The work is both a study of Anglo-Norman history and a biography of a man whose personal career was spectacular, and as reviewers have remarked, it is distinguished by a wealth of scholarship linked to a lucid and agreeable style.

    Parlour games. Cocktails. Welcome to a glorious journey through the golden age of the country house party - and you are invited. Our host, celebrated historian Adrian Tinniswood, traces the evolution of this quintessentially British pastime from debauched royal tours to the flamboyant excess of the Bright Young Things. With cameos by the Jazz Age industrialist, the bibulous earl and the off-duty politician - whether in moated manor houses or ornate Palladian villas - Tinniswood gives a vivid insight into weekending etiquette and reveals the hidden lives of celebrity guests, from Nancy Astor to Winston Churchill, in all their drinking, feasting, gambling and fornicating. The result is a deliciously entertaining, star-studded, yet surprisingly moving portrait of a time when social conventions were being radically overhauled through the escapism of a generation haunted by war - and a uniquely fast-living period of English history. Praise for The Long Weekend:'Delicious, occasionally fantastical, revealing in ways that Downton Abbey never was. It is as if Tinniswood is at the biggest, wildest, most luxuriantly decadent party ever thrown, and he knows everyone.' Observer 'A deliciously jaunty and wonderfully knowledgeable book. Tinniswood displays a terrific insider's grasp of gossip . A meticulous, irresistible story.' Spectator 'Elegant, encyclopedic and entertaining . A confident and skilled historian who understands the mores of his era and wears his learning lightly . Deserves to be on every costume drama producer's bookshelf.' Times

    Even before their epic pitching duel, Marichal and Spahn already had a lot in common. Future Hall of Famers with high-kicking deliveries, they were shaped into winners by character-building experiences in the military. Spahn had been baseball's most winning pitcher in the 1950s, and Marichal would be equally dominant in the 1960s. The Braves' Spahn and the Giants' Marichal began their duel in San Francisco's cold and windy Candlestick Park. Four hours later, the two pitching legends were deadlocked in a scoreless tie when Willie Mays hit a walk-off home run to end the greatest game ever pitched. In between, Marichal and Spahn each threw more than 200 pitches and went 16 innings without relief. Considering today's culture of pitch counts and coddled arms, it was proved to be a legendary night that won't be repeated ever again.

    Edmunds, in the region of West Suffolk--affords many unique insights into the life of a medieval religious community. It depicts the daily worship in the abbey church and the beliefs and values shared by the monks, as well as the whispered conversations, rumors, and disagreements within the cloister--and the bustling life of the market-town of Bury, just outside the abbey walls. This edition offers the first modern translation from the Latin to appear since 1949.

    Specializing in the Mediterranean world and naval topics, Bradford was an enthusiastic sailor himself and spent almost thirty years sailing the Mediterranean, where many of his acclaimed books are set. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, finishing as the first lieutenant of a destroyer, and afterward worked as an editor and correspondent for the BBC.Now, his engaging series of military histories is available to a new generation of readers. Constantinople, jewel of the East, whose Roman emperor embraced Christianity and transformed a fanatic cult into the most powerful religion the world had ever known. The city became itself a center of art, culture, and commerce and the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Yet, when the forces of Islam swept the Holy Land and captured Jerusalem, the avenging Christian crusaders set their eyes on Constantinople, attacked, and sacked it. The war pitted Christian against Christian, severing Rome’s Eastern capital from its Western one. The Fourth Crusade spelled the decline and ultimate doom of the Holy Roman Empire. In The Great Betrayal, Bradford brings to life this powerful tale of envy, greed, and betrayal.

    

    

    He demonstrates that the barbarian world of the Goths was both a creation of and an essential element of the late Roman Empire.

    It is an undoubted fact that, were it not for the work of Alfred, there might never have been the possibility of an English kingdom in the sense that we now understand it. It is also true that Athelstan was the first explicitly to rule over an English kingdom in roughly its present shape and extent. What, then, was the contribution of Edward to the evolution of what his son was to inherit? As a child, he saw his father at the lowest point of his fortunes; as a boy, he grew up under the constant threat of further Danish invasion. Edward came to adulthood in the knowledge that it was his responsibility to safeguard his country. By his death, he was undoubtedly the most powerful and respected ruler, not only in England but in western Europe, and he achieved this through both martial and legislative prowess. Edward built on his father’s work but he immeasurably expanded it, and the chroniclers who wrote in the centuries which immediately followed his death remembered him as ‘greatly excelling his father in extent of power’. Edward the Elder succeeded Alfred as king of the Anglo-Saxons; he died as king of the English. And yet virtually nothing has been written about him. Until now. While biographies of Alfred and studies of the achievements of Athelstan pour from the press, Edward is forgotten. Yet he was the first ruler to leave behind him the possibility of a united England, a country in which men thought of themselves as English, speaking a language which all would have described as English, which had never existed in quite this form before. Anyone looking to fully understand and appreciate the making of medieval England must look to understand and appreciate Edward the Elder and his reign.

    56-ca. 120) became an orator, married in 77 Julius Agricola's daughter before Agricola went to Britain, was quaestor in 81 or 82, a senator under the Flavians & a praetor in 88. After four years' absence he experienced the terrors of Domitian's last years & turned to historical writing. He was a consul in 97. Close friend of the younger Pliny, they successfully prosecuted Marius Priscus. Works: (i) Life & Character of Agricola, written 97/8, interesting because of Agricola's career in Britain. (ii) Germania (98/9), an important description of the geography, anthropology, products, institutions, social life of the German tribes as known to the Romans. (iii) Dialogue on Oratory of unknown date; a lively conversation about the decline of oratory & education. (iv) Histories (probably issued in parts from 105 onwards), a work originally consisting of at least 12 books covering the period 69-96, but only I-IV & part of V survive, dealing in detail with the dramatic years 69-70. (v) Annals, originally covering the period 14-68 (Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, Nero) & published between 115-ca. 120. Of at least 16 books, there survive I-IV (covering 14-28); a bit of V & all VI (31-37); part of XI (from 47); XII-XV & part of XVI (to 66). Tacitus is renowned for his development of a pregnant concise style, character study & psychological analysis, & for the often terrible story which he brilliantly tells. As a historian of the early Roman empire he is paramount. The Loeb Classical Library edition is in five volumes.

    Following what was then conventional practice among church reformers, the Pope referred to his war of liberation as Christ's own war, to be fought in accordance with God's will and intentions.Urban II called this a war of liberation for two reasons: one, to free the church of Jerusalem from oppression and pillage by the Muslims and to liberate western churches in general; and two, to free the city of Jerusalem from the servitude into which it has fallen. This summons of the lay knight to the faith between 1095 and 1096 was Urban II's personal response to an appeal that had reached him from eastern Christians.In this classic work, Jonathan Riley-Smith, today one of the world's most renowned crusade historians, approaches this central and well-known topic of medieval history with freshness and impeccable research. Through the vivid presentation of a wide range of European chronicles and charter collections, Riley-Smith provides a striking illumination of crusader motives and responses and a thoughtful analysis of the mechanisms that made this expedition successful.

    Granted unmatched access by Ammon Bundy to the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Pogue met ranchers ready to die fighting the federal government.He witnessed the fallout of communities riven by politics and the danger (and allure) of unyielding belief. The occupation ended in the shooting death of one rancher, the imprisonment of dozens more, and a firestorm over the role of government that engulfed national headlines. In a raw and restless narrative that roams the same wild terrain as his literary forebears Edward Abbey and Hunter S. Thompson, Pogue examines the underpinnings of this rural resistance and struggles to reconcile his sympathies with his reservations, tracing a cultural fault line that spans the nation.

    It is a very large story, for conversion encompassed much more than religious belief. With it came enormous cultural change: Latin literacy and books, Roman notions of law and property, and the concept of town life, as well as new tastes in food, drink, and dress. Whether from faith or by force, from self-interest or by revelation, conversion had an immense impact that is with us even today. It is Richard Fletcher's achievement in this superb work that he makes that impact both felt and understood.

    Gerda Panofsky-Soergel has updated the commentary in the light of new material, and the bibliography that she has prepared reflects the scholarship on St.-Denis in the last three decades. She has obtained some additional and more recent photographs, and the illustrations include a new ground plan and a new section of the chevet of the Abbey Church, both drawn under the supervision of Sumner McKnight Crosby.

    It sets out to help intelligent adults make sense of the Bible – a book that is too large to swallow whole, yet too important in our history and culture to spit out.Why do the creation stories in Genesis contradict each other? Did the Exodus really happen? Was King David a historical figure? Why is Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus so different from Luke’s? Why was St Paul so rude about St Peter?Every Biblical author wrote for their own time, and their own audience. In short, nothing in the Bible is quite what it seems.Literary critic Simon Loveday’s book – a labour of love that has taken over a decade to write – is a thrilling read, for Christians and anyone else, which will overturn everything you thought you knew about the Good Book.Simon Loveday trained as an anthropologist and a literary critic, teaching at UEA and Oxford. He also edited the psychological journal Typeface and wrote The Romances of John Fowles. He now lectures at Keele University and lives in Wells, Somerset. (He enjoys long train journeys.) He is a keen cyclist and former Chair of the Wells Festival of Literature.‘Loveday’s case is that the mantle of historical truth and divine authority has placed upon the Bible an intolerable weight, crushing it as a creative work of immense imaginative and inspirational power. His argument is both fascinating and persuasive.’ Matthew Parris The Times