Showing results by narrator "James Gillies" in All Categories

At the approach of the first millennium, the Christians of Europe did not seem likely candidates for future greatness. They saw no future beyond the widely anticipated Second Coming of Christ. But when the world did not end, the peoples of Western Europe suddenly found themselves with no choice but to begin the heroic task of building a Jerusalem on Earth. In The Forge of Christendom, Tom Holland masterfully describes this remarkable new age, a time of caliphs and Viking sea kings, the spread of castles, and the invention of knighthood.

With vast erudition, Foucault cuts across disciplines and reaches back into seventeenth century to show how classical systems of knowledge, which linked all of nature within a great chain of being and analogies between the stars in the heavens and the features in a human face, gave way to the modern sciences of biology, philology, and political economy. The result is nothing less than an archaeology of the sciences that unearths old patterns of meaning and reveals the shocking arbitrariness of our received truths.

From the Borderlands to the Highlands, Scotland's seven kingdoms are in conflict. Struggling to unite the kingdoms altogether, King David seeks an alliance with the fierce, but reclusive mountain Scot, Aidan dun Scoti. But only one woman will tempt Aidan—the accursed beauty whose father once betrayed his clan.

Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1,000 years ago? The Vikings: A New History explores many of those questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.

Combining accounts of legendary mountain ascents with vivid descriptions of his own forays into wild, high landscapes, Robert Macfarlane reveals how the mystery of the world's highest places has come to grip the Western imagination - and perennially draws legions of adventurers up the most perilous slopes. His story begins three centuries ago, when mountains were feared as the forbidding abodes of dragons and other mysterious beasts.

Sophie Dupont, daughter of a portrait painter, assists her father in his studio, keeping her own artwork out of sight. She often walks the cliffside path along the North Devon coast, popular with artists and poets. It's where she met the handsome Wesley Overtree, the first man to tell her she's beautiful. Captain Stephen Overtree is accustomed to taking on his brother's neglected duties. Home on leave, he's sent to find Wesley.

On September 14, 2015, after 50 years of searching, gravitational waves were detected for the first time, and astronomy changed forever. Up until then, investigation of the universe had depended on electromagnetic radiation: visible light, radio, X-rays, and the rest. But gravitational waves - ripples in the fabric of space and time - are unrelenting, passing through barriers that stop light dead.

In "The Necklace Affair", Captain Lacey agrees to help a society matron discover what has become of her expensive diamond necklace and to clear her maid, who has been arrested for its theft. Lady Clifford declares that the rival for her husband's affections has stolen the necklace, but Lacey soon realizes that the problem is not so simple.

In this illuminating overview, Professor Garrett Thomson surveys the field, considering the work and influence of 29 major thinkers representing logical atomism and logical positivism (including Russell and Wittgenstein), analytic philosophy (including Quine, Davidson, Rawls), phenomenology and existentialism (including Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre), hermeneutics (including Gadamer and Habermas) and post-structuralism (including Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze). Also examined are some recent thinkers including Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor.

Based on the rare and until now overlooked journal of a Renaissance-era executioner, the noted historian Joel F. Harrington's The Faithful Executioner takes us deep inside the alien world and thinking of Meister Frantz Schmidt of Nuremberg, who, during 45 years as a professional executioner, personally put to death 394 individuals and tortured, flogged, or disfigured many hundreds more. But the picture that emerges of Schmidt from his personal papers is not that of a monster. Could a man who routinely practiced such cruelty also be insightful?

London, 1819. When Brewster, my bodyguard, comes to me about a murder of a pugilist - and what’s more, says his wife has summoned me - I must hasten to St. Giles to find a killer before Brewster is arrested for the crime. This is made difficult because Donata's late husband’s odious cousin has materialized to try to wrest her son into his care. After all, seven-year-old Peter is a viscount, and his cousin wants to get closer to the title.

Captain Lacey is asked by Peter Thompson of the Thames River Police to help him investigate a cold case - the murder of a woman found near the docks Thompson patrols. The investigation was sidelined, considered unsolvable, but Thompson has long wished to find her killer. Captain Lacey joins him in the hunt, entering a part of society that is closed to outsiders. Meanwhile, he must deal with his daughter's debut and more developments in his new domestic life, including an anonymous blackmailer who's out to ruin Lacey any way he can.

The author could be described as a veteran in every sense of the word, even though he was only age 21 when the war ended. Armin Scheiderbauer served as an infantry officer with the 252nd Infantry Division, German army, and saw four years of bitter combat on the Eastern Front, being wounded six times. This is an outstanding personal memoir, written with great thoughtfulness and honesty.

England, 1817. Captain Lacey takes a post as a secretary at the Sudbury School in Berkshire, a school for sons of the wealthiest merchants and bankers in England. As soon as he arrives, Lacey discovers that he's been hired for more than his letter-writing skills. A series of disturbing pranks have kept the school in an uproar, and the headmaster expects Lacey to discover the identity of the prankster. The problems intensify when a groom from the school's stables turns up dead in a lock of the nearby canal.

This easy-to-listen guide organizes pharmacology into manageable, logical steps you can fit in short pockets of time. The proven system helps you memorize medications quickly and form immediate connections. With mnemonics from students and instructors, you'll see how both sides approach learning. After you've finished the 200 Top Drugs in this book, reading pharmacology exam questions will seem like reading plain English.

A rapid and massively disruptive shift from centralized to distributed organizations has already begun. But current leadership practices were designed for large centralized organizations, making them increasingly obsolete. Bob Johansen, who has been projecting future trends from Silicon Valley since 1968, outlines five literacies leaders need to develop to cope with this brave new world.

Madness, sexuality, power, knowledge—are these facts of life or simply parts of speech? In a series of works of astonishing brilliance, historian Michel Foucault excavated the hidden assumptions that govern the way we live and the way we think. The Archaeology of Knowledge begins at the level of things aid and moves quickly to illuminate the connections between knowledge, language, and action in a style at once profound and personal. A summing up of Foucault's own methodological assumptions, this book is also a first step toward a genealogy of the way we live now.

People often joke about "going with their gut" but the truth is that this part of your body exercises an astonishing degree of control over your mood, hunger, and general health. Written with the latest research on the microbiome - the alien bacteria that lives in our guts - The Clever Gut Diet also clearly explains what goes on inside your stomach and intestines every day. Discover up-to-the-date science on hunger hormones and learn how our "second brain" communicates with the rest of the body, shaping our appetite and immune system.

How does a one-hit-point goblin become the Dark Lord? By accident. Bert is a tiny goblin with big dreams. He follows adventurers, and loots the copper they leave behind when they take the real loot. One day, Bert hopes, he'll have enough copper to buy a warg, and finally promote from a one-HP critter to a Warg Rider. Kit is a typical gamer hoping to enjoy a good story, but her friends are more interested in rules, loot and experience.

Installing agile tools and practices won’t be enough to respond to rapid market change unless you lay the groundwork with six key enabling factors, identified by the United Kingdom’s leading agile consulting firm, Agile Centre. From years of experience certifying people in agile leadership, product ownership, and scrum mastery, Karim Harbott has created a model that will help your organization achieve all six factors required for success. This audiobook will help leaders get realistic about the scope of the changes needed in their organization and show them how to get started.