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  The Roman Empire and Byzantine...

  Charles River Editors

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  For the people of the ancient Mediterranean and beyond, the city of Rome had been a symbol of power for centuries, and entering the early 5th century CE, the Eternal City hadn’t been taken by an enemy force since the Gauls had done it about 800 years earlier, an unheard of period of tranquility in a world wracked with almost constant warfare. 
  Thus, when the Visigoths, whom the Romans considered uncultured and inferior, took the city of Rome and sacked it in 410, the world was stunned. It made theologians of the newly Christianized empire question God’s plan on Earth, and it encouraged many leading Romans to look east to Constantinople for their future. Indeed, the Western Roman Empire would completely collapse in the late 5th century, less than 70 years after the Visigoths sacked Rome, and just how it went from being a superpower to a poorly led, weak, and vulnerable shadow of its former self has preoccupied historians for centuries. 
  To this day, it remains difficult to trace just when the decline began, but it’s fair to say that the sack of Rome was the result of a number of factors that had been coalescing for many years. In the end, the fall of the Roman Empire was not a tale of cataclysmic events that shattered the sprawling power, but the culmination of centuries of internal dissent and decay, combined with growing external threats that led to gradual decline and eventually to the empire’s final destruction.  
  In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the 4th century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed.

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  The Hitchhike

  Mark Paul Smith

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  Mark Paul Smith graduated college on an Air Force scholarship with dreams of becoming a pilot. He had some downtime after graduation and before reporting for duty so he decided to hitchhike the world. A decision that would change his life forever.As he traveled, his approach to life and his future decisions changed. He hitchhiked through the Iron Curtain and worked on a collective farm in Hungary only to find that communism wasn't our real enemy. He met people from North Vietnam who showed him the real enemy was the U.S. war machine. Being an American was not popular in those days, but the people of the world showed Smith kindness and kept him alive when he ran out of money. The long road to decision showed him that people everywhere want peace, not war.Mark Paul Smith's hitchhike from Indiana to India in 1972 changed him from being an Air Force Officer into a conscientious objector. His faith in the United States of America was restored when he sued the government and won his case in federal court.His journey is one of faith, contemplation, and awakening, mixed with the freedom and abandonment of the 70s.

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  Locked Down Locked Out - Why...

  Maya Schenwar

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  An analysis of the US prison system through real-life stories, and a look at the complex work of community-based social justice projects. 
   
   
   
  Through the stories of prisoners and their families, including her own family's experiences, Maya Schenwar shows how the institution that locks up 2.3 million Americans and decimates poor communities of color is shredding the ties that, if nurtured, could foster real collective safety. As she vividly depicts here, incarceration takes away the very things that might enable people to build better lives. But looking toward a future beyond imprisonment, Schenwar profiles community-based initiatives that successfully deal with problems—both individual harm and larger social wrongs—through connection rather than isolation, moving toward a safer, freer future for all of us. 
   
   
   
  "Maya Schenwar's stories about prisoners, their families (including her own), and the thoroughly broken punishment system are rescued from any pessimism such narratives might inspire by the author's brilliant juxtaposition of abolitionist imaginaries and radical political practices." —Angela Y. Davis, author of Are Prisons Obsolete?

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  Secrets of a Stoic King:...

  Sullivan Hawke

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  Secrets of a Stoic King: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Life 
  ⭐⭐ Simplified Guide & Explanations Included ⭐⭐ 
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  This guide is your ultimate companion for deepening your insights into Stoic philosophy, applying your knowledge, and engaging in practical exercises that lead to personal growth and fulfillment. With this resource in hand, you're poised for success. 
  Updated for contemporary relevance and application. 
  Key features of this enriched guide: 
  - Profound insights for a resilient, purposeful life 
  - Detailed explanations of Stoic principles 
  - Effective strategies for applying timeless wisdom in everyday situations 
  Our guide stands out due to its thorough exploration of the concepts, ensuring you're well-equipped for a meaningful life. Ideas are not just brushed upon; they are examined with clarity and depth. 
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  Secrets of a Stoic King: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Life

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  Alchemy and Its Exponents

  Manly Palmer Hall

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  Is the transmutation of base metals into gold possible? Is the idea one at which the learned of the modern world can afford to scoff? Alchemy was more than a speculative art: it was also an operative art. Since the time of the immortal Hermes, alchemists have asserted (and not without substantiating evidence) that they could manufacture gold from tin, silver, lead, and mercury. That the galaxy of brilliant philosophic and scientific minds who, over a period of two thousand years, affirmed the actuality of metallic transmutation and multiplication, could be completely sane and rational on all other problems of philosophy and science, yet hopelessly mistaken on this one point, is untenable. Nor is it reasonable that the hundreds declaring to have seen and performed transmutations of metals could all have been dupes, imbeciles, or liars. 
  Those assuming that all alchemists were of unsound mentality would be forced to put in this category nearly all the philosophers and scientists of the ancient and mediæval worlds. Emperors, princes, priests, and common townsfolk have witnessed the apparent miracle of metallic metamorphosis. In the face of existing testimony, anyone is privileged to remain unconvinced, but the scoffer elects to ignore evidence worthy of respectful consideration. Many great alchemists and Hermetic philosophers occupy an honored niche in the Hall of Fame, while their multitudinous critics remain obscure. 

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  The Expanding Circle - Ethics...

  Peter Singer

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  What is ethics? Where do moral standards come from? Are they based on emotions, reason, or some innate sense of right and wrong? For many scientists, the key lies entirely in biology—especially in Darwinian theories of evolution and self-preservation. But if evolution is a struggle for survival, why are we still capable of altruism? 
   
   
   
  In his classic study The Expanding Circle, Peter Singer argues that altruism began as a genetically based drive to protect one's kin and community members but has developed into a consciously chosen ethic with an expanding circle of moral concern. Drawing on philosophy and evolutionary psychology, he demonstrates that human ethics cannot be explained by biology alone. Rather, it is our capacity for reasoning that makes moral progress possible. In a new afterword, Singer takes stock of his argument in light of recent research on the evolution of morality.

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