It is winter, somewhere in the United Kingdom, and an eight-year-old boy is removed from his home and family in the middle of the night. He learns that he is the victim of an extraordinary experiment. In an attempt to reform society, the government has divided the population into four groups, each representing a different personality type. The land, too, has been divided into quarters. Borders have been established, reinforced by concrete walls, armed guards and rolls of razor wire. Plunged headlong into this brave new world, the boy tries to make the best of things, unaware that ahead of him lies a truly explosive moment, a revelation that will challenge everything he believes in and will, in the end, put his very life in jeopardy ...

A Kingdom Divided uncovers how evangelical Christians in the border states influenced debates about slavery, morality, and politics from the 1830s to the 1890s. Using little-studied events and surprising incidents from the region, April E. Holm argues that evangelicals on the border powerfully shaped the regional structure of American religion in the Civil War era. In the decades before the Civil War, the three largest evangelical denominations diverged sharply over the sinfulness of slavery. This division generated tremendous local conflict in the border region, where individual churches had to define themselves as being either northern or southern. In response, many border evangelicals drew upon the “doctrine of spirituality,” which dictated that churches should abstain from all political debate. Proponents of this doctrine defined slavery as a purely political issue, rather than a moral one, and the wartime arrival of secular authorities who demanded loyalty to the Union only intensified this commitment to “spirituality.” Holm contends that these churches’ insistence that politics and religion were separate spheres was instrumental in the development of the ideal of the nonpolitical southern church. After the Civil War, southern churches adopted both the disaffected churches from border states and their doctrine of spirituality, claiming it as their own and using it to supply a theological basis for remaining divided after the abolition of slavery. By the late nineteenth century, evangelicals were more sectionally divided than they had been at war’s end. In A Kingdom Divided, Holm provides the first analysis of the crucial role of churches in border states in shaping antebellum divisions in the major evangelical denominations, in navigating the relationship between church and the federal government, and in rewriting denominational histories to forestall reunion in the churches. Offering a new perspective on nineteenth-century sectionalism, it highlights how religion, morality, and politics interacted—often in unexpected ways—in a time of political crisis and war.

A clear, comprehensive survey of British history from 1900 to the present, integrating political, economic, social and cultural history.

Already an international bestseller, A Kingdom Divided continues the epic story of the Moghuls, one of the most magnificent and violent dynasties in world history. India, 1530. Humayun, the newly crowned second Moghul emperor, is a fortunate man. His father has left him wealth, glory, and an empire that stretches a thousand miles south of the Khyber Pass. But, unbeknownst to him, his half-brothers are plotting against him. They doubt that he has the strength, the will, the brutality needed to command the Moghul armies and lead them to still-greater glories. Soon Humayun will be locked in a terrible battle: not only for his crown, not only for his life, but for the existence of the very empire itself.

For Ireland the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were an era marked by war, economic transformation, and the making and remaking of identities. By the 1630s the era of wars of conquest seemed firmly in the past. But the British civil wars of the mid-seventeenth century fractured both Protestant and Catholic Ireland along lines defined by different combinations of religious and political allegiance. Later, after 1688, Ireland became the battlefield for what was otherwise Britain's bloodless (and so Glorious) Revolution. The eighteenth century, by contrast, was a period of peace, permitting Ireland to emerge, first as a dynamic actor in the growing Atlantic economy, then as the breadbasket for industrialising Britain. But at the end of the century, against a background of international revolution, new forms of religious and political conflict came together to produce another period of multi-sided conflict. The Act of Union, hastily introduced in the aftermath of civil war, ensured that Ireland entered the nineteenth century still divided, but no longer a kingdom.

There is little available on the dramatic and colourful history of the Spanish monarchy. Experienced author and historian John Van der Kiste provides a readable and anecdotal look at one of the key European dynasties from the nineteenth century to the present. He begins with the wayward, ill-educated Isabella II, who was forced to marry her nephew. During much of her reign power was in the hands of her generals and her exile and abdication saw the crown of Spain hawked round Europe for two years. It was briefly accepted then refused by Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen - thus starting the Franco-Prussian War - and, after a short, unsuccessful stint as a republic, the monarchy was restored when Isabella's son Alfonso XIII was chosen as King. John Van der Kiste leads us through his popular reign, the reign of his son - who married one of Queen Victoria's granddaughters - and the socialist movement in Spain after the Great War which led to the dictatorship of Primo de Rovera. Finishing with the Spanish Civil War, the 'reign' of General Franco and the return of the monarchy with the present King, Juan Carlos, this is a fascinating look at the Spanish Bourbons.

The period of Biblical history known as the Divided Kingdom or the period of the Kings and the Prophets refers to the time when the nation of Israel broke into two rival kingdoms—Israel in the north and Judah in the south—each governed by its own succession of kings. During this period of monarchical rule, God sent many prophets with the purpose of keeping the government of His covenant people in line with His commandments and righteous laws. Besides the prophets which were anointed to address particular situations, there was an unbroken line of written prophets from Joel (chronologically) to Daniel who were sent to deliver words of judgment, warning, instruction and hope for the future. In order to appreciate the intricate fabric of this complex period one has to weave together three books of history—I and II Kings and II Chronicles—and all the prophets from Isaiah to Zephaniah. Kingship ended under Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian dominion when the last king of Judah was taken captive to Babylon. The entire nation's captivity officially ended in 536 BC when Cyrus, the first Persian emperor, released the captives to return to their homelands and rebuild what Babylon had destroyed. As we study the accounts of Biblical and secular history we discover the magnitude of the hand of God operating throughout the heathen world and, more intimately, in the midst of Israel's many trials and aberrations. Our faith is strengthened as we recognize that it is the hand of the same God who controls our current world affairs in the global events of these days. The intent of this book is to guide the student as well as the most dedicated pastors and teachers through this dynamic period in simplicity and historical accuracy, and in so doing, reinforce our faith as we face the mounting turbulence in our own generation.

Addalynne Troyer has never seen the hellions or the magic that are rumored to exist just beyond the Glass River. Her life is confined to the kingdom of Silveria, where normalcy is valued and the fear of the unknown is shadowed by warnings and restrictions. Determined to see the truth, Addalynne secretly takes watch, staring into the ever present fog that lingers along the southern bank of the river; a thin veil between Silveria and the forbidden kingdom of Incarnadine. Just as Addalynne is beginning to fear she will never learn the truth, a boy steps through the fog, his hands coated in blood. Drake brings with him a mystery enshroud in darkness, his past forgotten and seemingly lost. And though Addalynne knows he crossed the river from Incarnadine, she holds that truth inside her, afraid that if it comes out, she could lose him forever. As the years pass, Addalynne and Drake find themselves tangled in a love that is unrelenting. But they must battle against a fate that seems determined to keep them apart. With the impending war between the kingdoms brewing, Addalynne and Drake will soon discover they are much more than mere pawns in the game of power. They try to find hope, to find a way out of the chaos that is unfolding around them, but what do you do when saving the person you love means destroying them? Warning: This book contains physical violence and implied sexual violence.

A significant achievement, this book moves our understanding of the history of Israel forward as dramatically as John Bright's A History of Israel, Martin Noth's History of Israel, and William F. Albright's From the Stone Age ot Cristianity did at an earlier period.