Author: Patrick J. Geary Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501721631 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 284
Book Description
Whereas modern societies tend to banish the dead from the world of the living, medieval men and women accorded them a vital role in the community. The saints counted most prominently as potential intercessors before God, but the ordinary dead as well were called upon to aid the living, and even to participate in the negotiation of political disputes. In this book, the distinguished medievalist Patrick J. Geary shows how exploring the complex relations between the living and dead can broaden our understanding of the political, economic, and cultural history of medieval Europe. Geary has brought together for this volume twelve of his most influential essays. They address such topics as the development of saints' cults and of the concept of sacred space; the integration of saints' cults into the lives of ordinary people; patterns of relic circulation; and the role of the dead in negotiating the claims and counterclaims of various interest groups. Also included are two case studies of communities that enlisted new patron saints to solve their problems. Throughout, Geary demonstrates that, by reading actions, artifacts, and rituals on an equal footing with texts, we can better grasp the otherness of past societies.
Author: Bear F. Braumoeller Publisher: ISBN: 0190849533 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 345
Book Description
In Only the Dead, Bear Braumoeller assesses the claim that armed conflict is in decline and finds it wanting. In the course of his assessment, he also develops a powerful explanation for trends in warfare over time. His central finding is that, although there has been a drop in the rate of international conflict following the end of the Cold War, that drop followed nearly two centuries of steady increases in the rate of conflict initiation.
Author: Jeff Gomez Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 0230614469 Category : Computers Languages : en Pages : 266
Book Description
For over 1500 years books have weathered numerous cultural changes remarkably unaltered. Through wars, paper shortages, radio, TV, computer games, and fluctuating literacy rates, the bound stack of printed paper has, somewhat bizarrely, remained the more robust and culturally relevant way to communicate ideas. Now, for the first time since the Middle Ages, all that is about to change. Newspapers are struggling for readers and relevance; downloadable music has consigned the album to the format scrap heap; and the digital revolution is now about to leave books on the high shelf of history. In Print Is Dead, Gomez explains how authors, producers, distributors, and readers must not only acknowledge these changes, but drive digital book creation, standards, storage, and delivery as the first truly transformational thing to happen in the world of words since the printing press.
Author: Gareth Wood Publisher: Permuted Press ISBN: 161868051X Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 246
Book Description
A year and a half has passed since the dead rose, and the citizens of Cold Lake are running out of hope. Food and weapons are nearly impossible to find, and the dead are everywhere. In desperation, Cold Lake sends Brian Williams to lead a salvage team into the Rocky Mountains. But outside the small safe zones the world is a foreign place filled with new hardships. Williams and his team must use all of their skills to survive in the wilderness ruled by the dead. What the team finds in the zombie-haunted mountains will lead them on a desperate adventure through the ice and snow of winter, in search of a possible cure to the mysterious undead contagion.
Author: Charlie Higson Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers ISBN: 1423154517 Category : Juvenile Fiction Languages : en Pages : 484
Book Description
Higson's terrifying, utterly compelling prequel to The Enemy introduces an all-new cast of characters and sets the stage for a dramatic third book in the series. The disease only affects people sixteen or older. It starts with the symptoms of a cold. Then the skin begins to itch, and spots appear—spots that soon turn into pus-filled boils. But the worst part is the headache, the inner voices that tell you that you need to eat them... the young ones. When the Disaster strikes, the world turns upside down for Ed, Jack, Bam, and the other students at Rowhurst School. The parents and older siblings they left back at home are dead—or worse. Once the teachers go on the attack, the kids know it's time to escape and make their way to the city. It's got to be better in London...or will it be worse?
Author: Devon Monk Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 1101516461 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 290
Book Description
Welcome to a new America that is built on blood, sweat, and gears... In steam age America, men, monsters, machines, and magic battle for the same scrap of earth and sky. In this chaos, bounty hunter Cedar Hunt rides, cursed by lycanthropy and carrying the guilt of his brother's death. Then he's offered hope that his brother may yet survive. All he has to do is find the Holder: a powerful device created by mad devisers-and now in the hands of an ancient Strange who was banished to walk this Earth. In a land shaped by magic, steam, and iron, where the only things a man can count on are his guns, gears, and grit, Cedar will have to depend on all three if he's going to save his brother and reclaim his soul once and for all...
Author: Nancy Mandeville Caciola Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 1501703463 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 382
Book Description
Simultaneously real and unreal, the dead are people, yet they are not. The society of medieval Europe developed a rich set of imaginative traditions about death and the afterlife, using the dead as a point of entry for thinking about the self, regeneration, and loss. These macabre preoccupations are evident in the widespread popularity of stories about the returned dead, who interacted with the living both as disembodied spirits and as living corpses or revenants. In Afterlives, Nancy Mandeville Caciola explores this extraordinary phenomenon of the living's relationship with the dead in Europe during the five hundred years after the year 1000.Caciola considers both Christian and pagan beliefs, showing how certain traditions survived and evolved over time, and how attitudes both diverged and overlapped through different contexts and social strata. As she shows, the intersection of Christian eschatology with various pagan afterlife imaginings—from the classical paganisms of the Mediterranean to the Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, and Scandinavian paganisms indigenous to northern Europe—brought new cultural values about the dead into the Christian fold as Christianity spread across Europe. Indeed, the Church proved surprisingly open to these influences, absorbing new images of death and afterlife in unpredictable fashion. Over time, however, the persistence of regional cultures and beliefs would be counterbalanced by the effects of an increasingly centralized Church hierarchy. Through it all, one thing remained constant: the deep desire in medieval people to bring together the living and the dead into a single community enduring across the generations.
Author: Thomas W. Laqueur Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 0691180938 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 736
Book Description
The meaning of our concern for mortal remains—from antiquity through the twentieth century The Greek philosopher Diogenes said that when he died his body should be tossed over the city walls for beasts to scavenge. Why should he or anyone else care what became of his corpse? In The Work of the Dead, acclaimed cultural historian Thomas Laqueur examines why humanity has universally rejected Diogenes's argument. No culture has been indifferent to mortal remains. Even in our supposedly disenchanted scientific age, the dead body still matters—for individuals, communities, and nations. A remarkably ambitious history, The Work of the Dead offers a compelling and richly detailed account of how and why the living have cared for the dead, from antiquity to the twentieth century. The book draws on a vast range of sources—from mortuary archaeology, medical tracts, letters, songs, poems, and novels to painting and landscapes in order to recover the work that the dead do for the living: making human communities that connect the past and the future. Laqueur shows how the churchyard became the dominant resting place of the dead during the Middle Ages and why the cemetery largely supplanted it during the modern period. He traces how and why since the nineteenth century we have come to gather the names of the dead on great lists and memorials and why being buried without a name has become so disturbing. And finally, he tells how modern cremation, begun as a fantasy of stripping death of its history, ultimately failed—and how even the ashes of the victims of the Holocaust have been preserved in culture. A fascinating chronicle of how we shape the dead and are in turn shaped by them, this is a landmark work of cultural history.
Author: Gareth Wood Publisher: Permuted Press ISBN: 1618680110 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 287
Book Description
Within hours of succumbing to a plague, millions of dead rise to attack the living. Brian Williams flees the city with his sister Sarah, literally just ahead of the undead horde. Their post-apocalyptic journey begins with refuge in the mountains, then takes them across a destroyed nation. Although banded with other survivors, the group remains desperately outnumbered and under-armed. With no food and little fuel, they must fight their way to safety. RISE is the story of the extreme measures a family will take to survive a trek across a country gone mad.
Author: Jory John Publisher: Chronicle Books ISBN: 1452114048 Category : Humor Languages : en Pages : 108
Book Description
From the authors of the breakout best seller All my friends are dead comes a brand-new illustrated compendium of the humorous existential ruminations of people, animals, legendary monsters, and inanimate objects.
Author: Patrick J. Geary
Author: Bear F. Braumoeller
Author: Jeff Gomez
Author: Gareth Wood
Author: Charlie Higson
Author: Devon Monk
Author: Nancy Mandeville Caciola
Author: Thomas W. Laqueur
Author: Gareth Wood
Author: Jory John