Through the use of case examples and careful examination, this book presents the first interdisciplinary essay collection on the study of art crime, and its effect on all aspects of the art world. Contributors discuss art crime subcategories, including vandalism, iconoclasm, forgery, fraud, peace-time theft, war looting, archaeological looting, smuggling, submarine looting, and ransom. The contributors offer insightful analyses coupled with specific practical suggestions to implement in the future to prevent and address art crime. This work is of critical importance to anyone involved in the art world, its trade, study, and security.

Art crime has received relatively little attention from those who study art to those who prosecute crimes. Indeed, the general public is not well-aware of the various forms of art crime and its impact on society at large, to say nothing of museums, history, and cultural affairs. And yet it involves a multi-billion dollar legitimate industry, with a conservatively-estimated $6 billion annual criminal profit. Information about and analysis of art crime is critical to the wide variety of fields involved in the art trade and art preservation, from museums to academia, from auction houses to galleries, from insurance to art law, from policing to security. Since the Second World War, art crime has evolved from a relatively innocuous crime, into the third highest-grossing annual criminal trade worldwide, run primarily by organized crime syndicates, and therefore funding their other enterprises, from the drug and arms trades to terrorism. It is no longer merely the art that is at stake.

From scholar to buccaneer, from outcast to establishment figure, John Donne emerged as one of the greatest English poets. Following Donne from Plague-ridden streets to palaces, from taverns to the pulpit of St Paul's, John Stubbs's "exemplary literary biography" (Harold Bloom) is a vivid portrait of an extraordinary writer and his country at a time of bewildering and cruel transformation.

With stunningly original illustrations by Kevin Watts, The Awakening of Man Hamlet is psychological commentary at its finest. Reminding us at the very beginning that Hamlet's main message is about awakening, what it is and, most importantly, what it is not: the author John Stubbs points out that you cannot awaken, for example, just by behaving differently from now on, that is by "adding virtue" to your resume. Why? The author explains: "Because your old self will absorb the new and make it its own, thus corrupting it... Consequently, you have to remove the old stock completely - your entire old self has to go." Letting this first message resonate, the author then points out the second, equally disquieting message: "In order to completely remove the old self you must even remove the part which is doing the removing." That is why by the end of Hamlet, with the exception of Horatio cast in the role of being the messenger, every major character is dead. Nothing of the old self remains -- not even its highest and most noble part, Hamlet. Be or Not Be.

Ever wonder about the lost or hidden meaning of man's existence on Earth? Is there even a meaning? Read this book. Inner Connections unveils the knowledge of the Fourth Way in a profoundly new and different way. Basing his discussion on nearly a lifetime of study and practice of a system made famous by G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D.Ouspensky, the author explores the source of this knowledge. Locked inside each person is a potential for continuous conscious development. How do we unlock it? That is the question. Nothing less than the purpose of our Universe is at stake.Humanity is the transmitter of its secret inner meaning, both its messenger and the message. Failing in his effort at transmission, all else fails. In a book certain to touch off controversy, the author pursues the question of higher orders and realms of consciousness with a single-minded purpose. Never doubting where his discussion is heading,he leaves the reader with a majestic, breathtaking vision of man's possibilities.