A "timely and provocative" biography of Islam's foundational text: "The history of the book is a map of the world we live in today" ( Tribune-Review).Few books in history have been as poorly understood as the Qur'an. Sent down in a series of revelations to the Prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an is the unmediated word of Allah: a ritual, political, and legal authority; an ethical and spiritual guide; and a literary masterpiece that inspires devo...

The Qur'an: A Biography is a beautifully written and authoritative account of one of the world's most famous, and most misunderstood books.Few books in history are as poorly read or understood as the Qur'an. Sent down in a series of revelations to the Prophet Muhammad, it is regarded by the faithful as the unmediated word of Allah. It is revered by Muslims throughout the world, it inspires unparalleled levels of devotion, passion, fear and, sometimes, inco...

Despite the saturation of global media coverage, Osama bin Laden's own writings have been curiously absent from analysis of the "war on terror." Over the last ten years, bin Laden has issued a series of carefully tailored public statements, from interviews with Western and Arabic journalists to faxes and video recordings. These texts supply evidence crucial to an understanding of the bizarre mix of Quranic scholarship, CIA training, punctual interventions in Gulf politics and messianic ant...

Few books in history have been as important or as poorly understood as the Qur'an. Sent down in a series of revelations to the Prophet Muhammad, the Qur'an is the unmediated word of Allah: a ritual, political, and legal authority, an ethical and spiritual guide, and a literary masterpiece. It is revered by Muslims throughout the world, in whom it inspires devotion, passion, fear, and sometimes incomprehension.In this book, one of the launch titles in the Atlantic Monthly Press's Bo...

Philosophical esotericsim—the practice of communicating one's unorthodox thoughts "between the lines"—was a common practice until the end of the eighteenth century. The famous Encyclopédie of Diderot, for instance, not only discusses this practice in over twenty different articles, but admits to employing it itself. The history of Western thought contains hundreds of such statements by major philosophers testifying to the use of esoteric writing in their own work or others'. Despi...

Twelve authors shed new light on the true history and enduring mythology of seventeenth– and eighteenth–century pirates in this anthology of scholarly essays.The twelve entries in The Golden Age of Piracy discuss why pirates thrived in the seas of the New World, how pirates operated their plundering ventures, how governments battled piracy, and when and why piracy declined. Separating Hollywood myth from historical fact, these essays bring the real pirates...

The first full review of the mass murder by crew members on the slave ship Zong and the lasting repercussions of this horrifying eventOn November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for slavery in America. The captain believed his ship was off course, and he feared there was not enough drinking water to last until landfall. This book is th...

One of the least understood countries in the world, North Korea has long been known for its repressive regime. Yet it is far from being an impenetrable black box. Media flows covertly into the country, and fault lines are appearing in the government's sealed informational borders. Drawing on deeply personal interviews with North Korean defectors from all walks of life, ranging from propaganda artists to diplomats, Jieun Baek tells the story of North Korea's information underground—the netw...

The bestselling cyberpunk author “has produced by far the most stylish report from the computer outlaw culture since Steven Levy’s Hackers” (Publishers Weekly).Bruce Sterling delves into the world of high-tech crime and punishment in one of the first books to explore the cyberspace breaches that threaten national security. From the crash of AT&T’s long-distance switching system to corporate cyberattacks, he investigates government and law enforcem...

The history of the films, cartoons, toys, and more: The Back to the Future series is a timeless collection that is greatly revered by all audiences. The beauty of this book by Brad Gilmore is that it doesn't present the history of the film as textbook information. Gilmore discusses these films from a place of passion and so effectively reveals how the history behind the movies is just as engaging as the films themselves.From a fan, for the fans:

"A great story--how modernism brought down the regime of censorship--told as a great story. Kevin Birmingham's imaginative scholarship brings Joyce and his world to life. There is a fresh detail on nearly every page."--Louis Menand, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Metaphysical ClubFor more than a decade, the book that literary critics now consider the most important novel in the English language was illegal to own, sell, advertise or purchase in most ...

The Defence of Heaven brings together, for the first time in one volume, a complete history of the Jin, Song, and Ming dynasties' wars fought against the Mongols. Lasting nearly two centuries, these wars, fought to defend Chinese civilization against a brutal and unrelenting foe, pitted personal heroics against the inexorable Mongol war machine and involved every part of the Chinese state.The resistance of the Chinese dynasties to the Khans is a complex and rich story of shifting a...