Accursed Tower
Accursed Tower

Author: Roger Crowley

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2019-11-19

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 0300248857

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The city of Acre, powerfully fortified and richly provisioned, was the last crusader stronghold. When it fell in 1291, two hundred years of Christian crusading in the Holy Land came to a bloody end. With his customary narrative brilliance and immediacy, Roger Crowley chronicles the tumultuous and violent attack on Acre, the heaviest bombardment before the age of gunpowder, which left this once great Mediterranean city a crumbling ruin.The ‘Accursed Tower’ was the focal point of this siege. As the last garrison of the Crusader defences, it came to symbolise the disintegration of the old world and the rise of a new era of Islamic jihad. Crowley’s narrative is based on forensic research, drawing heavily on little known first hand sources, both Christian and Arabic. This is a fast-paced and gripping account of a pivotal moment in world history.

Legacy of the Crystal Shard
Legacy of the Crystal Shard

Author: R. A. Salvatore

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780786964642

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Return to Icewind Dale! Legacy of the Crystal Shard presents Icewind Dale in the time of the Sundering, a period that will define the future of the Forgotten Realms. In addition to providing 64 pages of in-depth information on the settlements of Ten Towns and their inhabitants, this product includes a harrowing 32-page adventure in which the player characters defend Icewind Dale against a rising threat with ties to the past. Legacy of the Crystal Shard allows characters to participate in important events connected to the Sundering and glimpse the future of the Forgotten Realms. Components: 64-page setting book describing Icewind Dale and its inhabitants 32-page adventure book Four-panel, foldout DM screen keyed to the adventure Illustrated folder

A World Lit Only by Fire
A World Lit Only by Fire

Author: William Manchester

Publisher: Back Bay Books

Published: 2009-09-26

Total Pages: 367

ISBN-13: 0316082791

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A "lively and engaging" history of the Middle Ages (Dallas Morning News) from the acclaimed historian William Manchester, author of The Last Lion. From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth: the dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters, adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most spectacular villains. "Manchester provides easy access to a fascinating age when our modern mentality was just being born." --Chicago Tribune

The Accursed Tower
The Accursed Tower

Author: Roger Crowley

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 2019-11-05

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1541699726

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From a New York Times-bestselling author, a stirring account of the siege of Acre in 1291, when the last Christian stronghold fell to the Muslim army The 1291 siege of Acre was the Alamo of the Christian Crusades -- the final bloody battle for the Holy Land. After a desperate six weeks, the beleaguered citadel surrendered to the Mamluks, bringing an end to Christendom's two-hundred year adventure in the Middle East. In The Accursed Tower, Roger Crowley delivers a lively narrative of the lead-up to the siege and a vivid, blow-by-blow account of the climactic battle. Drawing on extant Arabic sources as well as untranslated Latin documents, he argues that Acre is notable for technical advances in military planning and siege warfare, and extraordinary for its individual heroism and savage slaughter. A gripping depiction of the crusader era told through its dramatic last moments, The Accursed Tower offers an essential new view on a crucial turning point in world history.

The Accursed Inheritance of Henrietta Achilles
The Accursed Inheritance of Henrietta Achilles

Author: Haiko Hörnig

Publisher: Graphic Universe

Published: 2020-04-07

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 1541591046

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The life of Henrietta Achilles is about to change. After years of living as an orphan, she receives a summons to the strange town of Malrenard. To her surprise, she's the only living relative of Ornun Zol—a notorious wizard, now deceased, who leaves Henrietta with his house and everything in it. With Ornun Zol gone, escaped creatures and misfired curses have been spilling out into Malrenard. If that's not enough, Henrietta will discover countless squabbling squatters inside her uncle's abode: soldiers, bandits, tiny monsters, and more. Then there's the matter of the strange black cat following Henrietta around . . .

The Accursed Vampire
The Accursed Vampire

Author: Madeline McGrane

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2021-07-27

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 0062954369

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*Named a Rainbow Book List Title* A spooky and funny graphic novel perfect for fans of The Witch Boy and Real Friends Dragoslava is a vampire kid. It has its perks, but sometimes being stuck as a kid forever can be a pain in the neck. And that’s not even the worst part. A few centuries ago, Drago was cursed by a witch. If they don’t complete every task she sets, they will be turned into worms. When the witch wants a spellbook from Baneberry Falls, Drago sets off with their immortal friends. But mysteries await in this sleepy Midwestern town, and Drago must figure out if the keepers of the spellbook have a hidden agenda, like everyone else they’ve ever known. One thing’s for sure: after this accursed mission, Drago’s immortal life will never be the same again!

City of Fortune
City of Fortune

Author: Roger Crowley

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2012-01-24

Total Pages: 536

ISBN-13: 0679644261

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“The rise and fall of Venice’s empire is an irresistible story and [Roger] Crowley, with his rousing descriptive gifts and scholarly attention to detail, is its perfect chronicler.”—The Financial Times The New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea charts Venice’s astounding five-hundred-year voyage to the pinnacle of power in an epic story that stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. City of Fortune traces the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga, from the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminates in the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, to the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499–1503, which sees the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between are three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance, during which a tiny city of “lagoon dwellers” grow into the richest place on earth. Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their dominion. From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its time—the reverberations of which are still being felt today. “[Crowley] writes with a racy briskness that lifts sea battles and sieges off the page.”—The New York Times “Crowley chronicles the peak of Venice’s past glory with Wordsworthian sympathy, supplemented by impressive learning and infectious enthusiasm.”—The Wall Street Journal

The Field of Blood
The Field of Blood

Author: Nicholas Morton

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2018-02-20

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0465096700

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A history of the 1119 Battle of the Field of Blood, which decisively halted the momentum gained during the First Crusade and decided the fate of the Crusader states During the First Crusade, Frankish armies swept across the Middle East, capturing major cities and setting up the Crusader States in the Levant. A sustained Western conquest of the region appeared utterly inevitable. Why, then, did the crusades ultimately fail? To answer this question, historian Nicholas Morton focuses on a period of bitter conflict between the Franks and their Turkish enemies, when both factions were locked in a struggle for supremacy over the city of Aleppo. For the Franks, Aleppo was key to securing dominance over the entire region. For the Turks, this was nothing less than a battle for survival -- without Aleppo they would have little hope of ever repelling the European invaders. This conflict came to a head at the Battle of the Field of Blood in 1199, and the face of the Middle East was forever changed.

The Accursed Share
The Accursed Share

Author: Georges Bataille

Publisher:

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780942299113

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Most Anglo-American readers know Bataille as a novelist. The "Accursed Share "provides an excellent introduction to Bataille the philosopher. Here he uses his unique economic theory as the basis for an incisive inquiry into the very nature of civilization. Unlike conventional economic models based on notions of scarcity, Bataille's theory develops the concept of excess: a civilization, he argues, reveals its order most clearly in the treatment of its surplus energy. The result is a brilliant blend of ethics, aesthetics, and cultural anthropology that challenges both mainstream economics and ethnology. The three volumes of "The Accursed Share" address what Georges Bataille sees as the paradox of utility: namely, if being useful means serving a further end, then the ultimate end of utility can only be uselessness. The first volume, the only one published before Bataille's death, treated this paradox in economic terms, showing that "it is not necessity but its contrary, luxury, that presents living matter and mankind with their fundamental problems." In the second and third volumes, "The History of Eroticism" and "Sovereignty", Bataille explores the same paradox of utility from an anthropological and an ethical perspective, respectively. "The History of Eroticism" analyzes the fears and fascination, the prohibitions and transgressions attached to the realm of eroticism as so many expressions of the "uselessness" of erotic life. In the third volume, Bataille raises the ethical problems of sovereignty, of "the independence of man relative to useful ends."