Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Religion & Spirituality

From the preaching of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II in 1095 to the loss of the last crusader outpost in the Levant in 1302-03, and from the taking of Jerusalem from the Fatimids in 1099 to the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291, Crusaders tells a tale soaked in Islamic, Christian and Jewish blood, peopled by extraordinary characters, and characterised by both low ambition and high principle. 

Unapologetic is a brief, personal, sharp-tongued defence of Christian belief. It isn't an argument that Christianity is true, because how could anyone know that (or indeed its opposite)? It's a book for believers who are fed up with being patronised, for nonbelievers curious about faith in the 21st century, and for anyone who feels there is something indefinably anti-imaginative and intolerant about the way the atheist case is currently being made.

On 31 January 2002, The Boston Globe published a report that sent shockwaves around the world. Their findings, based on a six-month campaign by the 'Spotlight' investigative team, showed that hundreds of children in Boston had been abused by Catholic priests and that this horrific pattern of behaviour had been known - and ignored - by the Catholic Church.

In the course of their investigation into Leonardo da Vinci, Lynn Pickett and Clive Prince found clues about his strangely passionate belief in the importance of John the Baptist. Here, along with a reassessment of the significance of Mary Magdalene and the sacred feminine, the authors reveal that Da Vinci’s apparently peculiar religion was shared by the Knights Templar. And their profoundly heretical belief that the Baptist was superior to Jesus himself still has the power to pose a threat to the very foundations of the Christian Church….

In the summer of 1993, Thomas Harding travelled to Germany with his grandmother to visit a house by a lake. It had been a holiday home for her family, that she had been forced to leave as the Nazis swept to power. As he began to piece together the lives of the five families who had lived, he realised that this house had witnessed violence, betrayals and murders, had withstood the trauma of a world war and the dividing of a nation.

Day after day we read of the caliphate and the Qur'an, of Sunni and Shi'a, Salafis and Sufis, integration and isolation, radicals and refugees. Almost a quarter of the world's populate is Muslim. It is clear that understanding the modern world requires knowing something about Islam. But while much is said and written about Islam and the global trends and historic events connected to it, little attention is given to placing these phenomena within their greater historical, religious and intellectual context.

As claims of antisemitism continue to distort our politics at home and abroad, it has become almost impossible to talk about constructively, even in private. Instead, we find ourselves in a storm of misinformation, political mudslinging and bad-faith accusations.

The First Crusade is one of the best-known and most written-about events in history, but in this new book Dr Peter Frankopan asks vital questions that have never been posed before. This is the only book to address the history of the First Crusade from the perspective of the East, examining the role of the Byzantine Empire and its ruler, Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. 

Coming out of retirement, an aging Sherlock Holmes has traveled to Palestine with his 19-year-old partner, Mary Russell. There, disguised as ragged Bedouins, they embark on a dangerous mission. If they fail, the holy city will surely go up in flames.

First in a fast-paced historical adventure series from New York Times bestselling author Boyd Morrison and expert medievalist Beth Morrison. England, 1351. The Pestilence has ravaged the land. Villages lie abandoned but for crows and corpses. Highways are patrolled by marauders and murderers. In...

When Jess Newman married the love of her life Ben she was sure they had what it took to stay together forever. So when Ben falls out of love with her only to promptly fall in the arms of new girlfriend, Naomi, she really doesn't know how to come to terms with their divorce. Thankfully Jess's granddad, Gabe, has the perfect place for Jess and her eight-year-old daughter Lola to start afresh when he hands them the keys to his holiday home in Cornwall, a beautiful albeit rundown farmhouse.

When Rahmat Sulemani reported his girlfriend, Banaz, missing, it quickly became clear to DCI Caroline Goode that something was very wrong. In fact, Banaz had contacted her local police station multiple times before, even listing the names of the men she expected to murder her in a so-called 'honour' killing. Her parents didn't seem worried, but Banaz had already accused them of being part of the plot.

Here for the first time is a complete history of the world, from the beginning of time to the present day, based on the beliefs and writings of the secret societies. From the esoteric account of the evolution of the species to the occult roots of science, from the secrets of the Flood to the esoteric motives behind American foreign policy, here is a narrative history that shows the basic facts of human existence on this planet can be viewed from a very different angle.

A meditation on the importance of atheism in the modern world - and its inadequacies and contradictions - by one of Britain's leading philosophers. 'When you explore older atheisms, you will find some of your firmest convictions - secular or religious - are highly questionable. If this prospect disturbs you, what you are looking for may be freedom from thought.' For a generation now, public debate has been corroded by a narrow derision of religion in the name of an often very vaguely understood 'science'.

For over half a century, Banco Popular was one of the most profitable banks in the world—until one day in 2017, when the Spanish bank suddenly collapsed overnight. When investigative journalist Gareth Gore was dispatched to report on the story, he expected to find yet another case of unbridled capitalist ambition gone wrong. Instead, he uncovered decades of deception that hid one of the most brazen cases of corporate pillaging in history, perpetrated by a group of men sworn to celibacy and self-flagellation who had secretly controlled Popular.

This is the almost-forgotten story of Victorian Britain's strangest religious sect and its wealthy, mostly female, followers who believed they could ascend directly to heaven. Henry James Prince was a rogue Anglican Priest with a flare for the dramatic, and the founder of the Agapemone, or 'Abode of Love'. He also claimed to be the immortal conduit of The Holy Spirit and purportedly engaged in free love and ceremonial sex with his mostly female followers. But Prince's eventual death didn't mark the end of this strange set... he was promptly replaced by another. 

In Peter Beinart's view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew?

Jamie Bartlett takes us inside the worlds of innovators, disruptors, idealists and extremists who think society is broken, and believe they know how to fix it. Radicals introduces us to techno-futurists questing for immortality, far-right groups seeking to close borders, environmentalists striving to save the planet, libertarian movements founding new countries, autonomous cooperatives in self-sustaining micro-societies and psychedelic pioneers attempting to heal society

Jean Strouse's Family Romance: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers looks at twelve portraits of one English family painted by the expatriate American artist at the height of his career—and at the intersections of all these lives with the sparkle and strife of the Edwardian age.

When Anna Hunt takes a break from her job to live in Peru, none of her friends take her seriously. With a love of stilettos, chocolate, and Sauvignon Blanc, how will she manage in a developing country? Anna's quest takes her from the wilderness of the Amazon jungle, to a passionate affair with Maximo Morales, a seductive and charismatic shaman who offers her the opportunity to become his apprentice…