‘Machiavellian’ can signify duplicity and amorality in politics, but Machiavelli himself is far more complex than this cliché. A high-ranking Florentine government official and prolific writer of hugely influential political, military and historical works, Machiavelli was also a vernacular poet, first-rank dramatist and religious radical, rejecting not only the contemporary Catholic Church but Christianity itself. From champion of Florentine popular republicanism to political radical to co...

This is a manual that seeks to engage thoughtful but biblically focused and informed scholarship on worship. Dr. Black teaches about the 3T’s of worship-Transparency, Transformation and Transition. In simplistic form, worship expresses to God His worth and supreme value. It is the full expression of the heart (mind, soul and will) that suggests, a relational commitment and surrender to God, expressed in an act of obedience, submission, and declaration. Questions covered are what is worship...

Choices: God's and Ours is a collection of stories and thoughts about how God's choices and our choices work together to advance His Kingdom. Written from the perspective of practical theology, the book is intended to help readers better understand the heart of God for us and the unlimited potential that exists when our moral will is aligned with His sovereign will.

Imagine that you’re working late at night on a project due in the morning. Your body is tired and your mind is numb, but this project must get done, so you push on. You continue to work, despite the distinct feeling that the project would be much easier if you went to bed and approached it again in the morning. You feel obligated to do it now, so you stay up until the wee hours of the morning, producing less than desirable work in much more time than it would have taken with a rested mind....

If you enjoyed Lewis Carroll's books "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there", this is the book for you! Finally, there is a third story in the 'Alice' series - written in Carroll's familiar style, but packed with a great number of completely new puns, poems, and satire!This time, Alice explores an under-water world, in which she meets new characters who again make her wonder about their strange logic and behaviour.The st...

Dante Moretti is not the kind of man who loses composure. He has spent his entire adult life building a version of himself that doesn't — the don, the wolf, the man who reads every room before he enters it and never lets what he finds there move him in ways he hasn't authorized. He is very good at this. He knows exactly how good he is, because the work requires it, and the work always demands what it demands.He crossed paths with Eli Vasquez six months ago. Once. One night, a colli...

Wine is one of the most celebrated and appreciated commodities around the world. Wine writers and scientists tell us much about varieties of wines, winegrowing estates, the commercial value and the biochemistry of wine, but seldom address the cultural, social, and historical conditions through which wine is produced and represented. This path-breaking collection of essays by leading anthropologists looks not only at the product but also beyond this to disclose important social and cultural...

It was about four in the afternoon when a young girl came into the salon of the little hotel at C— — in Switzerland, and drew her chair up to the fire.

This broadly adopted textbook weds literary and historical approaches to focus on the New Testaments structure and meaning. Anatomy of the New Testament is systematic, critical, and reliable in its scope and content.This Seventh Edition has been revised throughout to take account of current trends in scholarship and to discuss important interpretative issues, such as the Gospel of Thomas. Each chapter includes two new features:Have You Learned It?

When you run, your head bounces violently up, down, and side to side. Yet, the world you see remains perfectly stable, crisp, and in focus. If you were holding a camera while running, the footage would be a blurry, nauseating mess. So how does human vision defeat the chaotic physics of motion? The answer lies in one of the fastest and most crucial neurological circuits in the body: the Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex (VOR). This microscopic biological gyroscope operates entirely without your consc...

The new world order as it stood after the apparent end of the Cold War and the collapse of the USSR was greeted with enthusiasm and optimism almost everywhere, but especially in the West. Less than a quarter century later that optimism has faded dramatically, with the rise of populism, nationalism, religious extremism and civil discord disrupting political and social norms around the world. This book reveals the extent to which events that began as internal political crises in Europe, the ...

The fifteen articles republished here exemplify the many directions Robert Black's research in Renaissance studies has taken. The first five studies look at Renaissance humanism, in particular at its origins, and the concept of the Renaissance as well as the theory and practice of historical writing. Black also updates his monograph on the Florentine chancellor, Benedetto Accolti. Machiavelli is the subject of three articles, focusing on his education and career in the Florentine chancery....