For centuries following the fall of Rome, western Europe was abenighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy,and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzlingthose Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse of thescientific advances coming from Baghdad, Antioch, or the cities ofPersia, Central Asia, and Muslim Spain. T here, philosophers,mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the fro...

This remarkable translation portrays Helene Kottannerin’s thrilling and rare autobiographical tale of stealing the Hungarian royal crown in 1440 to protect the throne for the unborn heir of Queen Elizabeth of Luxembourg.In a time of political uncertainty following King Albert II’s death, the pregnant and widowed queen entrusted her lady-in-waiting, Helene, with the daring mission to retrieve the kingdom’s Holy Crown from the castle of Visegrád. Helene’s successful theft not only alt...

Shortlisted for the Polari First Book Award 2018‘So you liked Irvine Welsh? Read Carnivore’ CosmopolitanMeet Leander: lover, fighter, liar.He learnt a long time ago that nothing is as intoxicating as blood. But whether it’s his or someone else’s doesn’t matter any more. There’s a mysterious pain in every muscle of his body – and it’s got so bad that he’ll do anything to escape it.Up to now, it’s been his se...

While comedy writers are responsible for creating clever scripts, comedic animators have a much more complicated problem to solve: What makes a physical character funny? Comedy for Animators breaks down the answer by exploring the techniques of those who have used their bodies to make others laugh. Drawing from traditions such as commedia dell’arte, pantomime, Vaudeville, the circus, and silent and modern film, animators will learn not only to create funny charact...

Benjamin Franklin and his contemporaries brought the Enlightenment to America-an intellectual revolution that laid the foundation for the political one that followed. With the “first Drudgery” of settling the American colonies now past, Franklin announced in 1743, it was time the colonists set about improving the lot of humankind through collaborative inquiry. From Franklin's idea emerged the American Philosophical Society, an association hosted in Philadelphia and dedicated to the harness...

Despite the West's growing involvement in Muslim societies, conflicts, and cultures, its inability to understand or analyze the Islamic world threatens any prospect for East–West rapprochement. Impelled by one thousand years of anti-Muslim ideas and images, the West has failed to engage in any meaningful or productive way with the world of Islam. Formulated in the medieval halls of the Roman Curia and courts of the European Crusaders and perfected in the newsrooms of Fox News and CNN, this...

Shortlisted for the Polari First Book Award 2018‘So you liked Irvine Welsh? Read Carnivore’ CosmopolitanMeet Leander: lover, fighter, liar.Now including an exclusive interview with the author and Jon Appleton at the end of the audiobook.He learnt a long time ago that nothing is as intoxicating as blood. But whether it’s his or someone else’s doesn’t matter any more. There’s a mysterious pain in every muscle...

Bloomsbury presents The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization by Jonathan Lyons, read by Nezar Alerazi.For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to visit cities like Baghdad or Antioch. There, philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advan...

America’s most trusted and best-known film critic Roger Ebert presents one hundred brilliant essays on some of the best movies ever made.Roger Ebert, the famed film writer and critic, wrote biweekly essays for a feature called "The Great Movies," in which he offered a fresh and fervent appreciation of a great film. The Great Movies collects one hundred of these essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and hi...

A National Book Award winnerThe New York Times bestselling history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society.**“An engrossing and relentless intellectual history of prejudice in America.” -**Washington PostSome Americans insist that we’re living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America—...

**A groundbreaking critique of the West's historical, cultural, and political perceptions of the East that is—decades after its first publication—one of the most important books written about our divided world. • With a new foreword by Ussama Makdisi"Intellectual history on a high order ... and very exciting." —The New York Times**In this wide-ranging, intellectually vigorous study, Said traces the origins of "orientalism" to the centuries-long period during which ...

From America's most trusted and highly visible film critic, 100 more brilliant essays on the films that define cinematic greatness.Continuing the pitch-perfect critiques begun in The Great Movies, Roger Ebert's The Great Movies II collects 100 additional essays, each one of them a gem of critical appreciation and an amalgam of love, analysis, and history that will send readers back to films with a fresh set of eyes and renewed enthusiasm—or perhap...