Islamic gunpowder empires

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Damian Thompson

Damian Thompson examines the roots of millennial beliefs and its often unrecognized role in the development of modern society. He seeks to answer a number of surprising question, such as: Why to calendar changes have such a profound effect upon the human psyche? Why does the Catholic church attach such mystical significance to the year 2000? And why do the disembodied spirits channeled by New Age mediums point to the end of this millennium as a time of astonishing "earth changes"?

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Bill Fawcett

From the Publisher: A remarkable compendium of wild schemes, mad plans, crazy inventions, and truly glorious disasters. Every phenomenally bad idea seemed like a good idea to someone. How else can you explain the Ford Edsel or the sword pistol-absolutely absurd creations that should have never made it off the drawing board? It Looked Good on Paper gathers together the most flawed plans, half-baked ideas, and downright ridiculous machines throughout history that some second-rate Einstein decided to foist on an unsuspecting populace with the best and most optimistic intentions. Some failed spectacularly. Others fizzled after great expense. One even crashed on Mars. But every one of them at one time must have looked good on paper, including: The lead water pipes of Rome. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge-built to collapse. The Hubble telescope-the $2 billion scientific marvel that couldn't see. The Spruce Goose-Howard Hughes's airborne atrocity: big, expensive, slow, unstable, and made of wood. With more than thirty-five chapters full of incredibly insipid inventions, both infamous and obscure, It Looked Good on Paper is a mind-boggling, endlessly entertaining collection of fascinating failures.

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John E. Findling & Frank W. Thackeray

"To help students understand this sweep of history, this resource provides detailed description and expert analysis of the ten most important events through the seventeenth century.". "Each chapter features an introductory essay that presents the facts of the event in a clear, chronological manner that makes complex history understandable. This essay is followed by an interpretive essay, written by a recognized authority in the field in a style designed to appeal to a general readership and promote critical thinking, that places the event in a broader context and assesses it in terms of its political, economic, sociocultural, and international significance.". "With an illustration and an annotated bibliography for each event, a glossary of names, events, and terms of the period, and a timeline of important events in American history through the seventeenth century, Events That Changed America Through the Seventeenth Century is an ideal addition to the high school, community college, and undergraduate reference shelf, as well as excellent supplementary reading in social studies and American history courses."--BOOK JACKET.

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Jacques Gélis

"Highly detailed and clearly written, this book is the first full-length study of the complex system of practices, beliefs and taboos which surrounded conception and childbirth in early modern Europe. In a rich and scholarly study, Jacques Gelis reconstructs the activities and attitudes of the midwives and mothers, and the sufferings they had to endure. He continues with an examination of the role of the Church, the herbalist and the mineral world (touchstones and talisman) in the explanation of the mysteries of procreation."--amazon.ca.