Beatrice's Last Smile is a sweeping narrative history of the medieval west from the beginning of the third century to the beginning of the sixteenth. This book focuses on slow formation of Latin Christendom over a millennium in the aftermath of the disintegration of the western Roman Empire. Beatrice's Last Smile is a sweeping narrative history of the medieval west from the beginning of the third century to the beginning of the sixteenth. The reader travels from the Mediterranean to the North Sea, from the Nile to the Volga, from north Africa to the central Asia, until finally ending in the Americas. Through a focus on slow formation of Latin Christendom over a millennium in the aftermath of the disintegration of the western Roman Empire, Beatrice's Last Smile is a history of holiness which includes Judaism and the revelations of Muhammad. The narrative moves from the violence within fifth-century Britain and Gaul to the Hundred Years War between England and France, from the plague of the sixth century to the Black Death of the fourteenth, from the first crusaders sacking Jerusalem to the Spanish capturing Tenochtitlán, from Viking raids to Mongol invasions, from the inquisitons into heresy to the trials of witches, from a third-century Christian mother dying in a Roman arena to the immolation of Joan of Arc in the fifteenth, from an ancient universe without heaven and hell to a medieval cosmos with a fiery inferno and a shimmering paradise. Over these centuries there is an emphasis on individual men and women and their stories woven together with the story of the emergence of a distinctive western culture.

A top-to-bottom look at England's national game, from one of the UK's leading business economists. The Premier League is the most commercially successful football league in history, the self-proclaimed 'best league in the world'. But success has come at a cost, unbalancing the English game to a profound and damaging degree. Football's stumbling response to COVID-19 and the European Super League disaster are just the most recent examples. It is estimated that more than two thirds of the country's 92 professional clubs are loss-making; payments to agents each year regularly total more than the combined income of all 44 clubs in Leagues 1 and 2; supporters have been squeezed to the limit; racist incidents are on the rise; grassroots facilities are in a dreadful state; and failed World Cup bids have severely weakened England's standing in the global game. The national team's performance at Euro 2020 can't paper over the cracks. There is an alternative. In this revealing and eye-opening analysis, leading economist Mark Gregory reveals the breadth and depth of the problems facing our national men's game, and shows us a way to bring football home for good.

In January of 1208, a papal legate was murdered on the banks of the Rhone in southern France. A furious Pope Innocent III accused heretics of the crime and called upon all Christians to exterminate heresy between the Garonne and Rhone rivers--a vast region now known as Languedoc--in a great crusade. This most holy war, the first in which Christians were promised salvation for killing other Christians, lasted twenty bloody years--it was a long savage battle for the soul of Christendom.
In A Most Holy War, historian Mark Pegg has produced a swift-moving, gripping narrative of this horrific crusade, drawing in part on thousands of testimonies collected by inquisitors in the years 1235 to 1245. These accounts of ordinary men and women, remembering what it was like to live through such brutal times, bring the story vividly to life. Pegg argues that generations of historians (and novelists) have misunderstood the crusade; they assumed it was a war against the Cathars, the most famous heretics of the Middle Ages. The Cathars, Pegg reveals, never existed. He further shows how a millennial fervor about "cleansing" the world of heresy, coupled with a fear that Christendom was being eaten away from within by heretics who looked no different than other Christians, made the battles, sieges, and massacres of the crusade almost apocalyptic in their cruel intensity. In responding to this fear with a holy genocidal war, Innocent III fundamentally changed how Western civilization dealt with individuals accused of corrupting society. This fundamental change, Pegg argues, led directly to the creation of the inquisition, the rise of an anti-Semitism dedicated to the violent elimination of Jews, and even the holy violence of the Reconquista in Spain and in the New World in the fifteenth century. All derive their divinely sanctioned slaughter from the Albigensian Crusade.
Haunting and immersive, A Most Holy War opens an important new perspective on a truly pivotal moment in world history, a first and distant foreshadowing of the genocide and holy violence in the modern world.

On two hundred and one days between May 1, 1245, and August 1, 1246, more than five thousand people from the Lauragais were questioned in Toulouse about the heresy of the good men and the good women (more commonly known as Catharism). Nobles and diviners, butchers and monks, concubines and physicians, blacksmiths and pregnant girls--in short, all men over fourteen and women over twelve--were summoned by Dominican inquisitors Bernart de Caux and Jean de Saint-Pierre. In the cloister of the Saint-Sernin abbey, before scribes and witnesses, they confessed whether they, or anyone else, had ever seen, heard, helped, or sought salvation through the heretics. This inquisition into heretical depravity was the single largest investigation, in the shortest time, in the entire European Middle Ages.

Mark Gregory Pegg examines the sole surviving manuscript of this great inquisition with unprecedented care--often in unexpected ways--to build a richly textured understanding of social life in southern France in the early thirteenth century. He explores what the interrogations reveal about the individual and communal lives of those interrogated and how the interrogations themselves shaped villagers' perceptions of those lives. "The Corruption of Angels," similar in breadth and scope to Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's "Montaillou," is a major contribution to the field. It shows how heretical and orthodox beliefs flourished side by side and, more broadly, what life was like in one particular time and place. Pegg's passionate and beautifully written evocation of a medieval world will fascinate a diverse readership within and beyond the academy.

"Gregory's writing is full of enthusiasm and self-deprecating humour, and he evokes vividly the naive spirit of a pre X Factor age when bands' careers were built on hard touring and leopardskin waistcoats " GEOFF BARTON - CLASSIC ROCK MAGAZINE "I loved this book. It was a great head-banging memoire. A very cool stroll through a life." MARTIN POPOFF: H.M. AUTHOR & PUBLISHER "Wonderful book." ROB EVANS: CLASSIC ROCK AOR MAGAZINE "Endlessly entertaining " STEVE PRATT: NORTHERN ECHO "Saltburn, Salford, Salisbury, or Southampton, if you followed any local music scene back in the day, this is a must read " MIKE SWEENEY: ROCK RADIO & BBC "Fantastic memories of a time when small town bands dreamed of being major league Rock Stars........excellent stuff STEVE BARDSLEY: BLACK ROSE "Bloody Brilliant Great use of pyro " GARY PHILIPSON: REAL RADIO "If you love the band Satan, you'll love this mighty tome." DAVE SHERWOOD: IRON FIST MAGAZINE "No Sleep Till Saltburn is an important book. It captures an untold story, and also gives you an insight into the humour, the 'Carry On' atmosphere of the time." CHRIS PHIPPS: ROCK MUSIC HISTORIAN, ITV "A very witty and true to life rendition of heavy metal life in the early 80's I know because I was there and it was a load of fun, very much like this book " DAVE HARDY: NWOBHM MUSIC & ROADIE "Very funny and full of stuff I'd either forgotten or didn't know Thank God somebody was taking notes " CHRIS WATSON: BLACK ROSE Let Mark Gregory drag you kicking and screaming back to the truly "Golden Age Of Rock & Roll." To the great North East New Wave Of British Heavy Metal in the early 1980's. A time when you worked hard, played hard, and rocked even harder A time when there really was... "No Sleep Till Saltburn "

Blue Bonnie Butterfly and Tanya Turtle starring in Tale of Two Tails is a whimsical bedtime story with a few lessons hidden amongst the rhymes. Bonnie helps her friends to help themselves shine Together at the Rock in Lake Ranch Bonnie and her friend Tanya learn to love themselves and the life they have been given. This tale of perseverance proves everyone can be special if they try Blue Bonnie Butterfly and Tanya Turtle encourage positive interaction with your child to teach the lessons of real life as well as those learned through their vivid imagination. Blue Bonnie Butterfly and her many friends always remember to hold on to their dreams.

Blue Bonnie Butterfly is a whimsical bedtime story with life lessons hidden amongst the rhymes. Bonnie learns to gracefully overcome adversity, when she gets knocked down she gets right back up. Together at the Rock in Lake Ranch both Bonnie and her friend Tanya learn to love themselves and the life they have been given. Blue Bonnie Butterfly and her many friends always remember to hold on to their dreams.

Familiarity with Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) is a necessity for those working in or aspiring to work in biotech, pharma, and even academic research, where partnerships with industry require ever greater awareness of drug development regulations. Thus, this guidebook serves to not only summarize GLP regulations, but explain the interaction of these various components in the development of a GLP compliant study. Far from being long-winded, special attention has been paid to the brevity of each chapter. If more detail is needed, the reader can easily refer to the official FDA verbiage provided below each chapter summary. Inspired by the lack of affordable, succinct, and easily accessible training options available to students, scientists, and entrepreneurs, Dr. Slomiany set out to create a guidebook which conveys the underlying principles of GLP in an easily digestible format, while providing resources for more in-depth study.