|
|
books
| book details |
Sahara: The Extraordinary History of the World's Largest Desert
By (author) Marq de Villiers, By (author) Sheila Hirtle
|
| on special |
normal price: R 358.95
Price: R 323.95
|
| book description |
In the parched and seemingly lifeless heart of the Sahara desert, earthworms find enough moisture to survive. Four major mountain ranges interrupt the flow of dunes and gravel plains, and at certain times waterfalls cascade from their peaks. Even the sand amazes: massive dunes can appear almost overnight, and be gone just as quickly. We think we know the Sahara, the largest and most austere desert on Earth-yet it is full of surprises, as Marq de Villiers reveals in his brilliant and evocative biography of the land and its people. ""If you traveled across the United States from Boston to San Diego, you still wouldn't have crossed the Sahara,"" writes de Villiers, painting a vivid picture of this most extraordinary place. He charts the course of Atlantic hurricanes, many of which are born in the Tibesti Mountains of northern Chad, and offers a fascinating disquisition on the physics of windblown sand and the formation of dunes. He chronicles the formation of the massive aquifers that lie beneath the desert, some filled with water that pre-dates the appearance of modern man on Earth. He marvels at the jagged mountains and at ancient cave paintings deep in the desert, which reveal that the Sahara was a verdant grassland 10,000 years ago-a cycle that has been repeated several times. Woven through de Villiers's story is a chronicle of the desert's nations and people: the Berbers and Arabs of the north; its black African south, whose ancestors peopled the greatest empires of Old Africa; and the extraordinary nomads-the Moors, the Tuareg (the famous ""blue men""), and the Tubu-who call the desert home today. Illuminated by the eloquent written testimonies of past travelers, Sahara is a glittering geographic tour conveying the majesty, mystery, and abundance of life in what the outside world thinks of as the Great Emptiness.
| product details |
Normally shipped |
Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published date | 1 Sep 2003
Language |
Format | Paperback / softback
Pages | 320
Dimensions | 208 x 142 x 22mm (L x W x H)
Weight | 376g
ISBN | 978-0-8027-7678-5
Readership Age |
BISAC | nature / ecology
| other options |
|
|
To view the items in your trolley please sign in.
| sign in |
|
|
|
| specials |
|
|
|
An epic love story with the pulse of a thriller that asks: what would you risk for a second chance at first love?
|
|
Mason Coile
Paperback / softback
224 pages
was: R 520.95
now: R 468.95
|
A terrifying locked-room mystery set in a remote outpost on Mars.
|
|
|
|
