The name evokes grandeur and exoticism - gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire's millennium - long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium - what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today.Bringing the latest scholarship to a general audience in accessible prose, Herrin focuses each short chapter around a representative theme, event, monument, or historical figure, and examines it within the full sweep of Byzantine history - from the foundation of Constantinople, the magnificent capital city built by Constantine the Great, to its capture by the Ottoman Turks.She argues that Byzantium's crucial role as the eastern defender of Christendom against Muslim expansion during the early Middle Ages made Europe - and the modern Western world - possible. Herrin captivates us with her discussions of all facets of Byzantine culture and society. She walks us through the complex ceremonies of the imperial court. She describes the transcendent beauty and power of the church of Hagia Sophia, as well as chariot races, monastic spirituality, diplomacy, and literature. She reveals the fascinating worlds of military usurpers and ascetics, eunuchs and courtesans, and artisans who fashioned the silks, icons, ivories, and mosaics so readily associated with Byzantine art.An innovative history written by one of our foremost scholars, Byzantium reveals this great civilization's rise to military and cultural supremacy, its spectacular destruction by the Fourth Crusade, and its revival and final conquest in 1453.

    The editor's lucid introductions preface articles by such important contemporary writers as Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, Robert Merrihew Adams, William Alston, Gary Gutting, and Stephen T. Davis.

    F. Skinner and the legend of a child raised in a box, Slater takes us from a deep empathy with Stanley Milgram's obedience subjects to a funny and disturbing re-creation of an experiment questioning the validity of psychiatric diagnosis. Previously described only in academic journals and textbooks, these often daring experiments have never before been narrated as stories, chock-full of plot, wit, personality, and theme.

    Classical scholar Stephen Kershaw retells and explores Greek myths - both the famous as well as the long forgotten including Theseus and the Minotaur, Jason and the Argonauts and the death of Achilles - and shows how their power has resonated over the centuries from Renaissance painting to the poets of the Great War.

    Hard to Find book

    You’ll discover picturesque lanes, enjoy the best city views, and tour outlying islands in the lagoon. Dine at a romantic canal-side restaurant, or join the locals at a characteristic cicchetti bar and munch seafood-on-a-toothpick. As the stars shine over St. Mark’s Square, sway to the free music of café orchestras.Rick’s candid, humorous advice will guide you to good-value hotels and restaurants. You’ll learn how to explore Venice hassle-free and get up-to-date advice on what’s worth your time and money. More than just reviews and directions, a Rick Steves guidebook is a tour guide in your pocket.

    We tend to think of the Romans as a pragmatic people with a ruthlessly efficient army, an exemplary legal system, and a precise and elegant language. A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities shows that the Romans were equally capable of bizarre superstitions, logic-defying customs, and often hilariously derisive views of their fellow Romans and non-Romans.Classicist J. C. McKeown has organized the entries in this entertaining volume around major themes--The Army, Women, Religion and Superstition, Family Life, Medicine, Slaves, Spectacles--allowing for quick browsing or more deliberate consumption.For anyone seeking an inglorious glimpse at the underside of the greatest empire in history, A Cabinet of Roman Curiosities offers endless delights.

    Now updated to include the results of new research, together with significant contributions from the 1990s. Includes writings by critics, philosophers, politicians and literary figures. The editors provide contextual introductions to 340 texts. Complements Art in Theory, 1648–1815 and Art in Theory, 1815–1900 to create a complete survey of the theories underpinning the development of art in the modern period.

    In each hour of the day we meet a new character - from emperor to slave girl, gladiator to astrologer, medicine woman to water-clock maker - and discover the fascinating details of their daily lives.

    Bundy's chilling revelations were chronicled in "The Riverman," "a page-turner" (Ted Montgomery, Detroit News ) praised by Ann Rule as "the definitive book on serials." But Ted Bundy wasn't the first killer of his kind - or the last "Signature Killers"They leave telltale identifiers, their gruesome "calling cards, " at the scenes of their crime. They are driven by a primitive motivation to act out the same brutality over and over. With brilliant detection, high-tech analysis - and a little luck - they can be caught. But what does the signature killer seek from victim to victim? The answers are hidden among the grisly evidence, the common threads that link each devastating act.Sparked by a growing concern over the steady rise of signature murders, Robert Keppel explores in unflinching detail the monstrous patterns, sadistic compulsions, and depraved motives of this breed of killer. From the Lonely Hearts Killer who hunted the most desperate of women in 1950s America, to the savage Midtown Torso Murders that stunned the NYPD, to such infamous symbols of evil as Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and John Gacy, these are the cases - horrifying, graphic and unforgettable - that Keppel ingeniously taps to shed light on the darkest corners of the pathological mind.

    That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.The copying and translation of this ancient book—the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age—fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.

    Starting with Ptolemy, "father of modern geography," and ending with satellite cartography, A History of the World in 12 Maps brings maps from classical Greece, Renaissance Europe, and the Islamic and Buddhist worlds to life and reveals their influence on how we—literally—look at our present world. As Brotton shows, the long road to our present geographical reality was rife with controversy, manipulation, and special interests trumping science. Through the centuries maps have been wielded to promote any number of imperial, religious, and economic agendas, and have represented the idiosyncratic and uneasy fusion of science and subjectivity. Brotton also conjures the worlds that produced these notable works of cartography and tells the stories of those who created, used, and misused them for their own ends.

    Thomas G. Brophy, PhD, focuses on the mysterious Nabta Playa site in southern Egypt and its connection to African history. Intrepid explorer of ancient America Frank Joseph covers archeological scandals and attempts to suppress evidence, including the SmithsonianGÇÖs GÇ£lossGÇ¥ of Maya skulls discovered in the Aleutian Islands. Researcher Steven Sora, author of The Lost Colony, delves into evidence that Scotland's Picts originated in North America and were connected to the ancient Micmac tribe of the Americas.

    Why spend time wandering around a country that remains a sort of dead zone for many foreigners, surrounded as it is by a force field of historical, linguistic, climatic, and gastronomic barriers? Winder's book is propelled by a wish to reclaim the brilliant, chaotic, endlessly varied German civilization that the Nazis buried and ruined, and that, since 1945, so many Germans have worked to rebuild.Germania is a very funny book on serious topics — how we are misled by history, how we twist history, and how sometimes it is best to know no history at all. It is a book full of curiosities: odd food, castles, mad princes, fairy tales, and horse-mating videos. It is about the limits of language, the meaning of culture, and the pleasure of townscape.

    When all was said and done, Gilbert Joseph Bland, Jr., had become the Al Capone of cartography. 20 illustrations throughout.