Product Description: Explore the history behind the bubonic plague that left Europe reeling from one of the greatest losses in history The Black Death is the name most commonly given to the pandemic of bubonic plague that ravaged the medieval world in the late 1340s...read more

Without lifting a sword, the Cathars posed a threat to Catholicism greater than the Muslims or Jews—or so the Church believed. The Cathars believed that matter was essentially evil—especially the human body—and that the material world had to be transcended through a simple life of prayer, work, fasting, and nonviolence.  Today, the mystique surrounding the Cathars is as strong as ever. Their myths and complete history are examined here in The Cathars—the compelling true story of this once peaceful religious sect..    

Pocket Essentials is a dynamic series of books that are concise, lively, and easy to read. Packed with facts as well as expert opinions, each book has all the key information you need to know about such popular topics as film, television, cult fiction, history, and more. This book looks at the most celebrated Russian filmmaker since Eisenstein, director of the legendary Solaris—the "Soviet 2001"—and Andrei Rublev, widely regarded as being one of the greatest films of all time. Sean Martin considers the whole of Tarkovsky's oeuvre, starting with the classic student film The Steamroller and The Violin and working across his full-length films to later stage works and writings, paintings, and photographs.

Product Description: The term New Wave conjures up images of Paris in the early 1960s from the films of French filmmakers Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. The impact of the French New Wave continues to be felt, and its ethos of shooting in real places with nonprofessional actors and small crews would influence filmmakers as diverse as John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, and Lars von Trier's Dogme 95 movement, all of whom sought to challenge the dominance of traditional Hollywood methods of both filmmaking and storytelling...read more

Product Description: Gnosticism is the name given to various religious schools that proliferated in the first centuries after Christ, nearly becoming the dominant form of Christianity, but was eventually branded as heretical by the emerging Christian church...read more

Product Description: The Templars have exerted a unique influence over European history: orthodox historians see them as nothing more than soldier-monks whose arrogance was their ultimate undoing, while others see them as occultists of the first order, the founders of Freemasonry, possessors of the Holy Grail and creators of the Turin Shroud...read more

This book explores the history of the so-called Royal Art, from its mysterious beginnings in Egypt and China, through the Hellenistic world and the early years of Islam and into medieval Europe.

Re-evaluates the way Jews lived among Poles without abandoning their Jewish heritage. By focusing on the history of the Jewish press, schools and other cultural institutions, the book examines how Jews in the same community created varying ethnic and national identities in order to cope with the demands of living in the majority Polish society. Being based on sources in Yiddish, Polish and Hebrew makes the book a thorough study of one of Poland's largest Jewish communities.

Product Description: Re-evaluates the way Jews lived among Poles without abandoning their Jewish heritage. By focusing on the history of the Jewish press, schools and other cultural institutions, the book examines how Jews in the same community created varying ethnic and national identities in order to cope with the demands of living in the majority Polish society...read more

The author of Alchemy and the Alchemists chronicles the rise of the Knights Templar, who, during the Crusades, blended religious fervor with military prowess to become a powerful political force in Europe. Original.