The annual gathering of the Society for Creative Anachronism in Pennsylvania is the scene of this thoroughly enjoyable first novel. All the participants, dressed in medieval garb, are assembled to fight the Pennsic War. But in the midst of the battle the most disruptive of the Mongol hoard is murdered. What follows is a clash between the state troopers and a group of 5400 people all acting like something out of King Arthur's Court. Even though a bit slim on mystery this is highly recommended for those who like some zany fun mixed with murder.
We are so familiar with the map of the United States that our state borders seem as much a part of nature as mountains and rivers. Even the oddities—the entire state of Maryland(!)—have become so engrained that our map might as well be a giant jigsaw puzzle designed by Divine Providence. But that's where the real mystery begins. Every edge of the familiar wooden jigsaw pieces of our childhood represents a revealing moment of history and of, well, humans drawing lines in the sand.
Identities and Allegiances in the Eastern Mediterranean after 1204
This volume of studies explores a particularly complex period in Byzantine history, the thirteenth century, from the Fourth Crusade to the recapture of Constantinople by exiled leaders from Nicaea. During this time there was no Greek state based on Constantinople and so no Byzantine Empire by traditional definition. Instead, a Venetian/Frankish alliance ruled from the capital, while many smaller states also claimed the mantle of Byzantium. Even after 1261 when the Latin Empire of Constantinople was replaced by a restored Greek state, political fragmentation persisted.
The story centers on the impending death of the Messina Spartans' football coach Eddie Rake. One of the most victorious coaches in high school football history, Rake is a man both loved and feared by his players and by a town that relishes his 13 state titles. The hero of the novel is Neely Crenshaw.
Kings, Nobles and Commoners - States and Societies in Early Modern Europe
Kings, Nobles and Commoners takes head-on the leading questions in the history of early modern Europe--questions vital for an understanding of the period, and now at the top of the history agenda for academics, students and general readers. Was religion the badge of identity and inspiration for the state? What was the nature of the state? Did Protestantism lead to political and economic progress and Catholicism to absolutism, decadence and extinction? Jeremy Black's revisionist history shows that while "bourgeois" Protestant states like the Netherlands and Britain prospered and, in Britain's case, became a global power.
