Buddhism is popularly regarded in the West as being a very peaceful religion, but this way by no means the image presented by the famous warrior monks of medieval Japan. From the 10th century onwards the great monastic foundations of Nara and Mount Hiei maintained private armies that terrified the courtiers and citizens of the capital with their religious and military power. Armed with long nag…
Given Australia’s lack of energy security strategy, it is not surprising that the country is void of institutional knowledge and know-how of Russian foreign energy strategy. The ‘lucky country’ as it were, relies entirely on sea lines of communication to the north to supply fuel and to export Australian coal and natural gas. Australia has entered the 2020s as the world’s largest liquefi…
This new edition of the bestselling Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy is fully revised and significantly expanded. Major new features include a full chapter on Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movements, an expanded epilogue, and a new appendix ( How and Why I Became an Orthodox Christian ). More detail and more religions and movements have been included, and the book is now addressed broadly to both Or…
This volume, covering the period 1666–1800, considers the archaeology of the port of London on a wide scale, from the City down the Thames to Deptford. During this period, with the waterfront at its centre, London became the hub of the new British empire, contributing to the exploitation of people from other lands known as slavery.
Marvel Encyclopedia features: - Authoritative, Marvel-approved text for more than 1,200 Marvel characters. - Most comprehensive reference guide to Marvel Comics characters on the market, from iconic heroes and villains to a multitude of lesser-known, supporting characters - Lavishly illustrated format will appeal to both Marvel Comics aficionados and more casual fans - A to Z and ranked p…
Building on five years of national organizing by Arts in a Changing America, an artist-led initiative that challenges structural racism in the art world, FUTURE/PRESENT includes a range of poetry, essays and criticism, visual and performance art, artist manifestos, interviews, and reflections on community practice.
Sociolinguistic research in the 1950s and 1960s had shown how people change the degree of formality of their language as a function of the social contexts in which they find themselves. This was explained in terms of social norms dictating language use. In other words, we should speak very softly and respectfully here, but we can be more boisterous and casual there. Communication (or speech) ac…
By the century's end, discrepancies in the idea of an all-pervading ether began to appear. It was expected that light would travel at a fixed speed through the ether but that if you were traveling through the ether in the same direction as the light, its speed would appear lower, and if you were traveling in the opposite direction of the light, its speed would appear higher. Yet a series of exp…
The Ancestors of the Samurai The word 'samurai', which is commonly used for all varieties of ancient Japanese warrior, actually signifies the military elite of old Japan, a knightly caste who commanded armies, and also led their followers into battle. Their military and political skills eventually enabled them to control civilian governments, developing, through almost constant civil warfare, a…
This book explores the judicial development of the concept of the signature from the thirteenth century to the age of the facsimile transmission. It puts the concept of the signature into a broad legal context to set out the purposes that can be attributed to a signature, and to explain the functions a signature is capable of performing. Drawing on cases from common law jurisdictions across the…