Here is a holistic approach to childbirth that examines this profound rite-of-passage not as a medical event but as an act of self-discovery. Exercises and activities such as journal writing, meditation, and painting will help mothers analyze their thoughts and face their fears during pregnancy. For use during birth, the book offers proven techniques for coping with labor pain without drugs, a discussion of the doctor or midwife's role, and a look at the father's responsibilities. Childbir...

A real-world guide to Attachment Parenting from the Big Bang Theory actress, neuroscientist, and mother Mayim Bialik—a book hailed by Dr. William Sears as “delightful” and by Ricki Lake as “a fantastic guide to birth and parenting that is packed with invaluable wisdom.”Mayim Bialik was the child star of the popular 1990s TV sitcom Blossom, but she definitely didn’t follow the typical child-star trajectory. Instead, Mayim got her PhD in neuroscienc...

A journalist " explores the way childbirth has changed, from pre-history to the present" in this "fascinating, funny and occasionally shocking" historical survey ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review).From midwives to the epidural and beyond, mother and former Boston Globe editor Tina Cassidy presents an intelligent, enlightening, and impeccably researched cultural history of how we handle the process of childbirth. W...

"An exceptional and compelling biography about one of the Tudor Age's most complex and controversial figures." —Alison WeirThomas Cromwell has long been reviled as a Machiavellian schemer who stopped at nothing in his quest for power. As King Henry VIII's right-hand man, Cromwell was the architect of the English Reformation; secured Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and plotted the downfall of his second wife, Anne Boleyn; and was fatally accused of trying t...

This "wonderfully gripping biography" digs beneath the famous legend to present a nuanced and revealing portrait of a serious-mined monarch (Allan Massie, Wall Street Journal).As the last Queen of France before the French Revolution, Marie-Antoinette was mistrusted and reviled in her own time, while today she is portrayed as a lightweight incapable of understanding the events that engulfed her. But who was she really? In this new account, John Hardman redre...

This fresh treatment of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany reveals how the close relationship between Mussolini and Hitler influenced both men.From 1934 until 1944 Mussolini met Hitler numerous times, and the two developed a relationship that deeply affected both countries. While Germany is generally regarded as the senior power, Christian Goeschel demonstrates just how much history has underrepresented Mussolini's influence on his German ally.A scholar of twenti...

National Book Award Finalist: "A learned, thoughtful, witty legal history for the layman" ( The New Yorker).What do the thoughts of a ravenous tiger have to do with the evolution of America's legal system? How do the works of Jane Austen and Ludwig van Beethoven relate to corporal punishment? In The Law of the Land, Charles Rembar examines these and many other topics, illustrating the surprisingly entertaining history of US law.Best known f...

A month-by-month account of what life was like for the everyday person just before the Black Plague wiped out most of Europe.1326 was one of the most dramatic years in English history. The queen of England, Isabella of France, invaded the country with an army of mercenaries to destroy her husband's powerful and detested lover, Hugh Despenser the Younger, and brought down her husband, King Edward II, in the process.It was also a year, however, when the major...

"An ethical and accessible introduction to a historical period often implicated in racist narratives of nationalism and imperialism." —Sierra Lomuto, Assistant Professor of Global Medieval Literature, Rowan UniversityA collection of twenty-two essays, Whose Middle Ages? gives nonspecialists access to the richness of our historical knowledge while debunking damaging misconceptions about the medieval past. Myths about the medieval period are especially belove...

"The rise and fall of transatlantic puritanism is told through political, theological, and personal conflict in this exceptional history." ( Publishers Weekly, starred review)Begun in the mid-sixteenth century by Protestant nonconformists keen to reform England's church and society while saving their own souls, the puritan movement was a major catalyst in the great cultural changes that transformed the early modern world. Providing a uniquely broad transatl...

A true crime account of a murdered teen in Victorian-era England, the Scotland Yard sergeant sent to investigate, and the gripping events that followed.Before Road there was Frome . . . before Whicher there was Smith . . . before the heartless slaughter of four-year-old Saville Kent, there was the brutal rape and murder of fourteen-year-old Sarah Watts.Taking place nine years earlier than the Road Hill case, made famous by the bestselling book The Suspici...

A major history of the Crusades that illuminates the strength and sophistication of the Western and Muslim armies.During the Crusades, the Western and Muslim armies developed various highly sophisticated strategies of both attack and defense, which evolved during the course of the battles. In this ambitious new work, Steve Tibble draws on a wide range of Muslim texts and archaeological evidence as well as more commonly cited Western sources to analyze the respective...