A life-changing move to Spain...This is the inspirational story of moving to a new country with nothing, then really living your dreams.Turning up in Madrid without a word of Spanish, Ben soon finds a job, beautiful language exchanges, amazing journeys to the depths of Spain, and wild fiestas. Then he meets Marina, buys a scarily run-down flat in Madrid's wild Lavapies neighbourhood, and really takes the cultural plunge.Incomprehensible meals with endless Spanish in-laws, residents' meetings where not only his flat but his whole livelihood, and sanity, are on the line... Not to mention Medallion Manolo, the hunter-builder from hell...Errant in Iberia is a complete picture of the troubles and delights of a new life abroad, of Spain as it enters the 21st Century, and of Spain's most intriguing travel destinations.
James Lee Burke’s most beloved character, Dave Robicheaux, returns in this New York Times bestselling mystery set in the towns and backwoods of Louisiana: an “enthralling yet grim novel that…will captivate, start to finish” (Publishers Weekly). Dave Robicheaux is a haunted man. From the acts he committed in Vietnam, to his battles with alcoholism, to the sudden loss of his beloved wife, Molly, his thoughts drift from one irreconcilable memory to the next. Images of ghosts pepper his reality. Robicheaux’s only beacon remains serving as a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana. It’s in that capacity that Robicheaux crosses paths with powerful mob boss, Tony Nemo. Tony has a Civil War sword he’d like to give to Levon Broussard, a popular local author whose books have been adapted into major Hollywood films. Then there’s Jimmy Nightengale, the young poster boy of New Orleans wealth and glamour. Jimmy’s fond of Levon’s work, and even fonder of his beautiful, enigmatic wife, Rowena. Tony thinks Jimmy can be a US Senator someday, and has the resources and clout to make it happen. There’s something off about the relationship among these three men, and after a vicious assault, it’s up to Robicheaux to uncover the truth “in the barn-burner of a climax” (Booklist, starred review). Complicating matters is the sudden death of the New Iberian local responsible for Molly’s death; namely that Robicheaux’s colleague thinks Robicheaux had something to do with it. As Robicheaux works to clear his name and make sense of the murder, a harrowing study of America emerges: this nation’s abiding conflict between a sense of past grandeur and a legacy of shame, its easy seduction by demagogues and wealth, and its predilection for violence and revenge. “It has been almost five years since James Lee Burke’s last Dave Robicheaux novel, and it was absolutely worth the wait” (Associated Press).
Reading crusader fiction against the backdrop of Mediterranean history, this book explains how Iberian authors reimagined the idea of crusade through the lens of Iberian geopolitics and social history. The crusades transformed Mediterranean history and inaugurated complex engagements between Western Europe, the Balkans, North Africa, and the Middle East in ways that endure to this day. Narratives of crusades powerfully shaped European thinking about the East and continue to influence the representation of interactions between Christian and Muslim states in the region. The crusade, a French idea that gave rise to Iberian, North African, and Levantine campaigns, was very much a Mediterranean phenomenon. French and English authors wrote itineraries in the Holy Land, chronicles of the crusades, and fanciful accounts of Christian knights who championed the Latin Church in the East. This study aims to explore the ways in which Iberian authors imagined their role in the culture of crusade, both as participants and interpreters of narrative traditions of the crusading world from north of the Pyrenees.
Literary legend James A. Michener was “a Renaissance man, adventurous, inquisitive, unpretentious and unassuming, with an encyclopedic mind and a generous heart” (The New York Times Book Review). In this exceptional memoir, the man himself tells the story of his remarkable life and describes the people, events, and ideas that shaped it. Moving backward and forward across time, he writes about the many strands of his experience: his passion for travel; his lifelong infatuation with literature, music, and painting; his adventures in politics; and the hard work, headaches, and rewards of the writing life. Here at last is the real James Michener: plainspoken, wise, and enormously sympathetic, a man who could truly say, “The world is my home.” Praise for The World Is My Home “Michener’s own life makes one of his most engaging tales—a classic American success story.”—Entertainment Weekly “The Michener saga is as full of twists as any of his monumental works. . . . His output, his political interests, his patriotic service, his diligence, and the breadth of his readership are matched only by the great nineteenth-century writers whose works he devoured as he grew up—Dickens, Balzac, Mark Twain.”—Chicago Tribune “There are splendid yarns about [Michener’s] wartime doings in the South Pacific. There are hilarious cautionary tales about his service on government commissions. There are wonderful inside stories from the publishing business. And always there is Michener himself—analyzing his own character, assessing himself as a writer, chronicling his intellectual life, giving advice to young writers.”—The Plain Dealer “A sweepingly interesting life . . . Whether he’s having an epiphany over a campout in New Guinea with head-hunting cannibals or getting politically charged by the melodrama of great opera, James A. Michener’s world is a place and a time worth reading about.”—The Christian Science Monitor
This collection of essays asserts the specific value of world history research and teaching, showing how the field contributes to the larger historical profession and offering concrete suggestions to develop more interaction between the academy and the public. The twelve contributors, each with their own academic areas of interest, are experienced scholars and classroom teachers. Uniting them together in this volume is their professional relationship with Jerry H. Bentley (1949–2012). This shared connection served as a catalyst to showcase Bentley’s enduring legacy: a commitment to investigating large-scale questions with detailed empirical evidence that explains the human condition—documenting both patterns of similarity and difference in ways that account for regional and temporal variations. The volume continues Bentley’s meticulous attention to world historical methods: focus on scale, cross-cultural encounter, comparison, periodization, critical geography, and interdisciplinarity. Encounters Old and New in World History responds to provocations that Jerry Bentley tendered in his scholarship and through his professional activities. Contributors interrogate the institutional settings, disciplinary proclivities, methodological choices, and diverse source bases of world history research and teaching. Several essays address the ways in which present-day concerns influence research on local and global scales. Other essays pay particular attention to the production and circulation of knowledge across regional, temporal, and class boundaries, as well as between the academy and the wider public. Claiming the centrality of globally informed and focused approaches to historical inquiry, researchers continue the conversations that Bentley carried on through his own scholarship, teaching, editing of the Journal of World History, participating in public forums, and contributing to public discussions about the place of history in understanding today’s global integration. The stakes involved in asking questions about the shared history of humankind continue to increase in the current era of intensified globalization. It is incumbent upon scholars with the skills to work across linguistic, geographic, temporal, and disciplinary boundaries to show the ways that cross-cultural encounters happened historically, and to point out how such interactions play out in the institutions, classrooms, and public debates where historical interpretations are created and shared.
The Iberian Peninsula has always been an integral part of the Mediterranean world, from the age of Tartessos and the Phoenicians to our own era and the Union for the Mediterranean. The cutting-edge essays in this volume examine what it means for medieval and early modern Iberia and its people to be considered as part of the Mediterranean.
