Moving on from the legacy of Ariès, these essays address evidence for childhood and youth from the sixth century to the sixteenth, but with particular emphasis on later medieval England. The contents include the idea of childhood in the writing of Gregory of Tours, skaldic verse narratives and their implications for the understanding of kingship, Jewish communities of Northern Europe for whom children represented the continuity of a persecuted faith, children in the records of the northern Italian Humiliati, the meaning of romance narratives centred around the departure of the hero or heroine from the natal hearth, the age at which later medieval English youngsters left home, how far they travelled and where they went, literary sources revealing the politicisation of the idea of the child, and the response of young, affluent females to homiletic literature and the iconography of the virgin martyrs in the later middle ages.Contributors: FRANCES E. ANDREWS, HELEN COOPER, P.J.P.GOLDBERG, SIMCHA GOLDIN, EDWARD F. JAMES, JUDITH JESCH, KIM M. PHILLIPS, MIKE TYLER, ROSALYNN VOADEN.

It is a rare season when the intelligence story in the news concerns intelligence analysis, not secret operations abroad. The United States is having such a season as it debates whether intelligence failed in the run-up to both September 11 and the second Iraq war, and so Rob Johnston’s wonderful book is perfectly timed to provide the back-story to those headlines. The CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence is to be commended for having the good sense to find Johnston and the courage to support his work, even though his conclusions are not what many in the world of intelligence analysis would like to hear.

Effects of Directed Energy Weapons is an encyclopedic treatment of how Directed Energy Weapons work, how the energy of these weapons is propagated to the target, and how the weapon/beam-target interaction creates effects (damage) in the target. This is a technical exposition, written at the undergraduate physics and engineering level that could serve either as a text book or as a reference text for technical practitioners. The text addresses Kinetic Energy Weapons in addition to Lasers, Microwaves and Particle Beams.

This book re-examines the so-called 'Abbāsid revolution, the ethnic character of whose effective constituency has been contested for over eight decades. It also brings to question the authenticity of the 'Abbāsid dynastic claim. To establish its two theses (neither Arab nor 'Abbāsid) this book employs, in its three parts, three distinct methodological approaches.

A Companion to Archaeology features essays from 27 of the world’s leading authorities on different types of archaeology that aim to define the field and describe what it means to be an archaeologist.

Of the remaining works of Machiavelli the most important is the History of Florence written between 1521 and 1525, and dedicated to Clement VII. The first book is merely a rapid review of the Middle Ages, the history of Florence beginning with Book II. Machiavelli's method has been censured for adhering at times too closely to the chroniclers like Villani, Cambi, and Giovanni Cavalcanti, and at others rejecting their testimony without apparent reason, while in its details the authority of his History is often questionable. It is the straightforward, logical narrative, which always holds the interest of the reader that is the greatest charm of the History.

The Four Faces of Nuclear Terrorism is the result of a two-year study by the Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the motivations and capabilities of terrorist organizations to carry out devastating attacks using stolen nuclear weapons, to construct and detonate crude nuclear weapons known as improvised nuclear devices (INDs), to release radiation by attacking or sabotaging nuclear facilities, and to build and use radiological weapons or "dirty bombs." These "four faces" of nuclear terrorism are real threats that current U.S. policy fails to take into account. Because Washington has no guidelines for directing scarce resources to where they would have the greatest impact, this book merits the earnest attention of policy makers and the public. As Senator Richard G. Lugar, Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, and former Senator Sam Nunn of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, write in the foreword to the book, "This thought-provoking and well-researched book...should be read by policy makers and anyone interested in a better understanding of the threats we face today." Dr. Ferguson and Dr. Potter maintain that there is a greater likelihood today than any time in the past three decades that citizens will experience one of the four types of nuclear terrorism. They urge the United States and its international partners to take immediate steps to prevent the most catastrophic form of nuclear terrorism, detonation of nuclear weapons, and to reduce the consequences of the most likely, dispersal of radiation with dirty bombs. The book outlines the priority tasks necessary for the U.S. and other governments, and stresses the need to educate the public on the risks of radiation exposure and to help psychologically immunize citizens against fear of radiological attacks.