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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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  999 Inside Death Row in the...

  Arnaud Gaillard

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  On death row, the poorest and most numerous, with no family and no decent lawyer, are sometimes executed before all their appeals have been exhausted. Their fate consigned to modest prison cemeteries. In Texas, the number engraved on the cement stone begins with 999.
  Out of 50 American states, 34 still have the death penalty. Why and how? The author's investigation took him to California, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. A human immersion into the heart of American society and its judicial system, through encounters with death row inmates, lawyers and victims' families.
  This fascinating book finely deconstructs the American myth of fair and infallible justice—from the deplorable conditions of confinement to daily abuse, from random legal recourse to political and judicial manipulation. More than just a sentence, the death penalty appears to be torture with many faces. And in an America on the move, there are signs that abolition is on the way. 
  999, is the fruit of a fact-finding mission carried out by the French association, Ensemble contre la peine de mort (ECPM), with financial support from the European Union.

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  Western Allies’ Procurement of...

  Editors Charles River

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  After the last shots of World War II were fired and the process of rebuilding Germany and Europe began, the Western Allies and the Soviet Union each tried to obtain the services of the Third Reich's leading scientists, especially those involved in rocketry, missile technology, and aerospace research. Naturally, this was a delicate affair due to the fact many of the German scientists were not only active Nazis but had helped the Nazi war machine terrorize the world. At the same time, by the late war period, the Anglo-American Allies formed a clear picture of the Soviet state. Though forced to ally with the USSR's dictator, Josef Stalin, the West came to understand Communist Russia represented yet another hungry totalitarian power, and thus a very real threat to an independent Europe. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill realized the menacing character of the Soviets from the Katyn Forest Massacre of Polish army officers, if not before, while the Americans only gradually shed a naïve assumption of continued Russian friendliness after the war. 
  The result was the American-led “Operation Paperclip” on the Western side, which resulted in German scientists putting their expertise at the disposal of the U.S. and other NATO members. Operation Paperclip aimed not only to obtain the benefits of German scientific advances for the United States but also to deny them to the potentially hostile Soviets. 
  The Western approach, however self-interested, typically met with voluntary compliance on the German scientists' parts. In contrast, the Soviet answer to Paperclip, Operation Osoaviakhim, used the implied threat of imprisonment, torture, and death, the characteristic tools of Stalinist Russia, to coerce assistance from German scientists and engineers following the war. These men yielded rich dividends to the Soviet state in terms of achieving at least temporary technical parity with the USSR's western rivals.

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  Outsider by Albert Camus The...

  Bright Summaries

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  Unlock the more straightforward side of The Outsider with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Outsider by Albert Camus, which follows the antihero Meursault as he lives his life in complete disregard of social conventions and is led to kill by events that seem to be beyond his control. His refusal to lie or pretend to be something he is not in order to make others comfortable draws the ire of his fellow citizens, and his condemnation is due as much to his apparent remorselessness and lack of feeling as to his crime itself. The Outsider forms part of Camus's so-called "Cycle of the Absurd" and is widely considered to be one of the most important books of the 20th century. Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957, and influenced writers and philosophers around the world with his reflections on the meaning of existence and the search for happiness in an ultimately indifferent world.Find out everything you need to know about The Outsider in a fraction of the time!This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you:• A complete plot summary• Character studies• Key themes and symbols• Questions for further reflectionWhy choose BrightSummaries.com?Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you on your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!

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  Dust and Light - On the Art of...

  Andrea Barrett

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  The celebrated National Book Award–winning writer's intimate exploration of how fact is transformed into fiction. 
   
   
   
  In this thoughtful collection of essays, Andrea Barrett draws from her experiences writing some of the most acclaimed historical fiction of our time to explore the mysteries and delights of the genre. Inspiration found in the past, she argues, can illuminate fiction, just as dust scatters light and makes the unseen visible. Delving into some of the largest questions in the genre—How does a writer find meaningful subject matter beyond the confines of their life? How are scraps of history transformed into a fully formed narrative?—Barrett explores how she came to create some of her beloved works and explores lessons gleaned from the work of such masters of historical fiction as Toni Morrison, Leo Tolstoy, Hilary Mantel, and Colm Tóibín. Candid and elegant, Dust and Light is the perfect book for anyone who loves reading fiction set in the past, as well as for anyone aspiring to write it.

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  Secrets of the Illuminati

  Raphael Terra

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  This audiobook has been recorded using Text to speech (TTS). 
   
  From rap artists wearing their symbol to multi-million dollar movies, the enigmatic and elusive secret society we know as the illuminti has held us captive in more ways than one. 
   
  We are told they originated in the 18th century, but the truth is much older than that. Who are they? What secrets do they hold? When and where did they originate? 
   
  They run governments, companies and religions. They have done so for a very long time. Their names have changed, their faces altered but their secrets remain the same. 
   
  We see glimpses of their power. We see the outcomes of their plots and schemes. We see revolutions and war. We succumb to their propaganda and manipulation again and again. Most have no idea that they are under the spell. 
   
  In the 18th century they emerged briefly into the spotlight to bring about world-wide cataclysmic change and they called themselves the Illuminati. 
   
  Quickly they spread and embedded themselves and their ideals within other secret societies. The French had a bloody revolution. America turned the tide against a royal regime. Russia, Spain and more, all fell to the zeal of a new world order. 
   
  In this book we will delve deep into the what these people believe in and enter their secret initiations and rituals. We will explain what those rituals mean and their origins. 
   
  We will see the spread of their influence with the assassins, Druze, Yezidis, Allumbrados, Ismailis, Templars, Triad and more. We will see how they created and fostered revolutions from France and America to China and Russia. And we will uncover their very ancient origins and how they were there at the very beginning of the major religions of the globe. 
   
  This is the story of the world's most powerful secret society - the illuminati.

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