At the end, when the last star dies and the cold begins to seep in, what will be the totality of our accomplishments? What will have been the point? And will anyone notice that we're gone? If the true terror at the center of cosmic horror is the vast indifference the universe has for us, does that mean the closest thing we have to any sort of compassionate connection is . . . our cats? Ah, we may be doomed.But, in the interim, perhaps there may still be some spark that can illumina...

We arrive yet again at the end of it all: the dreaded holiday season, where everything is too bright, nothing is where it should be, and you will be constantly hounded by the persistent dread of having forgotten something very important. And traffic will be totally and utterly f*cked all the way to the mall. We are doomed.But there may still be some spark in these fading minutes before the heat death of the universe, before the last tear is shed, and before the last present is unwr...

For many centuries, the history of the crusades, as written by Western historians, was based solidly on Western sources. Evidence from the Islamic societies that the crusaders attacked was used only sparingly – in part because it was hard for most westerners to read, and in part because much of it was inaccessible even for historians who did speak Arabic.Carole Hillenbrand set out to re-evaluate the sources for the crusading period, not only looking with fresh eyes at known account...

Perhaps no work of history written in the 20th century has done more to undermine an existing consensus and cause its readers to re-evaluate their own preconceptions than has Jonathan Riley-Smith's revisionist account of the motives of the first crusaders.Riley-Smith's thesis – based on extensive original research and firmly rooted in his refusal to uncritically accept the evidence or reasoning of earlier historians – is that the majority of the men who travelled to the east on cru...

Riley-Smith’s 1986 book gives convincing case for a ‘revisionist’ view of the crusades, challenging the common belief that the crusades were motivated by fanaticism and were designed to plunder the Holy Lands. After studying handwritten documents held in churches across Western Europe in which crusaders explained their personal reasons for heading out on the “holy war,” he pioneered the use of computer spreadsheets to cross-reference data on individual crusaders and their families allowing...