'The Beheading' is the title piece of this spectacular collection of true stories and commentaries. It is an eye-witness account of a beheading in the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia where the author witnessed savage and soul-destroying punishments. They are recounted in this book with great clarity and brutal honesty, but with the sensitivity and poignancy born of the insight of a man who has studied the culture and history of this land with meticulous care. But these stories are not for the squeamish. They are required reading for those who are concerned about the inhumane and barbaric practices carried out around the world and have the stomach to read of such chilling things. Included in this collection is a shocking account of an adulterous woman stoned to death. 'Women Are Always To Blame' achieves a particular relevance in light of recent worldwide concerns about this practice. In 'Extracts from my Diary', Bob Crew reveals how his predictions regarding what would not change in Saudi Arabia in the new Millennium have been remarkably prescient.

Focusing purely on Queen Elizabeth II's relationship with television, this book shows how she was ahead of the game in helping to change the face of British television from the outset of her reign in 1953 when she let the cameras into Westminster Abbey. The Queen embraced television at a time when Winston Churchill and her government advisors recommended that she should keep them out - on the grounds that the cameras would destroy her royal mystique - right through the 1950s which was Britain s television decade (for reasons that are not generally understood today), when Britain became the first nation in the world to have public service television. In 1969 the Queen opened the doors to the cameras once again for the invention of Britains first family-reality-TV, fly-on-the-wall programme, showing how she and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh and their children, Charles and Anne, went about their daily lives, thereby giving the seal of royal approval to reality-TV, ahead of the first programmes in the United States and the UK that followed in her wake. Queen Elizabeth II can accurately be described as a television queen, the first monarch to understand and embrace television and, in particular reality-TV, which is why she was light years ahead of other royals and her government ministers. Television was for her a right of passage and, not until she ran into bad and stormy weather with Princess Diana in the 1980s and 1990s, did she have any image problems with television. These problems no longer remain today, evidently, as once again the television arrangements are in full swing for her Diamond Jubilee celebrations this June. Queen Elizabeth II remains the most televised and visualised person in the world.

Focusing purely on Queen Elizabeth II's relationship with television, this book shows how she was ahead of the game in helping to change the face of British television from the outset of her reign in 1953 when she let the cameras into Westminster Abbey. The Queen embraced television at a time when Winston Churchill and her government advisors recommended that she should keep them out - on the grounds that the cameras would destroy her royal mystique - right through the 1950s which was Britain's television decade (for reasons that are not generally understood today), when Britain became the first nation in the world to have public service television. In 1969 the Queen opened the doors to the cameras once again for the invention of Britain's first family-reality-TV, fly-on-the-wall programme, showing how she and her husband the Duke of Edinburgh and their children, Charles and Anne, went about their daily lives, thereby giving the seal of royal approval to reality-TV, ahead of the first programmes in the United States and the UK that followed in her wake. Queen Elizabeth II can accurately be described as a television queen, the first monarch to understand and embrace television and, in particular reality-TV, which is why she was light years ahead of other royals and her government ministers. Television became her rites of passage and, not until she ran into bad and stormy weather with Princess Diana in the 1980s and 1990s, did she have any image problems with television. Queen Elizabeth II remains the most televised and visualised person in the world.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia now has been under the spotlight of Western curiosity for more than 80 years. More than 15% of the world’s total oil reserves lie underneath Saudi Arabia and, in the early 1990s, the kingdom became the world’s largest crude oil producer. Not surprisingly, a world highly dependent on oil regards the desert kingdom as an area of intense strategic concern, as reflected in the coalition of forces assembled on Saudi soil to oust Iraq from Kuwait in 1991. Also, it played a major role in the invasion of Saddam Husayn’s Iraq in 2003 and shares concern with the West over Iran’s nuclear intentions throughout the 21st century. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Saudi Arabia contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Saudi Arabia.

​Beheading is not an uncommon undertaking. As a particularized physical violence, it has been practiced by all societies and civilizations at some point in their history. In fact, for millennia public beheadings around the world were routine. In contemporary international society some states and many non-state actors regularly engage in this undertaking. This begs the obvious question: why put a human being through this unimaginable cruelty? While the idea of execution by decapitation appears visceral and horrific, it has always been grounded in cultural, religious and political contexts. If contemporary history is any proof, the enterprise of beheading a fellow human being appears to be making a comeback in certain religious and political landscapes. A question of enormous intellectual importance, the phenomenon of beheading is understudied. There have been many explanations surrounding specific forms of beheading through the ages. However, no inclusive study has engaged with it in its entirety. Primarily a philosophical reflection, On Beheading is inter-disciplinary in nature; it freely cuts across various disciplines within the broad framework of the social sciences. It uses a vast array of empirical evidence from anthropology, literature, jurisprudence and religion to build a discourse and narrative that brings this subject under one intellectual umbrella.

In ancient China a monster called Taowu was known for both its vicious nature and its power to see the past and the future. Since the seventeenth century, fictive accounts of history have accommodated themselves to the monstrous nature of Taowu. Moving effortlessly across the entire twentieth-century literary landscape, David Der-wei Wang delineates the many meanings of Chinese violence and its literary manifestations.

This is the first independent, full-life biography of Lu Xun, the most celebrated Chinese writer of the twentieth century, in any European language. It sets aside all the propaganda that has accrued over the sixty-six years since his death, and presents him as a credible human being, neither aggrandized nor belittled. As Lu Xun's life spanned the transition from Manchu empire to citizens' Republic, it can be seen as one man's history of China's progress to modernity--a progress in which he personally played a significant part. The facts of Lu Xun's life are presented objectively, but they do not always speak for themselves. The author has therefore drawn on his lifelong study of modern Chinese literature to offer intelligent interpretations where necessary. Since the subject of this biography was a writer, the author has appended to the chronicle some brief 'sketches' of his work for the benefit of those unacquainted with it.

In ancient China a monster called Taowu was known for both its vicious nature and its power to see the past and the future. Over the centuries Taowu underwent many incarnations until it became identifiable with history itself. Since the seventeenth century, fictive accounts of history have accommodated themselves to the monstrous nature of Taowu. Moving effortlessly across the entire twentieth-century literary landscape, David Der-wei Wang delineates the many meanings of Chinese violence and its literary manifestations. Taking into account the campaigns of violence and brutality that have rocked generations of Chinese—often in the name of enlightenment, rationality, and utopian plenitude—this book places its arguments along two related axes: history and representation, modernity and monstrosity. Wang considers modern Chinese history as a complex of geopolitical, ethnic, gendered, and personal articulations of bygone and ongoing events. His discussion ranges from the politics of decapitation to the poetics of suicide, and from the typology of hunger and starvation to the technology of crime and punishment.

This carefully edited collection has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Table of Contents: Elsie Dinsmore Series Elsie Dinsmore Elsie's Holidays at Roselands Elsie's Girlhood Elsie's Womanhood Elsie's Motherhood Elsie's Children Elsie's Widowhood Grandmother Elsie Elsie's New Relations Elsie at Nantucket Two Elsies Elsie's Kith and Kin Elsie's Friends at Woodburn Christmas with Grandma Elsie Elsie and the Raymonds Elsie Yachting with the Raymonds Elsie's Vacation Elsie at Viamede Elsie at Ion Elsie at the World's Fair Elsie's Journey on Inland Waters Elsie at Home Elsie on the Hudson Elsie in the South Elsie's Young Folks Elsie's Winter Trip Elsie and Her Loved Ones Elsie and Her Namesakes Mildred Keith Series Mildred Keith Mildred at Roselands Mildred and Elsie Mildred's Married Life Mildred at Home Mildred's Boys and Girls Mildred's New Daughter Other Novels Edith's Sacrifice Ella Clinton Signing the Contract and What it Cost The Thorn in the Nest The Tragedy of Wild River Valley Martha Finley (1828-1909) was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well-known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years.