City of Life, City of Death: Memories of Riga is Max Michelson's stirring and haunting personal account of the Soviet and German occupations of Latvia and of the Holocaust. Michelson had a serene boyhood in an upper middle-class Jewish family in Riga, Latvia--at least until 1940, when the fifteen-year old Michelson witnessed the annexation of Latvia by the Soviet Union. Private properties were nationalized, and Stalin's terror spread to Soviet Latvia. Soon after, Michelson's family was torn apart by the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. He quickly lost his entire family, while witnessing the unspeakable brutalities of war and genocide. Michelson's memoir is an ode to his lost family; it is the speech of their muted voices and a thank you for their love. Although badly scarred by his experiences, like many other survivors he was able to rebuild his life and gain a new sense of what it means to be alive. His experiences will be of interest to scholars of both the Holocaust and Eastern European history, as well as the general reader.

Discover the fascinating stories of the world’s most beautiful cemeteries, featuring spectacular photography, unique histories and famous residents. Cities of the Dead takes us on a tour of memorial sites, ranging from monastic settlements to grand cathedrals, Shinto shrines to Gothic chapels, tombs and crypts. Enjoy tales of myths and monsters, grave-robbers, pilgrimages, spiritual retreats, remembrance and community. Marvel in cemeteries with a hundred thousand to a handful of graves which feature famous headstones, weeping angels, ocean views, woodlands, thousands of glowing lanterns and a tomb of poets. From London's famous Highgate Cemetery, which houses famous names from Karl Marx to Malcolm McLaren, George Eliot to Christina Rosetti, to Hawaii's breathtaking Valley of the Temples, this book spans the globe to bring you the most fascinating, intriguing and evocative cemeteries across cultures and continents. Together with evocative images, the stories behind these notable burial sites bring these sanctuaries to life, detailing the features that make them special, highlighting both similarities and differences between time periods, religions and cultures, and showing how cemeteries are about and for the living as much as the dead.

Why is the city a battleground of hostile principalities and powers? What is the mission of the church in the city? How can the church be supported in accomplishing that mission? These are the questions that Robert Linthicum treats in his comprehensive and probing biblical theology of the city. In the Bible the city is depicted both as a dwelling place of God and his people and as a center of power for Satan and his minions. The city is one primary stage on which the drama of salvation is played out. And that is no less the case at the end of this pivotal century as megacities become the focal point of most human activity and aspirations around the world. This is a timely theology of the city that weaves the theological images of the Bible and the social realities of the contemporary world into a revealing tapestry of truths about the urban experience. Its purpose is to define clearly the mission of the church in the midst of the urban realities and to support well the work of the church in the urban world.

This sweeping literary encounter with the Western idea of the city moves from the early novel in England to the apocalyptic cityscapes of Thomas Pynchon. Along the way, Richard Lehan gathers a rich entourage that includes Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Bram Stoker, Rider Haggard, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Raymond Chandler. The European city is read against the decline of feudalism and the rise of empire and totalitarianism; the American city against the phenomenon of the wilderness, the frontier, and the rise of the megalopolis and the decentered, discontinuous city that followed. Throughout this book, Lehan pursues a dialectic of order and disorder, of cities seeking to impose their presence on the surrounding chaos. Rooted in Enlightenment yearnings for reason, his journey goes from east to west, from Europe to America. In the United States, the movement is also westward and terminates in Los Angeles, a kind of land's end of the imagination, in Lehan's words. He charts a narrative continuum full of constructs that "represent" a cycle of hope and despair, of historical optimism and pessimism. Lehan presents sharply etched portrayals of the correlation between rationalism and capitalism; of the rise of the city, the decline of the landed estate, and the formation of the gothic; and of the emergence of the city and the appearance of other genres such as detective narrative and fantasy literature. He also mines disciplines such as urban studies, architecture, economics, and philosophy, uncovering material that makes his study a lively read not only for those interested in literature, but for anyone intrigued by the meanings and mysteries of urban life.

Unlike the United States, Mexico took shape suddenly and abruptly.Earlier civilizations systematically were destroyed and newcomers tookover. There was no systematic formation of boundaries and possessions.While the first English pilgrims clung perilously to a few acres ofMassachusetts forest, Mexico already had laws, churches, mines, shipbuilding, riots and a compelling mestizo conscience.This narration takes readers through Mexico City at night and in thedaytime, through its suburbs rich and poor, into its ceremonies -Christian and pre-Christian - and on journeys with reformers, rebels, manipulators, workers. It unravels "The Imaginary State of Petroleo"(which is more real than you might think), explores the orchards andlanded estates of northeastern Mexico and the deserts where ancientcave paintings mark the existence of lost cultures and where drug dealershave established hidden landing strips.From rural villages in the northwest through Tijuana and the meleethat is life on the U.S.-Mexican border, and from Baja and the cultivatedcoastal plains to the changing rhythms of Oaxaca, Chiapas andYucatan, the experiences, opinions and adventures of Mexicans from allwalks of life form a mosaic designed to perplex, provoke and entertain.

'Robert Jackson Bennett deserves a huge audience' - Brent Weeks, New York Times bestselling author of The Black Prism. Do the dead sleep soundly in the land of death - or do they have plans of their own? Nominated for a Goodreads Choice Award 2016. A generation ago the city of Voortyashtan was the stronghold of the god of war and death, the birthplace of fearsome supernatural sentinels who killed and subjugated millions. But that was then. Now the god is dead and the city lies in ruins, a wasteland of sectarian violence and bloody uprisings. So it makes perfect sense for General Turyin Mulaghesh, foul-mouthed hero of the battle of Bulikov, rumoured war criminal, ally of embattled Prime Minister Shara Komayd, to be exiled here - but she's not just eking out her days in this hellhole till retirement. She's on one final mission, to find a Saypuri secret agent who's gone AWOL. The trouble is, that this old soldier isn't sure she's still got what it takes to be the hero . . . A triumphant return to the world of A City of Stairs. 'Loud, bold and uncompromisingly ambitious' - Upcoming4.me