Anglo-America has possessed neither a uniform imperialist vocation, nor the consistent capacity to impose it.

Copan in modern Honduras was one of the great cities of the Classic Maya. Explorers found ruined temples, plazas, and more hieroglyphic inscriptions and sculpted monuments than in any other site in the New World. But the stones were silent, the script undeciphered.

Copan in modern Honduras was one of the great cities of the Classic Maya. Abandoned to the rain forest for nearly a thousand years, it was rediscovered in the early 1800s. Now, two centuries later, an international team of scholars is solving the puzzle of Copan and the ancient Maya. William Fash, himself one of the key contributors to the recent breakthroughs, describes how decipherment of the Maya inscriptions together with tomb finds have unlocked the secrets of Copan's history. For this revised edition, Professor Fash shows how recent discoveries in the Acropolis, urban wards, and rural redoubts of the Copan kingdom reveal fascinating insights into the life and times of royalty, nobles, and commoners in this distinguished Maya city. The uncovering of the extraordinary tomb of the dynasty's founder provides illuminating information on his origins and accomplishments, while archaeological and hieroglyphic studies have demonstrated the importance of Tikal and the great metropolis of Teotihuacan in the founding and long-term legitimization of the Copan royal line. New excavations in the royal residential area give a blueprint for the layout and functioning of Maya palaces, as well as dramatic evidence for the violent and sudden end to dynastic rule. 11 color and 109 b/w illustrations.

Christ Church Priory, Canterbury, 990 AD. Orphaned by vikings, Folcwin and his elder brother Aelfwynn have become excellent scribes. Their lives, enlivened by sibling rivalry, are upset by a competition to illuminate a commissioned psalter. After Folcwin is selected the victor, his brother is accused of murdering another competitor, and he escapes. While Aelfwynn begins a patriotic battle against Viking raiders, Folcwin's fame as a scribe increases. Even with their imbalanced fortunes, the paths of the two brothers are bound to cross with powerful kings and strong leaders, including King Aethelred, Thorkell the Tall and Edmund Ironside. But can they overcome the Viking menace?

"If earlier scholarship on apocalyptic literature was once described as "clueless about apocalypticism, " it was due in part to a focus on questions of definition, literary genre, and theological eccentricity. Richard A. Horsley takes a different approach, letting the language of the apocalypses themselves reveal their chief concern: the expanding domination by foreign empires and the form that popular defiance should take. Most telling are the traces where Judean scribes wrote themselves into their texts - and thus into God's purposes in history."--Jaquette du livre.