The Broken Scepter: Babylon, Assyria, and the Collapse of an AgeIn the closing years of the second millennium BC, a Babylonian king seized his throne by murdering his own nephew, won a stunning victory over Assyria's captured gods, and then watched fire, drought, and famine undo everything he built. The Broken Scepter tells the story of Marduk-nādin-aḫḫē, the sixth king of Babylon's Second Dynasty of Isin, whose eighteen-year reign carried his kingdom from the wrec...

From the earliest days of rock and roll, white artists regularly achieved fame, wealth, and success that eluded the Black artists whose work had preceded and inspired them. This dynamic continued into the 1960s, even as the music and its fans grew to be more engaged with political issues regarding race. In Tear Down the Walls, Patrick Burke tells the story of white American and British rock musicians' engagement with Black Power politics and African American music during the volat...

Although experience is the best teacher, it's also the most costly. Learning business lessons the hard way, through your own mistakes, often results in significant downturns or even failure. Business success doesn't require a fabulous new product or service (doesn't hurt, though) but does require avoiding the big mistakes. I made most of these big mistakes myself and barely lived to tell about it. So please do as I say and not as I did. Read on to learn business lessons the easy way and ac...

Many of the best companies, like top recording artists, are solo acts. Just as recording artists need a room full of other musicians and technicians to create their best music, sole owners need a team to produce and sell their product. Ultimately, however for solo acts it is their music and for the sole owner it is their business. Remember for every Lennon and McCartney there is a Bob Dylan or Billy Joel. If, like a great front man, you are your business's differentiating factor and your t...

If your business is stalled and you find you're spending more time solving problems than executing growth strategies, it's time to answer the 20 High-Performance Questions. Honest answers will map your business' route to your new destination of high profit and durable value while leaving your competition in the dust. In a business environment where growing profits is considered unattainable and flat is the new up, Patrick Burke sees opportunity. Now, when your competitors are struggling, i...

Curriculum integration disrupts traditional subject-by-subject structures in favour of more interdisciplinary approaches. While cross-curricular teaching and learning has promise, pathways to classroom practice are not always straightforward. In a rich exploration of curriculum integration, this book brings together global perspectives to examine its theoretical foundations and practical applications. The need to create meaningful learning experiences to support student achievement is prio...

THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE BRAM STOKER AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF SOUR CANDY**"A lonely island, a fog rolling in, missing fishermen, and a hideous evil emerges from the sea…**The Widows of Winding Gale is pitch-perfect, spine-tingling horror. Burke gives a master class in isolation and dread, so chilling that the author should take a bow at the end." — Christopher Golden, New York Times bestselling author of

From the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Turtle Boy, Kin, and Sour Candy, comes a collection of eleven stories designed to shred your nerves.You can tell yourself that sound you heard outside the house on Halloween night was nothing. You can pretend you didn't see that awful thing in the middle of the road while you were jogging. You can even ignore the old man sitting in the yard who claims he must keep watch on a door that nobody else can see. And you can act like you don...

There is a number; you likely have the figure in mind. You know, the number that results in zero financial worries for the rest of your life if invested wisely. It's the number that provides exit velocity from the gravitational pull of your financial needs. You also know, absent a winning lottery ticket or an unexpected inheritance, your present job isn't going to provide enough thrust or trajectory to get you to your desired financial altitude. There is likely something else you know, eve...

From the outside, it looks like an ordinary American home, but since its construction in 1956, people have vanished as soon as they go upstairs, the only clues the things they leave behind: a wedding ring, a phone...an eye.In its sixty-year history, a record number of strange events have been attributed to the house, from the neighbors waking up to find themselves standing in the yard outside, to the grieving man who vanished before a police officer's eyes. The animals gathering in...

On a scorching hot summer day in Elkwood, Alabama, Claire Lambert staggers naked, wounded, and half-blind away from the scene of an atrocity. She is the sole survivor of a nightmare that claimed her friends, and even as she prays for rescue, the killers — a family of cannibalistic lunatics — are closing in.A soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder returns from Iraq to the news that his brother is among the murdered in Elkwood.In snowbound Detroit, a waitress t...

At first glance, Phil Pendleton and his son Adam are just an ordinary father and son, no different from any other. They take walks in the park together, visit county fairs, museums, and zoos, and eat overlooking the lake. Some might say the father is a little too accommodating given the lack of discipline when the child loses his temper in public. Some might say he spoils his son by allowing him to set his own bedtimes and eat candy whenever he wants. Some might say that such leniency is s...