The story of how this group of warriors, driven byfaith, greed, and wanderlust, created new Christian-ruled states in parts of the Middle East is one of the best-known in history. Yet it is offers not even half of the story, for it is based almost exclusively on Western sources and overlooks entirely the perspective of the crusaded. How didmedieval Muslims perceive what happened?In The Race for Paradise, Paul M. Cobb offers a new history of the confrontations between Muslims and Franks we now call the Crusades, one that emphasizes the diversity of Muslim experiences of the European holy war. There is more to the story than Jerusalem, the Templars, Saladin, and theAssassins. Cobb considers the Arab perspective on all shores of the Muslim Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria. In the process, he shows that this is not a straightforward story of warriors and kings clashing in the Holy Land, but a more complicated tale of border-crossers and turncoats; ofembassies and merchants; of scholars and spies, all of them seeking to manage a new threat from the barbarian fringes of their ordered world. When seen from the perspective of medieval Muslims, the Crusades emerge as something altogether different from the high-flying rhetoric of the Europeanchronicles: as a cultural encounter to ponder, a diplomatic chess-game to be mastered, a commercial opportunity to be seized, and as so often happened, a political challenge to be exploited by ambitious rulers making canny use of the language of jihad.An engrossing synthesis of history and scholarship, The Race for Paradise fills a significant historical gap, considering in a new light the events that distinctively shaped Muslim experiences of Europeans until the close of the Middle Ages.

    WHO WAS THOMAS PAINE?Thomas Paine is known as one of the Fathers of the American Revolution. His landmark work, ‘Common Sense’, is known as the major inspiration for the ‘Declaration of Independence’, and his ‘Crisis’ pamphlet series was a favourite of George Washington to read out loud to inspire his troops at Valley Forge.Paine’s work is passionate, radical, yet accessible; covering his strong beliefs in Independence, Personal Liberty, Politics, Religion and Government. Hugely successful and inspiring strong polarisation in their times, they are still must-reads today, still highly debated and revered.THE 'MUST-HAVE' COMPLETE COLLECTIONIn this irresistible collection you get a full set of this amazing work.YOU GET:*COMMON SENSE - the famous work that inspired the American colonists with a demand and call for freedom from British rule. Also notable, that when adjusted for the population size of 1776, ‘Common Sense’ has the largest sales and circulation of any book in American history.*THE AMERICAN CRISIS - a series of pamphlets published from 1776 to 1783 written to motivate the Troops during the revolution, to spur them to victory. The language is powerful and emotional, and reflects Paine's liberal philosophies. The first lines are the famous: “These are times that try men’s souls.”*THE RIGHTS OF MAN (PART I and PART II) – a radical set of books that argues that political revolution is required when a government does not safeguard its people.*THE AGE OF REASON (PART I and PART II) - a deistic work, about institutionalized religion, and Paine’s strong views concerning it.*LETTERS and MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS – A FULL SET of Paine’s must-read letters and assorted short works from Paine, Including his famous ‘LETTER TO GEORGE WASHINGTON’ and his last work ‘AGRAGIAN JUSTICE’YOUR FREE BONUSESIn addition, you get Free Special Bonuses:*THOMAS PAINE, BIOGRAPHY – A fascinating 10 page biography, detailing Paine’s unbelievable, often sad, and often controversial life. *Works presented as far as possible in original publication date order so you can follow Paine’s growth as a writer and philosopher*Easy TABLE OF CONTENTS so you can easily jump to any book, chapter or letter in the collection.YOUR NEW WINDOW INTO THOMAS PAINEImagine the wonder of having this fantastic, enviable collection, that rivals many libraries, right at your fingertips. Imagine the pleasure of discovering more about Paine’s one of a kind works.DON’T MISS OUT!As you read this, you understand why you want this edition, because it is the best, most complete Thomas Paine collection you can get. You want the most complete collection so don’t deny yourself! And don't accept other collections that are lacking. And available on the Kindle, this big collection is yours for next to nothing.

    It is also the world’s smallest sovereign state–covering a mere square kilometer of land within Rome. But within that small area is a region rich in secrets, conspiracies, and intrigue. SECRETS OF THE VATICAN flings open the Vatican’s doors to reveal the hub of one of the world’s most powerful organizations. The book profiles the Vatican’s political status as Europe’s last absolute dominion and its unique independence: Vatican City boasts its own citizenship, flap, postage stamp, mercenary security force, diplomatic corps, and cash machines that offer the Vatican Bank’s services–in Latin. The book also reveals how this tiny country runs its business from year to year–and why Vatican City has the highest crime rate per capita of any nation in the world. The Vatican is the spiritual focus for the world’s one billion Catholics; it is also the focus of many less-than-spiritual conspiracy theories, ranging from allegations of press censorship, racketeering, and money-laundering to outright murder. SECRETS OF THE VATICAN examines the evidence behind these allegations and draws its own conclusions as to the Papacy’s continuing influence in the world.

    Realising this as a game-changing moment in the history of the Middle East, The Arab Uprisings captures the thoughts and feelings of the people involved as the events unfolded, putting these revolutions in their political context, and using them as a prism through which to understand the broader history and landscape of the Middle East. The book will look at the world the demonstrators rejected and its Arab dictators. The author will examine brutal police states, tribal loyalty and foreign help. The West's response and Israel's too, will form part of the narrative. This is an urgent and authoritative account of the seismic political changes rocking the Middle East, from one of the foremost reporters of our time.

    Here the trials and triumphs of the early Muslims as individuals are well-portrayed. Their various paths to Islam - sometimes direct, sometimes long and tortuous, their devotion to the noble Prophet, their endeavours in peace time and their exploits in war - all serve to cast them in a heroic mould. This is the first of two (formerly published as a series of three) books based on original Arabic sources and written in a style that is lively and often gripping. The lives of the Sahabah or Companions of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, is a rich storehouse of knowledge, guidance and inspiration. The men and women whose stories are told here helped to lay the foundations of a new world order, and it is only fitting that they should be more widely known.

    Esposito is one of America's leading authorities on Islam. Now, in this brilliant portrait of Islam today-- and tomorrow-- he draws on a lifetime of thought and research to provide an accurate, richly nuanced, and revelatory account of the fastest growing religion in the world.Here Esposito explores the major questions and issues that face Islam in the 21st century and that will deeply affect global politics: Is Islam compatible with modern notions of democracy, rule of law, gender equality, and human rights? How representative and widespread is Islamic fundamentalism and the threat of global terrorism? Can Muslim minority communities be loyal citizens in America and Europe? In the midst of these questions Esposito places an important emphasis on the issue of Islamophobia, the threat it poses, and its vast impact on politics and society in the US and Europe. He also turns the mirror on the US and Europe and paints a revealing portrait of how we appear to Muslims.Recent decades have brought extraordinary changes in the Muslim world, and in addressing these issues, Esposito paints a complex picture of Islam in all its diversity--a picture of urgent importance as we face the challenges of the coming century.

    In this fascinating and useful book, Perry Anderson interviews the noted scholar of Islam Suleiman Mourad about the Qurʾan and the history of the faith. Mourad elucidates the different stages in Islam's development: the Qurʾan as scripture and the history of its codification; Muhammad and the significance of his Sunna and Hadith; the Sunni-Shiʿi split and the formation of various sects; the development of jihad; the transition to modernity and the challenges of reform; and the complexities of Islam in the modern world. He also looks at Wahhabism from its inception in the eighteenth century to its present-day position as the movement that galvanized modern Salafism and gave rise to militant Islam or jihadism. The Mosaic of Islam reveals both the richness and the fissures of the faith. It speaks of the different voices claiming to represent the religion and spans peaceful groups and manifestations as well as the bloody confrontations that disfigure the Middle East, such as the Saudi intervention in the Yemen and the collapse of Syria and Iraq.

    A spirited, compelling read."-Azadeh Moaveni, author of Lipstick JihadIf the Oceans Were Ink is Carla Power's eye-opening story of how she and her longtime friend Sheikh Mohammad Akram Nadwi found a way to confront ugly stereotypes and persistent misperceptions that were cleaving their communities. Their friendship-between a secular American and a madrasa-trained sheikh-had always seemed unlikely, but now they were frustrated and bewildered by the battles being fought in their names. Both knew that a close look at the Quran would reveal a faith that preached peace and not mass murder; respect for women and not oppression. And so they embarked on a yearlong journey through the controversial text.A journalist who grew up in the Midwest and the Middle East, Power offers her unique vantage point on the Quran's most provocative verses as she debates with Akram at cafes, family gatherings, and packed lecture halls, conversations filled with both good humor and powerful insights. Their story takes them to madrasas in India and pilgrimage sites in Mecca, as they encounter politicians and jihadis, feminist activists and conservative scholars. Armed with a new understanding of each other's worldviews, Power and Akram offer eye-opening perspectives, destroy long-held myths, and reveal startling connections between worlds that have seemed hopelessly divided for far too long.

    The author evaluates the casualties of the war on terror in this story of pre-emptive imprisonment for an act of terrorism never committed, of a terrorist cell that may not even have been a cell.

    Col. Jonathan Netanyahu, brother of Israel's current prime minister, was killed in battle during Israel's 1976 daring hostage rescue mission in Africa, his personal reflections live on in these letters written to his family and friends. 21 illustrations.

    Arranged chronologically for easy reference and illustrated throughout with artwork, photographs, and documents, this is a information-packed overview of the lives and legacies of America's first ladies. What's more, The First Ladies Fact Book features selections of the most intimate correspondence of all the first ladies. Delightful surprises abound, including little-known information about the women's hobbies, styles of dress, habits of socializing, and quirks. With more than 700 photographs and illustrations, this is a eye-catching history of the nation's first ladies.

    Navy lieutenant commander provides an alternate voice to radical Islam.Among the unsettling social shifts in the wake of 9/11 was the global attention paid to Islam. Here in the United States, we became divided, often sadly along partisan lines, between those who believed every Muslim was a potential threat and those who believed no Muslim could do wrong. For conservative Wisconsin native and former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, these radical times meant facing a new reality as a devout Muslim and a patriot—a certain betrayal within his faith, and a need to answer a question that crossed the minds of even the most sensitive and politically correct: “Can a good Muslim be a good American as well?” Jasser founded the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) to instill in young American Muslims an appreciation for the distinctively positive impact that this nation’s ideals of liberty have had upon the world. As a nationally recognized expert on Muslim radicalization, he offers non-Muslims a definitive comprehension of the difference between Islam and the spiritual cancer known as Islamism, or political Islam, and how violence and extremism run counter to Islam’s true teachings. As he persuasively argues, until we acknowledge the threat of Islamism in all its forms, the majority of Americans will be gulled into recognizing only the most obvious: terrorism. In A Battle for the Soul of Islam, Jasser embraces both his faith and his country while asking hard questions: * Are American Muslim children learning entitlement as victims, or are they being taught individual responsibility and critical thinking? * Are poisonous conspiracy theories dividing their American identity, or are they gaining exposure to reason, nationalism, and patriotism? * Are Muslims publicly critical of the Islamist movements of the Middle East, or do they remain silent on aspects of religious doctrine that conflict with modernity and universal equality? * Is the American press downplaying the seditious threat of homegrown Islamist radicalism and the influence of Islamists’ propaganda arm on our governmental policies? * Is our culture of political correctness a major obstacle toward long-overdue Muslim reform against Islamism? All these years after 9/11, it’s time for us to understand the true threat of Islamism. It is a Muslim problem that needs a Muslim solution, and A Battle for the Soul of Islam builds a solid, balanced, and imperative must-read foundation for the fight.

    Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, on occasion, death. Brilliantly weaving together the strands of a tumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry, Ajami takes us from the ruins of Beirut's once glittering metropolis to the land of Egypt, where struggle rages between a modernist impulse and an Islamist insurgency, from Nasser's pan-Arab nationalist ambitions to the emergence of an uneasy Pax Americana in Arab lands, from the triumphalism of the Gulf War to the continuing anguished debate over the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords.For anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East, here is an insider's unflinching analysis of the collision between intellectual life and political realities in the Arab world today.

    Was there really a forced exile in the first century, at the hands of the Romans? Should we regard the Jewish people, throughout two millennia, as both a distinct ethnic group and a putative nation—returned at last to its Biblical homeland?Shlomo Sand argues that most Jews actually descend from converts, whose native lands were scattered far across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. The formation of a Jewish people and then a Jewish nation out of these disparate groups could only take place under the sway of a new historiography, developing in response to the rise of nationalism throughout Europe. Beneath the biblical back fill of the nineteenth-century historians, and the twentieth-century intellectuals who replaced rabbis as the architects of Jewish identity, The Invention of the Jewish People uncovers a new narrative of Israel’s formation, and proposes a bold analysis of nationalism that accounts for the old myths.After a long stay on Israel’s bestseller list, and winning the coveted Aujourd’hui Award in France, The Invention of the Jewish People is finally available in English. The central importance of the conflict in the Middle East ensures that Sand’s arguments will reverberate well beyond the historians and politicians that he takes to task. Without an adequate understanding of Israel’s past, capable of superseding today’s opposing views, diplomatic solutions are likely to remain elusive. In this iconoclastic work of history, Shlomo Sand provides the intellectual foundations for a new vision of Israel’s future.

    Medieval Spaniards introduced Europeans to papermanufacture, Hindu-Arabic numerals, philosophical classics, algebra, citrus fruits, cotton, and new medical techniques. Her mystics penned classics of Kabbalah and Sufism. More astonishing than Spain's wide-ranging accomplishments, however, was the simple fact that until the destruction of thelast Muslim Kingdom by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492, Spain's Muslims, Christians, and Jews often managed to bestow tolerance and freedom of worship on the minorities in their midst. A Vanished World chronicles this panoramic sweep of human history and achievement, encompassing both the agony of Jihad, Crusades, and Inquisition, and the glory of a multi-religious, multi-cultural civilization that forever changed the West. Lowney shows how these three controversialreligious groups once lived and worked together in Spain, creating commerce, culture, art, and architecture. He reveals how these three faith groups eventually veered into a thicket of resentment and violence, and shows how our current policies and approaches might lead us down the same path. Rising above politics, propaganda, and name-calling, A Vanished World provides a hopeful meditation on how relations among these three faith groups have gone wrong and some ideas on how to make their interactions right.