The belief that dead people could assume non-human forms is attested in Egyptian texts of all periods, from the Old Kingdom down to Graeco-Roman times. It was thought that assuming such forms enhanced their freedom of movement and access to nourishment in the afterlife, as well as allowing them to join the entourages of different deities and participate in their worship. Spells referring to or enabling the deceased's transformations occur in the Pyramid Texts, the Coffin Texts, and the Book of the Dead. But it is not until the Graeco-Roman Period that we find entire compositions devoted to this theme. Two of the most important are P. Louvre N. 3122 and P. Berlin P. 3162, both written in hieratic and dating to the 1st century AD. Both texts have been known to Egyptologists for more than a century, but neither is currently available in an up-to-date comprehensive edition. This book provides such an edition, including high-resolution images of the manuscripts, hieroglyphic transcriptions, translations, descriptions of their material aspects, studies of their owners, their titles, and their families, reconstructions of their context of usage, analyses of their orthography and grammar, and detailed commentaries on their contents.

Explore this lighthearted look at service in the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) from 2000 to 2004 as seen through the eyes of a wide-eyed Washingtonian with both a penchant for sarcasm and a firm grasp of history. Beginning with a humorous summary of infantry basic training circa the turn of the century, the story moves steadily on to the 2001 Presidential Inauguration and to the joys and hurdles of a Washington, D.C. summer spent in ceremonial dress blues. The national trauma of September 11th, 2001 is herein explored at some length, as The Old Guard would play a sizable role in the post-attack recovery efforts. Tales depicting the day-to-day challenges and triumphs of life in the Army's oldest and most storied of units keep the material accessible, engaging, and often humorous. Readers who know little or nothing about The Old Guard will glean from these pages a sense of close acquaintanceship by book's end.

For understandable and inevitable reasons, the colloquially termed "9/11" is most symbolically linked to the World Trade Center. The Pentagon's destruction received far less coverage, but those who helped extinguish the fires, tend to the wounded, and clean up the aftermath will never forget such a loss. Thousands took part in the Pentagon recovery effort following 9/11, but few knew exactly what they were signing up for. A nearby Army unit, the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard), sent its soldiers to contribute where they could, as best they could, and in any capacity they could. In this book, soldiers of The Old Guard have elected to share their experiences. Their accounts attest to the honor and camaraderie that were necessary for picking up the pieces, as well as the traumatic effects of being enveloped in the aftermath of tragedy.

Following the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy and the controversial confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court plunged into a contentious term that featured divisive cases involving abortion, immigration, capital punishment, and voting rights on the court's docket. In American Justice 2019, Mark Joseph Stern examines the term's most controversial opinions and highlights the consequences of Chief Justice John Roberts stepping into a new role as the court's swing vote. No longer bound by Kennedy's erratic moderation, Roberts has begun doling out victories to both Democrats and Republicans, albeit with a clear rightward tilt. Early in the term, Roberts delivered a public rebuke to Trump's attacks on the judiciary, foreshadowing his refusal to tolerate some of the president's most extreme contortions of the law. Stern tracks the chief justice's evolution from staunch conservative to part-time centrist. Along the way, he details the term's blockbusters and surprises, including an unlikely alliance between Justices Neil Gorsuch and Sonia Sotomayor on criminal justice, and an especially radical ruling on the death penalty that overturned decades of precedent. Stern's account depicts a court sharply divided over its role in American democracy, with the man at its center striving to stay above the political fray without abandoning his conservative instincts.