World History: Books & eBooks

The contributions to this volume address a wide range of fascinating topics: the marital regime in Damascus, narrative strategies in biographies of Hanbali judges, knowledge brokerage and knowledge specialisation, the political order of the Mamluk sultanate, the Zawawi presence in Ayyubid and Mamluk times, legal change and economic growth, Islamic philosophy, and the Islamization of Egypt and Syria.

In The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich L. Lehner points to such figures as representatives of a long-overlooked thread of a reform-minded Catholicism, which engaged Enlightenment ideals with as much fervor and intellectual gravity as anyone. Their story opens newpathways for understanding how faith and modernity can interact in our own time.

The extraordinary creative energy of Renaissance Italy lies at the root of modern Western culture. In her elegant new introduction, Virginia Cox offers a fresh vision of this iconic moment in European cultural history, when - between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries - Italy led the world in painting, building, science and literature. Her book explores key artistic, literary and intellectual developments, but also histories of food and fashion, map-making, exploration and anatomy.

This book surveys the full panorama of ten centuries of Christian monastic life. It moves from the deserts of Egypt and the Frankish monasteries of early medieval Europe to the religious ruptures of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the reforms of the later Middle Ages. Throughout that story the book balances a rich sense of detail with a broader synthetic view.

The book not only reveals the historical depth of present practices, but also reveals possible comparisons that show globalization processes, entanglements and exchanges of ideas and practices in pre-modern times.

Aided by photographs of key archaelogical finds (such as monumental Egyptian statues, Peruvian medallions, and Celtic jewelry), Roberts clearly explains the early arts, engineering, and religion. He also carefully ties in changing economics--such as trade routes and developments in agriculture and manufacturing--making clear their importance for the history of politics and changing societies. The story leaps ahead, through the Roman Empire, the explosive arrival of Islam, the rise and fall of samurai rule in Japan, the medieval kingdoms of sub-Saharan Africa, the Mongol conquests, and the early modern expansion of Europe across the globe. American independence, the French Revolution, the colonial empires, Japan's startling modernization, and the World Wars follow in turn, accompanied by discussions of scientific and technical breakthroughs.