In the West particularly, sizable tomes have been composed speculating upon the nature and historical background of one of the main characters of Western religions, Jesus Christ. Many have tried to dig into the precious few clues as to Jesus's identity and come up with a biographical sketch that either bolsters faith or reveals a more human side of this godman to which we can all relate. Obviously, considering the time and energy spent on them, the subjects of Christianity and its legendary founder are very important to the Western mind and culture, and increasingly to the rest of the world as well.Despite all of this literature continuously being cranked out and the significance of the issue, in the public at large there remains a serious lack of formal and broad education regarding religion and mythology, and most individuals are highly uninformed in this area. Concerning the issue of Christianity, for example, the majority of people are taught in most schools and churches that Jesus Christ was an actual historical figure and that the only controversy regarding him is that some people accept him as the Son of God and the Messiah, while others do not. However, whereas this is the raging debate most evident in this field today, it is not the most important. Shocking as it may seem to the general populace, the most enduring and profound controversy in this subject is whether or not a person named Jesus Christ ever really existed.ContentsIntroductionThe ControversyHistory and Positions of the Debate"Pious Fraud"The ProofThe GnosticsBiblical SourcesNon-Biblical SourcesThe CharactersThe Major PlayersBuddhaBuddha's BirthBuddhist CrucifixionHorus of EgyptMithra, Sun God of PersiaMithra's "Virgin" Birth?Mithra and the TwelveKrishna of IndiaKrishna's "Virgin" Birth?The Names of Krishna and ChristKrishna's Solar NaturePrometheus of GreeceThe Creation of a MythThe "Son" of God is the "Sun" of GodEtymology Tells the StoryThe Book of Revelation is Egyptian and ZoroastrianThe "Patriarchs" and "Saints" are the Gods of Other CulturesThe "Disciples" are the Signs of the ZodiacWas Jesus an Essene Master?Qumran is Not an Essene CommunityWas the New Testament Composed by Therapeuts?ConclusionBibliographyEndnotes

    With reference to the Indian scene.

    Drout submerses listeners in poetry's past, present, and future, addressing such poets as Milton, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, and explaining in simple terms what poetry is while following its development through the centuries.

    There, one man and his five brilliant sons made their fortune as court agents to a royal prince. It would take Napoleon’s earth-shattering quest to conquer Europe to scatter the five brothers to the four winds, but when the dust of war settled, there was a Rothschild brother and a Rothschild bank in five cities: London, Paris, Frankfurt, Naples, and Vienna. The era of haute finance had begun, and the legend of a banking dynasty more powerful than any royal family in history was established. In this book, you will follow the progress of the Rothschild family through the centuries. Their ranks included not only bankers and financiers but doctors, scientists, bomb experts, and collectors who amassed not only some of the finest art collections in Europe, but also one of the finest bug collections. Find out for yourself how the Rothschilds prevented wars, crowned and uncrowned kings, helped win the battle of Waterloo, looked down their noses at Nazis, and established a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

    Whether it is Hannibal of Carthage marching elephants across the Alps and attacking the heart of Rome, Khalid ibn al-Walid boasting an undefeated military career and destroying the Persian Empire while subduing the Byzantines, or Russian General Alexander Suvurov and his elevation of the bayonet to a work of art that could cut down any European army, great military leaders have exerted tremendous influence on society. This book will look at the lives of the ten greatest military commanders in history. Some conquered the fullest expanse of the known world, as did Alexander the Great. Still others were master statesmen and capable of translating military victory into long-term political gains, such as Julius Caesar, whose vanquishing of the Gauls and his political opponents laid the groundwork for several centuries of unmatchable Roman imperial might. It will also look at the tactics they used to bring down stronger armies and befuddle them at every turn; whether it is Napoleon, who nearly conquered Europe through his deadly manoeuvre sur les derrieres and marching unexpectedly away from the enemy's main strength and concentrating on a weak but vital enemy point; or Hannibal's double entrapment maneuver, which has been the envy of military strategists for the last 2,000 years. Whatever their background, these rulers show that the right military commander at the right time in history can destroy an empire, change civilization, and alter the course of world history forever.

    It’s a decision Huck’s creator already had made, albeit for somewhat different reasons, a quarter of a century earlier. He wasn’t even Mark Twain then, but as Huck might have said, “That ain’t no matter.” With the Civil War spreading across his native Missouri, twenty-five-year-old Samuel Clemens, suddenly out of work as a Mississippi riverboat pilot, gladly accepted his brother Orion’s offer to join him in Nevada Territory, far from the crimsoned battlefields of war.A rollicking, hilarious stagecoach journey across the Great Plains and over the Rocky Mountains was just the beginning of a nearly six-year-long odyssey that took Samuel Clemens from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Hawaii, with lengthy stopovers in Virginia City, Nevada, and San Francisco. By the time it was over, he would find himself reborn as Mark Twain, America’s best-loved, most influential writer. The “trouble,” as he famously promised, had begun.With a pitch-perfect blend of appreciative humor and critical authority, acclaimed literary biographer Roy Morris, Jr., sheds new light on this crucial but still largely unexamined period in Mark Twain’s life. Morris carefully sorts fact from fiction—never an easy task when dealing with Twain—to tell the story of a young genius finding his voice in the ramshackle mining camps, boomtowns, and newspaper offices of the wild and woolly West, while the Civil War rages half a continent away.With the frequent help of Twain’s own words, Morris follows his subject on a winding journey of selfdiscovery filled with high adventure and low comedy, as Clemens/Twain dodges Indians and gunfighters, receives marriage advice from Brigham Young, burns down a mountain with a frying pan, gets claim-jumped by rival miners, narrowly avoids fighting a duel, hikes across the floor of an active volcano, becomes one of the first white men to try the ancient Hawaiian sport of surfing, and writes his first great literary success, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”Lighting Out for the Territory is a fascinating, even inspiring, account of how an unemployed riverboat pilot, would-be Confederate guerrilla, failed prospector, neophyte newspaper reporter, and parttime San Francisco aesthete reinvented himself as America’s most famous and beloved writer. It’s a good story, and mostly true—with some stretchers thrown in for good measure.

    At a time when South Africa was a place inhabited by the toughest of men, only those who lived in the saddle with a gun in their hands could possibly survive. Inside you will read about... ✓ The Creation of the Boer ✓ Growing Tensions ✓ Colley Steps In ✓ The End of the First War ✓ The Jameson Raid ✓ Stage One: The Boer Offensive ✓ Stage Two: The Empire Strikes Back ✓ Stage Three: Scorched Earth ✓ The End of the Boer Who were the Boers, and what was the conflict that would lead them into a fight to the death with England in the First and Second Anglo-Boer wars? Was this a colonial uprising? Or a freedom-fight gone horribly wrong?

    New York Times bestselling author Roger Stone lashes out with a blistering indictment, exposing the true history and monumental hypocrisy of the Bushes. In Stone’s usual “go for the jugular” style, this is a no-holds-barred history of the Bush family, comprised of smug, entitled autocrats who both use and hide behind their famous name. They got a long-overdue taste of defeat and public humiliation when Jeb’s 2016 presidential bid went down in flames.Besides detailing the vast litany of Jeb’s misdeeds — including receiving a $4 million taxpayer bailout when his father was vice president as well as his startlingly-close alignment with supposed “enemy” Hillary Clinton — Stone travels back to Bush patriarchs Samuel and Prescott, right on through to presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush to weave an epic story of privilege, greed, corruption, drug profiteering, assassination, and lies. A new preface to this paperback edition features explosive information, including the family’s Machiavellian plan to propel Jeb’s son George Prescott Bush forward as the family’s next political contender.The Bush Crime Family will have readers asking, “Why aren’t these people in prison?”

    With enormous intelligence and enthusiasm, he guides the reader through this vastly complex and rich tradition, finely balancing historical background with highly informed criticism. Daiches' groundbreaking work is essential reading for all lovers of literature.

    Proven with mathematics this book describes genuine ancient knowledge that conflicts with modern science but upholds the Biblical story of Genesis.

    Over the years these authoritative, critically acclaimed editions have been the preferred choice of more than three million readers for personal libraries and individual study as well as for classroom use.

    For it is but the record of the public and official acts of human beings. It is our object, therefore, to humanize our history and deal with people past and present; people who ate and possibly drank; people who were born, flourished, and died. And if we cannot laugh at ourselves, then we are condemned to repeat the very same deeds of the past.

    Brown" and "Shakespeare in Love" "What the film Shakespeare in Love has done to make Shakespeare the man accessible to a general audience, this book will do to make Shakespeare the writer enjoyable." --Charlotte J.Headrick, PhD, Professor and Director, Theater Arts, Oregon State UniversityDoes the thought of sitting through A Midsummer Night's Dream give you nightmares? Did Romeo and Juliet seem like a foreign film--without the subtitles? As John Doyle and Ray Lischner prove in this uniquely accessible guide, Shakespeare is not only the greatest writer who ever lived, he's also a great entertainer--once you get a handle on his wild plots and witty wordplay. Under their guidance, you'll:Go inside an Elizabethan theater--and find out how they managed with almost no seats, no roof and no women onstage Get a handle on Shakespeare's language--including all those racy puns and jokes Maximize your enjoyment of his plays and poetry Identify contemporary idioms and phrases that come from Shakespeare's plays Find Shakespeare festivals and performances in your area Catch ten of the best show ever made of the Bard's plays and meet ten of the greatest Shakespearean actors of all time In simple, straightforward language, this friendly guide eases you into the wild, wonderful world of Shakespeare. With the help of snappy summaries and scorecards that help you keep track of who's who, who's in love with whom, and who's killed whom in every play, it helps you:Understand Shakespeare the person, his life and times and what makes him so special Make sense of Shakespearean language and why it sounds the way it does Get the inside track on the kinds of stories, characters and settings found in Shakespeare's plays Appreciate Shakespeare's sonnets and other non-dramatic poetry A royal feast for the head and heart, Shakespeare's works have been thrilling audiences for four centuries, as they will four hundred years from now. Now let Shakespeare For Dummies help you to enjoy one the world's great literary treasures.

    "What Lenny Bruce was to the 1950s, Bob Dylan to the 1960s, Woody Allen to the 1970s--that's what Eric Bogosian is to this frightening moment of drift in our history."--Frank Rich, The New York Times

    Home to the city's drifters, misfits and the odd bohemian, it was a place of opium dens, divebars, brothels, flophouses and cabarets, and was infamous for its ability to satisfy every human desire from the exotically entertaining to the criminally depraved.These vignettes of eight non-Chinese residents of the precinct – White Russians, Americans and Europeans – bring the Badlands vividly back to life, providing a short but potent account of a place and a way of life until now largely forgotten, but here rendered unforgettable.