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We’ll see how the foundations of the modern West were established, influencing our art, cultures, religious practices and ways of thinking. This history takes us through the rise and fall of empires, papacies, caliphates and kingdoms through the violence and death of the Crusades, Viking raids, the Hundred Years War and the Plague to the curious practices of monks, martyrs and iconoclasts. The Middle Ages: A Graphic History busts the myth of the ‘Dark Ages’, shedding light on the medieval period’s present-day relevance in a unique illustrated style. Overview: A unique, illustrated book that will change the way you see medieval history. Sometimes their stories can only be hinted at, while at other times they become more fleshed out.īuy this book on | Amazon.ca | .uk The Middle Ages: A Graphic History Without manuscripts, many historical figures would be lost, their voices silenced, their stories erased, and the remnants of their labours destroyed. Manuscripts grant access to the stories of anonymous artisans, artists, scribes and readers, as well as people who aren’t always celebrated or discussed in our medieval history – people of a lower social status, women, or people of colour. Manuscripts weren’t only made and used and loved by wealthy elites, they were also made by ordinary people. They offer some of the only tangible evidence we have of entire lives, long receded. They are the stuff of history, the stuff of literature, the material remains of the writerly act and the reading experience. The story of his life – the power plays that brought him to the throne, his military ventures and techniques of governing, his personal charisma, his religious piety – presents a sovereign narrative of how the Ottoman Empire made the modern world.īuy this book on | Amazon.ca | .uk Hidden Hands: The Lives of Manuscripts and Their MakersĮxcerpt: Manuscripts teem with life. Implaccable and unflappable, callous and visionary, Selim had other plans. Given his pedigree, a life of leisurely wealth and princely comfort was to be his lot – but it would lead likely be a short life, given the fratricidal maneuverings that often accompanied the death of the sultan and the accension of the next.
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The fourth of his father’s tens sons, he was born in 1470 and a small Anatolian town, the son of an enslaved concubine. Selim was his name, and although born of a sultan, he was never supposed to amount to much. Edward I considered this possibility in 1290, and rather than stating he wished his throne to pass one day to his younger brother and nephews, declared that his eldest daughter should inherit his kingdom after him.īuy this book on | Amazon.ca | .uk God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern WorldĮxcerpt: One man, more than any other, made the Ottoman Empire this transformative global power that it was. One of them might even, if her youngest brother had died in childhood as her three other brothers did, have become queen-regent of England. Click here to visit the publisher’s websiteīuy this book on | Amazon.ca | .uk Daughters of Edward IĮxcerpt: Despite his reputation as a sternum and ruthless leader, it is apparent that Edward I loved his daughters dearly, and recognize their value.
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