Early History

Between 1800 and 1920, an extraordinary cast of bold innovators and entrepreneurs - individuals such as Cyrus McCormick, Brigham Young, Henry Wells and James Fargo, Fred Harvey, Levi Strauss, Adolph Coors, J. P. Morgan, and Buffalo Bill Cody - helped lay the groundwork for what we now call the American West. They were people of imagination and courage, adept at maneuvering the rapids of change, alert to opportunity, persistent in their missions.

The Jewish sect which ascribed Jesus the title of Messiah was eventually transformed into a non-Jewish movement wholly separated from its Jewish context. The transformation was not instantaneous, and there were deviating or at the least parallel streams of Jesus supporters early on. A critical mistake which has been made, in my opinion, is the assumption that the Jesus movement was uniform even among its early Jewish followers. Analyzing the original movement(s) in the first centuries of the Common Era can reveal how the schism between Judaism and Christianity evolved.

Discover what life was like for the first-ever Europeans during the Stone Age. Then, fast forward to the Bronze and Iron Ages when the first advanced civilizations emerged in Europe. You’ll discover more about the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome, and the Northern European barbarians.

Unlock the secrets of one of early Christianity's most contentious and influential debates with "Arianism: A Beginner's Guide." This book is your gateway to understanding the theological, historical, and cultural dimensions of the Arian controversy, a conflict that shaped the very foundations of Christian doctrine. Explore the Origins Step into the world of Arius, the compelling and controversial priest whose teachings set off a theological firestorm. Discover the historical context that gave rise to Arianism and grasp why this movement captured the hearts and minds of so many. Meet the Key...

The Olmec people are widely recognized as the first major civilization of Mexico and are thus generally regarded as the mother civilization of Mesoamerica, making them the people from which all subsequent Mesoamerican cultures derived. By and large, the Olmec culture is perhaps best identifiable by their so-called colossal heads, mammoth basalt head-statues wearing helmet-like headdresses found throughout Olmec habitation sites.

In the 18th century, Bridgetown, Barbados, was heavily populated by both enslaved and free women. Marisa J. Fuentes creates a portrait of urban Caribbean slavery in this colonial town from the perspective of these women whose stories appear only briefly in historical records. Combining fragmentary sources with interdisciplinary methodologies that include black feminist theory and critical studies of history and slavery, Dispossessed Lives demonstrates how the construction of the archive marked enslaved women's bodies, in life and in death.

What if everything you thought you knew about the early Church was only the surface of a much deeper story—one marked by blood, courage, controversy, and divine encounters? From the fiery descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to the thunderclap of Martin Luther's 95 Theses on the Wittenberg door, Introduction to Church History pulls back the curtain on nearly 1,500 years of rich, raw, and revolutionary Christian history. But this isn’t just a textbook—it’s a journey into the soul of the global Church. For many believers, the past feels like a dusty archive—distant, irrelevant, ...

Rockets and Revolution offers a multifaceted study of the race toward space in the first half of the twentieth century, examining how the Russian, European, and American pioneers competed against one another in the early years to acquire the fundamentals of rocket science, engineer simple rockets, and ultimately prepare the path for human spaceflight.

The Reverend Joseph Julius Jackson was an African American preacher who published The History of the Black Man in 1921, a book which covers the history of the African people from Ethiopia and Egypt. Rev. Jackson believed that a lack of historical knowledge by the Afro American community about their past and origins has undermined their pride, and that a better knowledge of the contribution of the black man to civilization would ameliorate the situation.

In the early 1920s, members of the Osage Nation and others began to turn up dead, and in many cases, the proceeds of oil revenue owned by these people passed to white “Guardians” appointed by the federal government. By 1925, at least 24 Osage had died in unexplained circumstances, and some accounts suggest that the actual number may have been over 100. Local law enforcement seemed unable (or perhaps unwilling) to investigate effectively, and it was left to a small bureau in Washington to undertake their first homicide investigation.

This book welcomes listeners to appreciate the origins of Christianity within the Roman world in which early Christianity got its first foothold. It does that by immersing listeners in the life and culture of two thriving first-century towns—Pompeii and Herculaneum. Those towns (destroyed in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE) act as showpieces of the world into which the early Christian movement was spreading.

Historical accounts of democracy's rise tend to focus on ancient Greece and pre-Renaissance Europe. The Decline and Rise of Democracy draws from global evidence to show that the story is much richer - democratic practices were present in many places at many other times. David Stasavage makes the case that understanding how and where these democracies flourished - and when and why they declined - can provide crucial information not just about the history of governance, but about the ways modern democracies work and where they could manifest in the future.

With this audiobook, we want to let our listeners know how vibrant and lively (as well as deadly) life in Britain was during the perhaps wrongly-titled “Dark Ages”. With the end of the Roman Empire, the local Britons were left to their devices, and it would be several people groups from a peninsula in Central Europe that would come to dominate the island, making sure their presence was known through a series of kingdoms, battles, clashes, victories, and defeats.

Sometimes a published history provides a clear window into events of the past. Other times, it is written to create a confusing fog, to mislead the listener, and obscure a proper understanding of past events. This book is designed to dispel the fog and offer a clear look at the early development of the beautiful and highly valuable Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.

A suspenseful thriller set in New York City during the early 20th century. In "Murder as Justice," the bustling streets of early 20th-century New York City serve as the backdrop for a gripping tale of morality, revenge, and the complexities of justice. As an organized Assassination Bureau operates strictly under a moral code, the lines between righteousness and vendetta blur, drawing readers into a world where the pursuit of justice leads to chilling consequences. At the heart of the story is Andrei Nikolov, the head of the Assassination Bureau, who is thrust into a moral dilemma when ...

He was seven years old when the crown was placed on his head—and for the next forty-two years, he ruled one of the most powerful empires on earth. Theodosius II for Beginners: The Boy Emperor Who Shaped the Christian World is your invitation into the life of the emperor who didn't march with armies or shout from chariots—but quietly rewrote the rules of empire, law, and faith from inside the palaces of Constantinople. This is not another story about Rome falling. It's the story of how it endured. Discover how a child emperor became the architect of the longest-lasting empire in history....

In Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean, Randy M. Browne looks past the familiar numbers of life and death and into a human drama in which enslaved Africans and their descendants struggled to survive against their enslavers, their environment, and sometimes one another.

National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin's 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping-off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

This is the story of my early years.As I look back on my life, I realize that it has been a rather interesting one. Therefore, I thought I would tell my story. There are a couple of caveats I need to add here at the beginning. One, these are my memories and, as such, may not be entirely reliable. As with most people, I have a tendency to remember some things and forget others. I, also, don’t necessarily remember it the way it really was, but the way, well, I remember it. I have asked some of those “who were there” to read over what I have written to confirm my memories, but, of course...

After a hiatus to allow his damaged shoulder to heal, Patrick Moses is put in charge of an investigation into the lynching murder of a young black boy. No one in the mostly-Irish section of town knows anything; Chicago's black community is horrified. The same day, Moses receives news from his former home at Holy Trinity Orphanage that a young female resident has disappeared. Fear is she has been abducted. The aldermen John Coughlin and Hinky Dink Kenna return to the precinct to complain about the murder of Albert Butross, the owner of Lustland, a prominent brothel. The alleged killer, a ...