Shakespeare was not exaggerating when he defined being a soldier as one of the seven ages of man. Over the early modern period, many millions of young men from the four corners of the present United Kingdom went to war, often – and most bloodily – ag...

The production of Wagner's operas is fiercely debated. In this groundbreaking stage history Patrick Carnegy vividly evokes the – often scandalous – great productions that have left their mark not only on our understanding of Wagner but on modern thea...

On the ancient Silk Road, treasure-laden caravans made their arduous way through deserts and mountain passes, establishing trade between Asia and the civilizations of Europe and the Mediterranean. Today's electronic Silk Roads ferry information acros...

For a brief moment at the close of the 13th century, the town of Assisi was the focus for the two greatest powers in the Latin Church: the Roman papacy and the Franciscan Order. The election in 1288 of Nicholas IV, the first Franciscan pope, was the...

In this book William C. Chittick provides a first-time look at historic Persian literature and the topic of love, which is at the heart of Islamic spiritual thought. It contains extensive Arabic and Persian material, from the Qur'an up through the tw...

A collection of ten essays paired with substantial prefaces, this book chronicles and contextualizes Roger Cooter's contributions to the history of medicine. Through an analysis of his own work, Cooter critically examines the politics of conceptual a...

Based on a series of lectures delivered in 1840, Thomas Carlyle's "On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History" considers how heroes are created and conveys his ideas on the importance of heroic leadership. Carlyle explored a wide range of her...

On October 27, 1960, art critic Pierre Restany named a group of Paris-based artists the "Nouveaux Realistes" (New Realists) in a founding declaration that stated, "The New Realists recognize their collective singularity. New Realism = new perceptual...

Since it was first published, "French in Action: A Beginning Course in Language and Culture – The Capretz Method" has been widely recognized in the field as a model for video-based foreign-language instructional materials. The third edition has been...

Reissued with a new preface to commemorate the first publication of "a la recherche du temps perdu" one hundred years ago, " Marcel Proust" portrays in abundant detail the extraordinary life and times of one of the greatest literary voices of the twe...