Gentlemen's Blood

Gentlemen's Blood
Author: Barbara Holland
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2008-12-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 1596918098

"Never, never, did I imagine that dueling could be so enthralling, outrageous, gruesome, tragic, and, yes, ridiculous...Lively humor and sparkling prose." -Wall Street Journal The medieval justice of trial by combat evolved into the private duel by sword and pistol, with thousands of honorable men-and not-so-honorable women-giving lives and limbs to wipe out an insult or prove a point. The duel was essential to private, public, and political life, and those who followed the elaborate codes of procedure were seldom prosecuted and rarely convicted-for, in fact, they were obeying a grand old tradition. Based on her fascinating 1997 Smithsonian article, Barbara Holland's Gentlemen's Blood is the first trade book to trace the remarkable, often gruesome, sometimes comical history of the Western tradition of defending one's honor.

Gentlemen's Blood

Gentlemen's Blood
Author: Barbara Holland
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 318
Release: 2004-09-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 158234440X

A compelling history of the art of dueling describes how the duel evolved from the medieval practice of determining justice through trial by combat into a practice that followed elaborate codes of procedure and tradition, offering a definitive guide to this courtly violence around the world. Reprint.

Red Seas Under Red Skies

Red Seas Under Red Skies
Author: Scott Lynch
Publisher: Del Rey
Total Pages: 578
Release: 2007-07-31
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0553903586

In his highly acclaimed debut, The Lies of Locke Lamora, Scott Lynch took us on an adrenaline-fueled adventure with a band of daring thieves led by con artist extraordinaire Locke Lamora. Now Lynch brings back his outrageous hero for a caper so death-defying, nothing short of a miracle will pull it off. After a brutal battle with the underworld that nearly destroyed him, Locke and his trusted sidekick, Jean, fled the island city of their birth and landed on the exotic shores of Tal Verrar to nurse their wounds. But even at this westernmost edge of civilization, they can’t rest for long—and are soon back to what they do best: stealing from the undeserving rich and pocketing the proceeds for themselves. This time, however, they have targeted the grandest prize of all: the Sinspire, the most exclusive and heavily guarded gambling house in the world. Its nine floors attract the wealthiest clientele—and to rise to the top, one must impress with good credit, amusing behavior…and excruciatingly impeccable play. For there is one cardinal rule, enforced by Requin, the house’s cold-blooded master: it is death to cheat at any game at the Sinspire. Brazenly undeterred, Locke and Jean have orchestrated an elaborate plan to lie, trick, and swindle their way up the nine floors…straight to Requin’s teeming vault. Under the cloak of false identities, they meticulously make their climb—until they are closer to the spoils than ever. But someone in Tal Verrar has uncovered the duo’s secret. Someone from their past who has every intention of making the impudent criminals pay for their sins. Now it will take every ounce of cunning to save their mercenary souls. And even that may not be enough.… Praise for Red Seas Under Red Skies “Lynch hasn’t merely imagined a far-off world, he’s created it, put it all down on paper—the smells, the sounds, the people, the feel of the place. The novel is a virtuoso performance, and sf/fantasy fans will gobble it up.”—Booklist (starred review) “Red Seas Under Red Skies firmly proves that Scott Lynch isn’t a one-hit wonder. . . . It’ll only be a matter of time before Scott Lynch is mentioned in the same breath as George R. R. Martin and Steven Erikson.”—Fantasy Book Critic “Grand, grandiose, grandiloquent . . . No critic is likely to fault Lynch in his overflowing qualities of inventiveness, audacious draftsmanship, and sympathetic characterization.”—Locus

"Blood and Homeland"

Author: Marius Turda
Publisher: Central European University Press
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789637326813

The history of eugenics and racial nationalism in Central and Southeast Europe is a neglected topic of analysis in contemporary scholarship. Moreover, national historiographies in Central and Southeast Europe have either marginalized eugenics and racial nationalism or deemed them incompatible with their respective national traditions. Accordingly, this volume has a two-fold ambition: to excavate the hitherto unknown eugenic movements in Central and Southeast Europe and to explain their relationship with racism, nationalism and anti-Semitism. On the one hand, the historiographic perspective substantiated in this volume connects developments in the history of racial anthropology, genetics and eugenics with political ideologies such as racial nationalism and anti-Semitism; on the other hand, it contests the 'Sonderweg' approach adopted by scholars dealing these phenomena in Central and Southeast Europe by arguing that concerns with eugenics and race were as widely disseminated in these regions as they were in Western Europe and North America. Book jacket.