Saints and their Communities - Miracle Stories in Twelfth Century England
Saints and their Communities offers a new approach to the study of lay religion as evidenced in collections of miracle narratives in twelfth-century England. There are a number of problems associated with the interpretation of this hagiographical genre and an extended introduction discusses these. The first issue is the tendency to read these narratives as transparent accounts of lay religion as if it were something susceptible to static, 'ethnographic' treatment in isolation from wider social and political activities. The second issue is the challenge of explaining the miraculous as a credible part of cultural experience, without appealing to reductionist notions of a 'medieval mindset'.
Most of these stories are about murder. Murder of a stranger or a relative, murder in a quiet English town or in a crowded American city. It happens everywhere, it seems, for all kinds of reasons.
In these stories by some of the finest modern crime writers in English, we see what can drive a person to murder - and that trying to catch them can be complicated and extremely dangerous!
Fossil fuels were formed millions of years ago as part of a natural process in which the remains of dead plants and animals were buried and placed under extreme pressure and heat. Coal, oil and natural gas are the most important fossil fuels. But what are they used for, how do we find them and what can we do to preserve our limited supplies? Students will find the answers to these questions and more in Fossil Fuels as they explore these non-renewable resources of the Earth.
Crime and Punishment around the World, Volume 2: The Americas
The second volume of Crime and Punishment around the World encompasses North, Central, and South America, as well as the Caribbean islands. The Navajo Nation of the United States is also included in this volume. With respect to crime and punishment, the Americas are often categorized as having both high violent crime rates and high imprisonment rates. Although the maps in this volume show that these assessments are somewhat accurate, the range of the physical sizes of these countries obscures some of the diversity in crime and punishment patterns.
