At the 900th anniversary of the Crusader capture of Jerusalem it is timely to reflect on how the phenomenon of the Crusades influenced the Muslim world then & now militarily culturally & psychologically. This book discusses a group of themes designed to highlight how Muslims reacted to the alien presence of the Crusaders in the heart of traditional Muslim territory. Ideological concerns are examined & the importance of the jihad is assessed in the context of the gradual recovery of the Holy Land & the expulsion of the Crusaders. Two chapters are devoted to an analysis of warfare
- arms battles sieges fortifications
- on the basis of written sources & extant works of art & the neglected aspect of the navy is brought into prominence. One chapter deals with the complex issue of the interaction between Muslims & Crusaders in a social economic & cultural setting. The epilogue traces in outline the profound impact of the Crusades on Muslim consciousness until the present day. This is not a chronological survey of the events of the period 1099 to 1291and even beyond for that has already been done several times. Instead this is a general book intended to introduce some of the wider aspects of the history of the Crusades from the Muslim side. Accordingly as a deliberate policy an attempt is made here to view the phenomenon of the Crusades entirely through the prism of medieval Muslim sources. This naturally involves bias but such a bias is salutary given the cumulative impact of centuries of Eurocentric scholarship in this field & it should help to create a more balanced picture of this fascinating & momentous period of Christian/ Muslim confrontation & interaction.

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European & Arab versions of the Crusades have little in common. For Arabs the twelfth & thirteenth centuries were years of strenuous efforts to repel a brutal & destructive invasion by barbarian hordes. In The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" Amin Maalouf has sifted through the works of a score of contemporary Arab chroniclers of the Crusades eyewitnesses & often participants in the events. He retells their stories in their own vivacious style giving us a vivid portrait of a society rent by internal conflicts & shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. He retraces two critical centuries of Middle Eastern history & offers fascinating insights into some of the forces that shape Arab & Islamic consciousness today." ...

The latest book in the ever-popular Allys World series! Allys looking forward to a week off school on the geography field trip. But no sooner have she & her mates arrived than a gang of moronic girls from another school set out to cause trouble for them! Another warm & funny saga about Ally & her friends. ...

It is January 1719 & Daniel Defoe almost sixty sits at a table writing. He is troubled with gout & debt but for now is preoccupied with a younger man on a barren shore
- Robinson Crusoe for which he will principally be remembered. Several miles south an old man Robert Knox is bent over a heavy volume. It is Historical Relation his account of being held captive on Ceylon published forty years ago after he escaped & returned to Engl&. It has long been out of print but a copy perhaps sits on the desk of Daniel Defoe as he writes. Where did Crusoe come from? & what is the secret of his endurance? " Crusoe" explores the intertwined lives of two real men
- Daniel Defoe & Robert Knox
- & the character & book that emerged from their peculiar conjunction. It is the biography of a book & its hero the story of Defoe the man who wrote " Robinson Crusoe" & of Robert Knox the man who was Crusoe."


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In 1904 when she was six Polly Flint went to live with her two holy aunts at the yellow house by the marsh
- so close to the sea
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Cry the Beloved Country" is the deeply moving story of the Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo & his son Absalom set against the background of a land & a people riven by racial injustice. Remarkable for its contemporaneity unforgettable for character & incident " Cry the Beloved Country" is a classic work of love & hope courage & endurance born of the dignity of man." ...

After an idyllic early childhood in Surrey Lindas life descended into poverty & chaos when her parents marriage crumbled & her unstable mothers sanity declined. She experienced a brief period of comfort in a caring foster home before being plunged into the dark terrifying world of a 1960s institution. St Annes Convent Orpington was a Catholic childrens home run by the infamous Sisters of Mercy & a former monk who inflicted bizarre & barbaric beliefs & practices on the children in his care. Cry & You Cry Alone" is the achingly honest story of a survivor of shocking child abuse that took place in the heart of an English suburb." ...

On 7 March 2004 former SAS soldier & mercenary Simon Mann prepared to take off from Harare International Airport with an aeroplane full of heavy weaponry & guns for hire. Their destination: the former Spanish colony of Equatorial Guinea. Their intention: to remove one of the most brutal dictators in Africa in a privately organised coup d'etat. Mann had personally planned overseen & won two wars in Angola & Sierra Leone. Everything should have gone right. Why then did it go so wrong? When Simon was released from five years' incarceration in some of Africa's toughest prisons he made worldwide headlines. Now he is telling everything including: * His belief that the CIA deliberately compromised the coup to court favour with Equatorial Guinea's President Obiang in return for access to the country's vast oil resources. * How to British government approached Simon in the months preceding the Iraq war asking him suggest ways in which a justified invasion of Iraq could be engineered. * Simon will also tell of his pain when he had to tell his wife Amanda who gave birth to their fourth child while he was incarcerated that he believed he would never be freed. ...

When the ruthless drug-dealing natural father of Ann Nolans adopted daughter plots to take back his child Ann flees across the country changes her name & starts a new life
- as an investigator for the Mercy Street Foundation the billionaire-endowed organisation dedicated to finding missing persons. Now Emme Caldwell she takes the lead in a case looking into the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Belinda Hudson whose last steps took her to a fertility clinic & the mysterious Donor 1735. Belinda was close to discovering who her anonymous donor father is but perhaps she was too close. Now the deeper Emme digs the more she wonders if shes escaped one dangerous man only to run head-on into the grasp of another whos far more desperate & deadly...
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Alex Mc Auliff has just received an offer he cant refuse. A company called Dunstone Ltd will pay him two million dollars for a geological survey of Jamaicas interior
- & they require his absolute secrecy. But British Intelligence are aware of the deal & theyve let Alex in on a secret of their own: the last survey team Dunstone dispatched to Jamaica vanished without trace. Now its too late to turn back. From the moment he lands in Jamaica Alex is a marked man. He already knows about Dunstone...which means he knows too much.
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