"[A] panoramic view of early Christianity as it developed against the backdrop of the Roman Empire of the fourth century" ( Publishers Weekly).The story of Jesus is well known, as is the story of Christian persecutions during the Roman Empire. The history of fervent debate, civil strife, and bloody riots within the Christian community as it was coming into being, however, is a side of ancient history rarely described.Richard E. Rubenstein takes the...

A true account of a turning point in medieval history that shaped the modern world, from "a superb storyteller" and the author of When Jesus Became God ( Los Angeles Times).Europe was in the long slumber of the Middle Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten—until a group of twelfth-century scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle.The philosopher's ideas spread like wildfire acr...

In this edited volume, experts on conflict resolution examine the impact of the crises triggered by the coronavirus and official responses to it.The pandemic has clearly exacerbated existing social and political conflicts, but, as the book argues, its longer-term effects open the door to both further conflict escalation and dramatic new opportunities for building peace. In a series of short essays combining social analysis with informed speculation, the contributors examine the imp...

This book analyses how certain types of social systems generate violent conflict and discusses how these systems can be transformed in order to create the conditions for positive peace.Resolving Structural Conflicts addresses a key issue in the field of conflict studies: what to do about violent conflicts that are not the results of misunderstanding, prejudice, or malice, but the products of a social system that generates violent conflict as part of its normal operations. ...

Europe was in the long slumber of the Middle Ages, the Roman Empire was in tatters, and the Greek language was all but forgotten, until a group of twelfth-century scholars rediscovered and translated the works of Aristotle. His ideas spread like wildfire across Europe, offering the scientific view that the natural world, including the soul of man, was a proper subject of study. The rediscovery of these ancient ideas sparked riots and heresy trials, caused major upheavals in the Catholic Ch...

New York Times bestselling biographer Barbara Leaming has written a riveting political dramaof the last ten years of Winston Churchill's public life.In Churchill Defiant, Leaming tells the tumultuous behind-the-scenes story of Churchill's refusal to retire after his 1945 electoral defeat, and the bare-knuckled political and personal battles that ensued. Her ground-breaking biography Jack Kennedy: The Education of a Statesman, was the first to detail Churc...

Slave narratives are extremely rare. Of the one hundred or so of these testimonies that survive, a mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group.Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both es...

John Ford’s The Searchers defined the spirit of America, influenced a generation of filmmakers, and was named the Greatest Western Movie of All Time by the American Film Institute in 2008. Now, the novel that gave birth to the film returns—a timeless work of vivid, raw Western fiction and a no-holds-barred portrait of the real American frontier.From the moment they left their homestead unguarded on that scorching Texas day, Martin Pauley and Amos Edwards became searchers. First the...

“Ideas are the greatest and most crucially practical power on earth.”—Ayn RandOne of the most controversial figures on the intellectual scene, Ayn Rand was the proponent of a moral philosophy of rational self-interest that stands in sharp opposition to the ethics of altruism and self-sacrifice. Her unique philosophy, Objectivism, has gained a worldwide following. The fundamentals of this morality are vibrantly set forth here by this spokesman for a new class of intellectual. For th...

The aim of this work is not a history of events but an account of the achievement and spirit of Greece.“What the Greeks discovered, how they brought a new world to birth out of the dark confusions of an old world that had crumbled away, is full of meaning for us today who have seen an old world swept away.”In The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton shares the fruits of her thorough study of Greek life, literature, philosophy, and art. She interprets their meaning and brings ...

A new biography exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s wartime experiences and their impact on his life and his writing of The Lord of The Rings.“To be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than in 1939 … by 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead.”So J.R.R. Tolkien responded to critics who saw The Lord of the Rings as a reaction to the Second World War. Tolkien and the Great War tells for the first time the full story of how he emb...

Adam Smith wrote that man has an intrinsic "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another." But how did trade evolve to the point where we don't think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world?In A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He transports readers from ancient sailing ships that brought the sil...