Light History

Few listeners are aware how much Europe owes to its Islamic heritage; this book aims to restore the central place of Muslim culture in the continent's history, while exploring the endless complexities that this vexed relationship creates. At a time when Islam is so narrowly identified with terrorism and migration in Europe, Crucible of Light is a necessary corrective.

A deeply panoramic tour of the night, from its brightest spots to the darkest skies we have left. A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, three-quarters of Americans' eyes never switch to night vision and most of us no longer experience true darkness. In The End of Night, Paul Bogard restores our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art.

A haunting dream that will not relent pulls author Kent Nerburn back into the hidden world of Native America, where dreams have meaning, animals are teachers, and the "old ones" still have powers beyond our understanding. In this moving narrative, we travel through the lands of the Lakota and the Ojibwe, where we encounter a strange little girl with an unnerving connection to the past, a forgotten asylum that history has tried to hide, and complex, unforgettable characters.

Light in Gaza is a seminal, moving, and wide-ranging anthology of Palestinian writers and artists. It constitutes a collective effort to organize and center Palestinian voices in the ongoing struggle. As political discourse shifts toward futurism as a means of reimagining a better way of living, beyond the violence and limitations of colonialism, Light in Gaza is an urgent and powerful intervention into an important political moment.

The Wampanoags, who inhabited what it is now southeastern Massachusetts, were strikingly different from the Pilgrims, who did not share the same interests in sharing land. The native people could not foresee Europeans taking the land that the Wampanoags had once respected and treasured.

A masterpiece of compelling narrative history, The White Ladder describes the epic rise of mountaineering's world altitude record, a story of ever higher climbs by figures great and small of mountaineering. Daniel Light describes how climbers used revolutionary techniques to launch themselves into the most forbidding conditions. The expeditions illustrate evolutionary changes in climbing style, the advancement of high-altitude science, and the development of mountain climbing as an industry.

An aristocratic young woman leaves the sheltered world of London to find adventure, passion, and independence in 1920s Paris in this mesmerizing story from the USA Today and internationally bestselling author of Somewhere in France and After the War is Over. Spring, 1924 Recovering from a broken...

While Christians generally acknowledge that the Bible is God's Word, many of us lack robust confidence in the reality of its trustworthiness. We may not be sure if we really believe what we read. But the more we understand how Scripture came to be, the more we discover its power and truth. Historian Susan Lim unpacks how the history of the Bible bolsters our faith and anchors us through the changing tides of time. The story of Scripture, while messy and complicated at times, is also the story of how God shepherded his people throughout the centuries in and through these writings.

Based on true events, this gripping historical novel set in Norway and Sweden in 1940, follows one of the first female US Ministers, Daisy Harriman, and her niece as the two are unexpectedly caught up in the German invasion of Norway. Cleo Jaffray was an American. A war in Europe had nothing to...

Appointed to conquer the "crime capital of the world", the first police chief of Paris faces an epidemic of murder in the late 1600s. Assigned by Louis XIV, Nicolas de La Reynie begins by clearing the streets of filth and installing lanterns throughout Paris, turning it into the City of Light. The fearless La Reynie pursues criminals through the labyrinthine neighborhoods of the city. He unearths a tightly knit cabal of poisoners, witches, and renegade priests.

A call to courage from a soldier who refused to stand by as antisemitism surged and Western values came under siege. The world is shifting. Antisemitism is on the rise. The West stands at a crossroads. Hatred was once whispered. Now it roars—and too many look away. But what happens when someone outside the Jewish community refuses to stay silent, instead choosing to speak out boldly and without apology?

Paris Is Not Dead explores the past, present, and future of the City of Light through the lens of class conflict, highlighting the outsized role of immigrants in shaping the city's progressive, cosmopolitan, and open-minded character--at a time when politics nationwide can feel like they're shifting in the opposite direction. This is the Paris many tourists too often miss: immigrant-heavy districts such as the 18th arrondissement, where crowded street markets still define everyday life. Stangler brings this view of the city to life.

Jon Savage's oral history of Joy Division is the last word on the band that ended with the suicide of Ian Curtis in Macclesfield on May 18, 1980. It weaves together interviews conducted by the author, but never used in the making of the film Joy Division, which told the story of the band in their own words, as well as those of their peers, collaborators, and contemporaries.

Prize-winning and best-selling historian Jean Edward Smith tells the dramatic story of the liberation of Paris during World War II - a triumph that was achieved through the remarkable efforts of Americans, French, and Germans, all racing to save the city from destruction.

"Love, Zac is not just a vital contribution to the national conversation about traumatic brain injury in athletes, it’s so beautifully written it belongs on the shelf alongside classic works of literary journalism.” —Jeanne Marie Laskas, New York Times bestselling author of Concussion...

“The innocence of childhood collides with the stark aftermath of war in this wrenching and ultimately redemptive tale of family, seemingly impossible choices, and the winding paths to destiny, which sometimes take us to places far beyond our imaginings.” – Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times...

Did Columbus believe that God called him west to undiscovered lands? Does American democracy owe its inception to the handful of Pilgrims that settled at Plymouth? If, indeed, there was a specific, divine call upon this nation, is it still valid today?

The classic work of Sufi mystical thinking from 1100CE, available in audiobook for the first time. It is also known as A Niche of Lamps.

How much light is too much light? Satellite pictures show our planet as a brightly glowing orb, and in our era of constant illumination, light pollution has become a major issue. The world’s flora and fauna have evolved to operate in the natural cycle of day and night. But in the last 150 years, we have extended our day—and in doing so have forced out the inhabitants of the night and disrupted the circadian rhythms necessary to sustain all living things, including ourselves.

Set in a world similar to our own, during a war that parallels World War II, a young boy who is sent to stay at his grandmother's for the summer in a serene fishing village is met with the adventure of a lifetime. Their tranquility is shattered by the crash of a bullet-riddled enemy plane, the arrival of grandmother's friend, Mr. Girandole - a man who knows the true story of Cinderella's slipper - and the discovery of a riddle in the sacred grove of ruins behind grandmother's house.