What will the end of the world be like?Plague or nuclear fire? Asteroids or floods?Divine wrath or people meddling with what should have been left alone?The apocalypse may come in the future, but what apocalypses might have occurred if history had played out differently? What if nukes had flown during the Cuban Missile Crisis? What if an asteroid had been on a collision course with Earth before the first person could set foot on the Moon? What if humanity destroyed it...

In "The Scottish Reformation," Alexander F. Mitchell offers a comprehensive examination of the religious transformation that swept through Scotland in the sixteenth century, marked by the emergence of Protestantism and the decline of Catholic hegemony. Mitchell meticulously investigates the complex interplay between political, social, and theological factors that contributed to this pivotal historical moment. His engaging prose and scholarly rigor provide readers with an in-depth understan...

The story of a communist Scotland'Reid in Braid' is a series of short stories taking a look at a world where the UK was on the losing side of the Great War and dissolved; leading to an independent Scotland almost a century before it became a serious possibility. That independent Scotland eventually fell to socialist revolution in the lead up to an alternate second world war, and remains an isolationist one-party state for the rest of the century. Each of the shorts takes place at a...

You're sitting around the campfire; it's dark, the moon is high in the sky, the wind is whistling through the trees, and the sense of isolation is pervasive. You hear a twig snap in the darkness, everyone is tense. What's the story you tell your friends to terrify them? What's in the dark, stalking the camp: an ax murderer, a werewolf, or something so far beyond our mortal understanding that just the sight of it will drive each of us insane?

**From the Thurber Prize-winning author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker comes a pioneering collection of Black humor from some of the most acclaimed writers and performers at work today“Crackling, hilarious. . . . You won’t want to miss it.” —People“Completely absorbing.”—Amy Sedaris**A critic explores the paradox of finding community in “the dozens” while grieving. A violent town ritual causes an all-too-familiar moral panic. An email t...

To say that the writings of St. Francis reflect his personality and his spirit is but another way of saying that they are at once formidably mystic and exquisitely human; that they combine great elevation of thought with much picturesqueness of expression.This twofold element, which found its development later on in the prose of mystics like St. Bonaventure and in the verse of poets like Jacopone da Todi, and which has ever been a marked characteristic of Franciscan ascetic literatu...

'Ground-breaking ... One of the greatest international bestsellers of the post-war period' Andrew Roberts, Daily Telegraph**'**Reads like an engrossing novel' Sunday TimesAn infant queen. A teenage widow. Beautiful, flamboyant Mary Queen of Scots had a formidable intellect but her political sense - formed at the absolute court of France - plunged her country into a maelstrom of intrigue, marriage and murder. Upon fleeing to...

In "Life in the Medieval University," Robert S. Rait meticulously examines the intricate social and intellectual fabric of medieval academia. Utilizing a blend of narrative history and scholarly analysis, Rait delves into the structure of medieval universities, from the hierarchical organization of faculties to the daily lives of students and professors. The text is rich in primary sources, providing an authentic window into the customs, challenges, and triumphs characteristic of scholarly...

The great echoing phrases of the King James Bible that have boomed through the English-speaking mind for 400 years - an eye for an eye . . . eat, drink and be merry . . . . death, where is thy sting? . . . man shall not live by bread alone - are largely the work of a man whose genius for words matches Shakespeare. But William Tyndale, the young Gloucestershire tutor who wrote them, paid for them with his life. He was persecuted, exiled and eventually burned at the stake.Book of Fir...

This prize-winning account of the pre-Reformation church recreates lay people’s experience of religion, showing that late-medieval Catholicism was neither decadent nor decayed, but a strong and vigorous tradition. For this edition, Duffy has written a new introduction reflecting on recent developments in our understanding of the period.“A mighty and momentous book: a book to be read and re-read, pondered and revered; a subtle, profound book written with passion and eloquence, and w...

In "The Age of Erasmus," P. S. Allen delves into the intricate tapestry of the Renaissance, illuminating the transformative power of humanism as epitomized by the figure of Desiderius Erasmus. Allen's erudite narrative deftly weaves together historical analysis and literary criticism, presenting Erasmus not merely as a theologian, but as a pivotal thinker whose ideas challenged the dogmas of his time. Through rich prose and meticulous scholarship, the text explores themes of faith, knowled...

A period will, sooner or later, arrive, at which the disciplining and flagellating practices even now in use and which have been so for so many centuries, will have been laid aside, and succeeded by others equally whimsical. And while the men of those days will overlook the defects of their own extravagant customs, or perhaps even admire the rationality of them, they will refuse to believe that the practices of which accounts are given in this work, ever were in use among mankind, and even...