Lord Ivan de Greystoke - Don't let my fancy title fool you because I'm a bad boy. I've always been. Now I've set my sights on Tawny Maxwell the one woman who stirs a possessiveness and desire in me that makes my insides twist. She's nineteen, blonde, fabulously beautiful, and married to Robert Maxwell. Which makes her a gold digger and my f**king stepmother! Oh and completely unavailable ... until now. For the old man's dead, she's the heiress of a hundred million fortune, and I'm the executor of her trust, but it ain't no walk in the park. My stepbrother and stepsisters feel robbed and are of the opinion that she should join her husband a.s.a.p, and I've got a raging hard-on. Permanently. Then I come up with the perfect solution. A fake marriage ... to me. - Tawny Maxwell Everyone thinks I'm a gold digger. Even the dazzlingly, beautiful man whom I can't stop thinking about looks at me with distrust and suspicion in his silver eyes. But they don't know the whole story. I have a secret. It's so big it will blow their minds, but I'm not telling. Never...

"Aristocrat" and "The Community" are dialogues that take place among friends through the course of a night. "Aristocrat" is concerned with what it means to want to rule, with the comparison of aristocracy to democracy, and with duty. The friends begin by touching upon excellence, aristocracy's traditional claim to rule. They soon come to question whether there are in fact but two true claims to rule - force, or a system of belief. In addition they ponder their commitment to "the cause," a potentially transpolitical cause. "Aristocrat" attempts to answer several "whats" - what is "the cause," what does it involve, and what does it mean to serve. "The Community" attempts to demonstrate a "how" - how to create the new city, a new city determined to set itself apart from the outside world. Discussions of the degree to which quality can be controlled from above, and debates over the degree of control versus freedom that would make the city an ideal place to live, are interwoven with a concern for viability - represented by the Bank, whose interests it seems must always be taken into account. Is the creation of an ideal community an effort that is doomed to be utopian?

The Politics of Aristocratic Empires is a study of a political order that prevailed throughout much of the world for many centuries without any major social conflict or change and with hardly any government in the modern sense. Although previously ignored by political science, powerful remnants of this old order still persist in modern politics. The historical literature on aristocratic empires typically is descriptive and treats each empire as unique. By contrast, this work adopts an analytical, explanatory, and comparative approach and clearly distinguishes aristocratic empires from both primitive and more modern, commercialized societies. It develops generalizations that are supported and richly illustrated by data from many empires and demonstrates that a pattern of politics prevailed across time, space, and cultures from ancient Egypt five millennia ago to Saudi Arabia five decades ago, from China and Japan to Europe, from the Incas and the Aztecs to the Tutsi. Kautsky argues that aristocrats, because they live off the labor of peasants, must perform the primary governmental functions of taxation and warfare. Their performance is linked to particular values and beliefs, and both functions and ideologies in turn condition the stakes, the forms, and the arenas of intra-aristocratic conflict the politics of the aristocracy. The author also analyzes the roles of the peasantry and the townspeople in aristocratic politics and shows that peasant revolts on any large scale occur only after commercial modernization. He concludes with chapters on the modernization of aristocratic empires and on the importance in modern politics of institutional and ideological remnants of the old aristocratic order.

On a mission to buy a prestigious shoe company, Australian career girl, Gemma Parkinson, arrives in Italy determined to succeed. But when she falls ill, effortlessly handsome local aristocrat, Luca Andretti, is on hand. Suspicious about Gemma's presence in his town, he offers to let her recuperate in his amazing palazzo. Surrounded by the lavish trappings of the rich &- servants, designer clothes, fine food and wine &- Gemma is completely out of her depth. Intent on saving the town's local industry, Brunelli Shoes, from foreign take-over, Luca throws every obstacle he can in Gemma's path. Headstrong, savvy and equally determined to successfully wrestle the company away from him, Gemma fights Luca all the way. But Luca's life of privilege masks a private world of pain and Gemma has demons of her own. As they come to understand one another, their growing attraction starts getting in the way. This moving love story involving two people from very different backgrounds is a delightful, contemporary romance in a gorgeous Italian setting.

Other than the Apostle Paul mentioning Titus name on several occasions, there is nothing about Titus in the scriptures. The author deduced that Paul used him as an arbitrator among churches. This novel is based on that premise. . Titus is a brilliant attorney who solves unsolvable mysteries. Then he meets the Apostle Paul and becomes a Christian. Corinth—full of wild sailors, temple prostitutes, wealthy investors. Crete—infamous for pirates, slave auctions, earthquakes. Dalmatia—with its barbarians, undead, and evil dragons. . Titus is an aristocrat, born of privilege, surrounded by luxury in the family palatio, and graduate of the university at Pergamum. His father is the supreme judge of Antioch and Flamin of Apollo, while his mother is Flaminica of Apollo’s Muses. He is a brilliant attorney solving unsolvable crimes and healing impossible relationships. His ambition is to become important like his father and qualify for the purple border on his own white toga. . His career spirals upward as he defends his clients and solves crimes. . Then he meets the apostle Paul and becomes a Christian. Paul sends him to places where he does not fit in to use his unique talent as arbitrate between arch enemies and impossible situations. . What does aristocrat Titus endure to carry out the apostle’s assignments? Discussion questions at end of book for each chapter which can be used in book clubs and classes or personal reflection.