In medieval Europe hostages were given, not taken. They were a means of guarantee used to secure transactions ranging from treaties to wartime commitments to financial transactions. In principle, the force of the guarantee lay in the threat to the life of the hostage if the agreement were broken but, while violation of agreements was common, execution of hostages was a rarity. Medieval hostages are thus best understood not as simple pledges, but as a political institution characteristic of the medieval millennium, embedded in its changing historical contexts. In the Early Middle Ages, hostageship was principally seen in warfare and diplomacy, operating within structures of kinship and practices of alliance characteristic of elite political society. From the eleventh century, hostageship diversified, despite the spread of a legal and financial culture that would seem to have made it superfluous. Hostages in the Middle Ages traces the development of this institution from Late Antiquity through the period of the Hundred Years War, across Europe and the Mediterranean World. It explores the logic of agreements, the identity of hostages, and the conditions of their confinement, while shedding light on a wide range of subjects, from sieges and treaties, to captivity and ransom, to the Peace of God and the Crusades, to the rise of towns and representation, to political communication and shifting gender dynamics. The book closes by examining the reasons for the decline of hostageship in the Early Modern era, and the rise the modern variety of hostageship that was addressed by the Nuremberg tribunals and the United Nations in the twentieth century.

Lucasville tells the story of one of the longest prison uprisings in U.S. history. At the maximum-security Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, prisoners seized a major area of the prison on Easter Sunday, 1993. More than 400 prisoners held L block for eleven days. Nine prisoners alleged to have been informants, or “snitches,” and one hostage correctional officer, were murdered. There was a negotiated surrender. Thereafter, almost wholly on the basis of testimony by prisoner informants who received deals in exchange, five spokespersons or leaders were tried and sentenced to death, and more than a dozen others received long sentences. Lucasville examines the causes of the disturbance, what happened during the eleven days, and the fairness of the trials. Particular emphasis is placed on the interracial character of the action, as evidenced in the slogans that were found painted on walls after the surrender: “Black and White Together,” “Convict Unity,” and “Convict Race.” An eloquent Foreword by Mumia Abu-Jamal underlines these themes. He states, as does the book, that the men later sentenced to death “sought to minimize violence, and indeed, according to substantial evidence, saved the lives of several men, prisoner and guard alike.” Of the five men, three black and two white, who were sentenced to death, Mumia declares, “They rose above their status as prisoners, and became, for a few days in April 1993, what rebels in Attica had demanded a generation before them: men. As such, they did not betray each other; they did not dishonor each other; they reached beyond their prison ‘tribes’ to reach commonality.”

Jihadi online media try to mobilize, recruit, and disseminate the messages of jihadi subcultures. Understanding the mechanisms and structures of the products of these online media is essential for understanding jihadism in general. Original research into visual representations of jihadi media outlets, the subtleties of jihadi videos, the specific ways jihadis use Islamic religious language, into jihadi poetry, and the ways jihadis stage their concepts in videos of kangaroo trials is presented in this volume. Jihadis as part of the imaginary of global media production is another aspect of representations of jihadism described in one of the contributions.

This unique and meticulously edited collection of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's greatest works includes: Novels & Novellas:_x000D_ The Last Days of Pompeii_x000D_ The Pilgrims of the Rhine_x000D_ Rienzi, the last of the Roman tribunes_x000D_ Falkland_x000D_ Pelham_x000D_ The Disowned_x000D_ Devereux_x000D_ Paul Clifford_x000D_ Eugene Aram_x000D_ Godolphin_x000D_ Asmodeus at Large_x000D_ Ernest Maltravers_x000D_ Alice, or The Mysteries (A sequel to Ernest Maltravers)_x000D_ Calderon, the Courtier_x000D_ Leila, or The Siege of Granada_x000D_ Zicci: A Tale (A prequel to Zanoni)_x000D_ Zanoni_x000D_ Night and Morning_x000D_ The Last of the Barons_x000D_ Lucretia_x000D_ Harold, the Last of the Saxons_x000D_ The Caxtons: A Family Picture_x000D_ A Strange Story_x000D_ My Novel, or Varieties in English Life_x000D_ The Haunted and the Haunters, or The House and the Brain_x000D_ What Will He Do With It?_x000D_ The Coming Race, or Vril: The Power of the Coming Race_x000D_ Kenelm Chillingly_x000D_ The Parisians_x000D_ Pausanias, the Spartan _x000D_ Short Stories:_x000D_ The Incantation_x000D_ The Brothers_x000D_ Poetry:_x000D_ The New Timon_x000D_ Constance_x000D_ Milton_x000D_ Eva_x000D_ The Fairy Bride_x000D_ The Beacon_x000D_ The Lay of the Minstrel's Heart_x000D_ Narrative Lyrics; or, The Parcæ_x000D_ King Arthur_x000D_ Corn-Flowers I_x000D_ Corn-Flowers II_x000D_ Earlier Poems_x000D_ The Land of Promise: A Fable_x000D_ Play:_x000D_ The Lady of Lyons, or Love and Pride_x000D_ Historical Works:_x000D_ Athens: Its Rise and Fall_x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_