Briarpatch College has all the problems of American higher education in the nineties, at least as many as can be packed onto one small semirural campus. Unfortunately, Briarpatch also has had a multitude of other problems the administration would rather not admit. In the last few years, the academic dean has drowned, the president has died suspiciously, and one scandal after another has rocked the college--all events allegedly instigated by the late dean. Now with a new president in place and the college operating on a somewhat normal routine again, no one has any idea that in just a short time, the discovery of the librarian's body will upset everything and everyone.

Mirabel Gates was a person with no friends, but also no particular enemies. Consequently, she appeared unlikely to be at the center of scandals that threaten President Flora Boater's plans to push the college off the bottom of the US News popularity poll. As Professor Donahue and Chief Biggs begin investigating the librarian's death, they begin to suspect once again that the late dean is somehow involved.

In this continuing mystery, murders, scandals, and the complications of academic fads shake the foundation of a small college as everyone wonders who will be the next victim.

The Battle of Grunwald was one of the largest battles in Medieval Europe and was the most important in the histories of Poland and Lithuania. It was fought on 15 July 1410 during the Polish-Lithuania-Teutonic War between the alliance of the Kingdom of Poland (led by King Jagiello) and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (led by Grand Duke Vytautas) against the German-Prussian Teutonic Knights (led by Grand Master Ulrich von Jungingen) and with the assistance of Sigismund, then King of Hungary and Croatia. The Teutonic Knights, a crusading military order, were defeated and most of their leaders were killed or taken prisoner. This defeat would mark the beginning of their decline and they would never again regain their former power. Following the battle, the balance of power shifted in Central and Eastern Europe and so came the rise of the Polish-Lithuanian union as the dominant political and military force. In this compelling account the action takes place in Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Russia and Germany. There are bloody battles; fascinating characters; intrigue; betrayals; sex; unexpected twists of fate; religious heresy and a smattering of saints. There is also the monumental end of one era making way for the beginning of another. Written by William L Urban, an internationally respected authority on the history of European warfare, while there has long been interest on the crusades outside of the Holy Land, this book is unique in the sheer breadth and depth of its research.

In the early modern world three dominant cultures of war were shaped by a synergy of their internal and external interactions. One was Latin Christian western Europe. Another was Ottoman Islam. The third, no less vital for so often being overlooked, was eastcentral Europe: Poland/Lithuania, Livonia, Russia, the freebooting Cossacks, a volatile mix of variations on a general Christian theme. William Urbans fascinating narrative is an integrated account of early modern war at the sharp end: of campaigns and battles, soldiers and generals. Temporally it extends from the French invasion of Italy in 1494 to Austrias Balkan victories culminating in the 1718 Treaty of Peterwardein. Geographically it covers ground from the Low Countries to the depths of the Ukraine. That narrative in turn focuses Urbans major analytical points: the replacement of crowd armies by professionals, and the professionals integration into crown armies: government-supervised, bureaucratised institutions. The key to this process was the mercenary. Originally recruited because the obligations of feudal levies were too limited, mercenary forces evolved operationally into skilled users of an increasingly complex gunpowder technology in ever more complex tactical situations. By the end of the seventeenth century, soldiers were identifying with the states and the rulers they served.

Briarpatch College has all the problems of American higher education in the nineties, at least as many as can be packed onto one small semirural campus. Unfortunately, Briarpatch also has had a multitude of other problems the administration would rather not admit. In the last few years, the academic dean has drowned, the president has died suspiciously, and one scandal after another has rocked the college--all events allegedly instigated by the late dean. Now with a new president in place and the college operating on a somewhat normal routine again, no one has any idea that in just a short time, the discovery of the librarian's body will upset everything and everyone.

Mirabel Gates was a person with no friends, but also no particular enemies. Consequently, she appeared unlikely to be at the center of scandals that threaten President Flora Boater's plans to push the college off the bottom of the US News popularity poll. As Professor Donahue and Chief Biggs begin investigating the librarian's death, they begin to suspect once again that the late dean is somehow involved.

In this continuing mystery, murders, scandals, and the complications of academic fads shake the foundation of a small college as everyone wonders who will be the next victim.

In the fall semester of 1995 Professor Donahue and Chief Biggs investigated the murder of Dean Wooda. The surprising result became stranger as new bodies and new suspicions appeared each semester. By 1997 even those who had seen the dean's corpse off for cremation were wondering when his ghost would cease to haunt the drafty halls of Briarpatch College's oversized Administration building. At the same time all the now-familiar idiocies of American higher education in the Nineties were loose on campus. Everything that happens only once or even rarely elsewhere happened all the time at Briarpatch. As the college at the bottom of the US News ratings (a quasi-popularity poll that was taken seriously at the time), something had to be done to improve Briarpatch's academic reputation. If you've ever attended a small college, you know Briarpatch; if you haven't, you should have-for those who do not become part of a murder investigation, a small college is a great place to get an education, or to teach, or even to be a dean.

Strange goings-on at Briarpatch College have left a string of corpses across campus. It might be argued that a string must have more than two connected points, but at Briarpatch College everything is connected. Now we have a missing woman, two students and one professor with non-intersecting schemes, a failing romantic relationship, a financial crisis that may be turning around (murder is good for business), and maybe even a winning football team! Undergraduate Stanley Wooda is the youngest academic dean in American higher education, but Dean C. Wooda's ghost still haunts the campus.

In the fall semester of 1995 Professor Donahue and Chief Biggs investigated the watery demise of Dean Wooda, murdered as part of an insurance scam intended to resolve Briarpatch College's financial problems. Now, only a few months later, they have it all to do over again. Another murder, it appeared. But who did it? And how? Donahue's on-and-off romance of Mary is off again. Can murder bring them together once more? Or will it drive them apart for good? The college's future looks good, thanks to media coverage of the earlier trial-everyone wanted a campus tour that included the sites associated with the scandal, and some visitors were enrolling! If you've ever attended a small college, you know Briarpatch; if you haven't, you should have.

He was political, she was correct. He was an ex-cop, she considered policemen an unnecessary danger to people like her . or anybody. It was not a relationship made in heaven. But no one would think of Briarpatch College in that context, much less the isolated community of Middleville. Still, faculty and students alike were shocked when the dean was found dead. As the investigation uncovered more and more suspects, it became clear that the campus contained more complex personalities and more tangled relationships than anyone had suspected.

If you've ever attended a small college, you've been to Briarpatch. Your alma mater's endowment may be larger, the buildings newer and the football team more successful, but the faculty, the staff and the cafeteria food are the same everywhere.

The Middle Ages were a turbulent and violent time, when the fate of nations was most often decided on the battlefield, and strength of arms was key to acquiring and maintaining power. Feudal oaths and local militias were more often than not incapable of providing the skilled and disciplined warriors necessary to keep the enemy at bay. It was the mercenary who stepped in to fill the ranks. A mercenary was a professional soldier who took employment with no concern for the morals or cause of the paymaster. But within these confines we discover a surprising array of men, from the lowest-born foot soldier to the wealthiest aristocrat the occasional clergyman, even. What united them all was a willingness, and often the desire, to fight for their supper. In this benchmark work, William Urban explores the vital importance of the mercenary to the medieval power-broker, from the Byzantine Varangian Guard to fifteenth-century soldiers of fortune in the Baltic. Through contemporary chronicles and the most up-to-date scholarship, he presents an in-depth portrait of the mercenary across the Middle Ages.