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Martial arts were developed for use on the battlefield in ancient times, and even in the modern world many people learn such skills for self-defense [1]. Despite their combative nature, training in marital arts is safe compared with many other contact sports. The use of protective equipment such as mouth guards and headgear is mandatory during sparring, and practitioners must follow strict competition rules in many types of martial arts [2]. In addition, some types of martial arts such as Tai Chi and Qigong are noncombative in nature, with practitioners focusing on coordinated movements and relaxation during practice – all of which are beneficial to practitioners’ health [1,3]. These days, the popularity of martial arts is increasing, particularly among young people [4]. There are about 200 distinct martial arts types or disciplines around the world, each with its own training characteristics and philosophy [5]. Only the most common types of Oriental and Western martial arts and their associated health effects are introduced in this book. These martial disciplines include the internal (e.g. Tai Chi and Qigong) and external ...

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Sailing voyage from England to Portugal in the mid Eighteenth Century, by one of the premier humorists, satirists, novelists and playwrights of his age. It was to be his last work, as his failing health proved unable to persevere much longer after the voyage. ( Summary by JCarson )...

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Adventure, Sea stories, Travel

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Excerpt: Advertisement. The story of ?Catherine,? which appeared in Fraser?s Magazine in 1839-40, was written by Mr. Thackeray, under the name of Ikey Solomons, Jun., to counteract the injurious influence of some popular fictions of that day, which made heroes of highwaymen and burglars, and created a false sympathy for the vicious and criminal....

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Excerpt: THE PREFACE; If ever the story of any private Man?s Adventures in the World were worth making Publick, and were acceptable when Publish?d, the Editor of this Account thinks this will be so. The Wonders of this Man?s Life exceed all that (he thinks)is to be found extant; the Life of one Man being scarce capable of a greater Variety. The Story is told with Modesty, with Seriousness, and with a religious Application of Events to the Uses to which wise Men always apply them (viz.) to the Instruction of others by this Example, and to justify and honour the Wisdom of Providence in all the Variety of our Circumstances, let them happen how they will. The Editor believes the thing to be a just History of Fact; neither is there any Appearance of Fiction in it: And however thinks, because all such things are dispatch?d, that the Improvement of it, as well to the Diversion, as to the Instruction of the Reader, will be the same; and as such, he thinks, without father Compliment to the World, he does them a great Service in the Publication....

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Table of Contents: THE PREFACE, 1 -- THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, &c., 2 -- THE JOURNAL., 51

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Excerpt: It was about the beginning of September, 1664, that I, mong the rest of my neighbors, heard in ordinary dis course that the plague was returned again in Holland; for it had been very violent there, and particularly at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in the year 1663, whither, they say, it was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came; but all agreed it was come into Holland again....

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Excerpt: Chapter 1. The Foreigner At Home. ?This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin? o?t.? Two recent books* one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael?s Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of...

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Contents CHAPTER I: THE FOREIGNER AT HOME ..................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER II: SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES................................................................................ 14 CHAPTER III: OLD MORTALITY .................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER IV: A COLLEGE MAGAZINE ...................................................................................... 28 CHAPTER V: AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER ............................................................................. 36 CHAPTER VI: PASTORAL .............................................................................................................. 41 CHAPTER VII: THE MANSE .......................................................................................................... 48 CHAPTER VIII: MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET .................................................................................... 53 CHAPTER IX: THOMAS STEVENSON ? CIVIL ENGINEER...................................................... 58 CHAPTER X: TALK AND TALKERS ....................

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Excerpt: Preface By Way Of Criticism. These studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the New Quarterly, one in MacMillan?s, and the rest in the Cornhill Magazine. To the Cornhill I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors have allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of copy....

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Contents PREFACE BY WAY OF CRITICISM. ........................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER I ? VICTOR HUGO?S ROMANCES ........................................................................ 15 CHAPTER II ? SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS.......................................................... 34 CHAPTER III ? WALT WHITMAN............................................................................................. 63 CHAPTER IV ? HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS........... 84 CHAPTER V ? YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO..................................................................................... 107 CHAPTER VI ? FRANCOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSEBREAKER.........117 CHAPTER VII ? CHARLES OF ORLEANS ............................................................................ 141 CHAPTER VIII ? SAMUEL PEPYS .......................................................................................... 170 CHAPTER IX ? JOHN KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN .................................. 190...

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Introduction: Benjamin Franklin was born in Milk Street, Boston, on January 6, 1706. His father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler who married twice, and of his seventeen children Benjamin was the youngest son. His schooling ended at ten, and at twelve he was bound apprentice to his brother James, a printer, who published the ?New England Courant.? To this journal he became a contributor, and later was for a time its nominal editor....

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A historian’s occupational disease is to find old precedents for practically everything new that comes along. And that is true for remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) as well. In one way they are merely the continuation of the millennia-old human longing for methods of striking or observing one’s enemies while remaining safe. The purpose of this essay is to briefly explore that which is old, to dwell for a time on what seems to be new, and to conclude with some speculations about the future of unmanned systems....

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The history of four terrorist organizations in the Balkans and a general introduction to terrorism and freedom fighting. Also includes essays about religious co-existence in the Balkans and about pathological narcissism as a precursor to terrorism. ...

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This thesis examines three campaigns during which aerial terror raids, peripheral to the main war efforts and incapable of destroying the enemy war-making capacity, elicited disproportionate reactions from the targeted leaderships. The raids on London during World War I, the V-1 and V-2 raids on London three decades later, and the Scud attacks on Israel during Desert Storm each show evidence of overreaction by Allied/coalition leaders. A review of the nature of terrorism and of airpower reveals that aerial weapons are uniquely suitable as terror weapons. An analysis of the differences between nuisance attacks and conventional civilian bombing, along with an understanding of the pressures on the leaders involved, leads to an explanation for past overreactions: aerial terror raids shock targeted leaders into visceral responses. Historically short-lived, these responses are based on the pressures of representative government and the tendency to overestimate the capability of terror weapons while underestimating the resilience of the population....

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INTRODUCTION . . . . 1 THE ANATOMY OF TERROR . . . . . 3 BEYOND THE TRENCHES . . . . 9 “V” FOR VENGEANCE . . . . . 13 DECISIVE TERROR . . . . 19 ANALYSIS . . . . . 25 CONCLUSION . . . . . 31 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . 37...

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Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain in the French Army was court martialed in 1894 on a trumped up charge of treason and condemned to life imprisonment on Devil’s island, a penal colony off French Guiana. His prison diary, published as Five Years of My Life in 1901 is a heroic tale of survival against daunting odds: isolation, deprivation, torture . . Alfred left behind in Paris his wife Lucie, who, forbidden to join her husband in exile, struggled to protect their two children from the rampant anti-Semitism that swirled about them, while she begged her husband to hold onto life as she tried to clear his name. Excerpts from the letters that Alfred and Lucie wrote to each other, between Devil’s island and Paris, are included in Five Years. Their letters are one of the great love stories of all times. “I live only by feverish will from day to day,” Dreyfus wrote to Lucie on September 4, 1897. Imprisoned in a walled-in hut in brutal heat, for months chained to his bed at night so that he could not turn over, watched 24-hours a day by guards who were forbidden to speak to him, denied books to read or any means of exercising, and only at se...

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Memoirs

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Published in 1899 by Houghton Mifflin, Chesnutt's first book, The Conjure Woman, was a collection of seven short stories, all set in Patesville (Fayetteville), North Carolina. While drawing from local color traditions and relying on dialect, Chesnutt's tales of conjuring, a form of magic rooted in African hoodoo, refused to romanticize slave life or the Old South. Though necessarily informed by Joel Chandler Harris's popular Uncle Remus stories and Thomas Nelson Page's plantation fiction, The Conjure Woman consciously moved away from these models, instead offering an almost biting examination of pre- and post-Civil War race relations. These seven short stories use a frame narrator, John, a white carpetbagger who has moved south to protect his wife Annie's failing health and to begin cultivating a grape vineyard. Enamored by remnants of the plantation world, John portrays the South in largely idealistic terms. Yet Uncle Julius McAdoo, the ex-slave and trickster figure extraordinaire who narrates the internal story lines, presents a remarkably different view of Southern life. His accounts include Aun' Peggy's conjure spells in Mars Je...

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Fiction, Historical Fiction, Short stories

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Daniel Feldman was a doctor once. He made the mistake of saving a friend's life in violation of Medical Lobby rules. Now, he's a pariah, shunned by all, forbidden to touch another patient. But things are more loose on Mars. There, Doc Feldman is welcomed by the colonists, even as he's hunted by the authorities. But, when he discovers a Martian plague may soon wipe out humanity on two planets, Feldman finds himself a pivotal figure. War erupts. Earth is poised to wipe out the Mars colony utterly. A cure to the plague is the price of peace, and only Feldman can find it. (summary by Steven H. Wilson)...

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Science fiction

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Delightful fables, collected by a devotee of Indian lore, recounts many of the legends told to him by tribal members, among them intriguing explanations of Why the Chipmunk's Back is Striped, How the Otter Skin Became Great Medicine, How the Man Found His Mate, and Why Blackfeet Never Kill Mice. (Summary by Dover Children's Classics)...

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Ancient Texts, Animals, Short stories

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All stories are true. Emma Wilkins is eleven years old and she lives on Belle Street. In the forests of Saint Martin, a great power has awakened. Whispers abound of a monster that lurks in the darkness as more and more of the city's residents go missing. Called by the song of a tree, the diminutive Emma finds herself face to face with the colossal Minotaur. Following a narrow escape, Emma discovers that she is the only one who has any chance to stop him. On her way to an impossible confrontation, Emma will learn that the crisis is greater than it seems, and that at stake are the fates of those she cares about the most, and that of the entire world....

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Emma was sitting on a bench next to a bus stop. It was morning on a busy street and the road in front of her was full of traffic. There was a bus shelter next to the bench and there were a few people inside. They were looking at her. A woman was sitting next to her but she stood up and walked away. Emma glanced toward the people in the shelter and they all looked away at once and pretended that she wasn’t there. She looked down at her lap and saw that she was holding a plain flute made of wood. She swung her feet back and forth as memories began to creep back to her. There was something about a forest. She hummed and waited patiently for all the memories to return. A black cat came and jumped up on the bench beside her. “Hello, Mr Cat,” she said as she watched him lick his paw. The cat paused in mid-lick and looked straight at her and then at the people behind her in the bus shelter. “They see a girl appear out of nowhere and that’s how they react,” he said. “They try to disappear her right back again.” Emma blinked. She looked around and behind the cat and under the bench. He watched her the entire time. She...

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1 The Music in the Forest 2 The Disappearing Boy 3 Wizard Falls 4 Dinner and a Conspiracy 5 The Forbidden Forest 6 Strike Three 7 A Girl and a Tree 8 The Missing 9 The Portents of War 10 Mr Jingles 10 Mr Jingles 12 Invasion 13 The Lost 14 Battle Song 15 The Wizard and the Lightning...

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*This is a young adult book series. Each chronicle will feature Dean's struggles as he tries to survive in this new world. And thus the name, The Zombie Chronicles. I hope you enjoy this series, and thank you for giving book one a chance.* Warning: Mild violence. For mature teens or older. BOOK TRAILER: http://youtu.be/ociUHiL1g70 Val was bitten by a zombie and now she’s scheduled for lethal injection. Breaking all the rules, eighteen year old, Dean Walters snags an experimental serum. But it can’t be tested until Val turns into a zombie: something authorities won’t allow. Her execution is scheduled to happen before transformation is complete, giving Dean only hours to break her out. When their helicopter crashes straight into the heart of Zombie Land, his rescue mission becomes a fight for survival…and giving up on Val is NOT an option....

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Chapter 1 One year earlier… It had been a long day in July, with heat waves rampaging throughout South Carolina. Even though nighttime had long fallen and the temperatures had cooled down noticeably, my shirt still stuck to my back. I wondered what good that shower had done that I’d taken before meeting Sherry. A rush of wind blew through my hair as we rode to the top of the Ferris wheel and then stopped, hovering in midair. I breathed in, relaxed, and listened to the distant screams, music, and laughter echo below us. Sherry set down the stuffed pink pig I’d won for her in the ring toss and folded her hands in her lap, enjoying the silence. I dared a quick look at the stuffed animal, fighting with myself whether to be proud or sink into the ground. The guys back at school surely would’ve suggested the latter, but I didn’t care. Granted, it wasn’t the giant teddy bear I’d spent twenty bucks trying to win, but Sherry seemed happy with her little plush pink prize nonetheless. She squeezed my hand, and I smiled. I rocked the cart back and forth with my legs. “Hey! Stop it,” Sherry said, twining her fingers through my hair. “B...

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This is the official report, published nearly 11 months after the first and only atomic bombings in history (to date), of a group of military physicians and engineers who accompanied the initial contingent of U.S. soldiers into the destroyed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The report presents a clinical description of the devastation, loss of life and continued suffering of the survivors that resulted from the world's first and only atomic bombings, to date. The appendix is an eyewitness account, contrasting vividly with the dispassionate sang-froid of the report itself, written by a German Jesuit priest who survived the blast at Hiroshima, and whose order assisted in rescue efforts following the catastrophic attack. This recording was completed on the 63rd anniversary of the events. (Summary by Dennis Sayers)....

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History, Science

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Vizetelly, writing under the pseudonym J. Tyrwhitt Brooks, recalls an expedition to California he took between 1847-1848 . Originally, he planned to enlist as a surgeon for the US Army during the Mexican war, but conflicts had ended by the time he applied. In a quick change of plans, he joined a group of prospectors on their way to the newly found gold fields of California. While he might not find service in the military, his training as a physician made him a valuable addition to the ragtag team of explorers. His training as a physician gives us an exacting perspective of the events and people who struck out from more sedate routines to prospect gold in the Californian wilderness. However, he is unprepared to find a cure for the gold fever that has depopulated the surrounding towns. Only one member of the group, an experienced fur-trapper, is able to resist the lustrous lure of nuggets, flakes and gold richly deposited in the dusty desert. Like the others who have left jobs to prospect for gold, he learns how to live on the land and struggle through hardship away from the security of city life. His motley group of changing characte...

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Memoirs, Travel

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In the book's preface, the author writes: Let anyone stop to consider how he individually would be affected if all electrical service were suddenly to cease, and he cannot fail to appreciate the claims of electricity to attentive study. In these days when we take for granted all kinds of technology - communications, entertainment, medical, military, industrial and domestic - it is interesting to learn what progress had been made in the fields of electricity and technology by the beginning of the 20th century. Including the dawn of hydro-electric power, the x-ray, the phonograph, the telephone and the wireless telegraph, this book explains the pioneering work of the men who made our modern world possible, and sets us wondering what the next century may bring - providing that we do not manage to destroy our planet in the meantime. The Gutenberg text of the 1915 edition (as recorded) does not have the benefit of the book's many diagrams. Also available, however, is an http://www.archive.org/stream/storyofelectrici00munriala#page/n5/mode/2up online book scan of the 1912 edition which includes the illustrations and coincides largely with...

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Science, History