The topic of certitude is much debated today. On one side, commentators such as Charles Krauthammer urge us to achieve "moral clarity." On the other, those like George Will contend that the greatest present threat to civilization is an excess of certitude. To address this uncomfortable debate, Susan Schreiner turns to the intellectuals of early modern Europe, a period when thought was still fluid and had not yet been reified into the form of rationality demanded by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Schreiner argues that Europe in the sixteenth century was preoccupied with concerns similar to ours; both the desire for certainty -- especially religious certainty -- and warnings against certainty permeated the earlier era. Digging beneath overt theological and philosophical problems, she tackles the underlying fears of the period as she addresses questions of salvation, authority, the rise of skepticism, the outbreak of religious violence, the discernment of spirits, and the ambiguous relationship between appearance and reality.
In her examination of the history of theological polemics and debates (as well as other genres), Schreiner sheds light on the repeated evaluation of certainty and the recurring fear of deception. Among the texts she draws on are Montaigne's Essays, the mystical writings of Teresa of Avila, the works of Reformation fathers William of Occam, Luther, Thomas Muntzer, and Thomas More; and the dramas of Shakespeare. The result is not a book about theology, but rather about the way in which the concern with certitude determined the theology, polemics and literature of an age.

'An unusual and compelling insight into Jewish history... sheer detail and breadth of scale' BBC History Magazine

This newly revised and updated edition of Martin Gilbert's Atlas of Jewish History spans over four thousand years of history in 154 maps, presenting a vivid picture of a fascinating people and the trials and tribulations which have haunted their story.

The themes covered include:

This new edition is also updated to include maps showing Jewish museums in the United States and Canada, and Europe, as well as American conservation efforts abroad. Other topics covered in this revised edition include Jewish educational outreach projects in various parts of the world, and Jews living under Muslim rule. Forty years on from its first publication, this book is still an indispensible guide to Jewish history.

Among medieval Christian societies, Byzantium is unique in preserving an ecclesiastical ritual of adelphopoiesis that pronounces two men as brothers. It has its origin as a spiritual blessing in the monastic world of late antiquity, and it becomes a popular social networking strategy among lay people from the ninth century onwards, even finding application in recent times. Located at the intersection of religious and social history, brother-making exemplifies how social practice can become ritualized and subsequently subjected to attempts of ecclesiastical and legal control. Wide-ranging in its use of sources, from a complete census of the manuscripts containing the ritual of adelphopoiesis to the literature and archaeology of early monasticism, and from the works of hagiographers, historiographers, and legal experts in Byzantium to comparative material in the Latin West and the Slavic world, this book is the first exhaustive treatment of the phenomenon.

The phrase "popular music revolution" may instantly bring to mind such twentieth-century musical movements as jazz and rock 'n' roll. In Sounds of the Metropolis, however, Derek Scott argues that the first popular music revolution actually occurred in the nineteenth century, illustrating how a distinct group of popular styles first began to assert their independence and values. London, New York, Paris, and Vienna feature prominently as cities in which the challenge to the classical tradition was strongest, and in which original and influential forms of popular music arose, from Viennese waltz and polka to vaudeville and cabaret.
Scott explains the popular music revolution as driven by social changes and the incorporation of music into a system of capitalist enterprise, which ultimately resulted in a polarization between musical entertainment (or "commercial" music) and "serious" art. He focuses on the key genres and styles that precipitated musical change at that time, and that continued to have an impact upon popular music in the next century. By the end of the nineteenth century, popular music could no longer be viewed as watered down or more easily assimilated art music; it had its own characteristic techniques, forms, and devices. As Scott shows, "popular" refers here, for the first time, not only to the music's reception, but also to the presence of these specific features of style. The shift in meaning of "popular" provided critics with tools to condemn music that bore the signs of the popular-which they regarded as fashionable and facile, rather than progressive and serious.
A fresh and persuasive consideration of the genesis of popular music on its own terms, Sounds ofthe Metropolis will appeal to students of music, cultural sociology, and history.

Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku made a vow to smile every day and now believes he is the ‘happiest man on earth’. In his inspirational memoir, he pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story and sharing his wisdom.

Life can be beautiful if you make it beautiful. It is up to you.

Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed in November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp.

Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on a Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country.

The Happiest Man on Earth is a powerful, heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful memoir of how happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.

WINNER OF THE 2021 NDR BOOK PRIZE IN GERMANY

'A must-read' Lyndal Roper, Regius Professor of History at Oriel College, Oxford

Fishing quotas on Lake Constance. Common lands in the UK. The medieval answer to Depop in the middle of Frankfurt.

These are all just some of the sustainability initiatives from the Middle Ages that Annette Kehnel illuminates in her astounding new book, The Green Ages. From the mythical-sounding City of Ladies and their garden economy to early microcredit banks and rent-a-cow schemes, Kehnel uncovers a world at odds with what we might think of as the typical medieval existence.

Pre-modern history is full of inspiring examples and concepts that open up new horizons. And we urgently need them as today's challenges - finite resources, the twilight of consumerism, growing inequality - threaten what we have come to think of as a modern way of living sustainably.

This is a revelatory look at the past that has the power to change our future.

A key study on writer and activist Keorapetse Kgositsile that presents a new approach to studying the radicalism of Africa and its diaspora, and makes a major contribution to the histories of Black lives, gender studies, jazz studies, politics, and creativity.

The cultural configurations of the Black Atlantic cannot be fully understood without recognising the significant presence of writers and artists from the African continent itself. Among the most influential was South African poet laureate Keorapetse Kgositsile, or Bra Willie, as he was affectionately known. Yet, until now, there has been no full-length study of his work.

Uhuru Portia Phalafala’s wide-ranging book reveals the foundational influence of Kgositsile’s mother and grandmother on his craft and unveils the importance of Tswana oral andaural traditions, indigenous knowledge systems, and cosmologies he carried with him into and after exile. It illuminates a southern African modernity that was strongly gendered and expressed robust anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, and civil rights struggles. Using the original concept of ‘elsewhere’, the author maps the sources of Kgositsile’s transformative verse, which in turn generated ‘poetics of possibility’ for his contemporaries in the Black Arts and Black Power Movements and beyond - among them Maya Angelou, Larry Neal, Gwendolyn Brooks, Tom Dent, members of The Last Poets, Otabenga Jones & Associates, and rapper Earl Sweatshirt – who all looked to his work to model their identities, cultural movements and radical traditions.

The city of Constantinople was named New Rome or Second Rome very soon after its foundation in AD 324; over the next two hundred years it replaced the original Rome as the greatest city of the Mediterranean. In this unified essay collection, prominent international scholars examine the changing roles and perceptions of Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity from a range of different disciplines and scholarly perspectives. The seventeen chapters cover both the comparative development and the shifting status of the two cities. Developments in politics and urbanism are considered, along with the cities' changing relationships with imperial power, the church, and each other, and their evolving representations in both texts and images. These studies present important revisionist arguments and new interpretations of significant texts and events. This comparative perspective allows the neglected subject of the relationship between the two Romes to come into focus while avoiding the teleological distortions common in much past scholarship.
An introductory section sets the cities, and their comparative development, in context. Part Two looks at topography, and includes the first English translation of the Notitia of Constantinople. The following section deals with politics proper, considering the role of emperors in the two Romes and how rulers interacted with their cities. Part Four then considers the cities through the prism of literature, in particular through the distinctively late antique genre of panegyric. The fifth group of essays considers a crucial aspect shared by the two cities: their role as Christian capitals. Lastly, a provocative epilogue looks at the enduring Roman identity of the post-Heraclian Byzantine state. Thus, Two Romes not only illuminates the study of both cities but also enriches our understanding of the late Roman world in its entirety.

From the days of early tribes that hunted and fished to the tourists who later relaxed on the beaches, St. Simons Island has been part of the changing landscape of Georgia's coast. When Gen. James E. Oglethorpe established Fort Frederica to protect Savannah and the Carolinas from the threat of Spain, it was, for a short time, a vibrant hub of British military operations. During the latter part of the 1700s, a plantation society thrived on the island until the outbreak of the War Between the States. Never returning to an agricultural community, by 1870 St. Simons re-established itself with the development of a booming timber industry. And by the 1870s, the pleasant climate and proximity to the sea drew visitors to St. Simons as a year-round resort. Although the causeway had brought large numbers of summer people to the island, St. Simons remained a sleepy little place with only a few hundred permanent residents until 1941.

Two distinct communities which share equally vibrant histories, the twin cities of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor possess a rich heritage rooted in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and tourism. Through more than 200 photographs, this book documents the cities' development from the time when pioneers first struggled to create a community in the wilderness. It pays tribute to the men and women who labored to establish farms and industries, and celebrates the delightful beaches and amusement parks-such as the House of David and Silver Beach-that have brought joy to generations of residents and visitors alike.

In 1940 few Americans had heard of mutual funds. Today U.S. mutual funds are the largest financial industry in the world, with over 88 million shareholders and over $11 trillion in assets. Cottage Industry to Financial Giant describes the developments that have produced mutual funds' long history of success. Among these developments are: * formation of the first mutual funds in the roaring 20s * how the 1929 stock market crash, a disaster for most financial institutions, spurred the growth of mutual funds * establishment in 1934, over FDR's objection, of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that regulates mutual funds * enactment of the Revenue Act of 1936, the tax law that saved mutual funds from extinction * passage of the Investment Company Act of 1940, the "constitution" of the mutual fund industry * the creation in 1972 of money market funds, which totally changed the mutual fund industry and the entire U.S. financial system *enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which created Individual Retirement Accounts * the accidental development of 401(k) plans, which have revolutionized the way Americans save for retirement * the 2003 trading abuses, the greatest scandal ever in the history of the mutual fund industry Many events have never been reported before. Others have been discussed in works on other subjects such as retirement plans. Thus, this is first book that pulls together the many strands of mutual funds' unique history. Moreover, the author was personally involved in developments over the past forty years, and much of the book is a personal narrative regarding the people and events that have produced mutual funds' success.

This volume offers a reconstruction of the court culture of the taifa kings of al-Andalus (11th century A.D.), using both visual and textual evidence. A focus of particular attention is the court of the Ban? H?d at Zaragoza, and that dynasty's palace, the Aljaferma. Principle written sources are not histories and chronicles, but the untranslated poetic anthologies of al-?imyar? and al-Fat? ibn Kh?q?n.
The first part of the book addresses taifa visual and literary languages, with especial emphasis on connections between the literary and visual aspects of taifa aesthetics. The sections on the Aljaferma's ornamental program will be of particular interest, not only to historians of Islamic art, but to students of all visual traditions with strong non-figural components.
In addition, Part One also proposes that taifa court culture has been considered as a culture of "courtly love," and this argument also forms the point of departure for Part Two. The second part of the study uses luxury objects of Islamic and Limousine production as a point of departure for a detailed comparison of the thematics of taifa poetry in classical Arabic on the themes of courtly love and pleasures with those of the better-known Provengal tradition.

We Shall Suffer There chronicles the experiences of Hong Kong's Prisoners of War and civilian internees from their capture by the Japanese in December 1941, to -- for those fortunate or resourceful enough to survive -- liberation, rescue, and repatriation.

By the middle years of the nineteenth century, there seem to have been few places on the globe where British and French commercial, colonial, or religious interests could not clash; and thanks to the extent and flexibility of their sea power the two rivals were able to support these interests with naval force virtually wherever there was enough water to float a warship. The Crimean War brought the British and French navies, the most technologically advanced in the world, into alliance after many years of common hostility. It was a period of enormous technological innovation and development, witnessing the transition from sail to screw, and the birth of the ironclad. In this extensively researched and thorough study, C. I. Hamilton traces the technological development of both British and French navies and analyses the political and diplomatic policies which formed the backdrop to the naval history of the period 1840-1870. Dr Hamilton compares the two navies in a variety of important ways: their recruitment and training systems, dockyard facilities, naval administrations, strategy and tactics. His book makes a noteworthy contribution both to naval history and to our knowledge of Anglo-French relations in the nineteenth century.

For jazz historians, Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings mark the first revolution in the history of a music riven by upheaval. Yet few traces of this revolution can be found in the historical record of the late 1920s, when the records were made. Even black newspapers covered Armstrong as just one name among many, and descriptions of his playing, while laudatory, bear little resemblance to those of today. For this reason, the perspective of Armstrong's first listeners is usually regarded as inadequate, as if they had missed the true significance of his music. This attitude overlooks the possibility that those early listeners might have heard something valuable on its own terms, something we ourselves have lost. If we could somehow recapture their perspective-without abandoning our own-how might it change our understanding of these seminal recordings? In Louis Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven Recordings, Harker selects seven exceptional records to study at length: "Cornet Chop Suey," "Big Butter and Egg Man," "Potato Head Blues," "S.O.L. Blues"/"Gully Low Blues," "Savoy Blues," and "West End Blues." The world of vaudeville and show business provide crucial context, revealing how the demands of making a living in a competitive environment could catalyze Armstrong's unique artistic gifts. Technical achievements such as virtuosity, structural coherence, harmonic improvisation, and high-register playing are all shown to have a basis in the workaday requirements of Armstrong's profession. Invoking a breadth of influences ranging from New Orleans clarinet style to Guy Lombardo, and from tap dancing to classical music, this book offers bold insights, fresh anecdotes, and, ultimately, a new interpretation of Louis Armstrong and his most influential body of recordings.

The traditional legal textbooks aim to give students of the law a synoptic overview of the present state of law in a particular area. In doing so, most books offer only a cursory assessment of how the law came to be the way it is and what economic, political and social forces were brought to bear during its evolution. This study seeks to offer students a different kind of text, which takes as its starting point the law as it was in 1945. Guiding the student through four-and-a-half decades of almost continuous legislative activity, Davies and Freedland show how the law was created, and why it looks as it does today. The history explored is from 1945 to 1990, but not including the period since Mr Major succeeded Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister. Paul Davies is also the editor of the "Industrial Law Journal". Mark Freedland has also written "The Contract of Employment" and "Labour Law, Cases and Materials" (with Paul Davies).

This is the first comprehensive, multi-author survey of German history that features cutting-edge syntheses of major topics by an international team of leading scholars. Emphasizing demographic, economic, and political history, this Handbook places German history in a denser transnational context than any other general history of Germany. It underscores the centrality of war to the unfolding of German history, and shows how it dramatically affected the development of German nationalism and the structure of German politics. It also reaches out to scholars and students beyond the field of history with detailed and cutting-edge chapters on religious history and on literary history, as well as to contemporary observers, with reflections on Germany and the European Union, and on 'multi-cultural Germany.'
Covering the period from around 1760 to the present, this Handbook represents a remarkable achievement of synthesis based on current scholarship. It constitutes the starting point for anyone trying to understand the complexities of German history as well as the state of scholarly reflection on Germany's dramatic, often destructive, integration into the community of modern nations. As it brings this story to the present, it also places the current post-unification Federal Republic of Germany into a multifaceted historical context. It will be an indispensable resource for scholars, students, and anyone interested in modern Germany.

Jack Cade's rebellion of 1450 was one of the most important popular uprisings to take place in England during the Middle Ages. It began as an orchestrated demonstration of political protest by the inhabitants of south-eastern England against the corruption, mismanagement, and oppression of Henry VI's government. When no assurance of any remedy came from the king the rising soon collapsed into violence. This is the first full-length study of Cade's revolt to be published this century. I. M. W. Harvey charts the course of the rebellion and its associated troubles during the early 1450s, and explores the nature of the society which gave rise to these upheavals. She makes full use of the available contemporary evidence, as well as the work of subsequent historians, in order to uncover the identities of the rebels, explain their actions, assess their relations with the magnates, and to examine their achievements. Dr Harvey's lucid and scholarly analysis of Jack Cade's rebellion helps make intelligible the eventual collapse of Henry VI's reign into the Wars of the Roses.

The civil wars that brought down the Roman Republic were fought on more than battlefields. Armed gangs infested the Italian countryside, in the city of Rome mansions were besieged, and bounty-hunters searched the streets for "public enemies." Among the astonishing stories to survive from these years is that of a young woman whose parents were killed, on the eve of her wedding, in the violence engulfing Italy. While her future husband fought overseas, she staved off a run on her father's estate. Despite an acute currency shortage, she raised money to help her fiance in exile. And when several years later, her husband, back in Rome, was declared an outlaw, she successfully hid him, worked for his pardon, and joined other Roman women in staging a public protest. The wife's tale is known only because her husband had inscribed on large slabs of marble the elaborate eulogy he gave at her funeral. Though no name is given on the inscriptions, starting as early as the seventeenth century, scholars saw saw similarities between the contents of the inscription and the story, preserved in literary sources, of one Turia, the wife of Quintus Lucretius. Although the identification remains uncertain, and in spite of the other substantial gaps in the text of the speech, the "Funeral Speech for Turia" (Laudatio Turiae), as it is still conventionally called, offers an extraordinary window into the life of a high-ranking woman at a critical moment of Roman history. In this book Josiah Osgood reconstructs the wife's life more fully than it has been before by bringing in alongside the eulogy stories of other Roman women who also contributed to their families' survival while working to end civil war. He shows too how Turia's story sheds rare light on the more hidden problems of everyday life for Romans, including a high number of childless marriages. Written with a general audience in mind, Turia: A Roman Woman's Civil War will appeal to those interested in Roman history as well as war, and the ways that war upsets society's power structures. Not only does the study come to terms with the distinctive experience of a larger group of Roman women, including the prudence they had to show to succeed , but also introduces readers to an extraordinary tribute to married love which, though from another world, speaks to us today.

With his bestseller, Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates established himself as a unique voice in his generation of American authors; a brilliant writer and thinker in the tradition of James Baldwin.

In his keenly anticipated new book, The Message, he explores the urgent question of how our stories – our reporting, imaginative narratives and mythmaking – both expose and distort our realities. Travelling to three resonant sites of conflict, he illuminates how the stories we tell – as well as the ones we don’t – work to shape us.

The first of the book’s three main parts finds Coates on his inaugural trip to Africa – a journey to Dakar, where he finds himself in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and the ghost-haunted country of his imagination. He then takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on the banning of his own work and the deep roots of a false and fiercely protected American mythology – visibly on display in this capital of the confederacy, with statues of segregationists still looming over its public squares. Finally in Palestine, Coates sees with devastating clarity the tragedy that grows in the clash between the stories we tell and reality on the ground.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world – and our own souls – and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.