Search results for ""Author Gold"

Discover the life, work, and magic of Pamela Colman Smith, the visionary artist behind the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot Deck, the most popular and renowned divination deck in the world. With rich imagery, stunning colors, and an iconic place in the realm of divination, the Rider-Waite Tarot is perhaps the best known deck in the world. Seasoned readers and fledgling diviners alike turn to these cards in search of inspiration, understanding, and even a hint at the future. But the story of their origin is less well known, with their brilliant creator's name stripped away from them for decades. Now, for the first time, mystics, art-lovers, and fortune-tellers will uncover the magical story of Pamela Coleman Smith, rendered in full-color illustrations by artist Cat Willett, and inspired by the work of Pamela herself. From a childhood spent between the United Kingdom and Jamaica, to early artistic success in New York, to involvement in the secret occult society Order of the Golden Dawn, Pamela -- or Pixie, as she was known to many -- had a life full of enchanted inspiration and profound hardship. Through it all, her art acted as a guiding force, culminating in her custom illustrations for the deck that would become the Rider-Waite Tarot. Though she received little money and almost no credit for her contributions to the magical realm in her lifetime, Pixie's impact on tarot, divination, and the worlds of mysticism and the arts have reverberated for nearly 150 years, and her story serves as an enchanted spark. Depicted in whimsical, full-color detail, with interludes tying Pamela to the resurgence of modern magic and the world of tarot throughout, this singular work is a must-read for witches, creatives, and activists.

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Why did the size of the U.S. economy increase by 3 percent on one day in mid-2013--or Ghana's balloon by 60 percent overnight in 2010? Why did the U.K. financial industry show its fastest expansion ever at the end of 2008--just as the world's financial system went into meltdown? And why was Greece's chief statistician charged with treason in 2013 for apparently doing nothing more than trying to accurately report the size of his country's economy? The answers to all these questions lie in the way we define and measure national economies around the world: Gross Domestic Product. This entertaining and informative book tells the story of GDP, making sense of a statistic that appears constantly in the news, business, and politics, and that seems to rule our lives--but that hardly anyone actually understands. Diane Coyle traces the history of this artificial, abstract, complex, but exceedingly important statistic from its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century precursors through its invention in the 1940s and its postwar golden age, and then through the Great Crash up to today. The reader learns why this standard measure of the size of a country's economy was invented, how it has changed over the decades, and what its strengths and weaknesses are. The book explains why even small changes in GDP can decide elections, influence major political decisions, and determine whether countries can keep borrowing or be thrown into recession. The book ends by making the case that GDP was a good measure for the twentieth century but is increasingly inappropriate for a twenty-first-century economy driven by innovation, services, and intangible goods.

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Ted Fullilove, aka Mr. Peanut, is not like other Ivy League grads. He shares an apartment with Goldberg, his beloved battery operated fish, sleeps on a bed littered with yellow legal pads penned with what he hopes will be the next great American novel, and spends the waning malaise filled days of the Carter administration at Yankee Stadium, waxing poetic while slinging peanuts to pay the rent. When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father of his youth is living to make up for lost time, but his health dips drastically whenever his beloved Red Sox lose. And so, with help from a crew of neighbourhood old timers and the lovely Mariana - Marty's Nuyorican grief counselor - Ted orchestrates the illusion of a Sox winning streak, enabling Marty and the Red Sox to reverse the Curse of the Bambino and cruise their way to World Series victory. Well, sort of. David Duchovny's richly drawn Bucky F*cking Dent is a story of the bond between fathers and sons, Yankee fans and the Fenway faithful, and grapples with the urgent need to find our story in an age of irony and artifice. Culminating in that fateful moment in October of '78 when the meek Bucky Dent hit his way into baseball history with the unlikeliest of home runs, this tragicomic novel demonstrates that life truly belongs to the losers - that the long shots are the ones worth betting on. Bucky F*cking Dent is a singulartale that brims with the hilarity, poignance, and profound solitude of modern life.

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From doughs and shapes to fillings and sauces, this "new essential" (Food & Wine) is the simplest guide to making fresh pasta at home from the creator of Pasta Social Club, full of easier-than-you-think techniques and spectacularly beautiful results.Pasta just might be the perfect comfort food. Endlessly reinventable, it is a canvas for delicious dreams. And it's well within your reach to make at home, anytime.It can be super simple, like pici in butter: a revelation made from scratch with just four ingredients. Or it can be incredibly special: agnolotti stuffed with braised shallots and Grana Padano, each parcel a gleaming little gift.In Pasta Every Day, Meryl Feinstein has created the world's easiest-to-follow guide to making pasta doughs, shapes, fillings, and sauces. A celebrated pasta instructor, professional pasta maker, and founder of Pasta Social Club, she has years of experience helping thousands of cooks bring the pleasure of fresh pasta home. Step-by-step photos and videos (accessible via QR code) illustrate how to make every shape, eliminating the intimidation surrounding this centuries-old craft. And because Meryl knows just what you need to achieve success, she shows how to recover when something goes wrong and how to make your dishes look as good as they taste. Plus, she shares dozens of sauces to take all kinds of pasta to the next level-including the dry stuff from a box. Combinations include:- Winter Squash & Brown Butter Ravioli- Cavatelli with Fiery Calabrian Chili Sauce- Ricotta Gnocchi with Citrus & Pistachio Pesto- Tagliatelle with "Casual Bolognese"- Caramelle with Golden Saffron Sauce, and moreWith plenty of modern takes on Italian classics, plus gluten free, vegetarian, and vegan options, this is pasta for today. Or every day.

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'An easy and engaging read...Quite often, though, it is eye-opening' Hugo Rifkind, The Times 'Does a valuable job of explaining how Amazon sees itself' Financial TimesAmazon is the business story of the decade. Jeff Bezos, the richest man on the planet, has built one of the most efficient wealth-creation machines in history. Like a giant squid, Amazon’s tentacles are squeezing industry after industry and, in the process, upsetting the state of technology, the economy, job creation and society at large. So pervasive is Amazon’s impact that business leaders in almost every sector need to understand how this force of nature operates and how they can respond to it. Saying you can ignore Jeff Bezos is equivalent to saying you could ignore Henry Ford or Steve Jobs in the early years of Ford and Apple. These titans monumentally changed how we do business, redefining the rules on a global scale. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the new disruptor on the block. He has created a 21st century algorithm for business and societal disruption. He has turned the retail industry inside out, is swiftly dominating cloud computing, media and advertising, and now has his sights trained on every other domain where money changes hands and business is transacted. But the principles by which Bezos has achieved his dominance - customer obsession, extreme innovation and long-term management, all supported by artificial intelligence turning a virtuous-cycle 'flywheel' - are now being borrowed and replicated. 'Bezonomics' is for some a goldmine, for others a threat, for still others a life-shaping force, whether they’re in business or not.Brian Dumaine’s Bezonomics answers the fundamental question: how are Amazon and its imitators affecting the way we live, and what can we learn from them?

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THE NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A MAJOR FILM, STARRING STEVE CARELL AND BAFTA AND GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINATED TIMOTHEE CHALAMET ‘What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong?’ Those are the wrenching questions that haunted every moment of David Sheff’s journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery. Before Nic Sheff became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets.With haunting candour, David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3am phone calls (is it Nic? the police? the hospital?), the attempts at rehab. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on Nic. This story is a first: a teenager's addiction from the parent's point of view – a real-time chronicle of the shocking descent into substance abuse and the gradual emergence into hope. Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional rollercoaster of loving a child who seems beyond help. Read the other side of Nic Sheff's bestselling memoir, Tweak. Praise for Beautiful Boy:- 'A brilliant, harrowing, heartbreaking, fascinating story, full of beautiful moments and hard-won wisdom. This book will save a lot of lives and heal a lot of hearts'. Anne Lamott 'An important book... moving, timely and startlingly beautiful.' Richard Branson

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Longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction'Eloquent, impressive . . . while her touch is witty, her manner almost buoyant, her themes are sinister beyond belief. She touches the frontiers of the human' Hilary Mantel Boston, 1833Aboard the USS Orbis as it embarks from Boston and surges south to round Cape Horn, Hiram Carver takes up his first position as ship's doctor. Callow and anxious among the seasoned sailors, he struggles in this brutal floating world until he meets William Borden.Borden. The Hero of the Providence. A legend among sailors, his presence hypnotizes Carver, even before he hears the man's story. Years before, Borden saved several men from mutiny and led them in a dinghy across the Pacific to safety.Every ship faces terror from the deep. What happens on the Orbis binds Carver and Borden together forever. When Carver recovers, and takes up a role at Boston's Asylum for the Insane, he will meet Borden again - broken, starving, overwhelmed by the madness that has shadowed him ever since he sailed on the Providence.Carver devotes himself to Borden's cure, sure it depends on drawing out the truth about that terrible voyage. But though he raises up monsters, they will not rest. So Carver must return once more to the edge of the sea and confront the man - and the myth - that lie in dark water.Elizabeth Lowry's gothic masterpiece, like Golden Hill and The Essex Serpent, gives the historical novel a new, beating heart. In Carver and Borden, she realizes the dichotomy of savagery and reason, of man and monster, of life and sacrifice, in a tale rich with adventure and glorious imagination.

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A TIMES SPORTS BOOK OF THE YEAR'A treasure of recollections and reactions, talking heroes, controversies and big themes' i paper'Brearley is at his best in these quirky, delightful essays when he is exploring the human qualities of humbler players . . . Brearley's admiration for his friends' decency, craftsmanship and modesty seems to recall a golden age of country cricket' The Times'Brearley has a knack for paying respect to the past without denigrating the present and for calmly considering the future' Mail on SundayMike Brearley was arguably one of England's finest cricket captains; not just for his outstanding record leading his country but also for the way he orchestrated, during the 1981 Ashes series, one of the most extraordinary reversals in sporting history.In this collection of sparkling essays, Brearley reflects on the game he has come to know so well. He ranges from the personal - the influence of his Yorkshire father and the idols of his youth - to controversial aspects of the professional game, including cheating, corruption, and innovation, the latter often being on a borderline between genius and rebellion.Brearley also evaluates his heroes (amongst them Viv Richards, Bishan Bedi and Dennis Lillee), the game changers, the outstanding wicketkeepers, the 'Indian-ness' of four generations of Indian batsmen and the important commentators (including Harold Pinter, John Arlott and Ian Chappell). The Ashes, the most sustained love-hate relationship in the history of sport and key to Brearley's test-playing career, are raked over. Central to the book is an important section on race and cricket, and the legacy of C. L. R. James.Insightful and humorous, On Cricket is an intelligent exposition of the game's idiosyncratic culture and its enduring appeal.

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Sardinia, the second largest island in the Mediterranean, is a countryside lover's paradise. Touring Sardinia by car, you quickly leave all traces of tourism behind: the six car tours cover about 1600km (1000 miles). The tours are arranged in such a way that they can be combined, allowing you to tour round the whole island.-------------------- As you tour, explore on foot: walking in Sardinia, crushing the fragrant Mediterranean macchia underfoot, will give you the real flavour of the island. Its scenic diversity ranges from rough and primeval landscapes to gentle golden sand dunes, from scorching rocky plateaux and windswept plains reminiscent of Africa to rolling hills with lush pastures and dense brushwood, from towering mountains cloaked in fine oak woods to a turquoise sea that touches the rocky coast. Colourful rock roses and an extravaganza of wild flowers flourish in spring.----------------- 6 car tours (with accompanying touring maps), 37 long and short walks (each with 1:50,000 topo map), 16 picnic suggestions. Plans of Cagliari and Sassari. Free online update service with specific route change information on the publisher's website, maintained daily.- --------------- The 'Landscapes' series, with 50 destinations, has been dubbed 'the blue Bibles' by the Sunday Times and led to Sunflower coming third out of a field of 15 publishers in the 2014 Holiday Which? guidebook roundup.-------------- As with all Sunflower books, these are great walking books, and you can use the Sunflower website to check for any updates to the routes before you go on each trip. A great book and great after-sales service from the writers. We did some fantastic walks and you get so much good local information on the region too. Would recommend all Sunflower books. [We also have] the Crete, Majorca and Menorca books...(JJ, Amazon)---------------- A great book!!! I highly recommend it, even if, like me, you are not fluent in English, all terms are easily understandable. (PG, Amazon)---------------- Another faultless Sunflower Book. Sunflower guides are always the ones I look for whenever I'm considering a destination. Although pitched heavily at walkers they generally offer a very good synopsis of the best natural sites which are available to the visitor and even those who don't walk much will get something out of them.The detail [in the car tours] is excellent and we were able to use them for the basis of a week long road tour of Sardinia and certainly felt well guided around much of the natural wonder of the island. The few walks we had the chance to do were excellently described in both terms of difficulty and directions, meaning we had no worries about being lost at any time. (Cubegame, Amazon)

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The present volume is the latest in a distinguished series, published under the auspices of the London Leo Baeck Institute, that addresses the issues of emancipation, assimilation and acculturation. It presents the work of an international group of scholars who approach these topics from a variety of innovative perspectives. The thread running through the diverse contributions, as indicated by the volume's title, is that of normality, clearly a close relation of emancipation and acculturation. Throughout the period from the Enlightenment to the 1930s, it can be argued that German-speaking Jews endeavoured to be like those around them, to become - in a (loaded) word - normal. While the term has not generally been employed by historians of European Jewry, the search for the normal can provide an interesting perspective from which to examine the diverse modes of German Jewish acculturation and integration, or lack thereof. Survey of contents: Peter Pulzer: Obituary for Werner E. Mosse - Rainer Liedtke / David Rechter: Introduction: German Jewry and the Search for Normality - Michael A. Meyer: German Jewry's Path to Normality and Assimilation: Complexities, Ironies, Paradoxes - Christhard Hoffmann: Constructing Jewish Modernity: Mendelssohn Jubilee Celebrations within German Jewry, 1829-1929 - Johannes Hei: "... durch Fluten und Scheiterhaufen": Persecution as a Topic in Jewish Historiography on the Way to Modernity - Christian Wiese: Struggling for Normality: The Apologetics of Wissenschaft des Judentums in Wilhelmine Germany as an Anti-colonial Intellectual Revolt against the Protestant Construction of Judaism - Deborah Hertz: The Troubling Dialectic Between Reform and Conversion in Biedermeier Berlin - Simone Lässig: The Emergence of a Middle-Class Religiosity: Social and Cultural Aspects of the German-Jewish Reform Movement During the First Half of the Nineteenth Century - Gregory A. Caplan: Germanising the Jewish Male: Military Masculinity as the Last Stage of Acculturation - Lisa Swartout: Segregation or Integration? Honour and Manliness in Jewish Duelling Fraternities - Ulrich Sieg: "Nothing more German than the German Jews"? On the Integration of a Minority in a Society at War - Elisabeth Albanis: A "West-östlicher Divan" from the Front: Moritz Goldstein Beyond the Kunstwart Debate - Keith H. Pickus: Divergent Paths of National Integration and Acculturation: Jewish and Catholic Educational Strategies in Nineteenth Century Hesse-Darmstadt - Robin Judd: Jewish Political Behaviour and the Schächtfrage, 1880-1914 - Silvia Cresti: German and Austrian Jews Concept of Culture, Nation and Volk - Helga Embacher: Jewish Identities and Acculturation in the Province of Salzburg in the Shadow of Antisemitism - Tobias Brinkmann: Exceptionalism and Normality: "German Jews" in the United States 1840-1880 - Mitchell B. Hart: Towards Abnormality: Assimilation and Degenerationin German-Jewish Social Thought

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Freedom worth fighting for. Love worth waiting for.'The French House is a beautifully wrought exploration of love of all kinds. It's utterly gorgeous, convincingly written and completely captivating. Make sure you read it'MY WEEKLY'I was gripped from the start by the characters and the setting. A wonderful read'RUTH DRUART'A raw and honest love story, filled with a wealth of historical detail. The French House is a powerful depiction of the brutal intricacies of island relationships and loyalties in a time of war' FIONA VALPY'Deeply involving . . . A fantastic debut by a gifted storyteller' JILL MANSELL'A story of fraught secrets and tested loyalties . . . I found this beautifully told tale hard to put down' ANITA FRANK'Heart-wrenching . . . A truly special novel' LOUISE FEIN'Accomplished and atmospheric . . . I really enjoyed this uncliched yet deeply moving love story'TRACY REES'A vividly written, refreshingly different World War Two love story, with a central character I adored. Just brilliant!'GILL PAUL'Such an emotionally gripping novel portraying how love can be betrayed yet still endure' SUZANNE GOLDRING'I have been swept away by Jacquie Bloese's gorgeous writing, completely transported into the rich, atmospheric, and incredibly moving pages of The French House. . . this is an absolutely stunning, beautifully original novel'JENNY ASHCROFT'The writing is incredibly strong . . . a compelling read with a highly satisfactory ending'GUERNSEY PRESS***In Nazi-occupied Guernsey, the wrong decision can destroy a life... Left profoundly deaf after an accident, Émile is no stranger to isolation - or heartbreak. Now, as Nazi planes loom over Guernsey, he senses life is about to change forever.Trapped in a tense, fearful marriage, Isabelle doesn't know what has become of Émile and the future she hoped for. But when she glimpses him from the window of the French House, their lives collide once more. Leutnant Schreiber is more comfortable wielding a paintbrush than a pistol. But he has little choice in the role he is forced to play in the occupying forces - or in his own forbidden desires. As their paths entwine, loyalties are blurred and dangerous secrets forged. But on an island under occupation, courage can have deadly consequences...Lyrical, moving and compelling, this is a novel about wanting to hear and learning to listen - to the truths of our own hearts. Perfect for lovers of The Nightingale, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and All the Light We Cannot See.'A wonderful story, powerfully written with beautiful characters'JAMES KENT, director of Testament of Youth'A brilliantly moving historical novel' - 2020 Caledonian Novel Award panel

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The pasta ninja and Instagram star Linda Miller Nicholson delivers her first cookbook, a stunning cornucopia of pasta in every color and shape, all created by hand using all-natural colors from vegetables, herbs, and superfoods—and including 25 dough recipes, 33 traditional and modern shaping techniques, and the perfect fillings and sauces to make your creations sing!Linda Miller Nicholson began making pasta at age four, but started adding color to it several years ago to entice her son to eat more vegetables. Her creations became a viral sensation, attracting fans worldwide who are mesmerized by her colorful and flavorful designs. Now, with Pasta, Pretty Please home cooks can create dreamy, dazzling pastas in their own kitchens using only all-natural ingredients—flour, eggs, vegetables, herbs, and superfoods—that are true works of art.Playful and inviting, Pasta, Pretty Please includes recipes, techniques, tips, and inspiration. Linda starts with recipes for basic doughs—standard egg dough, various gnocchi doughs—and works her way up to recipes for dough in many colorful shades. She teaches you just how many colors are pastable and what kinds of pigmented vegetables, fruits, and spices you can use to color your pasta—such as mixing turmeric with parsley for just the right shade of chartreuse, or using activated charcoal powder to create black pasta. She also shows you how to roll out dough, cut and form many pasta shapes, and gives tips for retaining brilliant colors even when cooked.Once you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll find recipes for more elaborate patterns and colors that are sure to impress your family and friends. Linda reveals how to layer colors to make multi-colored doughs in recipes including: Rainbow Cavatelli Polka Dot Farfalle Emoji Ravioli Avocado Gnocchi Hearts and Stripes Pappardelle Argyle Lasagna Sheets 6-Colored Fettucine You’ll also find recipes for spectacular sauces and fillings, such as: Golden Milk Ragu Pecorino Pepper Sauce with Broccolini Roasted Tomatoes with Basil Oil and Burrata Spiced Lamb Yogurt Sauce Rustic Squash Filling Classic Ricotta Filling Pepperoni Pizza Filling Featuring beautiful pasta in a rainbow of colors and a variety of shapes, patterns, and sizes, Pasta, Pretty Please is an artistic treasure trove that will please the eye and the palate. Buon Appetito!

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Color your way through the cultural icons of the USA—from sea to shining sea—with The Americana Coloring Book. What is Americana? As the name implies, it encompasses things associated with the culture, history, and people of America, specifically the United States. It conjures a retro vibe of family-friendly pastimes, with no shortage of red, white, and blue. And just as there is no right or wrong way to express admiration for the Land of Opportunity, there is no right or wrong way to use this book. You can color in these beautiful illustrations however you wish and in whatever way feels right to you. This is about relaxing and getting in touch with what “Americana” means to you, whether that’s famous landmarks and national parks or rodeos and rock & roll, so if one coloring page doesn’t appeal to you, simply move on to one that does. The coloring book features: More than 120 nostalgic coloring pages, featuring iconic American scenery and monuments such as the Arizona dessert and the California surf, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Statue of Liberty Beautiful line-drawn art reminiscent of baseball games, diners, and Route 66 An intricate meditative pattern to color on the back of each page One of the great things about coloring is that it’s accessible to anyone, regardless of artistic capabilities. Being able to add your own colors helps make it more personal, and there’s no pressure to make these drawings perfect. So sit back, relax, and get coloring your own particular slice of Americana.Chartwell Coloring Books is the ultimate coloring book series, encompassing designs of every kind. From intriguing abstract patterns to beautiful pictures from the natural, technological, and fantasy worlds, each of these coloring books will soothe the mind and inspire the inner creative in anyone. With so many variations of complex, beautiful designs in each book, you’ll have plenty of pages to bring to life. Whether young or old, creative or not, this series has something for you.

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Discover true leadership with this actionable guide from a world renowned leadership expert, psychoanalyst, and executive coach In Leading Wisely: Becoming a Reflective Leader in Turbulent Times, renowned leadership expert, psychoanalyst and executive coach Manfred Kets De Vries delivers an insightful and unique exploration of what it means to lead with wisdom. The book demonstrates that exclusive reliance on knowledge, data, and information yields a superficial leadership style lacking in depth and discernment. What's more important in the wisdom equation is possessing humility, judgment, empathy, compassion, and night vision. With eleven chapters full of anecdotes and tales from a variety of spiritual and cultural traditions that enrich and lend a deeper significance to the choices we make as leaders and members of organizations, Leading Wisely provides readers with: A thorough exploration of dealing with negative—but entirely natural motivations, like envy and greed An emphasis on the Golden Rule—treating others as we like to be treated ourselves An opportunity to be courageous—to consciously and intentionally pick our battles, saving energy for what really matters Lessons on how to listen intently and actively, truly hearing what our colleagues, friends, family, and followers are saying before reacting Finding happiness within ourselves Leading Wisely: Becoming a Reflective Leader in Turbulent Times is a startlingly incisive book, filled with messages that make the book required reading for anyone in a position of leadership or power. It also belongs in the libraries of well-being and health practitioners who frequently deal with businesspeople as clients or patients.

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An award-winning historian on the transformative year in the sixties that continues to reverberate in our lives and politics—for readers of Heather Cox Richardson.If 1968 marked a turning point in a pivotal decade, 1964—or rather, the long 1964, from JFK’s assassination in November 1963 to mid-1965—was the time when the sixties truly arrived. It was then that the United States began a radical shift toward a much more inclusive definition of “American,” with a greater degree of equality and a government actively involved in social and economic improvement.It was a radical shift accompanied by a cultural revolution. The same month Bob Dylan released his iconic ballad “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” January 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced his War on Poverty. Spurred by the civil rights movement and a generation pushing for change, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the Immigration and Nationality Act were passed during this period. This was a time of competing definitions of freedom. Freedom from racism, freedom from poverty. White youth sought freedoms they associated with black culture, captured imperfectly in the phrase “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.” Along with freedom from racist oppression, black Americans sought the opportunities associated with the white middle class: “white freedom.” Women challenged rigid gender roles. And in response to these freedoms, the changing mores, and youth culture, the contrary impulse found political expression in such figures as Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, proponents of what was presented as freedom from government interference. Meanwhile, a nonevent in the Tonkin Gulf would accelerate the nation's plunge into the Vietnam tragedy.In narrating 1964’s moment of reckoning, when American identity began to be reimagined, McElvaine ties those past battles to their legacy today. Throughout, he captures the changing consciousness of the period through its vibrant music, film, literature, and personalities.

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The period from the end of the Second World War to the late 1960s marked a golden era for the traditional port-to-port class-divided passenger ship business. It was an age of re-awakening, with the wealthy and adventurous seeking new experiences abroad and countless migrants wanting to leave war-shattered Europe for new lives and opportunities overseas. On the liners, everyone was catered for: from passengers such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, who required suites of luxurious rooms with space to unpack over a hundred pieces of luggage, to penniless migrants carrying nothing more than an overnight bag, for whom a berth in a fifty-bed dormitory was all that was needed. Atlantic crossings were popular throughout the period, but there were also three- and four-class ships to South America, combination passenger-cargo services carrying only 100 or so travelers, fast mail ships to South Africa, colonial passenger vessels to East Africa, crowded migrant sailings to Sydney and Auckland, and trans-Suez and trans-Pacific passages. This was an era when long-distance travel was entirely dependent on the ocean liners. Post-War on the Liners examines, through fascinating anecdotes and detailed research, the many passenger ship services of this bygone era, recapturing the charm, practicality, and importance of post-war sea travel. From the magnificent-Cunarders Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, Italian Line's Augustus, Union-Castle's Bloemfontein Castle, P&O's Oronsay, and Shaw Savill's Southern Cross-to the lesser known-Fyffes Line's Golfito, Royal Mail's Amazon, Sitmar Line's Fairsea, and NYK Line's Hikawa Maru-this book reveals the unique qualities of individual ships and why they were so often regarded with affection by the men and women who travelled and served on them.

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In the 1940s and ’50s, comic books were some of the most popular—and most unfiltered—entertainment in the United States. Publishers sold hundreds of millions of copies a year of violent, racist, and luridly sexual comics to Americans of all ages, until a 1954 Senate investigation led to a censorship code that nearly destroyed the industry. But this was far from the first time the US government actively involved itself with comics—it was simply the most dramatic manifestation of a long, strange relationship between high-level policy makers and a medium that even artists and writers often dismissed as a creative sewer. In Pulp Empire, Paul S. Hirsch uncovers the gripping untold story of how the US government both attacked and appropriated comic books to help wage World War II and the Cold War, promote official—and clandestine—foreign policy, and deflect global critiques of American racism. As Hirsch details, during World War II—and the concurrent golden age of comic books—government agencies worked directly with comic book publishers to stoke hatred for the Axis powers while simultaneously attempting to dispel racial tensions at home. Later, as the Cold War defense industry ballooned—and as comic book sales reached historic heights—the government again turned to the medium, this time trying to win hearts and minds in the decolonizing world through cartoon propaganda. Hirsch’s groundbreaking research weaves together a wealth of previously classified material, including secret wartime records, official legislative documents, and caches of personal papers. His book explores the uneasy contradiction of how comics were both vital expressions of American freedom and unsettling glimpses into the national id—scourged and repressed on the one hand and deployed as official propaganda on the other. Pulp Empire is a riveting illumination of underexplored chapters in the histories of comic books, foreign policy, and race.

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Mathematics is beautiful--and it can be fun and exciting as well as practical. Good Math is your guide to some of the most intriguing topics from two thousand years of mathematics: from Egyptian fractions to Turing machines; from the real meaning of numbers to proof trees, group symmetry, and mechanical computation. If you've ever wondered what lay beyond the proofs you struggled to complete in high school geometry, or what limits the capabilities of computer on your desk, this is the book for you. Why do Roman numerals persist? How do we know that some infinities are larger than others? And how can we know for certain a program will ever finish? In this fast-paced tour of modern and not-so-modern math, computer scientist Mark Chu-Carroll explores some of the greatest breakthroughs and disappointments of more than two thousand years of mathematical thought. There is joy and beauty in mathematics, and in more than two dozen essays drawn from his popular "Good Math" blog, you'll find concepts, proofs, and examples that are often surprising, counterintuitive, or just plain weird. Mark begins his journey with the basics of numbers, with an entertaining trip through the integers and the natural, rational, irrational, and transcendental numbers. The voyage continues with a look at some of the oddest numbers in mathematics, including zero, the golden ratio, imaginary numbers, Roman numerals, and Egyptian and continuing fractions. After a deep dive into modern logic, including an introduction to linear logic and the logic-savvy Prolog language, the trip concludes with a tour of modern set theory and the advances and paradoxes of modern mechanical computing. If your high school or college math courses left you grasping for the inner meaning behind the numbers, Mark's book will both entertain and enlighten you.

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In his 1958 "kitchen debate" with Nikita Khrushchev, Richard Nixon argued that the freedom to consume defined the American way of life. High wages, full employment, new technologies, and a rapid growth in population known as the "Baby Boom" ushered in a golden age of economic growth. By the end of the twentieth century, consumerism triumphed over communism, socialism, and all other isms seeking to win hearts and minds around the world. Advertising, popular culture, and mass media persuaded Americans that shopping was both spiritually fulfilling and a patriotic virtue. Mark Lytle argues that Nixon's view of consumer democracy contained fatal flaws -- if unregulated, it would wholly ignore the creativedestruction that, in destroying jobs, erodes the capacity to consume. The All-Consuming Nation also examines how planners failed to take into account the environmental costs, as early warning signs--whether smog over Los Angeles, the overuse of toxic chemicals such as DDT, or the Cuyahoga River in flames--provided evidence that all was not well. Environmentalists from Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson and Paul Ehrlich to Ralph Nader and Al Gore cautioned that modern consumerism imposed unsustainable costs on the natural world. Not for lack of warning, climate change became the defining issue of the twenty-first century. The All-Consuming Nation investigates the environmental and sociocultural costs of the consumer capitalism framework set in place in the 20th century, shedding light on the consequences of a national identity forged through mass consumption.

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A FLAME TREE NOTEBOOK. Beautiful and luxurious the journals combine high-quality production with magnificent art. Perfect as a gift, and an essential personal choice for writers, notetakers, travellers, students, poets and diarists. Features a wide range of well-known and modern artists, with new artworks published throughout the year. BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED. The highly crafted covers are embossed and foil stamped, complemented by the luxury binding and rose red end-papers. The covers are created by our artists and designers who spend many hours transforming original artwork into gorgeous 3d masterpieces that feel good in the hand, and look wonderful on a desk or table. PRACTICAL, EASY TO USE. Flame Tree Notebooks come with practical features too: a pocket at the back for scraps and receipts; two ribbon markers to help keep track of more than just a to-do list and robust ivory text paper. THE ARTIST. Johannes Vermeer, was a pivotal figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Girl with a Pearl Earring depicts the fresh-faced beauty of a young woman, simply but strikingly adorned in a turban and luminous pearl. Her intimate and direct gaze enhances the energy of the portrait and offsets the dark, understated colour scheme. An enigmatic and seductive atmosphere swirls around her, while the subject remains forever still for the viewer to admire. THE FINAL WORD. As William Morris said, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

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Reveals through a study of how ordinary Catholics lived their faith that Roman Catholicism, and not just Protestantism, can be seen as part of the Evangelical spectrum of religious experience. Religious historians writing about Roman Catholicism after the Reformation have concentrated on institutional change, or the impact of certain groups or individuals. At the same time, those writing about Evangelical revivalism have tended to see this as an exclusively Protestant phenomenon. This book, by focusing on devotional practice and grass roots communities over a long period, demonstrates that renewal and revivalism were also present in the Roman Catholic Church, arguing that they are essential for faith to remain vibrant. The book examines how in the diocese of Middlesbrough (which comprises the old North and East Ridings of Yorkshire including Hull and York) Catholic faithand practice developed from a position where old Catholic gentry families were central through to the establishment of the Catholic hierarchy and large-scale immigration in the nineteenth century, when the church took on a distinctly Irish character. It re-evaluates the so-called "golden age" of the 1950s and considers the impact of the Second Vatican Council. Overall, the book shows how English Catholic faith and practice were influenced by social, cultural and geographical factors, how Roman Catholicism can indeed be seen as part of the Evangelical spectrum of religious experience, and, above all, how ordinary Catholics lived their faith. Margaret Turnham completed herdoctorate at the University of Nottingham.

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The essays in this collection, written by a pioneering interdisciplinary scholar, deal with the roles of images in the construction of stereotypes and the categories of difference as represented in texts—in high literature, in medical literature, in art—from the last fin-de-siècle to our own. Intensely engaged in the cultural politics of everyday life and conscious of how texts reflect and shape our social practices, they deal primarily with representations and self-representations of “Jews” in the past one hundred years and focus on the question of the constructions of the Jew’s body in art and literature. The title essay, “Love + Marriage = Death: STDs and AIDS in the Modern World,” however, studies the image of sexually transmitted disease from Shakespeare to Martin Amis. It sets the tone for an understanding of this collection as a book about Jews and their representation, but not as a special, isolated case. The first essay, the largely autobiographical “Ethnicities: Why I Write What I Write,” serves as an introduction to the collection. The other essays are: “Max Nordau, Sigmund Freud, and the Question of Conversion”; “Salome, Syphilis, Sarah Bernhardt, and the ‘Modern Jewess’”; “Zwetschkenbaum’s Competence: Madness and the Discourse of the Jews”; “Otto Weininger and Sigmund Freud: Race and Gender in the Shaping of Psychoanalysis”; “Sibling Incest, Madness, and the Jew”; “R. B. Kitaj’s ‘Good Bad’ Diasporism and the Body in American Jewish Postmodern Art”; and “Who Is Jewish?: The Newest Jewish Writing in German and Daniel Goldhagen.”

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Shania never thinks much about being white. But after her beloved grandmother passes, Shania and her mother relocate to Blue Rock, a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. Shania is thrust into Bard Academy, the city's wealthiest private school. At Bard, race is both invisible and hypervisible, and Shania's new friends are split on what they see. She's quickly "adopted" by Catherine Tate, the no-holds-barred daughter of one of Blue Rock's elite white families, and soon after is swept into a romance with Catherine's brother, Prescott. When Shania is warned by one of the school's few Black students that Prescott is more dangerous than his golden-boy reputation lets on, Shania can't help but notice the pattern: his barely suppressed rage toward non-white students, comments about the homeless citizens displaced by gentrification, the mysterious story of a Black student leaving the school after an altercation with Prescott. When attacks begin to occur against Blue Rock's homeless, Shania begins to feel uneasy but to admit there's something wrong would be to give up her newfound sense of belonging.However, Prescott isn't the only one with secrets. As Shania grieves for the grandmother she idolized, she realizes her family has secrets too, some of them with roots that stretch far back into Blue Rock's history. And when the pieces of the truth come to light-both past and present-Shania will have to make a choice and face the true violence in her silence.

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In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as German Jews struggled for legal emancipation and social acceptance, they also embarked on a program of cultural renewal, two key dimensions of which were distancing themselves from their fellow Ashkenazim in Poland and giving a special place to the Sephardim of medieval Spain. Where they saw Ashkenazic Jewry as insular and backward, a result of Christian persecution, they depicted the Sephardim as worldly, morally and intellectually superior, and beautiful, products of the tolerant Muslim environment in which they lived. In this elegantly written book, John Efron looks in depth at the special allure Sephardic aesthetics held for German Jewry.Efron examines how German Jews idealized the sound of Sephardic Hebrew and the Sephardim's physical and moral beauty, and shows how the allure of the Sephardic found expression in neo-Moorish synagogue architecture, historical novels, and romanticized depictions of Sephardic history. He argues that the shapers of German-Jewish culture imagined medieval Iberian Jewry as an exemplary Jewish community, bound by tradition yet fully at home in the dominant culture of Muslim Spain. Efron argues that the myth of Sephardic superiority was actually an expression of withering self-critique by German Jews who, by seeking to transform Ashkenazic culture and win the acceptance of German society, hoped to enter their own golden age.Stimulating and provocative, this book demonstrates how the goal of this aesthetic self-refashioning was not assimilation but rather the creation of a new form of German-Jewish identity inspired by Sephardic beauty.

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The Presidency in the Era of 24-Hour News examines how changes in the news media since the golden age of television--when three major networks held a near monopoly on the news people saw in the United States--have altered the way presidents communicate with the public and garner popular support. How did Bill Clinton manage to maintain high approval ratings during the Monica Lewinsky scandal? Why has the Iraq war mired George Bush in the lowest approval ratings of his presidency? Jeffrey Cohen reveals how the decline of government regulation and the growth of Internet and cable news outlets have made news organizations more competitive, resulting in decreased coverage of the president in the traditional news media and an increasingly negative tone in the coverage that does occur. He traces the dwindling of public trust in the news and shows how people pay less attention to it than they once did. Cohen argues that the news media's influence over public opinion has decreased considerably as a result, and so has the president's ability to influence the public through the news media. This has prompted a sea change in presidential leadership style. Engaging the public less to mobilize broad support, presidents increasingly cultivate special-interest groups that often already back the White House's agenda. This book carries far-reaching implications for the future of presidential governance and American democracy in the era of new media.

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With an empire stretching across central Mexico, unmatched in military and cultural might, the Aztecs seemed poised on the brink of a golden age in the early sixteenth century. But the arrival of the Spanish changed everything. Imperialism and the Origins of Mexican Culture chronicles this violent clash of two empires and shows how modern Mestizo culture evolved over the centuries as a synthesis of Old and New World civilizations.Colin MacLachlan begins by tracing Spain and Mesoamerica’s parallel trajectories from tribal enclaves to complex feudal societies. When the Spanish laid siege to Tenochtitlán and destroyed it in 1521, the Aztecs could only interpret this catastrophe in cosmic terms. With their gods discredited and their population ravaged by epidemics, they succumbed quickly to Spanish control—which meant submitting to Christianity. Spain had just emerged from its centuries-long struggle against the Moors, and zealous Christianity was central to its imperial vision. But Spain’s conquistadors far outnumbered its missionaries, and the Church’s decision to exclude Indian converts from priesthood proved shortsighted. Native religious practices persisted, and a richly blended culture—part Indian, part Christian—began to emerge.The religious void left in the wake of Spain’s conquests had enduring consequences. MacLachlan’s careful analysis explains why Mexico is culturally a Mestizo country while ethnically Indian, and why modern Mexicans remain largely orphaned from their indigenous heritage—the adopted children of European history.

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This book is an exercise in the recovery of historical memory about a set of thinkers who have been forgotten or purposely ignored and, as a result, never made it into the canon of Western political philosophy. Penny Weiss calls them “canon fodder,” recalling the fate of soldiers in war who are treated by their governments and military leaders as expendable. Despite some real progress at recovery over the past few decades, and the now-frequent references to a few female thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft, Hannah Arendt, and Simone de Beauvoir, the surface has only been scratched, and the rich resources of women’s writings about political ideas remain still largely untapped. Included here, and intended to further whet the palate, are figures from Sei Shōnagon, Christine de Pizan, and Mary Astell to Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anna Julia Cooper, and Emma Goldman. Restoring female thinkers to the conversation of political philosophy is the primary goal of this book. Part I deploys a range of these thinkers to discuss the nature of political inquiry itself. Part II focuses on alternative approaches to and visions of core political ideas: equality, power, revolution, childhood, and community. While mainly an intellectual act of revival, this book also affects practical political life, because “remote and academic as they sometimes appear, debates about what to include in the canon ultimately touch almost everyone: students handed texts from lists of ‘great books’ to guide them . . . and citizens whose governments justify their actions with ideas from political texts deemed classic."

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'A dense narrative and a wealth of examples' Literary Review'Reid-Henry narrates this story with elegance and gusto' Washington Post'[Reid-Henry] conveys an important message: Individual political action must become accountable to society's interests' Kirkus'Reid-Henry's scholarship is impressive, gathering a wide range of historical anecdotes and referencing a diverse set of thinkers' Publishers Weekly The first panoramic history of the Western world from the 1970s to the present day: Empire of Democracy is the story for those asking how we got to where we are.In this epic narrative of the events that have shaped our own times, Simon Reid-Henry shows how liberal democracy, and Western history with it, was profoundly re-imagined when the postwar Golden Age ended. As the institutions of liberal rule were reinvented, a new generation of politicians emerged: Thatcher, Reagan, Mitterrand, Kohl. The late twentieth-century heyday they oversaw carried the Western democracies triumphantly to victory in the C old War and into the economic boom of the 1990s. But equally it led them into the fiasco of Iraq, to the high drama of the financial crisis in 2007/8, and ultimately to the anti-liberal surge of our own times.The present crisis of liberalism enjoins us to revisit these as yet unscripted decades. The era we have all been living through is closing out, democracy is turning on its axis once again. As this panoramic history poignantly reminds us, the choices we make going forward require us first to come to terms with where we have been.

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Are there classes in America? In The Classless Society Paul Kingston forcefully answers no. This book directly challenges a long-standing intellectual tradition of class analysis, recently revitalized by such prominent scholars as Erik Olin Wright and John Goldthorpe. Insisting on a realist conception of class, Kingston argues that presumed "classes" do not significantly share distinct, life-defining experiences. Individual chapters assess the extent of class structuration in five dimensions of life: mobility (how demographically cohesive are classes?), interaction patterns (do classes exist as communal groups?), cultural orientation (are there class cultures, as Bourdieu and his followers maintain?), class sentiment (to what extent do objective position and subjective sentiments align?), and political orientations (do classes represent distinct political forces?). This broad assessment is the basis for Kingston's conclusion that classes do not exist in America in any meaningful way. The Classless Society analyzes prominent general "maps" of the American class structure, as well as the less-studied extremes of socioeconomic position ("Lives of the Rich and Poor"), the alleged emergence of post-industrial classes (the "New Class" and the "McProletariat"), and class structuration in other societies ("American Unexceptionalism"). Kingston rigorously addresses the question, "How would you recognize a class if you saw one?" thus establishing clear grounds for engaging the issue. He relates the findings and methods of the best contemporary research in substantial detail, allowing the reader to assess the book's conclusions from a thorough evidentiary base.

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*** ***THE TRUE STORY BEHIND THE OSCAR-WINNING, GOLDEN-GLOBE-WINNING FILM.'Exactly the sort of tribute Mercury himself would have wanted' Spectator'No one has captured better than Lesley-Ann Jones the magical, enchanting dualism of Freddie Mercury'The Times'Truly definitive, truly Freddie, an energetic, entertaining and essential account'Sir Tim Rice'This book grabs you with its opening, then builds. Insight and anecdote in perfect harmony' Simon Napier-Bell'At last a massive tribute to a massive talent'Steve Harley, Cockney RebelThis is the definitive biography of Freddie Mercury, written by award-winning rock journalist Lesley-Ann Jones, who toured widely with Queen and formed lasting friendships with the band. Now, having secured access to the remaining band members and those who were closest to Freddie from childhood to death, Lesley-Ann has written the most in-depth account of one of music's best loved and most complex figures. Meticulously researched, sympathetic, unsensationalised, the book focuses on the period in the 1980s when Queen began to fragment, before their Live Aid performance put them back in the frame. In her journey to understand the man behind the legend, Lesley-Ann Jones has travelled from London to Zanzibar to India.Packed with exclusive interviews and told with the invaluable perspective that the twenty years since Mercury's death presents, Bohemian Rhapsody is the most up-to-date portrait of a legendary man.

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A powerhouse grimdark fantasy of bloodshed, ambition, and fate, The House of Sacrifice is the thunderous conclusion to Anna Smith Spark's Empires of Dust trilogy, which began with The Court of Broken Knives. Hail Him. Behold Him.Man-killer, life-stealer, death-bringer, life’s thief.All are bound to Him,His word is law.The night coming, the sudden light that makes the eyes blind,Golden one, shining, glorious.Life’s judgement, life’s pleasure, hope’s grave. Marith Altrersyr has won. He cut a path of blood and vengeance and needless violence around the world and now he rules. It is time for Marith to put down his sword, to send home his armies, to grow a beard and become fat. It is time to look to his own house, and to produce an heir. The King of Death must now learn to live. But some things cannot be learnt. The spoils of war turn to ash in the mouths of the Amrath Army and soon they are on the move again. But Marith, lord of lies, dragon-killer, father-killer, has begun to falter and his mind decays. How long can a warlord rotting from within continue to win? As the Army marches on to Sorlost, Thalia’s thoughts turn to home and to the future: a life grows inside her and it is a precious thing – but it grows weak. Why must the sins of the father curse the child? A glorious, ambitious and bloodily brilliant conclusion that threads together a masterful tapestry of language and story, holding up a piercing reflection on epic fantasy – and those who love it.

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Der vorliegende Band ist die vierte von Gilbert Wiplinger, diesmal in Verbindung mit Wolfram Letzner, herausgegebene Publikation eines Frontinus-Symposiums als BABESCH-Supplementband zur historischen Wasserwirtschaft. Schon im Verlauf des Symposiums „DE AQUAEDUCTU ATQUE AQUA URBIUM LYCIAE PAMPHYLIAE PISIDIAE - The Legacy of Sextus Julius Frontinus“ (BABESCH-Suppl. 27) im Herbst 2014 stellte sich die Frage nach einer Folgeveranstaltung, für die sich Trier mit seinen römischen Großbauten und einer Verknüpfung zur Geschichte der Frontinus-Gesellschaft anbot. So konnte die Gesellschaft mit diesem Symposium hier auch ihr 40-jähriges Bestehen mit einer Festveranstaltung begehen. Im ersten Abschnitt des Bandes wird der Festakt zur Feier des 40-jährigen Jubiläums der Frontinus-Gesellschaft dokumentiert. Dieser beinhaltet die Erfolgsgeschichte der Gesellschaft, den Festvortrag, die Verleihung der Frontinus-Medaille mit der Laudatio sowie der Dankesrede des Geehrten mit neuen Forschungsergebnissen zum Değirmendere Aquädukt von Ephesos. Der zweite Abschnitt ist dem Veranstaltungsort Trier gewidmet: Die Geschichte der Stadt wird anhand der „Highlights“ der römischen Ausstellung im Rheinischen Landesmuseum erzählt und von deren urbanistischer Entwicklung berichtet. Die Trierer Ruwerleitung und die Barbara- bzw. Kaiserthermen sind dem Wasser gewidmet. Der dritte Abschnitt behandelt juristische Quellen sowie neue Forschungsmethoden in der Aquäduktforschung. Zum ersten Thema wird das moderne Wasserrecht den Texten von Frontinus gegenüber gestellt, dann wird die Herausforderung juristischer Quellen bei der Erforschung römischer Wasserversorgungssysteme aufzeigt. Zum zweiten Thema zählen die mit GPS und Photogrammetrie unterstützten Dokumentationsmethoden an den Aquädukten Roms und einfachere Methoden in Antiochia ad Cragum. Der vierte Abschnitt beschäftigt sich mit Aquädukten und Qanaten: Die große Zahl an Fernwasserleitungen in der Türkei in Katalogform, eine Inschrift der Druckrohrleitung von Alatri in Latium, die Aqua Alexandrina in Rom, der römische Aquädukt von Lissabon, die Wasserleitungen und Bäder von Lebna auf Kreta, römische Münzen zu Aquädukten und zum Wassermanagement, das Almstollensystem im Mönchsberg in Salzburg sowie zwei Beiträge zu Qanaten in Luxemburg sind Themen dieses Abschnittes. Der nächste Abschnitt ist den Thermen, Nymphäen und anderen innerstädtischen Wassernutzungen gewidmet: Die Stabianer Thermen in Pompeji, die Caracallathermen von Rom, die römischen Heilthermen von Aqua Flaviae sind Beiträge zum ersten, die unter Nero und Domitian errichteten Nymphäen am Palatin, und die Nymphäen in den griechischen Provinzen vor Hadrian zum zweiten Thema, wozu auch noch das sog. Mettius-Modestos-Tor von Patara als Wassermonument zählt. Das Macellum von Sagalassos ist der einzige Beitrag zur innerstädtischen Wassernutzung. Im letzten Abschnitt sind verschieden Themen zusammengefasst: Wasserspeicherung in den römischen Goldbergwerken auf der Iberischen Halbinsel, Druckleitungen mit einem neuen Wasserturm aus Ostia und römische Wasserhähne, Wasserknappheit aus römischer Sicht in italienischen Regionen, Wasserversorgung im Libanon, Wassermühlen im Bereich des Rheinischen Braunkohleabbaus und medizinische Aspekte von trinkwasserbedingter Bleivergiftungen im deutschsprachigen Raum. Das Symposium wurde mit Exkursionen zu archäologischen Stätten und Museen nach Luxemburg, Frankreich und im Raum Trier abgerundet.

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Birds’ eggs are true wonders of the natural world: they are strong enough to protect the embryo as it grows and to withstand incubation by the parent, yet sufficiently fragile to allow the chick to hatch. Little wonder that the enormous diversity of avian eggs – the amazing range of shapes, sizes, colours, textures and patterns – has long fascinated us. Since boyhood, the renowned landscape photographer Colin Prior has had a passion for wild birds. For him, birds are the embodiment of nature, and fundamentally enrich the experience of being outdoors. This stunning new book presents Prior’s remarkable images of birds’ eggs side by side with his dramatic photographs of the birds’ natural habitats. At a time when many human influences are having an adverse impact on the environment, these habitats are equally fragile and vulnerable to change. Loss of habitat is, in turn, a major factor in the decline of wild bird populations. It has been illegal to take any birds’ eggs from the wild in Great Britain since 1954, and since 1982 it has been against the law to possess the egg of any wild bird. The eggs featured in this book belong to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, which holds one of the world’s largest collections of birds’ eggs. The eggs were collected legally during the late 19th and early 20th centuries and bequeathed to the museum by private collectors. Prior set up a studio at the museum and spent five weeks photographing more than 300 eggs using the latest digital technology. Each photograph is a compilation of between 40 and 80 separate exposures that were then blended into a single image using specialist software. The final image is an exquisite, almost three-dimensional rendition of the egg, pin-sharp from the front to the back. The eggs vary in size from that of the tiny goldcrest, the UK’s smallest bird, to that of the mute swan. In his introduction, Prior describes how his love of the natural world was nurtured by the endless hours he spent in the countryside around the Glasgow suburb where he grew up; how he overcame the technical challenges of photographing the eggs; how the featured eggs were selected from the museum’s collection; and how the photography of each bird’s habitat was completed. In his essay, the Scottish environmentalist Professor Des Thompson reflects on the state of nature and the relationship between nesting and habitats. In the main part of the book, the birds’ eggs are arranged into chapters according to the species found in a particular habitat, such as ‘Mountain and Moorland’ and ‘Seashore and Estuary’. The caption beneath each egg details the common and scientific name of the bird, the date the egg was collected, the size of the clutch, and the egg’s dimensions. Each egg is presented in a diptych with a photograph of the bird’s habitat, painstakingly captured at a time of year when the dominant colours of the landscape most closely resemble those of the egg. Fragile – the culmination of ten years’ work – not only showcases the inherent beauty of birds’ eggs, but also serves as a powerful reminder to protect the birds’ natural habitats and thereby the birds themselves.

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The captivating and heroic story of Hudson Stuck—an Episcopal priest—and his team's history-making summit of Denali.In 1913, four men made a months-long journey by dog sled to the base of the tallest mountain in North America. Several groups had already tried but failed to reach the top of a mountain whose size—occupying 120 square miles of the earth’s surface —and position as the Earth’s northernmost peak of more than 6,000 meters elevation make it one of the world’s deadliest mountains. Although its height from base to top is actually greater than Everest’s, it is Denali's weather, not altitude, that have caused the great majority of fatalities—over a hundred since 1903. Denali experiences weather more severe than the North Pole, with temperatures of forty below zero and winds that howl at 80 to 100 miles per hour for days at a stretch. But in 1913 none of this mattered to Hudson Stuck, a fifty-year old Episcopal priest, Harry Karstens, the hardened Alaskan wilderness guide, Walter Harper, part of the Koyukon people, and Robert Tatum, a divinity student, both just in their twenties. They were all determined to be the first to set foot on top of Denali. In A Window to Heaven, Patrick Dean brings to life this heart-pounding and spellbinding feat of this first ascent and paints a rich portrait of the frontier at the turn of the twentieth century. The story of Stuck and his team will lead us through the Texas frontier and Tennessee mountains to an encounter with Jack London at the peak of the Yukon Goldrush. We experience Stuck's awe at the rich Inuit and Athabascan indigenous traditions—and his efforts to help preserve these ways of life. Filled with daring exploration and rich history, A Window to Heaven is a brilliant and spellbinding narrative of success against the odds.

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An accomplished storyteller returns with her biggest, boldest, most entertaining novel yet—a hilarious, heartfelt story about books, love, sisterhood, and the surprises we discover in our DNA that combines the wit of Jonathan Tropper with the heart of Susan Wiggs.Maggie, Eliza, and Tricia Sweeney grew up as a happy threesome in the idyllic seaside town of Southport, Connecticut. But their mother’s death from cancer fifteen years ago tarnished their golden-hued memories, and the sisters drifted apart. Their one touchstone is their father, Bill Sweeney, an internationally famous literary lion and college professor universally adored by critics, publishers, and book lovers. When Bill dies unexpectedly one cool June night, his shell-shocked daughters return to their childhood home. They aren’t quite sure what the future holds without their larger-than-life father, but they do know how to throw an Irish wake to honor a man of his stature.But as guests pay their respects and reminisce, one stranger, emboldened by whiskey, has crashed the party. It turns out that she too is a Sweeney sister. When Washington, DC based journalist Serena Tucker had her DNA tested on a whim a few weeks earlier, she learned she had a 50% genetic match with a childhood neighbor—Maggie Sweeney of Southport, Connecticut. It seems Serena’s chilly WASP mother, Birdie, had a history with Bill Sweeney—one that has remained totally secret until now.Once the shock wears off, questions abound. What does this mean for William’s literary legacy? Where is the unfinished memoir he’s stashed away, and what will it reveal? And how will a fourth Sweeney sister—a blond among redheads—fit into their story?By turns revealing, insightful, and uproarious, The Sweeney Sisters is equal parts cautionary tale and celebration—a festive and heartfelt look at what truly makes a family.

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This under-documented expedition was a pivotal moment in the annals of polar exploration and was the starting point, in historical terms, of revealing the great unknown continent of Antarctica. It was the first time in nearly 70 years since Captain James Cook had circumnavigated Antarctica, that a Royal Naval voyage of discovery had ventured so far South. They set a new 'furthest south' record in the process beating the one set up by James Weddell in a whaling ship in 1823. The expedition set sail from Greenwich in 1839. It consisted of two wooden sailing ships commanded by Captain James Clark Ross and Commander Francis Crozier. The ships were manned exclusively by Royal Naval personnel and each ship had a complement of 64 men and officers. Their primary task was of a scientific nature to study the Earth's magnetic field and build up a set of results that could provide a greater understanding of the effects of magnetism on compasses and their use in navigating the world's oceans. This voyage had a set of planned targets and all were accomplished. In the process a vast amount of scientific information was collected. Many exotic places were visited during the voyage amongst them Madeira, St Helena, Cape Town, Kerguelen island, New Zealand, Australia and the Falkland Islands but the pinnacle was the discovery of the Ross Sea, The Ross Ice Shelf and the mighty volcanoes of Erebus and Terror (named after the two ships). The crews experienced the dangers of navigating in ice-strewn waters and narrowly escaping being crushed by icebergs. Illness was kept at bay although several lives were lost due to accidents. It would be another 60 years before the scenes of their greatest discoveries were visited again and then the Golden Age of Discovery was ushered in with the likes of Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen.

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“A gripping and thrilling tale….INCREDIBLE!.” Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ When working for the British Secret Service, Sarah Gillespie can trust no one, not even her closest friends… London, 1941 After losing her family to a Nazi bomb attack back home in Ireland, Sarah Gillespie joins the British Secret Services to bring them justice. Partnered with American undercover agent Lieutenant Tony Anderson, Sarah embarks on a dangerous mission that takes her from war-torn London into the black mountains of Wales. But when one of her team is revealed to be a German mole, and enemies begin to close in, what price will Sarah have to pay to save her country—and herself? A heartbreaking and completely addictive page-turner about one woman’s bravery in WW2 Britain, perfect for fans of Kate Quinn's THE ALICE NETWORK, Suzanne Goldring's MY NAME IS EVA and Ariel Lawhon’s CODE NAME HÉLÈNE. Readers love Her Last Betrayal: “So much excitement… this is the quickest I have ever read a book, I just couldn’t put it down. Read it, you won’t be disappointed.” Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Had me sitting in silence, tears falling… My mind was blown more than once… I can't tell you how many times I was left thinking, ‘I didn't see it coming.’” Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Totally absorbing… It has everything. Suspense, spying, intrigue, mystery and a smattering of romance. A nail biting, gripping book that had me absolutely hooked from the first page…Outstanding.”Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “A gripping and thrilling tale… The writing was INCREDIBLE! I’ve never highlighted so many sections of a book before…!” Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “What I especially love about this series is the Irish vantage point of the war, really unique in the genre, and so beautifully handled… Can't wait for the next book in this absorbing series!” Literary Redhead, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Gripping… I couldn't stop reading!” Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “What an exciting read… a page-turner no doubt.” Goodreads reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐

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For all our nostalgia about the “Golden Age of Air Travel”, it was more mythical than we like to think. As with other forms of transport then, until the 1970s, commercial and military aviation were strictly gendered and racist divisions of labour, both in the cockpit and cabin – piloting was a lifetime career for white men, “stewardessing” a temporary one for women. Western culture was built upon images of men as chivalrous knights, cowboys, and soldiers — all living rugged manly lives, their greatest joy the comradeship on cattle drives, or men-of-war or in the trenches. In reality, by the beginning of the twentieth century, few males had ever been cowboys or seen active military service. Nevertheless, fueled by paperback novels and later Hollywood, the mythology persisted. National identity was defined by masculinity- in the United States it was the cowboy, in Australia the “digger” and in Canada, the lumberjack, the Mountie and since the last war, the air ace. Women in pulp fiction and movies were either the faithful forgiving wife and mother, the schoolmarm - or the dance hall prostitute. Pilots were defined by their training, professionalism, and their courage in the air. To frightened passengers – and that was everyone then, whoever sat in the flight deck was omnipotent. One learned professor even cited Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, proposing that those who became pilots had evolved from birds and the remainder of humanity from fish and would never be able to fly a plane! Women were defined by their domesticity as mothers and homemakers. Airlines recruited them for their femininity, to be substitute mothers, wives, and daughters to look after male clientele. “The association of commercial flying and maleness” wrote Albert James Mills in “Sex, Strategy and the Stratosphere: the gendering of airline cultures.” was largely achieved through the exclusion of women.”

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Fleabag meets I Am Legend in this extraordinary novel of one woman's survival in the face of the end of the world . . . December 2023. The human race has fought a deadly virus and lost. The only things left from the world before are burning cities and rotting corpses.But in London, one woman is still alive.Although she may be completely unprepared for her new existence, as someone who has spent her life trying to fit in, being alone is surprisingly liberating.Determined to discover if she really is the last survivor on earth, she sets off on an extraordinary adventure, with only an abandoned golden retriever named Lucky for company.Maybe she'll find a better life or maybe she'll die along the way. But whatever happens, the end of everything will be her new beginning.***'A riotous, black-humoured tonic' Independent'A masterpiece of modern fiction' Sophie Cousens'Fresh, frank, funny' Elizabeth Kay'Brilliant. Creepy, witty, laugh-out-loud and shudder-inducing' Harriet Walker'Harrowing, unflinching and uplifting' Jennifer Saint'Original, brutal, funny and hugely addictive!' Emma Cooper***A 5 star read!' I LOVED this book. I scurried through it in one sitting, couldn't stop reading it for the life of me. Then at the end I cried because it was over' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'It reads like a dream . . . with every single word perfectly plotted to create a story like no other. Sometimes I laughed, sometimes I cried, but I always related and I never wanted it to end' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'From the very first page of this book I knew it was going to be a winner . . . This is a story of strength, determination and self discovery' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'If I could have made a list of all the things that I'd want an apocalypse novel to include, this book would check off every single box' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐'Terrifying, appalling, gory, explicit, laugh out loud funny and practically every other known emotion. This book has it all' ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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Has there ever been a stranger idea in the vehicle world than putting a house on wheels and taking it on holiday? However odd it may seem, it's an idea that has caught on. Today there are 15 million recreational vehicles, or RVs', on the roads of Europe, the USA and Australasia. So how did this fascinating family of vehicles come about? Who were the first recreational nomads, what made them want to take to the road just for pleasure and what did the first RVs look like? The wild ideas of RV pioneers around the world led to both streamlined successes and spectacular failures. This history beautifully illustrates the vehicles and exploits of the early RV mavericks with over 250 period photos of the vehicles, their builders and their owners. It explores the evolution of the RV from its horse-drawn roots through the steam era to the golden age of 1930s caravans and motorhomes. Many rare photos of early RVs were uncovered during the research for this book and are being published for the first time. These photos shed new light on the history of the RV. The RV family is a global one, with six countries in particular having a strong RV heritage - the UK, USA, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. In a world first, this history compares the early evolution of RV design and usage in each country. Also featured is an international gallery of RVs adapted for non-recreational purposes. By portraying not just the vehicles but also the trends, people and fashions of the period, this unique RV history reveals the remarkable early days of transport-based tourism and leisure. Andrew Woodmansey's engaging account of the early days of the RV will appeal not only to RV enthusiasts but also to anyone with an interest in how vehicles set us free to roam the world.

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'Daisy Waugh's featherlight satires are as refreshing and uplifting as a glass of chilled vintage champagne. . . Imagine Agatha Christie on laughing gas' TimesThe Todes are back, and they're taking on Hollywood . . .When Hollywood wants to do a remake of the film that made Tode Hall famous, India and Egbert are delighted. They envisage a summer of free money and star-studded dinner parties ahead . . . But the Hall is soon overrun by wardrobe trucks and catering tents, and lusty, insecure actors squabbling about nudity clauses. When the movie's producers threaten to sue over the exact colour of Tode Hall's rolling lawns, India and Egbert realise that having a film crew on their doorstep isn't such a breeze after all. With so many egos in one place things were bound to end badly, but no one would have predicted quite so literal a backstabbing . . .'A glorious satire on aristocratic manners and mores, with a smidgeon of murder thrown in, Waugh's hilarious and entirely original twist on the country house murder mystery is 'a perfect antidote to all the real-life craziness going on' Daily MailPraise for the Todes 'Witty, well-written and determinedly entertaining . . . the perfect book for the staycation' Catholic Herald'I couldn't put it down' Santa Montefiore'A delightful treat' The Lady'Deliciously entertaining' Andrew Wilson'An irresistible champagne bubble of pleasure and laughter' Rachel Johnson'A perfect antidote to wintry gloom' The Literary Review'What a triumph!' Antonia Fraser'A masterclass in how to write a rollicking good read' Sarah Vine'A jolly farce that never takes itself too seriously' Red Magazine'Fizzles, crackles and sparkles' Elizabeth Buchan'A work of sublime silliness' Simon Brett'An effervescent madcap whodunnit' Metro'A marvellous rollicking read' Mary Killen'She's skewered her targets brilliantly' Imogen Edwards-Jones'This contemporary take on a golden age mystery is simply wonderful.' Belfast Telegraph

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From TikTok and Fortnite to Grindr and Facebook, Aynne Kokas delivers an urgent look into the technology firms that gather our data, and how the Chinese government is capitalizing on this data flow for political gain. On August 6, 2020, the Trump Administration issued a ban on TikTok in the United States, requiring that the owner, Beijing-based Bytedance, sell the company to American investors or shut it down. Legions of TikTokers were devastated at the possible loss of their beloved platform, and for what: a political grudge with China? American suitors like Walmart and Oracle tried to make a deal with Bytedance to keep the platform operating in the US. But then something curious happened. The Chinese government refused to let Bytedance sell TikTok on national security grounds. As it turns out, the pandemic era platform for dance challenges is a Chinese government asset. As digital technologies and social media have evolved into organizing forces for the way in which we conduct our work and social lives, the business logic that undergirds these digital platforms has become clear: we are their product. We give these businesses information about everything--from where we live and work to what we like to do for entertainment, what we consume, where we travel, what we think politically, and with whom we are friends and acquaintances. We do this willingly, but often without a full understanding of how this information is stored or used, or what happens to it when it crosses international boundaries. As Aynne Kokas argues, both corporations and governments "traffic" much of this data without our consent--and sometimes illegally--for political and financial gain. In Trafficking Data, Aynne Kokas looks at how technology firms in the two largest economies in the world, the United States and China, have exploited government policy (and the lack thereof) to gather information on citizens, putting US national security at risk. Kokas argues that US government leadership failures, Silicon Valley's disruption fetish, and Wall Street's addiction to growth have fuelled China's technological goldrush. In turn, American complacency yields an unprecedented opportunity for Chinese firms to gather data in the United States and quietly send it back to China, and by extension, to the Chinese government. Drawing on years of fieldwork in the US and China and a large trove of corporate and policy documents, Trafficking Data explains how China is fast becoming the global leader in internet governance and policy, and thus of the data that defines our public and private lives.

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Albert Dean Rosellini served two terms as governer of the state of Washington, from 1957 to 1964. In an era now commonly thought of as conservative and complacent, he was an activist leader whose main causes are mirrored in contemporary politics. In this portrait of Albert D. Rosellini’s early life and active career in politics, Payton Smit depicts an energetic, pragmatic statesman in a region just moving into political and economic maturity.More than any other person, Rosellini was responsible for the long overdue restructuring of the state’s prison and mental health systems, introducing both fiscal and human accountability. His interest in transportation led to the Evergreen Point, Hood Canal, Astoria-Megler, and Goldendale bridges as well as an expanded highway system. His reforms in state budgeting brought the state’s financial decisions into the daylight, making detailed scrutiny and accountability possible for the first time, while his work on commerce and trade helped bring the state into its modern position as a player in the Pacific Rim economies. He was a legislative father of the University of Washington’s medical/dental schools, and his support of higher education enriched the state’s universities and colleges and created a sound, comprehensive junior college system.Rosellini was the first Italian-American and the first Catholic governor west of the Mississippi. The only son of immigrant parents, he worked to support his family while finishing high school in three years and then passed the bar exam at age twenty-three. Six years later he was elected to the Washington State Senate as its youngest member. One of the New Deal Democratic majority, he quickly gained an insight into the legislative process that served him throughout his career.A warm, caring man with a genuine empathy for people, Rosellini played out his political career against the evolving attitudes toward ethnicity and class in Washington State and the nation. As a shrewd politician, he was quick to utilize the power of the media to shape issues and campaigns. Always controversial, he was suspected of corruption and illegal ties to liquor and gambling, simply on the basis of his Italian background. Yet in many areas he left a legacy that has allowed the state to prosper and flourish. The story of Rosellini’s strengths and weaknesses, and how they contributed to his success as a governor and detracted form his ability to exercise political leadership, is a unique part of Washington’s history.

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**Winner of the American Book Award (2023)**?**Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award (2023)**The long-awaited first full biography of legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins Sonny Rollins has long been considered an enigma. Known as the "Saxophone Colossus," he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz improvisers of all time, winning Grammys, the Austrian Cross of Honor, Sweden's Polar Music Prize and a National Medal of Arts. A bridge from bebop to the avant-garde, he is a lasting link to the golden age of jazz, pictured in the iconic "Great Day in Harlem" portrait. His seven-decade career has been well documented, but the backstage life of the man once called "the only jazz recluse" has gone largely untold-until now. Based on more than 200 interviews with Rollins himself, family members, friends, and collaborators, as well as Rollins' extensive personal archive, Saxophone Colossus is the comprehensive portrait of this legendary saxophonist and composer, civil rights activist and environmentalist. A child of the Harlem Renaissance, Rollins' precocious talent landed him on the bandstand and in the recording studio with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or playing opposite Billie Holiday. An icon in his own right, he recorded Tenor Madness, featuring John Coltrane; Way Out West; Freedom Suite, the first civil rights-themed album of the hard bop era; A Night at the Village Vanguard; and the 1956 classic Saxophone Colossus. Yet his meteoric rise to fame was not without its challenges. He served two sentences on Rikers Island and won his battle with heroin addiction. In 1959, Rollins took a two-year sabbatical from recording and performing, practicing up to 16 hours a day on the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1968, he left again to study at an ashram in India. He returned to performing from 1971 until his retirement in 2012.? The story of Sonny Rollins-innovative, unpredictable, larger than life-is the story of jazz itself, and Sonny's own narrative is as timeless and timely as the art form he represents. Part jazz oral history told in the musicians' own words, part chronicle of one man's quest for social justice and spiritual enlightenment, this is the definitive biography of one of the most enduring and influential artists in jazz and American history.

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The fateful story of Adolf Hitler's transformation from awkward, feckless loner to lethal, charismatic demagogue. The story of the making of Adolf Hitler that we are all familiar with is the one Hitler himself wove in his 1924 trial, and then expanded upon in Mein Kampf. It tells of his rapid emergence as National Socialist leader in 1919, and of how he successfully rallied most of Munich and the majority of Bavaria's establishment to support the famous beer-hall putsch of 1923. It is an account which has largely been taken at face value for over ninety years. Yet, on closer examination, Hitler's account of his experiences in the years immediately following the First World War turns out to be every bit as unreliable as his account of his experiences as a soldier during the war itself. In Becoming Hitler, Thomas Weber continues from where he left off in his previous book, Hitler's First War, stripping away the layers of myth and fabrication in Hitler's own tale to tell the real story of Hitler's politicization and radicalization in post-First World War Munich. It is the gripping account of how an awkward and unemployed loner with virtually no recognizable leadership qualities and fluctuating political ideas turned into the charismatic, self-assured, virulently anti-Semitic leader with an all-or-nothing approach to politics with whom the world was soon to become tragically familiar. As Weber clearly shows, far from the picture of a fully-formed political leader which Hitler wanted to portray in Mein Kampf, his ideas and priorities were still very uncertain and largely undefined in early 1919 — and they continued to shift until 1923. It was the failed Ludendorff putsch of November 1923 - and the subsequent Ludendorff trial — which was to prove the making of Hitler. And he was not slow to spot the opportunity that it offered. As the movers and shakers of Munich's political scene tried to blame everything on him in the course of the trial, Hitler was presented with a golden opportunity to place himself at the centre of attention, turning what had been the 'Ludendorff trial' into the 'Hitler trial'. Henceforth, he would no longer be merely a local Bavarian political leader. From now on, he would present himself as a potential 'national saviour'. In the months after the trial, Hitler cemented this myth by writing Mein Kampf from his comfortable prison cell. His years of metamorphosis were now behind him. His years as Führer were soon to come.

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The volume relates the history of four parishes in Gore hundred and of the five which form Edmonton hundred. The first group contains Hendon, Kingsbury, and Little Stanmore, all bordering Edgware Road, and Great Stanmore. A northward projection of Ossulstone hundred separates it from the second, consisting of Edmonton, Enfield, and Tottenham, along the Essex boundary following the river Lea, and of South Mimms, finally transferred to Hertfordshire in 1965,and Monken Hadley, transferred in 1889 but now part of Greater London. In size the parishes range from Monken Hadley, with 695 a., to Enfield, among the largest in England with more than 12,000 a.; the most populous, Totten-ham with Wood Green, had well over 200,000 inhabitants by 1931. The story is of the rise of roadside settle-ment, of the purchase of land by Lon-doners, of suburban growth around railway stations and along new avenues, and, most recently, of rebuilding. Today's residents include a large Jewish community at Golders Green and coloured immigrants in working-class Tottenham and Edmonton. The scene is mainly suburban, although varying from the villas of late Victorian and Edwardian Southgate to ferry-built terraces farther east, and from Hampstead Garden Suburb to municipal housing estates and tower blocks. Many houses in Enfield, Mill Hill, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, and Stanmore are leftfrom the genteel villages of 18th- and early- 19th-century Middlesex. Park-land and farms survive in the north, notably in South Mimms, where Wrotham and Dyrham parks stand in their grounds, and around the former royal forest ofEnfield Chase. Canons, the area's most famous mansion, is recalled by the remnants of its park, close to the church where the princely duke of Chandos lies buried. Industry is confined mainly to the Lea valley, where the Royal Small Arms factory produced the first Enfield rifle in the 1850s, and to sites near Edgware Road, where Hendon Aerodrome lay. Other landmarks include the Alexandra Palace, whence the earliest television service was relayed, HarringayStadium and Arena, and the White Hart Lane ground of Tottenham Hotspurs football club.

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'Not all lost cities are real, but this one was.' The extraordinary story of Alexander the Great's lost city, and a quest to unravel one of the most captivating mysteries in ancient history. ‘Superb … impeccably researched, but with the pace and deftly woven plot complexity of a John le Carré novel ... utterly brilliant’ William Dalrymple, Guardian ‘[An] exceptional biography ... This is a jewel of a book’ Sunday Times ‘A brilliant and evocative biography, written with consummate scholarship, great style and wit’ Daily Telegraph ______ For centuries the city of Alexandria Beneath the Mountains was a meeting point of East and West. Then it vanished. In 1833 it was discovered in Afghanistan by the unlikeliest person imaginable: Charles Masson, an ordinary working-class boy from London turned deserter, pilgrim, doctor, archaeologist and highly respected scholar. On the way into one of history’s most extraordinary stories, Masson would take tea with kings, travel with holy men and become the master of a hundred disguises; he would see things no westerner had glimpsed before and few have glimpsed since. He would spy for the East India Company and be suspected of spying for Russia at the same time, for this was the era of the Great Game, when imperial powers confronted each other in these staggeringly beautiful lands. Masson discovered tens of thousands of pieces of Afghan history, including the 2,000-year-old Bimaran golden casket, which has upon it the earliest known face of the Buddha. He would be offered his own kingdom; he would change the world, and the world would destroy him. This is a wild journey through nineteenth-century India and Afghanistan, with impeccably researched storytelling that shows us a world of espionage and dreamers, ne’er-do-wells and opportunists, extreme violence both personal and military, and boundless hope. At the edge of empire, amid the deserts and the mountains, it is the story of an obsession passed down the centuries. **Chosen as a Book of the Year by the Spectator, Listener and Sydney Morning Herald**

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This unique history of the Civil War considers the impact of nineteenth-century American secret societies on the path to as well as the course of the war. Beginning with the European secret societies that laid the groundwork for Freemasonry in the United States, Mark A. Lause analyzes how the Old World's traditions influenced various underground groups and movements in America, particularly George Lippard's Brotherhood of the Union, an American attempt to replicate the political secret societies that influenced the European revolutions of 1848. Lause traces the Brotherhood's various manifestations, the most conspicuous being the Knights of the Golden Circle (out of which developed the Ku Klux Klan), and the Confederate secret groups through which John Wilkes Booth and others attempted to undermine the Union. Lause profiles the key leaders of these organizations, with special focus on George Lippard, Hugh Forbes, and George Washington Lafayette Bickley. Antebellum secret societies ranged politically from those with progressive or even revolutionary agendas to those that pursued conservative or oppressive goals. This book shows how, in the years leading up to the Civil War, these clandestine organizations exacerbated existing sectional tensions in the United States. Lause's research indicates that the pervasive influence of secret societies may have played a part in key events such as the Freesoil movement, the beginning of the Republican party, John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Lincoln's election, and the Southern secession process of 1860-1861. This exceptional study encompasses both white and African American secret society involvement, revealing the black fraternal experience in antebellum America as well as the clandestine operations that provided assistance to escaped slaves via the Underground Railroad. Unraveling these pervasive and extensive networks of power and influence, A Secret Society History of the Civil War demonstrates that antebellum secret societies played a greater role in affecting Civil War-era politics than has been previously acknowledged.

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