Author: Philipp Blom File Type: epub Bloms gripping narration and bizarre cast of eccentrics, visionaries, and fanatics provide a fascinating glimpse into how a pastime becomes an all-consuming passion.From amassing sacred relics to collecting celebrity memorabilia, the impulse to hoard has gripped humankind throughout the centuries. But what is it that drives people to possess objects that have no conceivable use? To Have and To Hold is a captivating tour of collectors and their treasures from medieval times to the present, from a cabinet containing unicorn horns and a Tsars collection of teeth to the macabre art of embalmer Dr. Frederick Ruysch, the fabled castle of William Randolph Hearst, and the truly preoccupied men who stockpile food wrappers and plastic cups. An engrossing story of the collector as bridegroom, deliriously, obsessively happy, wed to his possessions, till death do us part.**From Publishers WeeklyThe mania of collecting, a pastime usually reserved for the most wealthy of individuals, has a long history, says German-born journalist Blom. For many collectors, money is no object, and objects are everything. Blom begins his formal, idiosyncratic chronicle in the 16th century, when the Renaissance-fueled explosion of scientific inquiry led to a boom in what the Dutch referred to as cabinets of curiosities. Typically stocked with small antiques and remains of strange animals and men (fake and real), they were popular among the rich and bourgeois across Europe through the next few centuries. Blom follows the tradition into the dark castles of crazed aristocrats and obsessed collectors (such as the 18th-century German doctor who had a collection of skulls taken from the local gallows and asylum) who thought to compile small, neurotically labeled and catalogued worlds, which countered the chaotic one outside their walls. Although Bloms book sticks mainly to highbrow collecting-e.g., old master drawings, snuffboxes, architectural models, human skulls, books-and does not come to any conclusions on what drives people to collect, it is an admirable attempt to chart the history of an obsession. 53 b&w illus. and photos. 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From The New Yorker Taking as its inspiration Walter Benjamins dictum that a collectors passion borders on the chaos of memory, this curiously moving history argues that collecting is driven by the desire to control that chaos. Blom traces the development of collections since the Renaissance through lively portraits of famous collectors, like the Englishman Sir Thomas Phillips, who believed that he was meant to own one copy of every book in the world the Austrian Franz Joseph Gall, who lined his walls with row upon row of skulls and the American Alex Shear, who has amassed more than a hundred thousand relics of nineteen-fifties America. Blom shows that there is no limit to what can be collected, or to the intensity of the pursuit. Ultimately, he suggests, the shadow looming over every cabinet is a kind of willful, if unacknowledged, futility. To collect is to freeze the world in its tracks and hold it still. But if this succeeded what would be left to collect? 2005 The New Yorker

Author: Ahmed Osman File Type: pdf Contends that the roots of Christian belief come not from Judaea but from Egypt Shows that the Romans fabricated their own version of Christianity and burned the Alexandrian library as a way of maintaining political power Builds on the arguments of the authors previous books The Hebrew Pharaohs of Egypt, Moses and Akhenaten, and Jesus in the House of the PharaohsIn Christianity An Ancient Egyptian Religion author Ahmed Osman contends that the roots of Christian belief spring not from Judaea but from Egypt. He compares the chronology of the Old Testament and its factual content with ancient Egyptian records to show that the major characters of the Hebrew scriptures--including Solomon, David, Moses, and Joshua--are based on Egyptian historical figures. He further suggests that not only were these personalities and the stories associated with them cultivated on the banks of the Nile, but the major tenets of Christian belief--the One God, the Trinity, the hierarchy of heaven, life after death, and the virgin birth--are all Egyptian in origin. He likewise provides a convincing argument that Jesus himself came out of Egypt.With the help of modern archaeological findings, Osman shows that Christianity survived as an Egyptian mystery cult until the fourth century A.D., when the Romans embarked on a mission of suppression and persecution. In A.D. 391 the Roman-appointed Bishop Theophilus led a mob into the Serapeum quarter of Alexandria and burned the Alexandrian library, destroying all records of the true Egyptian roots of Christianity. The Romans version of Christianity, manufactured to maintain political power, claimed that Christianity originated in Judaea. In Christianity An Ancient Egyptian Religion Osman restores Egypt to its rightful place in the history of Christianity. Contends that the roots of Christian belief come not from Judaea but from Egypt Shows that the Romans fabricated their own version of Christianity and burned the Alexandrian library as a way of maintaining political power Builds on the arguments of the authors previous books The Hebrew Pharaohs of Egypt, Moses and Akhenaten, and Jesus in the House of the PharaohsIn Christianity An Ancient Egyptian Religion author Ahmed Osman contends that the roots of Christian belief spring not from Judaea but from Egypt. He compares the chronology of the Old Testament and its factual content with ancient Egyptian records to show that the major characters of the Hebrew scriptures--including Solomon, David, Moses, and Joshua--are based on Egyptian historical figures. He further suggests that not only were these personalities and the stories associated with them cultivated on the banks of the Nile, but the major tenets of Christian belief--the One God, the Trinity, the hierarchy of heaven, life after death, and the virgin birth--are all Egyptian in origin. He likewise provides a convincing argument that Jesus himself came out of Egypt.With the help of modern archaeological findings, Osman shows that Christianity survived as an Egyptian mystery cult until the fourth century A.D., when the Romans embarked on a mission of suppression and persecution. In A.D. 391 the Roman-appointed Bishop Theophilus led a mob into the Serapeum quarter of Alexandria and burned the Alexandrian library, destroying all records of the true Egyptian roots of Christianity. The Romans version of Christianity, manufactured to maintain political power, claimed that Christianity originated in Judaea. In Christianity An Ancient Egyptian Religion Osman restores Egypt to its rightful place in the history of Christianity.From the Back CoverEGYPT ANCIENT CIVILIZATION In Christianity An Ancient Egyptian Religion author Ahmed Osman contends that the roots of Christian belief spring not from Judaea but from Egypt. He compares the chronology of the Old Testament and its factual content with ancient Egyptian records to show that the major characters of the Hebrew scriptures--including Solomon, David, Moses, and Joshua--are based on Egyptian historical figures. He further suggests that not only were these personalities and the stories associated with them cultivated on the banks of the Nile, but the major tenets of Christian belief--the One God, the Trinity, the hierarchy of heaven, life after death, and the virgin birth--are all Egyptian in origin. He likewise provides a convincing argument that Jesus himself came out of Egypt. With the help of modern archaeological findings, Osman shows that Christianity survived as an Egyptian mystery cult until the fourth century A.D., when the Romans embarked on a mission of suppression and persecution. In A.D. 391 the Roman-appointed Bishop Theophilus led a mob into the Serapeum quarter of Alexandria and burned the Alexandrian library, destroying all records of the true Egyptian roots of Christianity. The Romans version of Christianity, manufactured to maintain political power, claimed that Christianity originated in Judaea. In Christianity An Ancient Egyptian Religion Osman restores Egypt to its rightful place in the history of Christianity. AHMED OSMAN was born in Cairo in 1934 and is the author of The Hebrew Pharaohs of Egypt, Moses and Akhenaten, and Jesus in the House of the Pharaohs. He lives in England. About the AuthorAhmed Osman was born in Cairo in 1934 and is the author of The Hebrew Pharaohs of Egypt, Moses and Akhenaten, and Jesus in the House of the Pharaohs. He lives in England.