Books in the Nota Bene series

A ';gripping [and] splendidly readable' portrait of the battle within the British War Cabinetand Churchill's eventual victoryas Hitler's shadow loomed (The Boston Globe). From May 24 to May 28, 1940, members of Britain's War Cabinet debated whether to negotiate with Hitler or to continue what became known as the Second World War. In this magisterial work, John Lukacs takes us hour by hour into the critical events at 10 Downing Street, where Winston Churchill and his cabinet painfully considered their responsibilities. With the unfolding of the disaster at Dunkirk, and Churchill being in office for just two weeks and treated with derision by many, he did not have an easy time making his casebut the people of Britain were increasingly on his side, and he would prevail. This compelling narrative, a Washington Post bestseller, is the first to convey the drama and world-changing importance of those days. ';[A] fascinating work of historical reconstruction.'The Wall Street Journal ';Eminent historian Lukacs delivers the crown jewel to his long and distinguished career.'Publishers Weekly (starred review) ';A must for every World War II buff.'Cleveland Plain Dealer ';Superbcan be compared to such classics as Hugh Trevor-Roper's The Last Days of Hitler and Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August.'Harper's Magazine

Based on letters, this title tells the history of a 17th-century nun in a convent in Leuven and how her complaints - of sexual harassment, fears of demonic possession, alliances among the other sisters against her - led to her banishment from the convent on two occassions.

Examines America's unprecedented power within the international arenas of politics, economics, demographics, education, science, and culture.

This diary by Russian writer Isaac Babel recounts his experiences with the Cossack cavalry during the Polish-Soviet war of 1919-20. The basis for "Red Cavalry", Babel's best-known work, it records the devastation of the war and the extreme cruelty of the Polish and Red Armies towards the Jews.

"Inside Picture Books" raises the question of whether our childhood experiences of picture books can actually be profound enough to shape our adult lives. This book should be of interest to teachers, parents and therapists alike and a lesson to anyone reading a bedtime story.

Security depends on intelligence, and in this book a leading authority discusses basic problems in American intelligence and how to fix them. For this edition he provides a new preface in which he assesses the security recommendations of the recently released Congressional committee report on 9/11.

An examination of the rise of Islam, the life of Muhammad, and the Islamic principles of faith. Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair describe the golden age of the Abbasids, the Mongol invasions, and the great Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires that emerged in their wake.

In this work, the Catholic philosopher Etienne Gilson deals with one of the most important and perplexing metaphysical problems: the relation between our notion of God and demonstrations of his existence.

An analysis of the enduring conflict in Ireland. It contends that the roots of "the troubles" are inescapably religious and shows that the persistent conflict can only be understood in the context of five centuries of failed attempts by the English to impose Protestantism on the Irish state.

This is Frederick Douglass's account of his life in bondage as a slave and his triumph over oppression, originally published in 1845. This edition includes a chronology of Douglass's life, an introduction by a Douglass scholar, historical notes, and reader responses to the 1845 edition.

Based on the 1854 edition of "Walden", this work includes emendations taken from Thoreau's draft manuscripts, with his own markings on page proofs, and notes in his personal copy of the book. This work includes: Introduction, which places Thoreau's life and achievement in context; Notes on the Text; an Afterword by the editor; and, a Bibliography.

This title marks the rescue from oblivion of a daring and provocative work by a major 20th century writer. This is West's exploration of Mexican history, religion and culture.

A powerful case for the global market economy

Written over a seven-year period to Charles V of Spain, Hernan Cortes's letters provide a narrative account of the conquest of Mexico from the founding of the coastal town of Veracruz until Cortes's journey to Honduras in 1525. The two introductions set the letters in context.

The authoritative edition of Franklin's autobiography, now with a new foreword by the eminent Franklin scholar Edmund S. Morgan

An account of wartime Greece, exploring the impact of Nazi Occupation upon the lives and values of ordinary people. It seeks to offer a vividly human picture of resistance fighters and black marketeers, teenage German conscripts and Gestapo officers, Jews and starving villagers.

A biography of the influential jazz pianist, Bill Evans. Peter Pettinger, himself a concert pianist, describes Evans's life, his personal tragedies and commercial successes, his music making, his technique and compositional methods, his approach to ensemble playing, and his legacy.

John Wilmot, the notorious Earl of Rochester, was the darling of the profligate court of Charles II. He was one of the finest poets of the Restoration and model for countless witty young rakes in Restoration comedies. This edition of his poetry is annotated and introduced by David M. Vieth.

A summary of mediaeval aesthetic ideas, by Italian novelist and playwright Umberto Eco. Juxtaposing theology and science, poetry and mysticism, Eco explores the relationship that existed between the aesthetic theories and the artistic experience and practice of mediaeval culture.

A study of the Holocaust, evaluating accepted views of its history and meaning. Yehuda Bauer offers his own interpretation of why the Holocaust occurred and how another can be prevented. He also examines topics such as the relationship between the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel.

This fascinating book explores the evolution of religious dualism, the doctrine that man and cosmos are constant battlegrounds between forces of good and evil. It traces this evolution from late Egyptian religion and the revelations of Zoroaster and the Orphics in antiquity through the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Mithraic Mysteries, and the great Gnostic teachers to its revival in medieval Europe with the suppression of the Bogomils and the Cathars, heirs to the age-long teachings of dualism. Integrating political, cultural, and religious history, Yuri Stoyanov illuminates the dualist religious systems, recreating in vivid detail the diverse worlds of their striking ideas and beliefs, their convoluted mythologies and symbolism.  Reviews of an earlier edition:"e;A book of prime importance for anyone interested in the history of religious dualism. The author's knowledge of relevant original sources is remarkable; and he has distilled them into a convincing and very readable whole."e;-Sir Steven Runciman"e;The most fascinating historical detective story since Steven Runciman's Sicilian Vespers."e;-Colin Wilson"e;A splendid account of the decline of the dualist tradition in the East . . . both strong and accessible. . . . The most readable account of Balkan heresy ever."e;-Jeffrey B. Russell, Journal of Religion "e;Well-written, fact-filled, and fascinating . . . has in it the making of a classic."e;-Harry T. Norris, Bulletin of SOAS

Following a facsimile of the 1609 Quatro printed in parallel with a conservatively edited, modernized text, Stephen Booth offers an analytic commentary that ranges from brief glosses to substantial critical essays.

Harry Kelsey paints the picture of Drake as an amoral privateer at least as interested in lining his own pockets with Spanish booty as in forwarding the political goals of his country, a man who became a captain general of the English navy, but never waged traditional warfare with any success.

Only in 1995 did the United States government officially reveal the existence of the super-secret Venona Project. For nearly fifty years American intelligence agents had been decoding thousands of Soviet messages, uncovering an enormous range of espionage activities carried out against the United States during World War II by its own allies. So sensitive was the project in its early years that even President Truman was not informed of its existence. This extraordinary book is the first to examine the Venona messagesdocuments of unparalleled importance for our understanding of the history and politics of the Stalin era and the early Cold War years.Hidden away in a former girls school in the late 1940s, Venona Project cryptanalysts, linguists, and mathematicians attempted to decode more than twenty-five thousand intercepted Soviet intelligence telegrams. When they cracked the unbreakable Soviet code, a breakthrough leading eventually to the decryption of nearly three thousand of the messages, analysts uncovered information of powerful significance: the first indication of Julius Rosenbergs espionage efforts; references to the espionage activities of Alger Hiss; startling proof of Soviet infiltration of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb; evidence that spies had reached the highest levels of the U.S. State and Treasury Departments; indications that more than three hundred Americans had assisted in the Soviet theft of American industrial, scientific, military, and diplomatic secrets; and confirmation that the Communist party of the United States was consciously and willingly involved in Soviet espionage against America. Drawing not only on the Venona papers but also on newly opened Russian and U. S. archives, John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr provide in this book the clearest, most rigorously documented analysis ever written on Soviet espionage and the Americans who abetted it in the early Cold War years.

A biography of James Murray, the first editor of the "Oxford English Dictionary". It provides an account of his life, along with how the dictionary was written, the personalities of the people working on it and the endless difficulties that nearly led to the whole enterprise being abandoned.