Early History

A work of genuine social history, After the Black Death leads the listener into the villages and cities of European society. The book begins with an overview of family and community structure, social conflict, and religious beliefs. After describing the fundamental traits of both rural and urban society, it considers the elites, armed rebellion, poverty, criminality, sexual behavior, and marriage practices.

In the space of 400 years, Western man methodically set out to explore and map the entire earth. During some of the most dangerous expeditions ever mounted, an extraordinary group of determined men forced passages through vast oceans, dark jungles, and withering deserts. Never has their like been seen since. What drove these soldiers, sailors, and civilians to leave the comforts of civilized life and face the horrors of shipwreck, starvation, cannibals, and disease?

In December, 2020, forensic scientists at the University of Tokyo confirmed that bones recently excavated by archaeologists in Hirado, Japan, were those of the English adventurer William Adams. The mystery of where, exactly, this man had been buried was finally solved. Now, the final chapter of the life and death of a sailor and samurai who, in so many ways, exemplified the age of Elizabethan exploration can be told. The character John Blackthorne in James Clavell's novel Shogun was based on Adams, but there is much more to the real story. Leaving England in 1598 with a small group of ...

After the Apollo program put 12 men on the moon and safely brought them home, anything seemed possible. In this spirit, the team at NASA set about developing the space shuttle, arguably the most complex piece of machinery ever created.

In his 2005 book, The Long Emergency, James Howard Kunstler described the global predicaments that would pitch the USA into political and economic turmoil in the 21st century - the end of affordable oil, climate irregularities, and flagging economic growth, to name a few. Now, he returns with a book that takes an up-close-and-personal approach to how real people are living now - surviving The Long Emergency as it happens.

Based on the personalities who created America’s Early Colonial Period, Footprints in History, combines imagination and historic events to tell of the author’s sixth great-grandfather, blacksmith and indentured servant, James Fitchett. James and his neighbors toil in the new land for the twenty-four Scottish investors, known as proprietors. These men control East New Jersey hoping to amass fortunes from the sweat and tears of their tenants, indentured servants, and slaves. Not all settlers share the same hopes and beliefs. Footprints in History reveals the winners and the losers

This pathfinding book offers the first in-depth investigation of the Macedonian veterans’ experience during a crucial turning point in Greek history. Joseph Roisman discusses the military, social, and political circumstances that shaped the history of Alexander’s veterans, giving special attention to issues such as the soldiers’ conduct on and off the battlefield, the army assemblies, the volatile relationship between the troops and their generals, and other related themes, all from the perspective of the rank-and-file.

"LaFond offers an investigation of the true story of Jesus Christ in this spiritual memoir... The author explains in this personal account how ancient sources, such as those of historian Flavius Josephus, shaped his views,... and he gives readers who are interested in questions of Christian theology plenty to consider." ~Kirkus Reviews "...thought-provoking memoir that intertwines personal spiritual experiences with historical analysis to explore the true story of Jesus Christ... Overall, the book provides an enlightening journey into the intersections of history, theology, and personal ...

The Reign Of Terror is the second book in the series entitled The Way. It is a dramatic saga set in the second year of Christianity that takes place in A.D. 32 to 33. It picks up the story where Book #1, The Dawning Of A New Era, left off. It opens for you what life would have been like for those early Christians who lived through the traumatic events recorded in the Book of Acts. They were hated, persecuted, and hunted down because of their faith in Jesus of Nazareth. Under such persecution they struggled to go on with their romances, marriages, families, and jobs just as Christians do ...

When Donald Johanson found a partial skeleton, approximately 3.5 million years old, in a remote region of Ethiopia in 1974, a headline-making controversy was launched that continues today. Bursting with all the suspense and intrigue of a fast-paced adventure novel, here is Johanson’s lively account of the extraordinary discovery of “Lucy.” By expounding the controversial change Lucy makes in our view of human origins, Johanson provides a vivid, behind-the-scenes account of the history of paleoanthropology and the colorful, eccentric characters who were, and are, a part of it.

The Dīghanikāya or Long Discourses of the Buddha is one of the four major collections of teachings from the early period of Buddhism. Its 34 suttas (in Sanskrit, sutras) demonstrate remarkable breadth in both content and style, forming a comprehensive collection. The Art of Listening gives an introduction to the Dīghanikāya and demonstrates the historical, cultural, and spiritual insights that emerge when we view the Buddhist suttas as oral literature.

In Frontier Country, Patrick Spero addresses one of the most important and controversial subjects in American history: the frontier. Countering the modern conception of the American frontier as an area of expansion, Spero employs the eighteenth-century meaning of the term to show how colonists understood it as a vulnerable, militarized boundary. The Pennsylvania frontier, Spero argues, was constituted through conflicts not only between colonists and Native Americans but also among neighboring British colonies.

This is the continuing story of Dr. William Goode in 1840's Waikiki. William's former enemy and new friend, Enoch Pinter, returns from Hawaii to Atlanta to try to rescue his wife who is being held as a slave. While there, Enoch tries to end the search for his runaway friends hiding in Hawaii. Gibbs, captain of the trade ship Aberdeen, is lost on the Argentine Coast and must cross the desolate plains of Patagonia to find his way home. Meanwhile, the chase is on from Atlanta to the southern coast for two new runaways fleeing the oppression of slavery. This tale of action packed historical ...

The book provides a detailed chronological history of early Western Europe through the lives of the nobility, their marriages, wars, rebellions, and betrayals. The book has original source documentation embedded. This book was compiled from 20-plus years of research combined with an interest in the history of western civilization. By putting all the events in chronological order, I was able to show the impact of relationships between the various factions, and how these relations helped shape Western Europe.

In 1779, Shawnees from Chillicothe, a community in the Ohio country, told the British, "We have always been the frontier." Their statement challenges an oft-held belief that American Indians derive their unique identities from longstanding ties to native lands. By tracking Shawnee people and migrations from 1400 to 1754, Stephen Warren illustrates how Shawnees made a life for themselves at the crossroads of empires and competing tribes, embracing mobility and often moving willingly toward violent borderlands.

In The Dictionary Wars, Peter Martin recounts the patriotic fervor in the early American republic to produce a definitive national dictionary that would rival Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary of the English Language. But what began as a cultural war of independence from Britain devolved into a battle among lexicographers, authors, scholars, and publishers, all vying for dictionary supremacy and shattering forever the dream of a unified American language.

Two rival sects. One battle for the soul of Judaism. A legacy that shaped the world. For centuries, the Essenes and the Pharisees stood on opposite ends of a religious and political divide—one withdrawing into the wilderness, the other entrenching itself in power. Their conflict would ripple far beyond the borders of ancient Judea, influencing the rise of Christianity, reshaping Jewish thought, and leaving behind a legacy still debated today. The Essenes—mystics, ascetics, and the mysterious keepers of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They abandoned society, awaiting the end of days and the coming...

Jesus of Nazareth. Born in a manger. Worshipped as God. Crucified as a criminal. Resurrected in glory. But who was He—really? The question has divided empires, built creeds, and stirred the hearts of millions. And at the center of it all lies a mystery so bold, it redefines what it means to be human and divine at once. Hypostatic Union for Beginners: Exploring the Divine and Human Nature of Christ isn’t just another theology book. It’s a breakthrough guide to the most extraordinary truth in Christian history—explained without ivory-tower jargon or academic fog. Clear, compelling, ...

David Fisher pushes paper for the EPA in a world that's a lot like ours...only different. In this California - and throughout the alternate United States - all gods are real, science doesn't exist, and magic rules everything, running imp-driven computers and creating anxiety-inducing bumper-to-bumper flying-carpet rush hours. Unfortunately, unchecked magic use can leave dangerous residues, creating hours of mind-numbing deskwork for David and his fellow bureaucrats at the Environmental Perfection Agency.

What if mankind's "missing link", the apelike Homo erectus, had survived to dominate a North American continent where woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers still prowled while the more advanced Homo sapiens built their civilizations elsewhere? Now imagine that the Europeans arriving in the New World had chanced on these primitive creatures and seized the opportunity to establish a hierarchy in which the sapiens were masters and the "sims" were their slaves.