Product Description: From the PREFACE. ...One feature of this volume that will be at once evident to the reader who is already knowledgeable in the field of educational philosophy is the avoidance of the use of classifications or captions such as "traditionalist," "essentialist," "reconstructionist," "progressivist," and others...read more

A stunning new look at 30 of the most significant battles in world history, this book includes fully illustrated and vividly told accounts of fascinating battles from ancient to modern times. 3-dimensional graphics reveal troop plans and detailed features including weapons innovations reveal how many battles were won and lost.

Divine Comedy Summary Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote his epic poem, the Divine Comedy, during the last thirteen years of his life (circa 1308-21), while in exile from his native Florence. There are three parts to this massive work: Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise. In each section Dante the poet recounts the travels of the Pilgrim—his alter ego—through hell, purgatory, and heaven, where he meets God face to face. The primary theme is clear. In a letter to his patron, Can Grande della Scala, Dante wrote that his poem was, on the literal level, about "The state of souls after death." It is, of course, that and much more. The poem works on a number of symbolic levels, much like the Bible, one of its primary sources. Like that sacred text, Dante meant his work and his Pilgrim traveler to serve as models for the reader. He hoped to lead that reader to a greater understanding of his place in the universe and to prepare him for the next life, for the life that begins after death. The greatness of the Divine Comedy lies in its construction as a summa, or a summation of knowledge and experience. Dante was able to weave together pagan myth, literature, philosophy; Christian theology and doctrine, physics, astrology, cartography, mathematics, literary theory, history, and politics into a complex poem that a wide audience, not just the highly educated, could read. For Dante boldly chose to write his poem of salvation in his own Italian dialect, not in Latin, which was the language of Church, State, and epic poetry during his time. Its impact was so great that Dante's Tuscan dialect became what we recognize as modern Italian. As one of the greatest works, not just of the late Middle Ages, but of world literature in its entirety, the influence of the Divine Comedy has been incalculable. The poem was immediately successful— Dante's own sons, Pietro and Jacopo, wrote the first commentaries on it—and it continues to be read and taught today. Many of western literature's major figures were indebted to Dante's masterwork. A highly selective list includes: Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75); Geoffrey Chaucer (circa 1344-1400); Don Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, the first Marques de Santillana (1389-1458); John Milton (1608-74); William Blake (1757-1827); Victor Hugo (1802-85); Joseph Conrad (Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski) (1857-1924); James Joyce (1882-1941); Ezra Pound (1885-1972); Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986); and Italo Calvino (1923-85).

Recreates twenty-five of the most memorable battles of the Second World War, from the invasion of Poland to Okinawa

Examines great battles of the American Civil War from the first battle at Bull Run in 1861 to the Battle of the Five Forks in 1865, in a work augmented by detailed graphics and illustrations of uniforms and weaponry

Product Description: Susan, a young White House staffer, becomes suspicious when one of her colleagues disappears. The colleague's sister informs Susan that her brother suspects the administration is raising money on the black market in Vietnam to help finance the president's 1968 re-election...read more

Product Description: When a hot young investment banker runs his car into a black man in the Bronx, prosecutors, politicians, the press, police, the clergy and assorted hustlers close in on him, licking their chops.