"Thank you Andrew and Ann Goldman for the persistence that it took to achieve the portraits in Facing North. It is a historic document for Ely, Minnesota that has worldwide interest as a snapshot of a unique northern community. You so accurately captured my friends and neighbors and I will always cherish this book." --Will Steger

"My work as a photojournalist has involved assignments about people and faraway cultures as often as about raw nature. Alas, I always felt there were more stories per square foot in Ely as anywhere else I have been. Look into these Ely faces...

This book presents a systematic, comprehensive study of two imperial systems that were arguably the most complex, broadly influential entities to have arisen in antiquity. This text is designed to offer a comparative introduction to the empires of Rome and Qin-Han China, examining the formation, consolidation, further evolution and disintegration of these two complex states. The two empires were comparably similar in territorial extent, population, and chronological span, and display a wide range of structural similarities. Each also underwent a gradual increase in territory, to emerge as...