The Monastery of Pantokrator, founded by John II Komnenos and his wife Piroska-Irene, is not only one of the most important and most impressive monastic complexes of the Komnenian age, it is also one of the few to occupy a key position in the life of Constantinople in the Palaiologan age, given that its mortuary chapel ( Heroon ) was also the last resting place of many members of the latter dynasty. The first attempt to chronicle its history, based on the texts known at the time, was undertaken by G. Moravscik (1932). Interest was rekindled by P. Gautier’s critical edition of its Typikon (1971), and more recently by restoration work on its buildings. This volume brings together a comprehensive selection of all the texts concerning or connected with the Monastery of Pantokrator, and through them it demonstrates the Monastery’s importance and its role throughout the history of the Byzantine Empire—a role that has received insufficient attention, given that older studies have tended to focus on the 12th century. The texts cover the situation in Constantinople before the Monastery was founded, the historical and cultural context within which it was established, its Typikon (monastic formulary), the descriptions of Slav and Western travellers, the Byzantine texts (homiletic, historical, hagiographic, and poetic) relating to the Monastery and its history from the 12th to the 15th century, the Byzantine officials associated with it, and the celebration of the principal festivals in its churches. It also contains critical editions of and commentaries on the two versions of the Synaxarion of Irene Komnene, a speech referring to the Empress’s associate in the construction of the Monastery, another on the translation of the icon of St. Demetrios from the Church of St. Demetrios in Thessalonica to the Monastery of Pantokrator, an Office of the Translation of the Holy Stone, the verse Synaxarion composed for the consecration of the Monastery, and the known and unpublished poems by Byzantine poets (12th-15th c.) relating to it, as well as an extensive bibliography.

What if our exhaustion, burnout, and pain are an invitation into a more vibrant faith? Christianity is fighting for its soul. We've enjoyed the benefits of power and privilege for so long that many of us have forgotten the radical way of Jesus. But we have been here before. And there is a way through. Within a few hundred years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, Christianity emerged as the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Where it once took courage to be a Christian, suddenly it was easy, and the radical way of Jesus was being lost. Toward the end of the fourth century, a group of men and women began to withdraw from the halls of privilege and power into the desert to rediscover the essence of Jesus Christ. The stories and examples of these desert fathers and mothers are recorded for us. And their lives still speak by as they teach us: To embrace the disciplines of solitude, silence, and prayer; To pursue humility, generosity, and unity in rich relationship with others; To develop a keen eye for wisdom; and To lay down our rights for the good of others. > Streams in the Wasteland is for all those who thirst for a better way, the radical way of Jesus amid the desert of our age.

From the best-selling author of Black Flags, Blue Waters comes the story of the American whaleship Mentor, wrecked in 1832 on a remote reef in the western Pacific. With supplies dwindling, the twenty-two crewmen face not only the miseries of shipwreck in unfamiliar territory but also the profound uncertainty of first contact with the Indigenous people of the Micronesian archipelago of Palau, who within days approach the deserted men brandishing axes, clubs and spears. In this gripping saga of cultural collision, award-winning historian Eric Jay Dolin vividly reconstructs the Mentor's doomed voyage, the months of perilous captivity and the negotiations that followed. Illustrated by more than 100 images and maps, The Wreck of the Mentor is at once a powerful story of survival and a revealing window into the great Age of Sail-a time when maritime ambition collided with local sovereignty, and when the outcome of one voyage rippled across oceans and empires. Eric Jay Dolin's Left For Dead was praised as: "The author of several previous books on such maritime topics as piracy and whaling, Dolin is an expert literary steersman." -Dennis Drabelle, The Washington Post "Dolin's firm grasp of the 19th-century maritime world is undeniable....This is a masterly account of a historical event." -Bill Heavey, The Wall Street Journal

Diese überarbeitete Ausgabe enthält 18 Seiten neuen Inhalts. Sie bietet Updates zur Karrierezeitlinie der Avengers und zu bestehenden Charaktergeschichten, einschliesslich Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Scarlet Witch und Spider-Man, sowie Profile neuer Stars wie der neuen Wasp (Nadia Pym), Thor (Jane Foster), Captain America (Sam) und Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan). Diese aktualisierte und erweiterte Ausgabe behandelt wichtige Handlungsstränge nach 2012 und deren zentrale Comic-Ausgaben, einschliesslich Avengers vs. X-Men, Age of Ultron, Infinity, Civil War II, Secret Wars und Secret Empire. Marvel Die Avengers: Der Ultimative Leitfaden, aktualisiert und erweitert, behandelt alles über Marvels mächtigstes Superheldenteam – ihre Geschichten, ihre Kräfte, ihre Loyalitäten und ihre Feinde. Aufregende Comic-Kunst in dynamischem Seitendesign verleiht einen stilvollen und zeitgemässen Look, während Informationen durch Charakterprofile zu zentralen Themen, Handlungssträngen und Themen präsentiert werden. Das perfekte Geschenk für Marvel-Fans.

Focused on the crucial campaigning years 1595-96, History of the United Netherlands, 1595-96 continues Motley's grand account of the Dutch struggle against Habsburg Spain. The book interweaves diplomacy, siege warfare, maritime enterprise, and religious conflict, tracing the roles of Maurice of Nassau, Elizabethan England, Henry IV's France, and Philip II's exhausted empire. Written in a vigorous nineteenth-century narrative style, it combines archival learning with dramatic characterization, standing within the liberal Protestant historiographical tradition that saw the Dutch Revolt as a decisive episode in the making of modern political liberty. John Lothrop Motley, an American historian and diplomat, brought to the subject both literary ambition and firsthand familiarity with European statecraft. His residence abroad, access to continental archives, and friendships within political circles sharpened his understanding of international diplomacy. Motley's republican sympathies and admiration for constitutional resistance clearly shaped his interpretation of the Netherlands as a small nation defending civic freedom against imperial absolutism. This volume is recommended for readers interested in early modern Europe, the Eighty Years' War, and the historical roots of Dutch independence. Though marked by the convictions of its age, it remains a rich, eloquent, and intellectually serious narrative.

The Real Pirates of the Caribbean offers a vivid account of the so-called Golden Age of Piracy, presenting figures such as Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Bartholomew Roberts as both historical actors and literary legends. Written in a brisk, anecdotal prose that combines documentary detail with sensational narrative, the book belongs to the early eighteenth-century tradition of criminal biography, maritime adventure, and moral instruction. Its enduring fascination lies in its mixture of nautical realism, theatrical violence, and reflections on law, commerce, empire, and rebellion. Captain Charles Johnson remains an enigmatic authorial figure, often regarded as a pseudonym and sometimes associated with Daniel Defoe or the publisher Nathaniel Mist. Whoever he was, Johnson clearly possessed a strong knowledge of seafaring culture, popular print, and the public appetite for stories of crime and transgression. His work reflects a world shaped by imperial expansion, Atlantic trade, naval warfare, and the uneasy boundary between privateering and piracy. This book is recommended for readers interested in maritime history, colonial literature, and the origins of pirate mythology. It is especially valuable for those seeking the historical roots behind the romanticized pirate of modern imagination.

The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, and His Man, Mark Antony O'Toole is a spirited nineteenth-century Irish adventure novel that blends picaresque comedy, military romance, and historical melodrama. Following the gentlemanly Hector and his irrepressible servant Mark Antony through reversals of luck, intrigue, and martial episode, the book belongs to the post-Scott tradition of historical fiction, yet it tempers grand events with anecdotal humour, lively dialogue, and a distinctly Irish relish for storytelling. W. H. Maxwell, an Irish clergyman, novelist, and veteran observer of military life, was especially known for narratives of soldiers, campaigns, and convivial masculine society. His familiarity with Irish manners, barrack-room wit, and the mythology of recent European wars informs the novel's texture. Like much of his fiction, it reflects a writer attentive to loyalty, courage, social mobility, and the comic contradictions of Anglo-Irish identity in an age shaped by rebellion and empire. Readers who enjoy historical fiction animated by incident rather than introspection will find this novel rewarding. It is particularly recommended to those interested in Irish literary history, military adventure, and the evolution of comic servant-master pairings in Victorian popular narrative.

A panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Müammad to the birth of the modern era This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the book takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity. After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. It then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the key military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific. At the same time, A History of the Muslim World contains numerous primary-source quotations that expose the reader to a variety of acutely insightful voices from the Muslim past.

The Monastery of Pantokrator, founded by John II Komnenos and his wife Piroska-Irene, is not only one of the most important and most impressive monastic complexes of the Komnenian age, it is also one of the few to occupy a key position in the life of Constantinople in the Palaiologan age, given that its mortuary chapel ( Heroon ) was also the last resting place of many members of the latter dynasty. The first attempt to chronicle its history, based on the texts known at the time, was undertaken by G. Moravscik (1932). Interest was rekindled by P. Gautier’s critical edition of its Typikon (1971), and more recently by restoration work on its buildings. This volume brings together a comprehensive selection of all the texts concerning or connected with the Monastery of Pantokrator, and through them it demonstrates the Monastery’s importance and its role throughout the history of the Byzantine Empire—a role that has received insufficient attention, given that older studies have tended to focus on the 12th century. The texts cover the situation in Constantinople before the Monastery was founded, the historical and cultural context within which it was established, its Typikon (monastic formulary), the descriptions of Slav and Western travellers, the Byzantine texts (homiletic, historical, hagiographic, and poetic) relating to the Monastery and its history from the 12th to the 15th century, the Byzantine officials associated with it, and the celebration of the principal festivals in its churches. It also contains critical editions of and commentaries on the two versions of the Synaxarion of Irene Komnene, a speech referring to the Empress’s associate in the construction of the Monastery, another on the translation of the icon of St. Demetrios from the Church of St. Demetrios in Thessalonica to the Monastery of Pantokrator, an Office of the Translation of the Holy Stone, the verse Synaxarion composed for the consecration of the Monastery, and the known and unpublished poems by Byzantine poets (12th-15th c.) relating to it, as well as an extensive bibliography.

Control-freak CEO Evelyn Rothschild has conquered every challenge in her path at the helm of a luxury resort empire - until she meets Val Mendoza. Much younger and unapologetically idealistic, Val is a sustainable resort developer who won't bend her principles for anyone. Having lost her parents young, Val keeps her guard up and her relationships casual. But there's something magnetic about Evelyn's rigid exterior and the softer side she glimpses beneath it. As they clash over their forced collaboration on a development in Mallorca, their professional rivalry transforms into a connection that confuses them both. For two women who see the world so differently, falling in love might be their riskiest venture yet. Set against the stunning Mediterranean, The Turning Tides of Us is a slow-burn, emotional age-gap romance about identity and sexual awakening.

A monumental tale of American ambition, told by Pulitzer Prize–winning author and master historian David McCullough. This gripping saga of the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the country’s boldest engineering achievements, reveals not only the politics and personalities behind "America’s Eiffel Tower," but charts New York’s ascent as a thriving metropolis. Around 1870, during the Age of Optimism—a time when Americans believed anything was possible—the ambitious idea of constructing an unprecedented bridge across the East River to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn took root. This monumental project demanded a vision and determination on par with the efforts that built the great cathedrals of history. Spearheaded by the Roebling family, the project faced staggering odds throughout its fourteen years of construction. Bodies were crushed, lives were lost, political empires fell, and waves of public emotion constantly threatened its progress. The Roeblings, too, were not immune to personal tragedies. Yet, Emily Roebling rose above these challenges to become the pivotal force behind the Brooklyn Bridge’s completion, shattering all societal expectations of her era. This is not just the story of an engineering miracle; it is a sweeping narrative of the social climate of the time and the heroes and rascals who either built or exploited this groundbreaking enterprise.

The Real Pirates of the Caribbean offers a vivid account of the so-called Golden Age of Piracy, presenting figures such as Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Bartholomew Roberts as both historical actors and literary legends. Written in a brisk, anecdotal prose that combines documentary detail with sensational narrative, the book belongs to the early eighteenth-century tradition of criminal biography, maritime adventure, and moral instruction. Its enduring fascination lies in its mixture of nautical realism, theatrical violence, and reflections on law, commerce, empire, and rebellion. Captain Charles Johnson remains an enigmatic authorial figure, often regarded as a pseudonym and sometimes associated with Daniel Defoe or the publisher Nathaniel Mist. Whoever he was, Johnson clearly possessed a strong knowledge of seafaring culture, popular print, and the public appetite for stories of crime and transgression. His work reflects a world shaped by imperial expansion, Atlantic trade, naval warfare, and the uneasy boundary between privateering and piracy. This book is recommended for readers interested in maritime history, colonial literature, and the origins of pirate mythology. It is especially valuable for those seeking the historical roots behind the romanticized pirate of modern imagination.

Focused on the crucial campaigning years 1595-96, History of the United Netherlands, 1595-96 continues Motley's grand account of the Dutch struggle against Habsburg Spain. The book interweaves diplomacy, siege warfare, maritime enterprise, and religious conflict, tracing the roles of Maurice of Nassau, Elizabethan England, Henry IV's France, and Philip II's exhausted empire. Written in a vigorous nineteenth-century narrative style, it combines archival learning with dramatic characterization, standing within the liberal Protestant historiographical tradition that saw the Dutch Revolt as a decisive episode in the making of modern political liberty. John Lothrop Motley, an American historian and diplomat, brought to the subject both literary ambition and firsthand familiarity with European statecraft. His residence abroad, access to continental archives, and friendships within political circles sharpened his understanding of international diplomacy. Motley's republican sympathies and admiration for constitutional resistance clearly shaped his interpretation of the Netherlands as a small nation defending civic freedom against imperial absolutism. This volume is recommended for readers interested in early modern Europe, the Eighty Years' War, and the historical roots of Dutch independence. Though marked by the convictions of its age, it remains a rich, eloquent, and intellectually serious narrative.

Antoine Fabre d'Olivet (December 8, 1767-March 25, 1825) was a French author, poet, and composer whose biblical and philosophical hermeneutics in?uenced many occultists, such as Eliphas Lévi and Gerard Encausse (Papus), and René Guénon. D'Olivet spent his life pursuing the esoteric wisdom concealed in the Hebrew scriptures, Greek philosophy, and the symbolism of many ancient cultures as far back as ancient India, Persia, and Egypt. His writings are considered classics of the Hermetic tradition. His best known works today are his research on the Hebrew language (The Hebraic Tongue Restored), his translation and interpretation of the writings of Pythagoras (The Golden Verses of Pythagoras), and his writings on the sacred art of music. In addition to the above two books and the present one, Hermetica has also published in consistent facsimile format for its Collected Works of Fabre d'Olivet series Cain and The Healing of Rodolphe Grivel. D'Olivet's interest in Pythagoras started a revival of Neo-Pythagoreanism that would later in?uence many occultists and new age esotericists. His mastery of many ancient languages and their literatures enabled him to write (in the time of Napoleon) his Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the Social State of Man and the Destiny of the Adamic Race, which remains a landmark investigation of the deeper esoteric undercurrents at work in the history of culture. A selection of chapter titles indicates the scope of this extraordinary text: Intellectual, Metaphysical Constitution of Man; Man is One of Three Great Powers of the Universe; Division of Mankind; Love, Principle of Sociability; Man is First Mute-First Language Consists of Signs; Digression on the Four Ages of the World; Deplorable Lot of Woman; Origin of Music and Poetry; Deviation of the Cult, Superstition; Establishment of Theocracy; Divine Messenger; Who Rama Was; Digression upon the Celts; Divine Unity Admitted into the Universal Empire; Origin of the Phoenician Shepherds; Foundation of the Assyrian Empire; New Developments of the Intellectual Sphere; Orpheus, Moses, and Fo-Hi; Struggle between Asia and Europe; Greece Loses her Political Existence; Beginning of Rome; Mission of Jesus; Conquest of Odin; Mission of Mohammed; Reign of Charlemagne; Utility of Feudalism and of Christianity; Movement of the European Will towards America; Principle of Monarchical Government; Causes which Are Opposed to the Establishment of Pure Despotism and Democracy.

The Fortunes of Hector O'Halloran, and His Man, Mark Antony O'Toole is a spirited nineteenth-century Irish adventure novel that blends picaresque comedy, military romance, and historical melodrama. Following the gentlemanly Hector and his irrepressible servant Mark Antony through reversals of luck, intrigue, and martial episode, the book belongs to the post-Scott tradition of historical fiction, yet it tempers grand events with anecdotal humour, lively dialogue, and a distinctly Irish relish for storytelling. W. H. Maxwell, an Irish clergyman, novelist, and veteran observer of military life, was especially known for narratives of soldiers, campaigns, and convivial masculine society. His familiarity with Irish manners, barrack-room wit, and the mythology of recent European wars informs the novel's texture. Like much of his fiction, it reflects a writer attentive to loyalty, courage, social mobility, and the comic contradictions of Anglo-Irish identity in an age shaped by rebellion and empire. Readers who enjoy historical fiction animated by incident rather than introspection will find this novel rewarding. It is particularly recommended to those interested in Irish literary history, military adventure, and the evolution of comic servant-master pairings in Victorian popular narrative.

A mass-battle fantasy game in which players can field combined armies of humans, elves, goblins, dwarves, and more, and develop that army over the course of a campaign. Empires have fallen, and the land is broken. The great oathmarks that once stood as testaments to the allegiances and might of nations have crumbled into ruin. In this lost age, fealty and loyalty are as valuable as gold and as deadly as cold iron, and war is ever-present. Created by Joseph A. McCullough, designer of Frostgrave and Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago, Oathmark is a mass-battle fantasy wargame that puts you in command of the fantasy army you've always wanted, whether a company of stalwart dwarves or a mixed force with proud elves, noble men and wild goblins standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the battle-line. Fight through an integrated campaign system and develop your realms from battle to battle, adding new territories, recruiting new troop types and growing to eclipse your rivals... or lose what you fought so hard to gain and fall as so many would-be emperors before you.

The Sea-Witch; Or, The African Quadroon is a brisk antebellum romance that fuses nautical adventure, sentimental melodrama, and the racial anxieties of nineteenth-century Atlantic fiction. Set amid ships, ports, and the shadowed commerce of empire, the novel turns on disguise, captivity, desire, and moral testing, while its title figure evokes both exoticized fascination and the era's troubled imagination of race. Ballou's prose is direct, episodic, and highly pictorial, shaped by the conventions of popular magazine fiction and the sea tale after Cooper, yet charged with the sensational energy of urban and abolition-era romance. Maturin M. Ballou was a Boston journalist, editor, publisher, and prolific author whose career was rooted in the expanding print culture of mid-nineteenth-century America. Associated with illustrated newspapers and popular periodicals, he understood the appetite for swift plots, vivid scenes, and socially resonant themes. His later reputation as a travel writer also reflects the cosmopolitan curiosity evident in this maritime narrative. Readers interested in early American popular fiction, sea literature, or the cultural history of race and romance will find this novel revealing and compelling. It is best approached as both entertainment and historical document: a dramatic tale that exposes the fantasies, prejudices, and moral tensions of its age.

The Conan the Barbarian Collection gathers Robert E. Howard's foundational tales of the Cimmerian adventurer, set in the invented Hyborian Age, a prehistory poised between vanished civilizations and barbaric vitality. Blending sword-and-sorcery action with gothic menace, historical romance, and cosmic horror, these stories move with a hard, incantatory prose: violent, vivid, and often surprisingly philosophical in their reflections on empire, decadence, freedom, and survival. First appearing largely in the pulp milieu of Weird Tales in the 1930s, they helped define a modern heroic-fantasy tradition. Howard, born in rural Texas in 1906, brought to Conan a distinctive fusion of frontier imagination, antiquarian curiosity, and fascination with physical courage. His interests in boxing, Celtic legend, ancient history, and the rise and collapse of civilizations shaped both the hero's ferocity and the world's bleak grandeur. Writing within the pressures of the pulp market, Howard nevertheless created a mythic figure of unusual durability. This collection is essential for readers seeking the origins of sword and sorcery, but it also rewards anyone interested in energetic narrative craft, dark romanticism, and the literature of imagined antiquity. Conan remains compelling not merely as a warrior, but as Howard's challenge to civilized complacency.

As AI takes hold across the planet and wealthy nations seek to position themselves as global leaders of this new technology, the gap is widening between those who benefit from it and those who are subjugated by it. As Rachel Adams shows in this hard-hitting book, growing inequality is the single biggest threat to the transformative potential of AI. Not only is AI built on an unequal global system of power, it stands poised to entrench existing inequities, further consolidating a new age of empire. AI's impact on inequality will not be experienced in poorer countries only: it will be felt everywhere. The effects will be seen in an intensification of international migration, as opportunities increasingly concentrate in the hands of wealthier nations; in heightened political instability and populist politics; and in climate-related disasters caused by an industry that is blind to its environmental impact across supply chains. We need to act now to address these issues. Only if the current inequitable trajectory of AI is halted, the incentives changed, and the production and use of AI decentralized and decoupled from wealthier nations will AI be able to deliver on its promise to build a better world for all. Also available as an audiobook

A mass-battle fantasy game in which players can field combined armies of humans, elves, goblins, dwarves, and more, and develop that army over the course of a campaign. Empires have fallen, and the land is broken. The great oathmarks that once stood as testaments to the allegiances and might of nations have crumbled into ruin. In this lost age, fealty and loyalty are as valuable as gold and as deadly as cold iron, and war is ever-present. Created by Joseph A. McCullough, designer of Frostgrave and Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago, Oathmark is a mass-battle fantasy wargame that puts you in command of the fantasy army you've always wanted, whether a company of stalwart dwarves or a mixed force with proud elves, noble men and wild goblins standing shoulder-to-shoulder in the battle-line. Fight through an integrated campaign system and develop your realms from battle to battle, adding new territories, recruiting new troop types and growing to eclipse your rivals... or lose what you fought so hard to gain and fall as so many would-be emperors before you.