The Middle Ages in Western Europe extended from roughly 500 to 1500 A.D. During this era, hundreds of monastic communities were founded and played important roles in religious, economic, social, literary and even military realms. Each had different emphases and goals, ranging from aristocratic monasteries and nunneries that offered comfort and security, to rural institutions that specialized only in the most ascetic lifestyles. This book has two ambitious goals. The first is to detail the most significant monastic and secular events of the Middle Ages in Western Europe, such as the fall of the Roman Catholic Church, the rise of Protestantism and the various types and purposes of monasteries and nunneries. The second is to introduce some notable and unusual individuals who made their mark upon the Middle Ages-- such as Eustache, the French monk who became a pirate and made a pact with the Devil.

In 1528, the Spanish explorer Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions were shipwrecked and, looking for help, began an eight-year trek through the deserts of the American West. Over three centuries later, the four "Great Surveys" in the United States were consolidated into the U.S. Geological Survey. The frontiers were the lands near or beyond the recognized international, national, regional, or tribal borders. Over the centuries, they hosted a complicated series of international explorations of lands inhabited by American Indians, Spanish, French-Canadians, British, and Americans. These explorations were undertaken for wide-ranging reasons including geographical, scientific, artistic-literary, and for the growth of the railroad. This history covers over 350 years of exploration of the West.

In medieval and Renaissance Europe, mercenaries - professional soldiers who fought for money or other rewards - played violent, colourful, international roles in warfare, but they have received relatively little scholarly attention. In this book a large number of brief impressionistic vignettes portray their activities in Western Europe over a period of nearly 900 years, from the Merovingian mercenaries of 752 through the Thirty Years' War, which ended in 1648. Intended as an introduction to the subject and drawing heavily on contemporary first-person accounts, this book creates a vivid but balanced mosaic of the many thousands of mercenaries who were hired to fight for various employers.

The U.S.-Mexican War of 1846-1848 remains controversial even today. The California campaigns of this conflict introduce the reader to the Californios (the colorful inhabitants of Alta, or Upper, California); to the American and other adventurers who arrived after them; and to the local Indians, who were always there. The real prize of the war was California. For the Mexican government to go to war against its more powerful northern neighbor was an act of folly. The Californios themselves had only ambiguous loyalties to the central government and only the most minimal military capabilities. The net result of the war was that Mexico was forced to surrender to the United States more than half a million square miles of its territory. This surrender contributed to a legacy of Mexican humiliation, distrust, and bitterness towards the United States that has never dissipated entirely.

The Great Basin is a hydrographic region that includes most of Nevada and parts of five other Western states. The histories of four of the Western rivers of the Great Basin-the Walker, the Truckee, the Carson and the Humboldt-are explored in this book, along with three of the western lakes of the Great Basin: Lake Tahoe, Pyramid Lake, and Walker Lake. Drawing on a range of sources, the author addresses both the natural and the human aspects of the history and likely futures of Great Basin waterways.

Before the Gold Rush of 1848-1858, Alta (Upper) California was an isolated cattle frontier-and home to a colorful group of Spanish speaking, non-indigenous people known as Californios. Profiting from the forced labor of large numbers of local Indians, they carved out an almost feudal way of life raising cattle along the California coast and valleys. Visitors described them as a good-looking, vibrant, improvident people. Many traces of their culture remain in California today. Yet their prosperity rested entirely on undisputed ownership of large ranches. As they lost control of these in the wake of the Mexican War, they lost their high status and many were reduced to subsistence-level jobs or fell into abject poverty. Drawing on firsthand contemporary accounts, the author chronicles the rise and fall of Californio men and women.