Historie og samfunn

Acclaimed historian Helen Castor brings us afresh a gripping life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman; a roaring girl fighting the English, and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing fifteenth century France apart. Here is a portrait of a 19-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior leading an army to victory, in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story behind the myth we all know, a myth which began to take hold at her trial: that of the Maid of Orleans, the saviour of France, a young woman burned at the stake as a heretic, a woman who five hundred years later would be declared a saint. Joan and her world are brought vividly to life in this refreshing new take on the medieval world. Helen Castor brings us to the heart of the action, to a woman and a country in turmoil, a world where no-one - not Joan herself, nor the people around her, princes, bishops, soldiers or peasants - knew what would happen next.

'Re-make/Re-model' tells the extraordinary and largely unknown story of the individuals and circumstances that would lead over a period of almost twenty years to the formation of Roxy Music - a group in which art, fashion and music would combine to create in the words of its inventor, Bryan Ferry, "e;above all, a state of mind"e;.Written with the assistance, for the first time, of all of those involved, including Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera; the fashion designer Antony Price, the founding guru of Pop art, and Bryan Ferry's tutor, Richard Hamilton, and many more, 'Re-make/Re-model' is also the account of how Pop art, the avant garde underground of the 1960s, and the heady slipstream of London in the Sixties was transformed into the fashion cults of revivalism, nostalgia and pop futurism in the early 1970s.

In the second volume of his celebrated history of the Hundred Years War, Jonathan Sumption examines the middle years of the fourteenth century and the succession of crises that threatened French affairs of state, including defeat at Poitiers and the capture of the king.

A companion edition of Bram Stoker's classic vampire novel, to be published alongside the official sequel by his great grand nephew, Dacre Stoker."e;I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave..."e;This dark, brooding and powerfully atmospheric novel by Bram Stoker is a classic of gothic literature, casting light on the darkness of the human psyche, and exploiting our deepest fears.When newly qualified solicitor Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help a new client purchase a residence in London, he is unaware that he will be lucky to escape with his life. Harker's fateful visit to Count Dracula's castle begins a series of disturbing events, as the malevolence he discovers there reaches across continents and oceans to twist and abuse his loved ones at home in England.

In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to the most important poets in our literature.Earth has not anything to show more fair:Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty . . .-- Composed Upon Westminster Bridge,September 3, 1802

Sylvia Plath is one of the defining voices in twentieth-century poetry. This classic selection of her work, made by her former husband Ted Hughes, provides the perfect introduction to this most influential of poets. The poems are taken from Sylvia Plath's four collections Ariel, The Colossus, Crossing the Water and Winter Trees, and includes many of her most-celebrated works, such as 'Daddy', 'Lady Lazarus' and 'Wuthering Heights'.

Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters are addressed, with just two exceptions, to Sylvia Plath, the American poet to whom he was married. They were written over a period of more than twenty-five years, the first a few years after her suicide in 1963, and represent Ted Hughes's only account of his relationship with Plath and of the psychological drama that led both to the writing of her greatest poems and to her death. The book became an instant bestseller on its publication in 1998 and won the Forward Prize for Poetry in the same year. 'To read [Birthday Letters] is to experience the psychic equivalent of "e;the bends"e;. It takes you down to levels of pressure where the undertruths of sadness and endurance leave you gasping.' Seamus Heaney 'Even if it were possible to set aside its biographical value . . . its linguistic, technical and imaginative feats would guarantee its future. Hughes is one of the most important poets of the century and this is his greatest book.' Andrew Motion

A memoir of land, family and perseverance from one of the most influential writers in America.In this moving and surprising book, Joan Didion reassesses parts of her life, her work, her history - and America's. Where I Was From, in Didion's words, "e;represents an exploration into my own confusions about the place and the way in which I grew up, misapprehensions and misunderstandings so much a part of who I became that I can still to this day confront them only obliquely."e;The book is a haunting narrative of how her own family moved west with the frontier from the birth of her great-great-great-great-great-grandmother in Virginia in 1766 to the death of her mother on the edge of the Pacific in 2001; of how the wagon-train stories of hardship and abandonment and endurance created a culture in which survival would seem the sole virtue. Didion examines how the folly and recklessness in the very grain of the California settlement led to the California we know today - a state mortgaged first to the railroad, then to the aerospace industry, and overwhelmingly to the federal government.Joan Didion's unerring sense of America and its spirit, her acute interpretation of its institutions and literature, and her incisive questioning of the stories it tells itself make this fiercely intelligent book a provocative and important tour de force from one of America's greatest writers.

In the eighteenth century, the palace's most elegant assembly room was in fact a bloody battlefield. This was a world of skulduggery, politicking, wigs and beauty-spots, where fans whistled open like flick-knives.Ambitious and talented people flocked to court of George II and Queen Caroline in search of power and prestige, but Kensington Palace was also a gilded cage. Successful courtiers needed level heads and cold hearts; their secrets were never safe. Among them, a Vice Chamberlain with many vices, a Maid of Honour with a secret marriage, a pushy painter, an alcoholic equerry, a Wild Boy, a penniless poet, a dwarf comedian, two mysterious turbaned Turks and any number of discarded royal mistresses.An eye-opening portrait of a group of royal servants, Courtiers also throws new light on the dramatic life of George II and Queen Caroline at Kensington Palace.

Tolkien's acclaimed modern classic 'fairie' tale, read by Derek Jacobi. Farmer Giles of Ham is one of Tolkien's most popular stories, full of wit and humour, set in the days when giants and dragons walked the earth. He did not look like a hero. He was fat and red-bearded and enjoyed a slow, comfortable life. Then one day a rather deaf and short-sighted giant blundered on to his land. More by luck than skill, Farmer Giles managed to scare him away. The people of the village cheered: Farmer Giles was a hero. His reputation spread far and wide across the kingdom. So it was natural that when the dragon Chrysophylax visited the area it was Farmer Giles who was expected to do battle with it! Two further stories in this collections are Smith of Wooton Major which tells of the preparation of the Great Cake to mark the Feast of Good Children, and the strange events which follow, and Leaf by Niggle, which recounts the strange adventures of the painter, Niggle.

'Now he found out a new thing - namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.'An idyllic snapshot of a boy's childhood along the banks of the Mississippi River, Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the author's work that comes closest to his boyhood experiences of growing up in Hannibal in the 1840s.Mischievous and full of energy, Tom enjoys childish pranks and pastimes with his friends, Huck Finn, the town outcast and Joe Harper, his best friend. However, at the town graveyard, Huck and Tom witness a murder, carried out by local vagabond Injun Joe. They vow never to tell a soul about what they have seen and so begins their journey into adulthood as Tom wrestles with his own morality, guilt and anxiety.A 'coming of age' tale, it is through Tom's adventures and relationships with others that he becomes more responsible and more aware of his own inner conflict. Through the central characters of Tom and Huck, Twain satirises the moral rigidity of society and adult hypocrisy, whilst at the same time giving a nostalgic portrayal of a young boy's journey into adulthood.

Korte tekster om politiske, filosofiske og litterære emner, tanker om Gud, om liv og død, samliv og uliv, dansk og fransk, tilhør og fremmedhed - kort sagt, om et menneske på jord og i tid.

In The Ancient City, Fustel de Coulanges hands us the skeleton key unlocking classical civilization—the Indo-European domestic cult—showing this archaic religion to be the engine behind the rise and fall of the classical world.In his foreword, Dennis Bouvard views The Ancient City through the lens of generative anthropology, pointing the way to a post-liberal understanding of our own social order, informed by the imperative order described by Fustel.

Lothar Deegs historische Reportage erzählt die abenteuerliche Firmengeschichte eines deutschen Handelshauses am östlichen Ende Russlands - und ist zugleich eine lebhafte und spannende Schilderung der Entwicklung des Russischen Fernen Ostens. 1864 verschlug es die Hamburger Gustav Kunst und Gustav Albers nach Wladiwostok. Sie witterten in dem damals nur aus ein paar Holzhäusern bestehenden, abgelegenen russischen Flottenstützpunkt am Pazifischen Ozean eine gute Chance für Geschäfte. Und sie irrten sich nicht: Aus der schlichten Gemischtwarenhandlung wurde innerhalb weniger Jahrzehnte ein Handelsimperium mit über 30 Filialen im ganzen russischen Fernen Osten - und Einkaufskontoren rund um die Welt. Wesentlichen Anteil an dem märchenhaften Aufstieg hatte der erste deutsche Angestellte und spätere Teilhaber, Adolph Dattan aus Thüringen. Wladiwostok war damals eine quirlige Handelsstadt mit internationalem Ambiente. Kunst & Albers eröffneten in Wladiwostok ein Kaufhaus mit 17 Abteilungen, als es in Deutschland noch gar keine Kaufhäuser gab! Hier gab es so gut wie alles - von der Nähnadel bis zur Zentralheizung. Es wurde mit Landmaschinen aus Mannheim, Schreibmaschinen aus den USA und den einfachsten Werkzeugen und Materialien für die Pionierbevölkerung der russischen Außenposten gehandelt. Doch die Oberschicht der boomenden neuen Städte an Amur und Ussuri - neben Wladiwostok vor allem Chabarowsk und Blagoweschtschensk - besorgte sich in den eleganten Kaufhäusern von Kunst & Albers auch französischem Champagner, die letzten Pariser Mode oder zu Weihnachten frische Nürnberger Lebkuchen. Das Unternehmen war zugleich Bankhaus, Reederei und Versicherungsgesellschaft - und betrieb das erste Elektrizitätswerk jenseits des Urals. Interne Machtkämpfe, regionale Kriege und revolutionäre Aufstände erschütterten die Firma, doch erst der Erste Weltkrieg wurde zu einer schweren Bewährungsprobe für die zwischen die Fronten geratene deutsch-russische Firma. Dem nicht genug: Intrigen

This sumptuously illustrated history presents, in an updated new edition, an in-depth account of Britain's most important buildings.

An authoritative account of political and military history, art, architecture and culture, sumptuously illustrated throughout.

A clinical examination of the ways in which early neglect can impact adults throughout their lives, and suggestions for therapists on how to help.

The first book on the Alvis marque to list every individual chassis number and model. It also looks at notable owners and drivers, and is illustrated with original period photographs. A lengthy epic - but oh my, what a cast!

Illustrated profiles of 50 pioneering female artists--from the 11th century to today--from the author of the New York Times bestseller Women in Science.A charmingly illustrated and inspiring book, Women in Art highlights the achievements and stories of 50 notable women in the arts--from well-known figures like painters Frida Kahlo and Georgia O''Keefe, to lesser-known names like 19th-century African American quilter Harriet Powers and Hopi-Tewa ceramic artist Nampeyo. Covering a wide array of artistic mediums, this fascinating collection also contains infographics about artistic movements throughout history, statistics about women''s representation in museums, and notable works by women. Women in Art celebrates the success of the bold female creators who inspired the world and paved the way for the next generation of artists.

Ngugi wrote his first novels and plays in English but was determined, even before his detention without trial in 1978, to move to writing in Gikuyu.

It breaks down barriers to accessing this ancient tradition for modern seekers by dispelling myths about the Muslim faith concerning gender bias, inclusivity and appreciation for diversity.

Contains 170 quotes straight from the mouths of Manhattan's most famous sextet. They'll be there for you as you tackle some of the biggest topics in our existences: life, work, dating, relationships, self-knowledge, sarcasm and food.

Playful rhymes and whimsical art celebrate the many faces of the vulva in this mesmerising colouring book. Some of the rhymes uplift this oft-misunderstood body part: My vag is a martini / sometimes dry, sometimes dirty / but always delightful & a little bit flirty. And others keep it wonderfully real: Slobbering on a bush / my vag is a giraffe / majestic in person / but goofy in photograph. These pages provide a wonderful antidote to body shame. Colour your heart out as you marvel at the versatility, prowess, and personality of the vagina.

A celebration of the wildest and weirdest that action cinema has to offer, the hosts of the Really Awful Movies podcast take you on a fun-filled pilgrimage through the nuttiest movies in the genre. Traversing both decades and continents, these 100 titles reach beyond the typical patron saints of action, giving unsung genre heroes like Vic Diaz, Reb Brown, and Godfrey Ho their due. Our intrepid hosts have highlighted action gems with all of the necessary components for greatness: Heroes! Villains! Henchmen! But something's typically missing. Usually, it's a budget. Often, it's talent. But that doesn't mean these films aren't as entertaining as any mainstream fare. Divided into nine chapters by subgenre, featuring stills and posters, and with a foreword by genre icon Brian Trenchard-Smith, Mine's Bigger Than Yours is a romp through the world of fisticuffs, jailbreaks, pit fighting, mercenaries, and really big explosions--all the stuff that makes action movies great.

A personal account of the aging body and advanced technologies by a preeminent philosopher of technologyMedical Technics is a rigorous examination of how medical progress has modified our worlds and contributed to a virtual revolution in longevity. Don Ihde offers a unique autobiographical tour of medical events experienced in a decade, beginning in his 70s. Ihde offers experiential and postphenomenological analyses of technologies such as sonography and microsurgery, and ultimately asks what it means to increasingly become a cyborg. Forerunners: Ideas FirstShort books of thought-in-process scholarship, where intense analysis, questioning, and speculation take the lead

Suitable for students and others who need a lightweight, compact version of the popular "JPS Hebrew-English Bible", this title presents a pocket version of the "JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh". It features Hebrew vowels, and cantillation marks.

A detailed, practical guide to the ancient craft of making stone tools, featuring an archaeological analysis.Flintknapping is an ancient craft enjoying a resurgence of interest among both amateur and professional students of prehistoric cultures. In this guide, John C. Whittaker offers the most detailed handbook on flintknapping currently available and the only one written from the archaeological perspective of interpreting stone tools as well as making them.Flintknapping contains detailed, practical information on making stone tools. Whittaker starts at the beginner level and progresses to discussion of a wide range of techniques. He includes information on necessary tools and materials, as well as step-by-step instructions for making several basic stone tool types. Numerous diagrams allow the reader to visualize the flintknapping process, and drawings of many stone tools illustrate the discussions and serve as models for beginning knappers.Written for a wide amateur and professional audience, Flintknapping will be essential for practicing knappers as well as for teachers of the history of technology, experimental archaeology, and stone tool analysis."e;A mid-range user's guide to flintknapping is long overdue. There have been some admirable attempts to produce such a volume, but these have been targeted at specific, fairly narrow audiences. Not so with Flintknapping. . . . [Whittaker's] clear aim is to reach professional archaeologists as well as hobbyists. I believe he achieves this goal with incredible skill and humor. . . . I highly recommend this book to everyone interested in flintknapping."e; -Plains Anthropologist"e;Very attractive to readers interested in ancient crafts, survival skills, or the history of technology . . . . Far superior to anything currently available."e; -James C. Woods, director, The Herrett Museum, College of Southern Idaho