23 Great Books ! ! ! (eBook Compilation) See Description For Details

material included:

1. Apocalypse 1945: The Destruction of Dresden - by David Irving 2007

David Irving attracts credibility and attention by his indefatigable energy, intelligence, and resourcefulness." --Tom Bower, Daily Mail, March 27, 1996
"In devoting a book to this one violent moment of the war, with its antecedents and something of its aftermath, Mr. David Irving has rendered the British people a great service. They have to know. The Dresden event is a part of British (as well as of German, and European, and human) history. It is a piece of a mosaic that makes up the British character and a brushstroke, out of many, in the image that Britain presents to foreign peoples - an image the British are at best imperfectly aware of, and that has consequences which they often find it difficult to understand. Dresden also has lessons necessary to an understanding of the nature of war. What is necessary is to know what happened and to understand how it came to happen. And the only way is to read Mr. Irving's excellent and terrible book. --The Economist
"There can be few operations of war as causeless, as purposeless, and as brutal as the attack on Dresden on the attack of February 13, 1945. In "The Destruction of Dresden," Mr. David Irving has analyzed, in an objective manner, the causes and result of this gratuitous act. As Air Marshal Sir Robert Saundby comments in his foreword, the bombing of Dresden was "a great tragedy," the purposes of which are "difficult to determine." He agrees that Mr. Irving "tells dispassionately and honestly" the story of a deeply tragic example, in time of war, of man's inhumanity to man." We should be grateful to the author for having devoted long study to this question and for having provided us with as accurate an account of what acttually happened as we are likely to obtain. It was, in fact, an operation unworthy of our history. Nobody could contend that Dresden was a legitimate strategic target; nobody could contend that this terror raid shortened the war or satisfied our Russian allies. I am not surprised that most Englishmen should strive to forget about Dresden." --Sir Harold Nicholson, The Observer

2. Hitler's War and the War Path - by David Irving 2002

Using information gleaned from German military records and archives, as well as from the unpublished diaries, notes and correspondence of the Reich's top ministers, noted historian David Irving explores the strategies, objectives and execution of Hitler's War from the breathtaking and often surprising perspective of Adolf Hitler himself. This shocking, controversial best seller stunned the European continent with its startling revelations about Germany's ultimate dictator. It is unique among biographies in its method of describing an event--WWII as through the eyes of one of the dictators himself. "What Hitler did not order, or did not learn, does not figure in this book," explains the author. "The narrative of events unfolds in the precise sequence that Hitler himself became involved in them." For instance, the first that the reader knows of a plot against Hitler's life is when Count von Stauffenberg's bomb explodes beneath the table at the Fuehrer's headquarters.
It is an unusual technique, but it works. The book sold 25,000 copies in its first UK hardback edition, and it was often reprinted (Macmillan, Ltd.) and translated. It became an approved reference work at West Point and Sandhurst, and it figures prominently in university libraries around the world, because it quotes documents that other historians have failed to find. In 1991 Focal Point, an imprint founded in 1980, published a new Deluxe edition, updated and including The War Path, the narrative of Hitler's prewar years.
Mr. Irving's other publications had by then come under a systematic campaign of attack. In July 1992, on the day after he returned from Moscow bringing the unpublished Goebbels diaries from the former Soviet archives, Macmillan's capitulated and secretly ordered all stocks of his books burned. Libraries came under pressure to pull his books from their shelves. Italian, French, Spanish and Scandinavian publishers were prevailed upon not to release their editions of the book.
The 1991 Focal Point edition incorporated all the latest archival finds, including the diaries of Hermann Goering and Hitler's notorious doctor Morell, and for the first time dramatic color photographs taken by Hitler's cameraman Walter Frentz. This new edition is further updated with evidence including the long-lost Gestapo interrogations of Rudolf Hess's staff, now in private hands, and signals intercepted by British codebreakers.

3. Hitler's Heirs - by Paul Meskil 1961

What became of the Nazi leaders that escaped the war crimes trials

4. Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich - by William L. Shirer 1998

William L. Shirer's classic "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" is the most complete single volume account of the history of Nazi Germany ever written. Shirer was a journalist, not a historian and the advantages of this show in his very readable prose and his vivid descriptions (for example, often referring to Herman Goering as "the fat Field Marshall"). The book starts with the birth of the Nazi party and how it found a spokesman early on in an ex-serviceman named Adolf Hitler. The narrative continues through until the end of the war, Hitler's suicide and the final few days under Admiral Doenitz. The only warning to the casual reader is that the book's length exceeds 1100 pages and it is crammed to the brim with facts. Also, it should be noted that the book was published over forty years ago and does not include more recent information that has come to light from, for example, the former East German archives. Nevertheless, this is still a classic work of jornalistic history.

5. Conjuring Hitler: How Britain And America Made the Third Reich by Guido Giacomo Preparata 2005

Nazism is usually depicted as the outcome of political blunders and unique economic factors: we are told that it could not be prevented, and that it will never be repeated.
In this explosive book, Guido Giacomo Preparata shows that the truth is very different: using meticulous economic analysis, he demonstrates that Hitler's extraordinary rise to power was in fact facilitated and eventually financed by the British and American political classes during the decade following World War I.
Through a close analysis of events in the Third Reich, Preparata unveils a startling history of Anglo-American geopolitical interests in the early twentieth century. He explains that Britain, still clinging to its empire, was terrified of an alliance forming between Germany and Russia. He shows how the UK, through the Bank of England, came to exercise control over Weimar Germany and how Anglo-American financial support for Hitler enabled the Nazis to seize power.
This controversial study shows that Nazism was not regarded as an aberration: for the British and American establishment of the time, it was regarded as a convenient way of destabilising Europe and driving Germany into conflict with Stalinist Russia, thus preventing the formation of any rival continental power block.
Guido Giacomo Preparata lays bare the economic forces at play in the Third Reich, and identifies the key players in the British and American establishment who aided Hitler's meteoric rise.

6. Kennedy's Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam - By Lawrence Freedman 2000

This book must be read by anyone who wants to understand why the 1000-day Camelot era was one military crisis after another.

In his thousand-day presidency, John F. Kennedy led America through one of its most difficult and potentially explosive eras. With the Cold War at its height and the threat of communist advances in Europe and the Third World, Kennedy had the unenviable task of maintaining U.S. solidarity without leading the western world into a nuclear catastrophe.
In Kennedy's Wars, noted historian Lawrence Freedman draws on the best of Cold War scholarship and newly released government documents to illuminate Kennedy's approach to war and his efforts for peace. He recreates insightfully the political and intellectual milieu of the foreign policy establishment during Kennedy's era with vivid profiles of his top advisors - Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, Robert Kennedy - and influential figures such as Dean Acheson and Walt Rostow. Tracing the evolution of traditional liberalism into the Cold War liberalism of Kennedy's cabinet, Freedman evaluates their responses to the tensions in Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. He gives each conflict individual attention, showing how foreign policy decisions came to be defined for each new crisis in the light of those that had gone before. Readers will follow Kennedy as he wrestles with the succession of major conflicts - taking advice, weighing the risks of inadvertently escalating the Cold War into outright military confrontation, exploring diplomatic options, and forming strategic judgments that would eventually prevent a major war during his presidency.
Kennedy's Wars offers a dynamic and human portrait of Kennedy under pressure: a political leader shaped by the ideas of his time, conscious of his vulnerability to electoral defeat but also of his nation's vulnerability to nuclear war. Military and Kennedy enthusiasts will find its balanced consideration of the president's foreign policy and provocative "what if" scenarios invaluable keys to understanding his accomplishments, failures, and enduring legacy.

Drawing on a wealth of new material (including a 25-volume official documentary history of U.S. foreign relations under Kennedy and declassified transcripts of Cabinet meetings held during the Cuban missile crisis) Freedman examines the intellectual and political contexts of the Kennedy administration, giving attention to largely overlooked actors such as Dean Acheson, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Theodore Sorensen, and Walt Rostow, all of whom influenced the conduct of the administration as it confronted military and political foes around the world. Freedman scrutinizes Kennedy's efforts to stabilize fledgling democracies and thwart communist designs in Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia. Some of those efforts led to disaster, including Kennedy's misguided actions in Vietnam (which, the author argues, "compounded the folly of the Eisenhower administration"). Still, by the time of Kennedy's death, in November 1963, some of the administration's efforts had paid off.
Freedman also documents the vital counterpoint that Kennedy's assumption was based on a faulty understanding of progress in countering the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam; the assumption of a withdrawal was based on an expectation of reasonably favorable political conditions in which to do so. Freedman grants that Kennedy might have been more inclined to resist escalation of the war in 1965 than Lyndon Johnson.

7. Geometric Greece: 900-700 BC - by J.N Coldstream 1979

Geometric Greece has long been the standard work on this absorbing period, which saw the evolution of the Greek city-states, the composition of the Homeric poems, the rise of the great Panhellenic sanctuaries and the first exodus of Greek colonists to southern Italy and Sicily.
Professor Coldstream has now fully updated his comprehensive survey with a substantial new chapter on the abundant discoveries and developments made since the book's first publication.
The text is presented in three main sections: the passing of the dark ages, c. 900-770 BC; the Greek renaissance, c. 770-700 BC, covered region by region, and the final part on life in eighth century Greece. Its geographical coverage in the Mediterranean ranges from Syria to Sicily, and the detailed archaeological evidence is amplified by reference to literary sources.
Highly illustrated, including images of several finds never previously published, this is the essential handbook for anyone studying early Greek antiquity.

8. Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church - by by Alexander Golitzin 1996

Of the three major branches of Christianity, Orthodoxy is the least known and most misunderstood. The "Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church" provides students, researchers, and specialists with a desk encyclopedia of the theology and theologians, saints, sinners, places and events of the Eastern Church. Two millennia of the religion are surveyed in over five hundred concise entries, concentrating primarily on the last 150 years. Includes an overview of the early Church through the Byzantine and Russian Empires, into the present multinational Orthodox presence in the ecumenical movement. Many of the general entries cannot be found elsewhere in English, and the comprehensive compilation of biographies of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Orthodox theologians (American, Russian, Greek, and many other nationalities) is published here for the first time. Includes a detailed 4000-year chronology, illustrations, extensive bibliography, and an appendix listing the current canonical patriarchs and autocephalous churches.

9. History of Philosophy Volume 1 - by Frederick Copleston 1993

History of Philosophy Volume 2 - by Frederick Copleston 1993

History of Philosophy Volume 3 - by Frederick Copleston 1993

History Of Philosophy Volume 4 - by Frederick Copleston 1993

History of Philosophy Volume 5 - by Frederick Copleston 1993

Copleston's series, "The History of Philosophy", is quite possibly the best introduction to the history of philosophical thought that has ever been published and certainly the best currently in print.
You will be hard pressed to find a better collection of solid philosophical surveys in one place. The beauty of the series is that Copleston has clearly done his research on each period and each thinker of Western philosophy.
I cannot recommend this series any more highly. It is a must-have collection for anyone who is a scholar (professional or casual) of philosophy, theology or any of the arts.
Conceived originally as a serious presentatin of the development of philosophy for Catholic seminary students, Frederick Copleston's nine-volume A History Of Philosophy has journeyed far beyond the modest purpose of its author to universal acclaim as the best history of philosophy in English.
Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit of immense erudition who once tangled with A.J. Ayer in a fabled debate about the existence of God and the possibility of metaphysics, knew that seminary students were fed a woefully inadequate diet of theses and proofs, and that their familiarity with most of history's great thinkers was reduced to simplistic caricatures. Copleston set out to redress the wrong by writing a complete history of Western Philosophy, one crackling with incident an intellectual excitement - and one that gives full place to each thinker, presenting his thought in a beautifully rounded manner and showing his links to those who went before and to those who came after him.

10. The Second World War (Six Volume Boxed Set) - by Winston S. Churchill & John Keegan 1986

"After the end of the World War of 1914 there was a deep conviction and almost universal hope that peace would reign in the world. This heart's desire of all the peoples could easily have been gained by steadfastness in righteous convictions, and by reasonable common sense and prudence."

But we all know that's not what happened. As Britain's prime minister for most of the Second World War, Winston Churchill--whose career had to that point already encompassed the roles of military historian and civil servant with a proficiency in both that few others could claim--had a unique perspective on the conflict, and as soon as he left office in 1945, he began to set that perspective down on paper. To measure the importance of The Second World War, it is worth remembering that there are no parallel accounts from either of the other Allied leaders, Roosevelt and Stalin. We have in this multivolume work an account that contains both comprehensive sweep and intimate detail. Almost anybody who compiles a list of such works ranks it highly among the nonfiction books of the 20th century.

In the opening volume, The Gathering Storm, Churchill tracks the erosion of the shaky peace brokered at the end of the First World War, followed by the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and their gradual spread from beyond Germany's borders to most of the European continent. Churchill foresaw the coming crisis and made his opinion known quite clearly throughout the latter '30s, and this book concludes on a vindicating note, with his appointment in May 1940 as prime minister, after which he recalls that "I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial."

Their Finest Hour concerns itself with 1940. France falls, and England is left to face the German menace alone. Soon London is under siege from the air--and Churchill has a few stories of his own experiences during the Blitz to share--but they persevere to the end of what Churchill calls "the most splendid, as it was the most deadly, year in our long English and British history." They press on in The Grand Alliance, liberating Ethiopia from the Italians and lending support to Greece. Then, when Hitler reneges on his non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union (the very signing of which had proved Stalin and his commissars "the most completely outwitted bunglers of the Second World War"), the Allied team begins to coalesce. The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese makes the participation of the United States in the war official, and this is of "the greatest joy" to Churchill: "How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at that moment care. Once again in our long island history we should emerge, however mauled or mutilated, safe and victorious."

But as the fourth volume, The Hinge of Fate, reveals, success would not happen overnight. The Japanese military still held strong positions in the Pacific theater, and Rommel's tank corps were on the offensive in Africa. After a string of military defeats, Churchill's opponents in Parliament introduced a motion for a censure vote; this was handily defeated, and victory secured in Africa, then Italy. By this time, Churchill had met separately with both Roosevelt and Stalin; the second half of volume 5, Closing the Ring, brings the three of them together for the first time at the November 1943 conference in Teheran. This book closes on the eve of D-day: "All the ships were at sea. We had the mastery of the oceans and of the air. The Hitler tyranny was doomed."

And so, in the concluding volume, Triumph and Tragedy, the Allies push across Europe and take the fight to Berlin. President Roosevelt's death shortly before final victory against Germany affected Churchill deeply, "as if I had been struck a physical blow," and he would later regret not attending the funeral and meeting Harry Truman then, instead of at the Potsdam conference after Germany's defeat. Churchill himself would not be there for the conclusion to the war against Japan; in July of 1945, a general election in Britain brought in a Labor government (or, as he refers to them, "Socialists"), and he resigned immediately, for "the verdict of the electors had been so overwhelmingly expressed that I did not wish to remain even for an hour responsible for their affairs."

11. Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers - by Daniel Ellsberg 2002

Before leaking the Pentagon Papers, which documented U.S. foreign-policy failures and deceit in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968, Ellsberg was a gung-ho advisor to the State and Defense departments. One fascinating part of this story is his growing disenchantment with the war during these years. He came to believe that leaking the top-secret papers and other classified documents was a patriotic act that could help end the war. Other fascinating aspects of this account include Ellsberg's frustrated attempts to find a member of Congress who would accept and use the papers to build a case against the war as well as his growing role in the antiwar movement. President Nixon failed in his strong-arm tactics to discredit Ellsberg, and the case against him was dismissed because of the illegal break-in at the office of Dr Lewis Fielding, Ellsberg's psychiatrist. Interestingly, Ellsberg speculates that the break-in by Nixon's "Plumbers" was as much an attempt to blackmail Fielding as it was a gambit to stop Ellsberg. The book suffers somewhat from the overabundance of detail and repetition that also flawed Tom Wells's Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg. However, Ellsberg's autobiographical account provides insight into the disturbing abuses of presidential power that plagued the Vietnam/Watergate era.

12. Historical Dictionary of Fantasy Literature - by Brian Stableford 2005

The chronology tracks the evolution of fantasy from the origins of literature to the 21st century. The introduction explains the nature of the impulses creating and shaping fantasy literature, the problems of its definition and the reasons for its changing historical fortunes. The dictionary includes cross-referenced entries on more than 700 authors, ranging across the entire historical spectrum, while more than 200 other entries describe the fantasy subgenres, key images in fantasy literature, technical terms used in fantasy criticism, and the intimately convoluted relationship between literary fantasies, scholarly fantasies, and lifestyle fantasies. The book concludes with an extensive bibliography that ranges from general textbooks and specialized accounts of the history and scholarship of fantasy literature, through bibliographies and accounts of the fantasy literature of different nations, to individual author studies and useful websites.

13. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present - by Nicholas J. Cull, David Culbert, David Welch 2003

For anyone that studies International Relations or enjoys History, this book sheds light on information that is not taught in ordinary classes or textbooks. It is formatted like an encyclopedia, so it is easy to quickly reference the desired historical event. It's impossible to fully detail the past 500+ years, but this book hits almost all of the major events.

14. Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present - by Marvin Perry & Frederick M. Schweitzer 2005

In this provocative book, Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer analyze the lies, misperceptions, and myths about Jews and Judaism that antisemites have propagated throughout the centuries. Beginning with antiquity, and continuing into the present day, the authors explore the irrational fabrications that have led to numerous acts of violence and hatred against Jews. The book examines ancient and medieval myths central to the history of antisemitism: Jews as 'Christ-killers', instruments of Satan, and ritual murderers of Christian children. It also explores the scapegoating of Jews in the modern world as conspirators bent on world domination; extortionists who manufactured the Holocaust as a hoax designed to gain reparation payments from Germany; and the leaders of the slave trade that put Africa in chains. No other book has focused its attention exclusively on a thematic discussion of historic and contemporary antisemitic myths, covering such an expansive scope of time, and allowing for such a painstaking level of exemplification.

15. The History of Art: The Essential Guide to Painting Through the Ages - by A.N. Hodge 2007

This work takes a fascinating and thought-provoking look at the major movements in the history of Western painting. It provides information about the topic ranging from the glories of High Renaissance Italy through the Romantics and Impressionists to the radical Abstract Expressionists. It contains a beautiful and colourful illustrated summary of painting's greatest works.

16.Archaeology Coursebook; An Introduction to Study Skills, Topics and Methods - by Jim Grant 2001

The Archaeology Coursebook is an unrivalled guide to students studying archaeology for the first time. Comprehensive and user-friendly, it will interest pre-university students and teachers as well as undergraduates and enthusiasts. Specially designed to assist learning it introduces the most commonly examined archaeological methods, concepts and themes and illustrates concepts and commentary with over 200 photographs and drawings of excavation sites, methodology and processes, tools and equipment.

17.Who is This God - by PhD Rosemary Durham, Marcus O. Durham 2002

The story of the creator,angels and people in theology,mythology and history

18. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 1: c. 500-c. 700 - by Timothy Reuter 2000

The first volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers the transitional period between the later Roman world and the early middle ages, c. 500 to c. 700. This was an era of developing consciousness and profound change in Europe, Byzantium and the Arab world, an era in which the foundations of medieval society were laid and to which many of our modern myths of national and religious identity can be traced. This book offers a comprehensive regional survey of the sixth and seventh centuries, from Ireland in the west to the rise of Islam in the Middle East, and from Scandinavia in the north to the Mediterranean south. It explores the key themes pinning together the history of this period, from kingship, trade and the church, to art, architecture and education. It represents both an invaluable conspectus of current scholarship and an expert introduction to the period.

The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 2: c. 700-c. 900

This volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers most of the period of Frankish and Carolingian dominance in western Europe. It was one of remarkable political and cultural coherence, combined with crucial, very diverse and formative developments in every sphere of life. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the authors examine the interaction between rulers and ruled, how power and authority actually worked, and the society and culture of Europe as a whole. The volume is divided into four parts. Part I encompasses the events and political developments in the whole of the British Isles, the west and east Frankish kingdoms, Scandinavia, the Slavic and Balkan regions, Spain, Italy, and those aspects of Byzantine and Muslim history which impinged on the west between c. 700 and c. 900. Parts II, III and IV cover themes and topics concerning church and society, and cultural and intellectual developments.

The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 3: c. 900-c. 1024

The period of the tenth and early eleventh centuries was crucial in the formation of Europe, much of whose political geography and larger-scale divisions began to take shape at that time. It was also an era of great fragmentation, and hence of differences that have been magnified by modern national historiographical traditions. This volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History reflects these varying traditions, and provides an authoritative survey in its own terms. The volume is divided into three sections: general themes, the former Carolingian lands, and areas farther afield.

19. The Unknown Stalin - by Roy Medvedev, Zhores A. Medvedev 2003

Giving the best and most informative explanation to date of the mystery of Stalins death, renowned historians Roy and Zhores Medvedev have written a gripping new biography of Joseph Stalin, based on findings from research into archives only recently made available, as well as the Medvedev brothers own experiences during and after Stalins brutal regime.
Conventional beliefs and cliches are contradicted and disproved, inaccuracies and misconceptions are corrected, and the facts about Stalins intellect, ancestry, and the fortunes of his personal effects after his death are fully examined. Perhaps most remarkable of all are the Medvedevs revelations and contentions concerning Stalins death: There has been much suspicion over whether he was assassinated or died of natural causes, and the authors go a long way toward resolving this question.
The Unknown Stalin resonates with particular intensity due to the personal detail and recollections of the two authorseach of whom has his own history as a Russian dissident and commentator. This startling new work represents one of the most significant contributions to the study of Russian history in decades, a book of vital interest to scholars and general readers.

20.Whose Bible Is It?: A Short History of the Scriptures - by Jaroslav Pelikan 2006

Jaroslav Pelikan, widely regarded as one of the most distinguished historians of our day, now provides a clear and engaging account of the Bible’s journey from oral narrative to Hebrew and Greek text to today’s countless editions. Pelikan explores the evolution of the Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic versions and the development of the printing press and its effect on the Reformation, the translation into modern languages, and varying schools of critical scholarship. Whose Bible Is It? is a triumph of scholarship that is also a pleasure to read.
“An engaging and highly readable survey of biblical scholarship that tells a fascinating and complex story.” —The Wall Street Journal
“A crisp, remarkably succinct history of the Bible as preserved, interpreted, translated and canonized by the various faiths that believe in it.” —Los Angeles Times
“Engaging . . . an excellent overview.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Outstanding . . . Pelikan takes the reader through the process of scripture building with a fluency and ease that is both accessible and understandable.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Masterly . . . Pelikan weaves a tapestry of the power of the Word to mold religious communities, nations, and culture. . . . Engaging, concise, and highly readable.” —The Christian Science Monitor

21.The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History - by Michael Baigent 2006

What if everything you think you know about Jesus is wrong? In The Jesus Papers, Michael Baigent reveals the truth about Jesus's life and crucifixion. Despite—or rather because of—all the celebration and veneration that have surrounded the figure of Jesus for centuries, Baigent asserts that Jesus and the circumstances leading to his death have been heavily mythologized.
As a religious historian and a leading expert in the field of arcane knowledge, Baigent has unequaled access to hidden archives, secret societies, Masonic records, and the private collections of antiquities traders and their moneyed clients. Using that access to full advantage, Baigent explores the religious and political climate in which Jesus was born and raised, examining not only the conflicts between the Romans and the Jews, but the strife within the different factions of the Jewish Zealot movement. He chronicles the migrations of Jesus's family, his subsequent exposure to other cultures, and the events, teachings, and influences that were most likely to have shaped his early years. Baigent also uncovers the inconsistencies and biases in the accounts of the major historians of Jesus's time, including Josephus, Pliny, and Tacitus. The enduring influence of these accounts in forming our most common conceptions of Jesus reveals that spin is not a new phenomenon.
Taking us back to sites that over the last twenty years he has meticulously explored, studied, and in some instances excavated for the first time, Baigent provides a detailed account of his groundbreaking discoveries, including many never-before-seen photos. The evidence he has uncovered has lead him to make shocking new assertions that threaten the conventional account of Jesus's life and death and shake the very foundation of Western thought, based as it is upon the assumption of Jesus's divinity. Ultimately, his investigation raises the hope that we may gain a new understanding of Jesus.

Before you make up your mind about the reliability of this author, you should also dload and read "Truth and Fiction in The Da Vinci Code" by Bart D Ehrman

Baigent was one of the authors of Holy Blood Holy Grail, on which Dan Brown relied heavily in writing his Da Vinci Code thriller. In fact one of Brown's characters, Teabing, is just an anagram of Baigent.

22. Illuminati 666, Book 2 - by William J. Sutton 1995

As always, history repeats itself. As always, when a writer attempts to dig in the mines of history for guarded secrets of truth, he is more often subject to attack by the skeptical, the ignorant, and the et ceteras. I found this book to be very interesting, and have corroborated many of its findings with my own research into the historical annals. A competent student of the Bible and world history would show this book as a window into a guarded history of secret societies and plans so covertly shadowed, that the average person would consider them as non-existent. Ahhh but they DO exist! (present tense, mind you).
I appreciate the depth, time, and research put into this one. It has catapulted me on a 12 to 13 year historical quest, which has NOT been fruitless, to say the least. I would definitely give The Illuminati 666 a 5 star review, for there is MUCH more that could be written on the subject. Hats off to the brave and the unafraid that would submit to ridicule and rebuff to even tackle it at all!

23. Story of the Alphabet - by Edward Clodd 1912

Writing began as a pictorial record, then the pictures became representations of an idea and writing became symbolic. In the final stages of its evolution, the symbols represented a sound. This evolution is set forth within this volume, with emphasis on the common primitive forms and concepts from which the modern alphabet have been derived