Robes and Honor is a fascinating exploration of the possible common origin and subsequent developments of investiture across medieval Christianity and medieval Islam. The ceremony in all of its cultural variety was much more than the public adoption of a high-value textile as symbol of office; within a culture, robing established a personal link 'from the hand' of the giver - king, pope, head of a sect, ambassador - to the receiver - noble, general, official, nun, or acolyte. This volume challenges current thinking on religious and regional boundaries of 'cultures,' raises semiotic issues about imagined communities, and addresses problems of kingship.

This volume analyzes the khilat ceremony, the tradition of honorific robing, prevalent in South Asia in the pre-colonial and colonial periods.

In Her Honor, Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell provides a rare and thought-provoking insider account of our legal system, sharing vivid stories of the cases that came through her courtroom and revealing the strengths, flaws, and much-needed changes within our courts. Judge Cordell, the first African American woman to sit on the Superior Court of Northern California, knows firsthand how prejudice has permeated our legal system. And yet, she believes in the system. From ending school segregation to legalizing same-sex marriage, its progress relies on legal professionals and jurors who strive to make the imperfect system as fair as possible. Her Honor is an entertaining and provocative look into the hearts and minds of judges. Cordell takes you into her chambers where she haggles with prosecutors and defense attorneys and into the courtroom during jury selection and sentencing hearings. She uses real cases to highlight how judges make difficult decisions, all the while facing outside pressures from the media, law enforcement, lobbyists, and the friends and families of the people involved. Cordell’s candid account of her years on the bench shines light on all areas of the legal system, from juvenile delinquency and the shift from rehabilitation to punishment, along with the racial biases therein, to the thousands of plea bargains that allow our overburdened courts to stay afloat—as long as innocent people are willing to plead guilty. There are tales of marriages and divorces, adoptions, and contested wills—some humorous, others heartwarming, still others deeply troubling. Her Honor is for anyone who’s had the good or bad fortune to stand before a judge or sit on a jury. It is for true-crime junkies and people who vote in judicial elections. Most importantly, this is a book for anyone who wants to know what our legal system, for better or worse, means to the everyday lives of all Americans.

Describes the author's childhood relocation from France to the U.S., where as a naturalized citizen he joined the military and served multiple tours in Afghanistan before he was wounded while protecting his patrol from a suicide bomber.

The Starship Enterprise NX-01 is Earth's flagship - the first vessel to embark on a sytematic exploration of what lies beyond the fringes of known space. Led by Captain Jonathan Archer, eighty of Starfleet's best and brightest set forth to pave humanity's way to the stars. Tempered by a year of interstellar exploration, the crew has become a disciplined, cohesive, unit. And now, for the first time, they have lost one of their number. Bad enough that Ensign Alana Hart is dead. Worse, she died while attempting to sabotage the ship, killed by her nominal superior, armory officer Lieutenant Malcolm Reed. Even as they deal with the circumstances of her death, Archer, Reed and the rest of the crew find themselves caught squarely in the middle of another tense situation - a brutal war between two alien civilizations. But in the Alpha System nothing is what it seems. And before he can discover the secret behind what happened to Ensign Hart, Reed is forced once more to confront the reality of death.

In the first volume of the To Shine with Honor trilogy, Galien de Coudre, scholarly third son in a family of minor nobility, comes of age in the perilous world of late 11th century France, where powerful noblemen massacre the other and innocents in unending petty warfare over lands and silver, despite the efforts of the Church to control their violence. Galien, educated for the priesthood, trained at arms and horse by his father and older brothers, all knights, finds his once-certain future as a high Church official compromised by family misfortunes. Through a series of oft-wrenching events, he discovers his own destiny as events in France and the distant Holy Land draw inexorably toward the great war of faiths known in history as the First Crusade.

Christ's robe has a strange effect on the pagan soldier who wins it in a dice game after the Crucifixion.