The most fabled city in ancient Arabia was Ubar, described in the Koran as "the many-columned city whose like has not been built in the entire land." But like Sodom and Gomorrah, Ubar was destroyed by God for the sins of its people. Buried in the desert without a trace, it became known as "the Atlantis of the Sands." Over the centuries, many searched for it unsuccessfully, including Lawrence of Arabia, and skepticism grew that there had ever been a real place called Ubar. Then in the 1980s Nicholas Clapp stumbled on the legend. Poring over ancient manuscripts, he discovered that a slip of the pen in a.d. 1460 had misled generations of explorers. In satellite images he found evidence of ancient caravan routes that were invisible from the ground. Finally he organized two expeditions to Arabia with a team of archaeologists, geologists, space scientists, and adventurers. After many false starts, dead ends, and weeks of digging, they uncovered a remarkable walled city with eight towers

The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands

Clapp, Nicholas

Science & Math

Houghton/Mifflin

The author travels to Ethiopia, Arabia, Israel, and France searching for the truth behind the myth of the queen of Sheba, and uses modern technology to put the pieces of the puzzle in place.

Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen

History

Middle East

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

No one thought that Ubar, the most fabled city of ancient Arabia, would ever be found-if it even existed. Buried in the desert without a trace, it had become known as "the Altantis of the Sands." Many had searched for Ubar, including Lawrence of Arabia. Then in the 1980s, Nicholas Clapp, a documentary filmmaker and amateur archaeologist, stumbled on the legend of the lost city while poring over historical manuscripts. Filled with overwhelming curiosity, he led two expeditions to Arabia with a team that included space scientists and geologists. The discovery of Ubar was front-page news across the world and was heralded by Time as one of three major scientific events of the year.

The Road To Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands

Ancient Civilizations

Harper Paperbacks

In this exhilarating archaeological adventure, Nicholas Clapp seeks the truth behind the legend of the Queen of Sheba. Ever since she swept into the court of King Solomon three thousand years ago, her story has been told and retold, often getting diluted, amended, and reworked along the way. In a quest to collect clues to the mystery of Sheba, Clapp travels to Ethiopia, Yemen, Israel, and even a village in France. Using the latest technology, including satellite images and carbon-14 dating, and some recent archaeological discoveries, he pieces together the facts behind Sheba's multifaceted myth.

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

It is widely held that the Old West, wild and wooly, ceased to exist by 1890, when the U.S. Census concluded: There can hardly be said to be a frontier line. But there was: an irregular line looping through eastern California and Nevada, and encompassing the better part of the Mojave Desert. It was there that in 1895, a hapless prospector idly hammered a rock from an outcrop. It was filigreed with gold. A rush was on... to Randsburg in 1898, then to Tonopah in 1902, to Goldfield in 1904, to Rhyolite in 1906, and ultimately into the shimmering sink of Death Valley. Wonder camps were thronged with builders and wreckers, tradesmen and vultures, miners, cooks, gamblers and more gamblers, whores galore, what-have-you...And photographers. They were little-known and uncelebrated, yet they captured a series of extraordinary images of what was to become a final, go-for-broke chapter in the story of the American West. The Mojave s latter-day photographers were quick to take advantage of turn-of-the century technical advances. Candid shots were possible with hand-held cameras and fast film; 180° panoramas did justice to the desert s sweep. Life was documented above and below ground, in searing heat and snowstorms, in good times and bad. Remarkable images probed the souls of nobodies and nabobs, and in their eyes recorded hope for a better life... crushing loneliness... the glint of greed. All this and more will be explored in Gold &amp; Silver in the Mojave, an intensively-researched pictorial. Its nearly three-hundred images will bring to life and celebrate a grand curtain call for the Old West. By 1912, the ore was all but exhausted, and the boom times were over. The Mojave s camps fell to ruin, forsaken but for their images. They re with us today... at once lively and haunting.

Gold and Silver in the Mojave: Images of a Last Frontier

Arts & Photography

Photography & Video

Sunbelt Publications

Written in the newly recognized nonfiction genre of historical reconstruction, Who Killed Chester Pray? transports the reader to a last, grand hurrah of the American West. Seeking his fortune in the early 1900s, young prospector-assayer Chester Pray filched a Nevada sheriff's horses, stole gold belonging to a U.S. Senator, and ultimately discovered one of the richest lodes ever in Death Valley. Then, Pray was shot dead in the night.
By who? Why? As many as seven individuals had ample cause to kill Chester Pray. His new partners? Gunslinger "Diamondfield Jack"? Even pretty Clara, his fiancée? The psychologically compelling answer is not what you would expect.
 "Who Killed Chester Pray? provides new and revealing information about one of Death Valley's most provocative unsolved mysteries. Author Nicholas Clapp's intensive research and use of a flowing narrative result in a wonderfully readable book that not only probes the dark side of human nature, but presents an exciting picture of the American mining West of the early 20th century."--Linda Greene, coauthor, A History of Mining in Death Valley National Monument

Who Killed Chester Pray?: A Death Valley Mystery

Americas

La Frontera Publishing

For a thousand generations, desert shamans of the far West sought order in the stars and in the mysteries and wonder of their grand, if unforgiving landscape. When summoned, they doctored the stricken, be they stoic elders or frightened little children. They conjured rains. Taking leave of reality, they rode whirlwinds and soared in magical flight. They epitomized a native American ability to relate to the land in ways beyond a Western way of thinking. They're gone now. But there remain telling accounts of how, day-to-day, they lived: how omens foretold a shaman's destiny, how he learned his craft, how he could exercise his power for both good and evil. How a shaman could travel to the land of the dead and (hopefully) return. Drawing on the lore of a dozen tribes, Old Magic conjures the year-to-year life of a shaman - a life of service to his people, a life fraught with torment and danger, a life often taking a man or woman to the edge of madness.

Old Magic: Lives of the Desert Shamans

Where else but in Virginia City could a penniless Irish miner in a few short years amass a fortune greater than any of America's robber barons, simply by dint of hard work and intuition, and remain a humble, caring human being? Here as well Mark Twain discovered and honed his comic voice, and notorious badman Sam Brown was lined with lead, with a coroner's jury concluding, - It served him right. - Here also Julia Bulette, a kindly harlot beloved of the city's firemen, was the toast of a rowdy Fourth of July parade. In Virginia City mines, men plunged into the scalding, hazardous heart of the earth, tantamount to partnering with hell's dread demon, so that they could enjoy five Shakespeare companies performing at once, food rivaling Delmonico's in New York, and frocks ordered directly from Paris that could be worn in this barren, windswept middle of nowhere. Virginia City's twenty turbulent bonanza years - what a time it was!

Virginia City: To Dance with the Devil

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Experience the history of Bodie State Historic Park, just east of Yosemite National Park. Author Nicholas Clapp and photographer Will Furman portray Bodie in both vivid words and stunning photography a town that had two sides, aptly described in an 1870s account... On the eve of her family's departure for booming Bodie, a little girl was said to have gathered her dolls, that they might join her as she knelt by her bed, her prayer concluding with a somber... 'Goodbye, God; we are going to Bodie!' Word was that the camp was hard-bitten, desperado-ridden. Getting wind of the girl's farewell to the Almighty, The Weekly Bodie Standard reported that, oh no, that wasn't what the she had mind. Not at all. Someone had gotten the punctuation wrong. What she surely said was... Good, by God, we are going to Bodie! There were, in fact, two Bodies. On one hand, it was a fearfully and wonderfully bad place stalked by shootist in black swallow-tailed coats. On the other hand, it was a town of hard-working pioneers who dressed their little girls in starched white frocks and met adversity with charity and good cheer. As he passed through, Mark Twain mused that in Bodie virtue versus vice made for exciting times, and he'd have it no other way. He was to add, 'It was a plain wonder how man carried on under such circumstances.'

Bodie: Good Times & Bad

Sunbelt Pubns

Many a Western outlaw was destined for a violent life and an early grave. Kid Fraser was an exception, thanks to an odd pairing of La Violetta, a beguiling wire dancer, and a poet-prospector recently sprung (or escaped?) from a Utah insane asylum. But what really set the Kid on a better path was the strumming of string of his homemade violin. Decorated with doggerel and inked images, it mirrored his shift from would-be desperado to kindly frontier musician.

The Outlaw's Violin

Historical

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Clapp, Nicholas. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Clapp, Nicholas

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Clapp, Nicholas. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Road to Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands

Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen

The Road To Ubar: Finding the Atlantis of the Sands

Sheba: Through the Desert in Search of the Legendary Queen

Gold and Silver in the Mojave: Images of a Last Frontier

Who Killed Chester Pray?: A Death Valley Mystery

Old Magic: Lives of the Desert Shamans

Virginia City: To Dance with the Devil

Bodie: Good Times & Bad

The Outlaw's Violin