Right blog I'm back! Let's not waste time with pleasantries
- there is absolutely NOTHING pleasant about my life right now Reasons
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Skulduggery power struggles & politics The Private Lives of the Saints offers an original & fascinating re-examination of life in Anglo-Saxon England Taking them from their heavenly status to the human level Oxford art historian & BBC presenter Dr Janina Ramirez explores the real lives of over a dozen seminal saints This landmark book provides a unique & captivating lens through which to explore the rich history of the Dark Ages ...

' Borman approaches her topic with huge enthusiasm & a keen eye for entertainingthis is a very human story of a remarkable family full of vignettes that sit long in the mind' Dan Jones The Sunday Times' Tracy Borman's eye for detail is impressive; the book is packed with fascinating courtly minutiae this is a wonderful book' The Times' Borman is an authoritative & engaging writer good at prising out those humanising details that make the past alive to us' The Observer' Fascinating detailed account of the everyday reality of the royals This is a book of rich scholarship' Daily Mail' Tracy Borman's passion for the Tudor period shines forth from the pages of this fascinatingly detailed book which vividly illuminates what went on behind the scenes at the Tudor court' Alison Weir'I do not live in a corner A thousand eyes see all I do' Elizabeth IThe Tudor monarchs were constantly surrounded by an army of attendants courtiers & ministers Even in their most private moments they were accompanied by a servant specifically appointed for the task A groom of the stool would stand patiently by as Henry VIII performed his daily purges & when Elizabeth I retired for the evening one of her female servants would sleep at the end of her bed These attendants knew the truth behind the glamorous exterior They saw the tears shed by Henry VII upon the death of his son Arthur They knew the tragic secret behind ' Bloody' Mary's phantom pregnancies & they saw the 'crooked carcass' beneath Elizabeth I's carefully applied makeup gowns & accessories It is the accounts of these eyewitnesses as well as a rich array of other contemporary sources that historian Tracy Borman has examined more closely than ever before With new insights & discoveries & in the same way that she brilliantly illuminated the real Thomas Cromwell
- The Private Life of the Tudors will reveal previously unexamined details about the characters we think we know so well
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With an Introduction & Notes by David Blair University of Kent at Canterbury James Hogg's most ambitious prose work The Private Memoirs & Confessions of a Justified Sinner is now widely acclaimed as his masterpiece In the early years of the 18th century Scotland is torn by religious & political strife Hogg's sinner justified by his Calvinist conviction that his own salvation is pre-ordained is suspected of involvement in a series of bizarre & hideous crimes A century later his memoirs reveal the extraordinary macabre truth The tale is chilling for its astute psychological accuracy as it illustrates with power & economy the dire effect of self-righteous bigotry on a fanatical character In the first half of his new introduction David Blair provides a detailed explanation of the historical & religious contexts of Hogg's novel In the second half he probes the book's brilliant complex engagement with issues of identity history & narrative itself ...

James Hogg's The Private Memoirs & Confessions of a Justified Sinner is a Scottish classic a quintessentially Gothic tale of psychological horror & a relentless attack on Calvinist dogma The Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction & notes by Karl Miller Robert Wringham's family is composed of a dissolute father & brother a pious mother & a rival father in the person of a fanatical Calvinist minister He comes to believe that he is one of the elect predestined to be saved while others are damned Sure of his freedom from the dictates of morality he embarks on a series of crimes in the company of a new friend Gil-Martin a man of many likenesses who can be mistaken for Robert & who explains that they are as one in the holy work of purifying the world But who is Gil-Martin? & what does he truly desire? The Gothic double or doppelganger is nowhere more powerfully imagined than in Confessions of a Justified Sinner once called 'the greatest novel of Scotland' This new edition has an introduction by Karl Miller which discusses the presence of the novel in the life & times of James Hogg It also contains two of Hogg's most interesting stories ' Marion's Jock' & ' John Gray o' Middleholm' James Hogg (1770-1835) born in Ettrick in the Scottish Borders A shepherd for many years Hogg was writing poems by the 1790s aiding Walter Scott with material for his collection of ballads The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border In 1810 he moved to Edinburgh where he published several volumes of verse & worked on the Spy & Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Confessions of a Justified Sinner was published anonymously in 1824 & is now generally seen as his masterpiece If you enjoyed Confessions of a Justified Sinner you might like Matthew Lewis's The Monk also available in Penguin Classics'A Scottish classic a world classic' Ian Rankin'A sinister funny moving tale of demonic possession murder & religious fanaticism' Sunday Telegraph ...

Between 1994-2014 Israel's security service was transformed becoming one of the most extreme examples of privatised security in the world This book is an investigation into this period & the conditions that created Occupation Inc' the institution of a private military-security-industrial complex State sponsored violence is increasing as a result of this securitisation but why is it necessary & what are its implications? In this book Shir Hever considers the impact of the ongoing Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation the influence of US military aid & the rise of neoliberalism in Israel to make sense of this dramatic change in security policy Through the lens of political economy this book shows how the Israeli security elites turn violence into a commodity in order to preserve their status & wealth providing a fresh new perspective on the Israeli occupation ...

The struggle for wealth & power that has surrounded oil for decades continues to shake the world economy dictate the outcome of wars & transform the destiny of men & nations The Prizeis as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait & Operation Desert Storm The cast extends from wildcatters & rogues to oil tycoons & from Winston Churchill & Ibn Saud to George Bush & Saddam Hussein The definitive work on the subject of oil & a major contribution to understanding our century The Prizeis a book of extraordinary breadth riveting excitement -- & great importance ...

For centuries people have been tormented by one question above all
- If God is good & all-powerful why does he allow his creatures
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How was it possible for opponents of slavery to be so vocal in opposing the practice when they were so accepting of the economic exploitation of workers in western factories
- many of which were owned by prominent abolitionists? David Brion Davis's The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution 1770-1823 uses the critical thinking skill of analysis to break down the various arguments that were used to condemn one set of controversial practices & examine those that were used to defend another His study allows us to see clear differences in reasoning & to test the assumptions made by each argument in turn The result is an eye-opening explanation that makes it clear exactly how contemporaries resolved this apparent dichotomy
- one that allows us to judge whether the opponents of slavery were clear-eyed idealists or simply deployers of arguments that pandered to their own base economic interests

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Four imaginative tales from the mind of master storyteller Neil Gaiman come to life in this graphic novel adaptation 80 pages Gaiman Neil ...