Between ten thousand and twelve thousand Jews tried to escape Nazi genocide by going into hiding. With the help of Jewish and non-Jewish relatives, friends, or people completely unknown to them, these "U-boats," as they came to be known, dared to lead a life underground. Flight and Concealment brings to light their hidden stories. Deftly weaving together personal accounts with a broader comparative look at the experiences of Jews throughout Germany, historian Susanna Schrafstetter tells the story of the Jews in Munich and Upper Bavaria who fled deportation by going underground. Archival sources and interviews with survivors and with the Germans who aided or exploited them reveal a complex, often intimate story of hope, greed, and sometimes betrayal. Flight and Concealment shows the options and strategies for survival of those in hiding and their helpers, and discusses the ways in which some Germans enriched themselves at the expense of the refugees.

A book that challenges our most basic assumptions about Judeo-Christian monotheism Contrary to popular belief, Judaism was not always strictly monotheistic. Two Gods in Heaven reveals the long and little-known history of a second, junior god in Judaism, showing how this idea was embraced by rabbis and Jewish mystics in the early centuries of the common era and casting Judaism's relationship with Christianity in an entirely different light. Drawing on an in-depth analysis of ancient sources that have received little attention until now, Peter Schafer demonstrates how the Jews of the pre-Christian Second Temple period had various names for a second heavenly power-such as Son of Man, Son of the Most High, and Firstborn before All Creation. He traces the development of the concept from the Son of Man vision in the biblical book of Daniel to the Qumran literature, the Ethiopic book of Enoch, and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria. After the destruction of the Second Temple, the picture changes drastically. While the early Christians of the New Testament took up the idea and developed it further, their Jewish contemporaries were divided. Most rejected the second god, but some-particularly the Jews of Babylonia and the writers of early Jewish mysticism-revived the ancient Jewish notion of two gods in heaven. Describing how early Christianity and certain strands of rabbinic Judaism competed for ownership of a second god to the creator, this boldly argued and elegantly written book radically transforms our understanding of Judeo-Christian monotheism.

Between ten thousand and twelve thousand Jews tried to escape Nazi genocide by going into hiding. With the help of Jewish and non-Jewish relatives, friends, or people completely unknown to them, these "U-boats," as they came to be known, dared to lead a life underground. Flight and Concealment brings to light their hidden stories. Deftly weaving together personal accounts with a broader comparative look at the experiences of Jews throughout Germany, historian Susanna Schrafstetter tells the story of the Jews in Munich and Upper Bavaria who fled deportation by going underground. Archival sources and interviews with survivors and with the Germans who aided or exploited them reveal a complex, often intimate story of hope, greed, and sometimes betrayal. Flight and Concealment shows the options and strategies for survival of those in hiding and their helpers, and discusses the ways in which some Germans enriched themselves at the expense of the refugees.

For five years during the Second World War, the Allies launched a trial and error bombing campaign against Germany's historical city landscape. Peaking in the war's final three months, it was the first air attack of its kind. Civilian dwellings were struck by-in today's terms-"weapons of mass destruction," with a total of 600,000 casualties, including 70,000 children. In The Fire, historian Jorg Friedrich explores this crucial chapter in military and world history. Combining meticulous research with striking illustrations, Friedrich presents a vivid account of the saturation bombing, rendering in acute detail the annihilation of cities such as Dresden, the jewel of Germany's rich art and architectural heritage. He incorporates the personal stories and firsthand testimony of German civilians into his narrative, creating a macabre portrait of unimaginable suffering, horror, and grief, and he draws on official military documents to unravel the reasoning behind the strikes. Evolving military technologies made the extermination of whole cities possible, but owing, perhaps, to the Allied victory and what W. G. Sebald noted as "a pre-conscious self-censorship, a way of obscuring a world that could no longer be presented in comprehensible terms," the wisdom of this strategy has never been questioned. The Fire is a rare account of the air raids as they were experienced by the civilians who were their targets.

At a crossroads between Africa, Asia, and Europe, the South Arabian kingdoms were major commercial and cultural players in world history. Their art and architecture, and especially their irrigation system, featuring a gigantic dam high in the mountains, give witness to a fascinating civilization, the myth and historical dimensions of which have captured our collective imaginations. The author, who participated in several archaeological excavations in Southern Arabia, provides a concise history of the kingdoms from the 10th century B.C.E. to the 7th century C.E. European reviewers of the German edition praised especially his elaboration on the social structures of the kingdoms, their economy and trade, geography, languages, scripture, military and religion.

The Kunstkammer was a programmatic display of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These nascent museums reflected the ambitions of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Kepler to unite the forces of nature with art and technology. Bredekamp advances a radical view that the baroque Kunstkammer is also the nucleus of modern cyberspace.

The Kunstkammer was a programmatic display of art and oddities amassed by wealthy Europeans during the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. These nascent museums reflected the ambitions of such thinkers as Descartes, Locke, and Kepler to unite the forces of nature with art and technology. Bredekamp advances a radical view that the baroque Kunstkammer is also the nucleus of modern cyberspace.

Firedance: Words that Burn A searing selection of short stories from the circle of Firedance authors. The child, the girl, slowly rose up out of the water, then turned away, laughing, and skipped and danced over the path of fire towards the setting sun. My kind, the Fire Dancers, we make the machines work. We harvest the sun for energy. The star had been growing closer to the atmosphere. The forests burned with fire that ran across the ground like sunlight at daybreak. It was a ragged, wild dance that left the land exhausted. Fire danced amongst the rebels. Horses bolted, their manes, their tails afire, liquid flame dripping upon the grass. As he watched, she whirled, like a dervish, faster and faster until she burst into a fireball. The painting I found most striking is one that he calls 'The Fire Dance, ' or 'Upa 'upa in the native Tahitian language. Fire-starting was something of a talent, perhaps his only one. 'My land in this realm is fraught with tension, fire and instability; I dare not leave.' 'Why do you call that dog Firedance, not Henry?' Three ragged children gyrate to rhythms that none can hear to make the fire, the animating fire. 'Ya gotta learn a lesson kid: you mess with me, and you're messing with fire.'

What do we do when God becomes an unwanted houseguest, you're in love with the wrong girl and aliens decide to eat California? Take a wild ride with 15 writers from around the globe to discover their version of a broken world... and the humour, compassion and love which saves us. From murder to manga, heartbreak to horror, Broken Worlds dances us through times, genres and worlds. Prepare to be thrilled, tickled, scared and enchanted... it's one hell of a ride.

To arrive at the pinnacle is a mark of progress. But where do we go from here? At this point, because we can only improve modestly due to diminishing marginal returns, things change. Mentalities change, philosophies change, priorities change, people change--and at the root of these changes, we find cultural evidence for the demise of the American economy. City at the Cusp looks thoroughly at this sociological issue, providing a unique glance at, and possible remedies for, overcoming this incredibly timely and urgent matter.

At a crossroads between Africa, Asia, and Europe, the South Arabian kingdoms were major commercial and cultural players in world history. Their art and architecture, and especially their irrigation system, featuring a gigantic dam high in the mountains, give witness to a fascinating civilization, the myth and historical dimensions of which have captured our collective imaginations. The author, who participated in several archaeological excavations in Southern Arabia, provides a concise history of the kingdoms from the 10th century B.C.E. to the 7th century C.E. European reviewers of the German edition praised especially his elaboration on the social structures of the kingdoms, their economy and trade, geography, languages, scripture, military and religion.

As international political and economic relations have become increasingly complex, so have the pressures on international boundaries and the borderlands which surround them. Although there are still many examples of "traditional" boundary problems associated with disputes between states concerning control over territory and maritime space, the papers in this volume demonstrate the vulnerability of borderlands to other forces, most notably illegal immigration and cross-border crime. This study aims to investigate the causes and implications of borderland stress. The first section explores changing concepts of sovereignty and their impact on the meaning and functions of international boundaries. The contributions in the second and third sections offer a combination of regional appraisals and individual case studies highlighting the range of problems affecting borderlands around the world, together with an assessment of some of the initiatives launched in response to those problems. While many of the conclusions drawn are rather sobering, it is clear that in some parts of the world new and imaginative approaches to territorial organization and management are helping to create safer, more dynamic and more prosperous borderlands. The papers in this volume represent the proceedings of the fifth International Conference of the International Boundaries Research Unit, held at the University of Durham on 15-17 July 1998.

In this essay, German-Israeli historian Dan Diner argues that the European consciousness uses America as a metaphor for the dark sides of modernism. He finds an especially aggressive variant of this negative judgement in Germany, the roots of which he traces back to the Romantic period.

The history of Arabia is inextricably tied to the history of Islam. The Prophet Muhammad came from Arabia, and the most important religious centers for Muslims are located in the Arab cities of Mecca and Medina. However, Arabs already had a history reaching back over one and a half millennia when Muhammad entered the stage. Since the ninth century B.C.E., they had been an integral force in determining the fate of the Middle East, establishing themselves as a major power in the seventh century C.E. and with the rise of the caliphate expanding the borders of the Arab world far beyond the Middle East into North Africa and Spain, and even into France. Since that time, Arab history has been intimately connected with European history. Medieval European arts and sciences would have been unthinkable without the brilliant culture of the Arab empire. Only in the modern era has this relationship been marked by a growing European hegemony, which continues to encumber relations between the West and the Arab world to the present day. In this volume, Heinz Halm offers a compact and comprehensible overview of the history and culture of the Arabs from the first references in the inscriptions of Assyrian kings to the most recent developments of contemporary Arab nations.

That Gad Beck, a Jew in the Berlin of Nazi Germany, lived through the Holocaust at all is surprising. The fact that he lived it as a homosexual Jew who spent the entire war funnelling food, money and clothing to hidden Jews and helping smuggle others out of the country is amazing. It was love that gave him both the impetus and the strength to fight. The rise of National Socialism was tearing his family apart, destroying his school, thwarting his dream of emigration to Israel. Then the Nazis came for Manfred Lewin, Beck's first love, and for his family. Gad's love for Manfred gave him the courage to don a three-sizes-too-large Hitler Youth uniform, march into the transit camp where the Lewins were being held, and demand - and obtain, to his astonishment - the release of his lover. But Manfred would not leave without his family, and so went back into the camp. The Lewins did not survive. Coming of age as a gay man during the war and maintaining a series of romantic relationships while carrying on his resistance work, Beck reveals a tenacity and irrepressible spirit that is his real legacy. His determination to keep loving, living and believing in every human possibility without compromise - even in the face of the unthinkably monstrous - makes this quite a different story of the Holocaust.

For five years during the Second World War, the Allies launched a trial and error bombing campaign against Germany's historical city landscape. Peaking in the war's final three months, it was the first air attack of its kind. Civilian dwellings were struck by-in today's terms-"weapons of mass destruction," with a total of 600,000 casualties, including 70,000 children.

In "The Fire," historian Jorg Friedrich explores this crucial chapter in military and world history. Combining meticulous research with striking illustrations, Friedrich presents a vivid account of the saturation bombing, rendering in acute detail the annihilation of cities such as Dresden, the jewel of Germany's rich art and architectural heritage. He incorporates the personal stories and firsthand testimony of German civilians into his narrative, creating a macabre portrait of unimaginable suffering, horror, and grief, and he draws on official military documents to unravel the reasoning behind the strikes.

Evolving military technologies made the extermination of whole cities possible, but owing, perhaps, to the Allied victory and what W. G. Sebald noted as "a pre-conscious self-censorship, a way of obscuring a world that could no longer be presented in comprehensible terms," the wisdom of this strategy has never been questioned. "The Fire" is a rare account of the air raids as they were experienced by the civilians who were their targets.