The banker and the blackfoot

THE BANKER AND THE BLACKFOOT tells the colorful and compelling story of a real Western town in the foothills of the Rockies in the late 1800s and highlights the unusual friendships and trust that developed there between Indians and newcomers--before the government broke its Treaty promises to the...

Queen elizabeth in the garden

Queen Elizabeth I’s great love for gardens transformed her country and made gardeners of statesmen, courtiers, and soldiers. The two most powerful men in England during Elizabeth’s reign, Dudley and Cecil, led the way. Driven by their rivalry and devotion to their queen, they created ever more go...

The pilgrim journey

This book provides a concise and illuminating overview of both the 2000-year history and today’s renewed importance of pilgrimage in the Western world for readers and travelers of every faith and none.

Dipa ma

The great medieval heretics

The last divine office

The Last Divine Office explores the enormous upheaval caused by the English Reformation, drawing for his sources on material that has lain forgotten in one of the world’s great cathedrals. He recreates in vivid detail what life was like in a major monastery before the Dissolution began in 1536, a...

Horse

The search for spirituality

Herzl's vision

Theodor Herzl had been a successful Viennese journalist and a less successful playwright with no political ambitions. That changed in 1896, when he published <i>The Jewish State</i>. The following year he convened a Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. The Congress founded the Zion...

Great books of china

Great Books of China invites readers to discover—or rediscover—some of the major achievements of Chinese culture and civilization. The literature of China remains largely unknown in the West, yet it offers much insight into Chinese life. The long continuity of Chinese culture means that texts cr...

Island

Islands have been at the heart of our desires, and our fears, forever. *Island* tells the groundbreaking story of humans and islands, and islands and nature, from the beginning of time to the present. Drawing on history, literature, art, anthropology, biology, and earth science, *Island* explore...

The wisdom of the beguines

The beguines began to form in various parts of Europe over eight hundred years ago. Beguines were laywomen, not nuns, and they did not live in monasteries. They practiced a remarkable way of living independently, and they were never a religious order or a formalized movement. But there were commo...

Cluny

How should we live?

There are many ways to try to improve our lives—we can turn to the wisdom of philosophers, the teachings of spiritual guides, or the latest experiments of psychologists. But we rarely look to history for inspiration—and when we do, it can be surprisingly powerful. In How Should We Live? the cultu...

The popes of avignon

The door of no return

Called one of the best books of the year by The Economist, the London Times, and Publishers Weekly, this is the gripping history of Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, the African headquarters of the British slave trade for nearly one hundred and fifty years—until the legal trade was abolished in 1807.

The gift of years

One hundred great french books

A private history of happiness

*A Private History of Happiness* offers a fresh look at happiness that belonged to particular days as they were lived by real people—across many centuries and from around the world—and shows how these women and men experienced their varied moments of joy. From many written sources, notably person...

One hundred great jewish books

The friendship of women

Looking deeply into biblical stories of female friendships in order to extract greater truths, this compelling work explores the sacred dimension of friendship through the lenses of faith, tradition, and scripture, revealing the often overlooked voices and experiences of women in the Old and New ...

One hundred great catholic books

Inviting silence

Revolutionary spirits

Revolutionary Spirits confronts many of the later myths about the religious views of America’s Founders, and brings to life their complex creeds and personalities. It offers clear and candid portraits of Franklin, Washington, Paine, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison as both religious reformers and po...

Mr. langshaw's square piano