Geschichte

Desert Star, eng, Michael Connelly, 2023-04-27, Orion Publishing Group

Travel back in time in this essential mini encyclopedia to the mighty Roman empire, with all the information you need to know about gods, gladiators, baths, battles, and more! Did you know that audiences of up to 50,000 people watched entertainments in the Colosseum in Rome, and their tickets were numbered pieces of broken pottery? Or that Romans went to public baths to get clean, but there wasn't any soap as they rubbed themselves with olive oil instead. No? Then you need this brilliant mini book to learn the really important facts about one of history's greatest civilisations. Includes pictures, Pocket Eyewitness Ancient Rome uses bite-sized chunks of information, including amazing stats and facts, to make learning fun. Ideal for school projects and homework assignments, Pocket Eyewitness Ancient Rome is the perfect guide for young historians.

A moving, evocative account of a rural GP in a remote rural location.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER • In an inspiring follow-up to her acclaimed memoir Becoming, former First Lady Michelle Obama shares practical wisdom and powerful strategies for staying hopeful and balanced in today’s highly uncertain world.  There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much? Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles—the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.” She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,” “going high,” and assembling a “kitchen table” of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness. “When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it,” writes Michelle Obama. A rewarding blend of powerful stories and profound advice that will ignite conversation, The Light We Carry inspires readers to examine their own lives, identify their sources of gladness, and connect meaningfully in a turbulent world.

The Summa Theologica is a compendium of theology written by Thomas Aquinas between 1265 and 1273. In Roman Catholicism it is the sum of all known learning and doctrine, of all that can be known about God and humanity's relations with God - a landmark in the history of theology that famously offers five proofs of God's existence, the first three of which are cosmological arguments; the fourth, a moral argument; and the fifth, a teleological argument.The third quarter of the thirteenth century marked the first decisive philosophical encounter between Hellenism and Christianity. The rediscovery of Aristotle's works after the Dark Ages ushered in a new era of intellectual fervor in Europe, and the work of Thomas Aquinas is a commentary on Aristotle, whose writings were lost to the non-Arabic world until the beginning of the Thirteenth Century. To many, Aristotle's worldview was a pagan threat to Christianity. To Aquinas, it provided an exciting cosmological framework on which to build an all-encompassing Christian worldview.His thoughts unfolding with a calmness of order and an assurance of judgment, Aquinas explores in the Summa the primary role of the senses in the acquisition of knowledge and the metaphysical analysis of things in terms of matter and form. But unlike Aristotle's "God," who did not care one whit about the world, the God of Christianity, insisted Aquinas, is a personal God. Like Aristotle, Aquinas believed that each human being has a soul and that all created things have a purpose. For Christians, all are part of a divine plan.This dazzling synthesis of Catholic doctrine has had a profound impact on Christian thinking since the thirteenth century and has become the de facto official teaching of the Catholic Church - the intellectual underpinning of the Church to this day.

"In light of Russia's aggressive 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a crucial, elucidative read, a sweeping epic chronicling a thousand years of strife, war, and bloodshed--from pre-Christianity to the fall of Communism--illuminating the remarkable cultural significance and richness of a place perpetually lost to the margins of history. Eastern Europe, the moniker, has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone now, and they might tell you that Estonia is in the Baltics, or Scandinavia, that Slovakia is in Central Europe and Croatia is in the Eastern Adriatic or the Balkans. In fact, Eastern Europe is a place that barely exists at all, except in cultural memory. Yet it remains a powerful marker of identity for many, with a fragmented and wide history, defined by texts, myths, and memories of centuries of hardship and suffering. Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a masterful narrative about a place that has survived the brink of being forgotten. Beginning with long-lost accounts of early pagan life, Mikanowski offers a kaleidoscopic tour recounting the rise and fall of the great empires--Ottoman, Hapsburg, and Russian--the dawn of the modern era, the ravages of Fascism and Communism, as well as Capitalism, the birth of the modern nation-state, and more. A student of literature, history, and the ghosts of his own family's past, Mikanowski paints a magisterial portrait of a place united by diversity, and eclecticism, and a people with the shared story of being the dominated rather than the dominating. The result is a loving and ebullient celebration of the distinctive and vibrant cultures that stubbornly persisted at the margins of Western Europe, and a powerful corrective that re-centers our understanding of how the modern Western world took shape"--

A dedicated CIA agent becomes an unexpected ally to a woman haunted by the kidnapping of her family, in Suspects, a thrilling novel from international number one bestselling author Danielle Steel.Theodora Morgan is fashion royalty. Founder of a wildly popular online shopping service, she is one of the most successful businesswomen in the world, although she prefers to keep a low profile, especially in recent months. It was a year ago when the unthinkable struck her family: her husband, industry mogul Matthieu Pasquier, and their son were kidnapped and held for ransom - a nightmare that ended in tragedy.The case has gone cold, despite evidence linking the crime to Matthieu's foreign competitors. Theo has reluctantly gone back to work running her company. On the flight to a launch party for one of her highly anticipated pop-up shops in New York City, she crosses paths with high-society 'networkist' Pierre de Vaumont. Theo politely invites him to her event -unaware that Pierre has been flagged by the CIA.Senior supervising CIA operative Mike Andrews investigates Pierre's suspicious foreign contacts and clears him to enter the country, but when he realizes that Theodora Morgan is on the same flight, he becomes concerned for her safety. Posing as a lawyer, Mike begins a covert mission - starting with Theo's opening party. When Mike and Theo meet, their connection is instant, but Theo is completely unaware of Mike's true objective or identity . . . or that the life she is rebuilding is in grave danger.

A compelling and accessible new perspective on the modern science of psychology, based on one of Yale's most popular courses of all timeHow does the brain?a three-pound wrinkly mass?give rise to intelligence and conscious experience? Was Freud right that we are all plagued by forbidden sexual desires? What is the function of emotions such as disgust, gratitude, and shame? Renowned psychologist Paul Bloom answers these questions and many more in Psych, his riveting new book about the science of the mind.Psych is an expert and passionate guide to the most intimate aspects of our nature, serving up the equivalent of a serious university course while being funny, engaging, and full of memorable anecdotes. But Psych is much more than a comprehensive overview of the field of psychology. Bloom argues that a number of widely accepted theories in the field are probably wrong, and he reveals what psychology can tell us about the most pressing moral and political issues of our time?including belief in conspiracy theories, the role of genes in explaining human differences, and the discussion around implicit racial bias.Bloom also shows how psychology can give us practical insights into important issues?from the treatment of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety to the best way to lead happy and fulfilling lives. Psych is a riveting guide to the most important topic there is: it is the story of us.

Practicing the Presence is one of the four foundational books among Joel Goldsmith's Infinite Way writings. Goldsmith recommended that new students begin with this book, together with Living the Infinite Way. Practicing the Presence is a celebrated guide to the awareness of the divine and transcendental in our daily lives. Goldsmith writes that it was during one of his periods of contemplation that the words came to him, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee." This surprised him, because at that time he was little acquainted with the Bible and only occasionally went to church. But through the study of Scripture and the practice of its teachings, Goldsmith realized that a Presence was with him, counseling, sustaining, and leading him into greater spiritual awareness. Following that realization, he traveled throughout the world, teaching others to know this Presence.Goldsmith says, "Every person who has known dissatisfaction, incompleteness, and frustration will someday learn that there is only one missing link in this entire chain of harmonious living. That is the practice of the presence of God - consciously, daily and hourly, abiding in some great spiritual truth of scripture, and it makes no difference which scripture: Christian, Hebrew, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, or Moslem." If we begin with practicing the presence of God, it leads to an inner stillness that makes it possible to meditate. Goldsmith sets forth for the reader how to practice the presence from the moment we awaken to the moment we retire for sleep.To Goldsmith, harmonious living is all a matter of consciousness. When we have the right consciousness, we do not want things, but we express the very things which formerly we sought. So, instead of a change of circumstances, what the seeker needs is a change of consciousness. Practicing the Presence helps the seeker make that change by opening consciousness to the life by grace. In clear and direct language, Goldsmith shows that by constantly and consciously practicing the presence of God in every experience of our daily life, the struggles of existence pass and harmony is established in every department of our lives. "Seek neither health, nor wealth, nor fame, nor fortune," the author writes. "Seek first the realization of this inner kingdom and be a beholder as these outer things are added."

This journal of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine is a collection of Andrey Kurkov's writings and broadcasts from Kyiv.

The digital era is beset by distraction, and it feels like things are only getting worse. At times like these, the distant past beckons as a golden age of attention. We fantasise about escaping our screens. We dream of recapturing the quiet of a world with less noise. We imagine retreating into solitude and singlemindedness, almost like latter-day monks.But although we think of early monks as master concentrators, a life of mindfulness did not, in fact, come to them easily. As historian Jamie Kreiner demonstrates in The Wandering Mind, their attempts to stretch the mind out to God-to continuously contemplate the divine order and its ethical requirements-were all-consuming, and their battles against distraction were never-ending. Delving into the experiences of early Christian monks living in the Middle East, around the Mediterranean, and throughout Europe from 300 to 900 CE, Kreiner shows that these men and women were obsessed with distraction in ways that seem remarkably modern. At the same time, she suggests that our own obsession is remarkably medieval. Ancient Greek and Roman intellectuals had sometimes complained about distraction, but it was early Christian monks who waged an all-out war against it. The stakes could not have been higher: they saw distraction as a matter of life and death.Even though the world today is vastly different from the world of the early Middle Ages, we can still learn something about our own distractedness by looking closely at monks' strenuous efforts to concentrate. Drawing on a trove of sources that the monks left behind, Kreiner reconstructs the techniques they devised in their lifelong quest to master their minds-from regimented work schedules and elaborative metacognitive exercises to physical regimens for hygiene, sleep, sex and diet. She captures the fleeting moments of pure attentiveness that some monks managed to grasp, and the many times when monks struggled and failed and went back to the drawing board. Blending history and psychology, The Wandering Mind is a witty, illuminating account of human fallibility and ingenuity that bridges a distant era and our own.

A celebration of Ukraine's rich cultural heritage bringing to light the country's most important works of art and architectural monuments from prehistory to the present.

A commentary on Surah Yasin, written in English complete with diagrams and illustrations.