The Templars, the Hospitallers, the Tuetonic Knights and the Knights of the Spanish and Portuguese orders were 'noblemen vowed to poverty, chastity and obedience, living a monastic life in convents which were at the same time barracks, waging war on the enemies of the Cross'. These military religious orders emerged during the Crusades as Christendom's storm troopers in the savage conflict with Islam. Some of them still exist today, now devoted to charitable works. "The Monks of War" is the first general history of these orders to have appeared since the eighteenth century. Writing in "The Times Literary Supplement", Professor David Knowles described it as, 'Undeniably the work of someone who knows and accepts the standards of critical history, but ...who sees the past also as an epic or a colourful spectacle'.

In this book, members of Brooks' write on different aspects of the London Club. Contributors include Lord Blake, Noel Annan, Roy Jenkins and James Lees Milne. Philip Ziegler's books include a biography of the Duke of Windsor and Desmond Seward is the author of "Prince of the Renaissance".

"Am Golde hängt, zum Golde drängt doch alles" - als Grabbeigabe findet es sich in frühen Kulturen, in Form von Kronjuwelen symbolisiert es Herrschermacht, während des Goldrausches zog es tausende Abenteurer in seinen Bann, in den Goldminen der Welt floriert bis heute das Geschäft der Ausbeuter auf Kosten der Arbeiter und noch bis weit ins 20. Jahrhundert diente es als Garant für Währungsstabilität.
Bernd-Stefan Grewe erläutert in seiner ebenso spannenden wie informativen Globalgeschichte dieses ganz besonderen Elements die politische, wirtschaftliche und kulturelle Bedeutung des Goldes für die Menschheit.

Reviewers' comments on the first edition: 'Zygmunt Bauman presents a cogently argued and compelling thesis...an important book from a distinguished scholar, that adds a new dimension to the poverty debate' - "British Journal of Sociology". 'It will be of great interest and value to students, teachers and researchers in sociology and social policy! [Bauman] provides a very forceful and sophisticated statement of the case; and a very well written one too. As a wide ranging analysis of our present discontents it is an admirable example of the sort of challenge which sociology at its best can offer to us and our fellow citizens to re-assess and re-think our current social arrangements' - "Work, Employment and Society". 'This is a stylish and persuasive analysis of the transition between the age of the 'society of producers' to that of the 'society of consumers" - Political Studies.It is one thing to be poor in a society of producers and universal employment; it is quite a different thing to be poor in a society of consumers, in which life projects are built around consumer choices rather than on work, professional skills or jobs. Where 'being poor' was once linked to being unemployed, today it draws its meaning primarily from the plight of a flawed consumer. This has a significant effect on the way living in poverty is experienced and on the prospects for redeeming its misery. "Work, Consumerism and the New Poor" traces this change over the duration of modern history. It makes an inventory of its social consequences, and considers how effective different ways of fighting poverty and relieving its hardships are.The new edition of this seminal work features: updated coverage of key thinkers in the field; discussion of recent work on redundancy, disposability and exclusion; and, current thinking on the effects of capital flows on different countries and the changes on the shop floor through, for example, business process re-engineering; and, new material on security and vulnerability. It is a key reading for students and lecturers in sociology, politics and social policy, and those with an interest in contemporary social issues.

The rise and fall of the Venetian empire stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. In City of Fortune, Roger Crowley, acclaimed historian and New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea, applies his narrative skill to chronicling the astounding five-hundred-year voyage of Venice to the pinnacle of power.
Tracing the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga for the first time, City of Fortune is framed around two of the great collisions of world history: the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminated in the sacking of Constantinople and the carve-up of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, and the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499–1503, which saw the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between were three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance—years of plunder and plague, conquest and piracy—during which a tiny city of “lagoon dwellers” grew into the richest place on earth.
Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their dominion. Defiant of emperors, indifferent to popes, the Venetians saw themselves as reluctant freebooters, compelled to take to the open seas “because we cannot live otherwise and know not how except by trade.” From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its time—the reverberations of which are still being felt today. Only an author with Roger Crowley’s deep knowledge of post-Crusade history could put these iconic events into their proper context.
Epic in scope, magisterial in its understanding of the period, City of Fortune is narrative history at its most engrossing.

Investors have too often extrapolated from recent experience. In the 1950s, who but the most rampant optimist would have dreamt that over the next fifty years the real return on equities would be 9 per cent per year? Yet this is what happened in the U.S. stock market. The optimists triumphed. However, as Don Marquis observed, an optimist is someone who never had much experience. The authors of this book extend our experience across regions and across time. They present a comprehensive and consistent analysis of investment returns for equities, bonds, bills, currencies and inflation, spanning sixteen countries, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. This is achieved in a clear and simple way, with over 130 color diagrams that make comparison easy. Crucially, the authors analyze total returns, including reinvested income. They show that some historical indexes overstate long-term performance because they are contaminated by survivorship bias and that long-term stock returns are in most countries seriously overestimated, due to a focus on periods that with hindsight are known to have been successful. The book also provides the first comprehensive evidence on the long-term equity risk premium - the reward for bearing the risk of common stocks. The authors reveal whether the United States and United Kingdom have had unusually high stock market returns compared to other countries. The book covers the U.S., the U.K., Japan, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, and South Africa. Triumph of the Optimists is required reading for investment professionals, financial economists, and investors. It will be the definitive reference in the field and consulted for years to come.

The year is 1624. In southwestern Taiwan the Dutch establish a trading settlement; in Nagasaki a boy is born who will become immortalized as Ming dynasty loyalist Koxinga. Lord of Formosa tells the intertwined stories of Koxinga and the Dutch colony from their beginnings to their fateful climax in 1662. The year before, as Ming China collapsed in the face of the Manchu conquest, Koxinga retreated across the Taiwan Strait intent on expelling the Dutch. Thus began a nine-month battle for Fort Zeelandia, the single most compelling episode in the history of Taiwan. The first major military clash between China and Europe, it is a tale of determination, courage, and betrayal – a battle of wills between the stubborn Governor Coyett and the brilliant but volatile Koxinga. Although the story has been told in non-fiction works, these have suffered from a lack of sources on Koxinga as the little we know of him comes chiefly from his enemies.
While adhering to the historical facts, author Joyce Bergvelt sympathetically and intelligently fleshes out Koxinga. From his loving relationship with his Japanese mother, estrangement from his father (a Chinese merchant pirate), to his struggle with madness, we have the first rounded, intimate portrait of the man.
Dutch-born Bergvelt draws on her journalism background, Chinese language and history studies, and time in Taiwan, to create an irresistible panorama of memorable characters caught up in one of the seventeenth century’s most fascinating dramas.

extremely rare,very good condition

Rene Girard is one of the most divisive and striking intellectuals of the 20th century. Over the past forty years, his work has continued to exert an influence across literary theory, philosophy and the social sciences. Echoing the format of his early works, Evolution and Conversion brings Girard into dialogue with two sympathetic interviewers and allows him to speak candidly about the major tenets of his life and thought. Hailed by Michel Serres as "the Charles Darwin" of human sciences, Girard is in fact one of the few thinkers who has given full consideration to an evolutionary perspective to explain the emergence of culture and institutions. Evolution and Conversion draws out not only this aspect of his thought but also emphasises the centrality of religion to his work. Girard's reflection on the relationship between violence and religion is both original and persuasive and, given the urgency of this issue in our contemporary world, in need of a reappraisal.

The first English translation of Hans Reichenbach's lucid doctoral thesis sheds new light on how Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was understood in some quarters at the time. The source of several themes in his still influential The Direction of Time, the thesis shows Reichenbach's early focus on the interdependence of physics, probability, and epistemology.

Did Alan Turing play a major role in the advent of the all-purpose computer? Did Turing Award winners, like Edsger W. Dijkstra, depend on his famous accomplishments?
In his well-researched book The Dawn of Software Engineering: from Turing to Dijkstra, Edgar G. Daylight deromanticizes Turing's & logic's role in the history of computing.
Dijkstra's pioneering work in compilers lies at the heart of modern-day computers. The book vividly describes how & why Dijkstra's ideas stood out among those of his contemporaries.
This book includes interviews with Turing Award winners Tony Hoare, Niklaus Wirth, Peter Naur, and Barbara Liskov.

南部非洲一度被认为是由英国殖民地、布尔共和国和非洲酋长领地组成的一锅一文不值的大杂烩，一个对外部世界来说无足轻重的麻烦地区。然而，勘探者偶然发现了世界上最丰富的钻石和黄金矿藏，这引发了英国人和布尔人之间争夺土地控制权的激烈斗争。其结果是英国进行了近一个世纪以来的最昂贵、最血腥、最屈辱的战争，以及布尔共和国的毁灭。《纽约客》把这些年的故事称为“一段精于算计的历史”。梅雷迪斯技巧娴熟地描绘了对钻石（以及黄金）的迫切需求如何为种族隔离奠定了基础。

The ten works collected in this volume demonstrate how a diverse group of writers challenged the conscience of a nation and laid the foundations of the African American literary tradition by expressing their in anger, pain, sorrow, and courage.
Included in the volume: Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw ; Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano ; The Confessions of Nat Turner ; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass ; Narrative of William W. Brown ; Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb ; Narrative of Sojouner Truth ; Ellen and William Craft's Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom ; Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Narrative of the Life of J. D.Green .

Vanaf de zeventiende eeuw tot in onze tijd zijn Nederlanders naar de Verenigde Staten getrokken, gedreven door winstbejag, zucht naar avontuur, het verlangen naar ruimte of (godsdienst)vrijheid. Bijna altijd namen deze emigranten hun oude vaderland mee. In heel Amerika hebben Nederlanders dan ook hun stempel op het land gedrukt en op vele plaatsen zijn tastbare herinneringen levend gehouden: tulpenfestivals en windmolentjes in de voortuin, aan Nederland gewijde musea, Nederlandse plaatsnamen, dijken en handgegraven kanalen. Dit boek is het verhaal van ondernemende landgenoten in het land van onbegrensde mogelijkheden. Rijk geïllustreerd.
`Een boeiende en prettig leesbare opeenstapeling van petites histoires - NRC Handelsblad
`Een toegankelijk en rijkgeschakeerd boek - Vrij Nederland
`Onmisbaar voor iedereen die een algemeen beeld wil krijgen van de Hollandse immigranten in Amerika - Het Parool

Die Informationen in diesem Buch helfen Ihnen, subtilste und
schwierigste Situationen im Geschäftsleben Amerikas zu verstehen
und zu meistern. Verhandlungsführung, das Arbeiten in und mit
amerikanischen Organisationen, gesellschaftliche Umgangsformen,
Telefonetikette - dies sind nur wenige einer Vielzahl von
Themengebieten, die in diesem überaus praktischen Buch behandelt
werden. Regionale und branchenspezifische Unterschiede werden
präzise dargestellt, ihre zumeist verborgenen Zusammenhänge
sichtbar gemacht.
Max Otte, der namhafte deutsche Unternehmen in den USA vertritt,
stellt hier seine umfangreichen Erfahrungen zur Verfügung. Die
praktischen Hinweise zu vielen Themen sind ein Gewinn für jeden,
der sich geschäftlich in den USA aufhält. Humorvoll und
theoretisch fundiert beschreibt er die Eigenheiten des American
way of life und vor allem, welche Bedeutung sie für das
Geschäftsleben haben.
Auch wenn Sie schon häufiger geschäftlich in den USA zu tun
hatten: Dieses Buch wird Ihnen neue Erkenntnisse vermitteln. Eine
äußerst sachkundige Beschreibung verborgener Zusammenhänge und
ungeschriebener Regeln, die jeder kennen sollte, der
Geschäftsaktivitäten in Amerika unterhält oder plant.

A dazzling cornucopia exploring the impact of discovery upon such great Romantic writers as Mary Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron and John Keats.

David Abulafia begins with the earliest of seafaring societies - the Polynesians of the Pacific, the possessors of intuitive navigational skills, long before the invention of the compass, who by the first century were trading between their far-flung islands. By the seventh century, trading routes stretched from the coasts of Arabia and Africa to southern China and Japan, bringing together the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific, linking together half the world through the international spice trade. In the Atlantic, centuries before the little kingdom of Portugal carved out its powerful, seaborne colonial empire, many peoples sought new lands across the sea - the Bretons, the Frisians and, most notably, the Vikings, now known to be the first Europeans to reach North America. As Portuguese supremacy dwindled in the late sixteenth century, the Spanish, the Dutch and then the British each successively ruled the waves.
Following merchants, explorers, pirates, cartographers and travellers in their quests for spices, gold, ivory, slaves, lands for settlement and knowledge of what lay beyond, David Abulafia has created an extraordinary narrative of humanity and the oceans. Besides its grand narratives, The Boundless Sea explores the lesser known maritime enterprises of Denmark, Sweden, Oman, Sri Vijaya and many others. And today, as plastic refuse covers thousands of square miles of the waters, and once exotic trading cities and outposts are replaced by vast, mechanized container ports, he asks - what next for our oceans and our world?

This book provides a fascinating insight into the lives of the first Dutch settlers in Table Bay and is packed full of photographs and illustrations. The diaries of Jan van Riebeeck, the first governor of the new Dutch colony at Table Bay in South Africa, document the struggle to survive in a new environment. Whether repelling attacks from wild animals, bartering with the indigenous tribes, or importing slaves to manage their crops, the diaries provide a valuable historical insight into the harsh reality of settling new colonies. The diaries also detail the success of new skills brought to the community by Malays and the influx of Huguenot refugees in 1685 and finally the misfortunes that eventually brought Dutch rule to an end. In 1652, the first Dutch settlers arrived on the shores of Table Bay, having survived the hazardous journey from the Netherlands. The site, which later became known as Cape Town, had a climate in which European crops could flourish. It was here that Jan van Riebeeck was instructed by the Dutch East Indies company to found a new community. He documented the details in his diary for posterity.