Rumelia, Transylvania, and even Wallachia. As we accompany grandmother on her trip, we follow the course of Europe’s second longest river, the Danube, as it passes ten modern countries on its way to the Black Sea. We marvel at the remnants of Roman roads and palaces---Emperor Trajan’s Road at the Iron Gate, Emperor Diocletian’s Palace at Split, or the ruins of Golubac, infested with hordes of blood-sucking flies, called “mosquitoes,” that have allegedly shown themselves capable of killing off entire herds of cattle! Before long, we stand in awe before mighty fortresses lining the Turkish Straits and built to protect the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus. We relax on Greek islands---Corfu, Thera, Crete, Rhodes, and more --- and, using my grandmother’s time machine, we go further back in time as well, to explore life in ancient Greece at the golden age of Pericles, to visit the hermits at Mount Athos, to witness the founding of Byzantium, then Constantinople and now Istanbul, and to observe the construction of the Acropolis and two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World--the Colossus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia. So many stories, captivating all, and so much fun!

The Southwest region of the United States encompasses vast canyons, high plateaus, sandy deserts, and the wide-open grasslands of the Great Plains. Exploring the Southwest introduces readers to the defining features that make this region unique, including its geography, history, biology, industries, and cultures. Easy-to-read text, vivid images, and helpful back matter give readers a clear look at this subject. Features include a table of contents, infographics, a glossary, additional resources, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards.

The Southwest region of the United States encompasses vast canyons, high plateaus, sandy deserts, and the wide-open grasslands of the Great Plains. Exploring the Southwest introduces readers to the defining features that make this region unique, including its geography, history, biology, industries, and cultures. Easy-to-read text, vivid images, and helpful back matter give readers a clear look at this subject. Features include a table of contents, infographics, a glossary, additional resources, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Core Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.