The 15:17 to Paris

Author: Anthony Sadler
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610397347
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Book Description
An ISIS terrorist planned to kill more than 500 people. He would have succeeded except for three American friends who refused to give in to fear. On August 21, 2015, Ayoub El-Khazzani boarded train #9364 in Brussels, bound for Paris. There could be no doubt about his mission: he had an AK-47, a pistol, a box cutter, and enough ammunition to obliterate every passenger on board. Slipping into the bathroom in secret, he armed his weapons. Another major ISIS attack was about to begin. Khazzani wasn't expecting Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, and Spencer Stone. Stone was a martial arts enthusiast and airman first class in the US Air Force, Skarlatos was a member of the Oregon National Guard, and all three were fearless. But their decision-to charge the gunman, then overpower him even as he turned first his gun, then his knife, on Stone-depended on a lifetime of loyalty, support, and faith. Their friendship was forged as they came of age together in California: going to church, playing paintball, teaching each other to swear, and sticking together when they got in trouble at school. Years later, that friendship would give all of them the courage to stand in the path of one of the world's deadliest terrorist organizations. The 15:17 to Paris is an amazing true story of friendship and bravery, of near tragedy averted by three young men who found the heroic unity and strength inside themselves at the moment when they, and 500 other innocent travelers, needed it most.

Viking Attacks on Paris

Author: Abbo (Monk of St. Germain)
Publisher: Peeters Publishers
ISBN: 9789042919167
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 148

Book Description
In 885 AD, the Vikings laid siege to Paris, to which a young monk named Abbo, of the abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, stood as witness. Later, he came to make a record of what he saw, heard and believed in a verse chronicle, the Bella parisiacae urbis. His often stirring account speaks of the relentless and ingenious attacks of the Norsemen, the selfless heroism of the defending Frankish warriors, and the misery and terror of the besieged Parisians. But his canvas is far larger than this single occurrence, for he hints at greater things yet to come, such as the final disintegration of Carolingian rule, the eventual establishment of the Capetian line of monarchs, and the creation of a French Danelaw, namely, Normandy. Ultimately, however, Abbo is not concerned with an impartial narration of events, but rather with salvation through history - of the individual and of the nation of the Franks. The macaronic style of his chronicle very much appealed to the sensibilities of the time, thus ensuring that Abbo's work would endure.

Conscience and Conversion

Author: Thomas Kselman
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030023564X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
Religious liberty is usually examined within a larger discussion of church-state relations, but Thomas Kselman looks at several individuals in Restoration France whose high-profile conversions fascinated their contemporaries. Exploring their reasons and the repercussions they faced, Kselman demonstrates how this expanded sense of liberty informs our secular age.

Apostles of Empire

Author: Bronwen McShea
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496229088
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Book Description
Apostles of Empire contributes to ongoing research on the Jesuits, New France, and Atlantic World encounters, as well as on early modern French society, print culture, Catholicism, and imperialism.

The Social Teaching of the Black Churches

Author: Peter J. Paris
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9781451415858
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
In African American culture, the church is instrumental in establishing and maintaining social order. Professor Paris shows that a study of black church teachings reveals black social ethics. These ethics aren't "abstract moral principles, but sociopolitical quests for liberation and freedom."

Defining Nature's Limits

Author: Neil Tarrant
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226819434
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 273

Book Description
A look at the history of censorship, science, and magic from the Middle Ages to the post-Reformation era. Neil Tarrant challenges conventional thinking by looking at the longer history of censorship, considering a five-hundred-year continuity of goals and methods stretching from the late eleventh century to well into the sixteenth. Unlike earlier studies, Defining Nature’s Limits engages the history of both learned and popular magic. Tarrant explains how the church developed a program that sought to codify what was proper belief through confession, inquisition, and punishment and prosecuted what they considered superstition or heresy that stretched beyond the boundaries of religion. These efforts were continued by the Roman Inquisition, established in 1542. Although it was designed primarily to combat Protestantism, from the outset the new institution investigated both practitioners of “illicit” magic and inquiries into natural philosophy, delegitimizing certain practices and thus shaping the development of early modern science. Describing the dynamics of censorship that continued well into the post-Reformation era, Defining Nature's Limits is revisionist history that will interest scholars of the history science, the history of magic, and the history of the church alike.

Hypnerotomachia Poliphili

Author: Francesco Colonna
Publisher: Blurb
ISBN: 9780464987871
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
Francesco Colonna's weird, erotic, allegorical antiquarian tale, "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili", together with all of its 174 original woodcut illustrations, has been called the first "stream of consciousness" novel and was one of the most important documents of Renaissance imagination and fantasy. The author -- presumed to be a friar of dubious reputation -- was obsessed by architecture, landscape and costume (it is not going too far to say sexually obsessed) and its woodcuts are a primary source for Renaissance ideas.

Christendom Destroyed

Author: Mark Greengrass
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241005965
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 890

Book Description
Mark Greengrass's gripping, major, original account of Europe in an era of tumultuous change This latest addition to the landmark Penguin History of Europe series is a fascinating study of 16th and 17th century Europe and the fundamental changes which led to the collapse of Christendom and established the geographical and political frameworks of Western Europe as we know it. From peasants to princes, no one was untouched by the spiritual and intellectual upheaval of this era. Martin Luther's challenge to church authority forced Christians to examine their beliefs in ways that shook the foundations of their religion. The subsequent divisions, fed by dynastic rivalries and military changes, fundamentally altered the relations between ruler and ruled. Geographical and scientific discoveries challenged the unity of Christendom as a belief-community. Europe, with all its divisions, emerged instead as a geographical projection. It was reflected in the mirror of America, and refracted by the eclipse of Crusade in ambiguous relationships with the Ottomans and Orthodox Christianity. Chronicling these dramatic changes, Thomas More, Shakespeare, Montaigne and Cervantes created works which continue to resonate with us. Christendom Destroyed is a rich tapestry that fosters a deeper understanding of Europe's identity today.

Intellectual Culture in Medieval Paris

Author: Ian P. Wei
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107009693
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 461

Book Description
This book explores the ideas of theologians at the medieval University of Paris and their attempts to shape society. Investigating their views on money, marriage and sex, Ian Wei reveals the complexity of what theologians had to say about the world around them, and the increasing challenges to their authority.

Impossible Odds

Author: Jessica Buchanan
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476725160
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
An account of the aid worker co-author's dramatic January 2012 rescue from kidnappers in Somalia by members of a Navy SEAL Team Six unit offers insight into the effective use of targeted U.S. military missions.