In Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood, celebrated young travelwriter-historian Justin Marozzi gives us a many-layered history of one of the world's truly great cities - both its spectacular golden ages and its terrible disasters 'Justin Marozzi is the most brilliant of the new generation of travelwriter-historians' - Sunday Telegraph Over thirteen centuries, Baghdad has enjoyed both cultural and commercial pre-eminence, boasting artistic and intellectual sophistication and an economy once the envy of the world. It was here, in the time of the Caliphs, that the Thousand and One Nights were set. Yet it has also been a city of great hardships, beset by epidemics, famines, floods, and numerous foreign invasions which have brought terrible bloodshed. This is the history of its storytellers and its tyrants, of its philosophers and conquerors. Here, in the first new history of Baghdad in nearly 80 years, Justin Marozzi brings to life the whole tumultuous history of what was once the greatest capital on earth. Justin Marozzi is a Councillor of the Royal Geographic Society and a Senior Research Fellow at Buckingham University. He has broadcast for BBC Radio Four, and regularly contributes to a wide range of publications, including the Financial Times, for which he has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur. His previous books include the bestselling Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, a Sunday Telegraph Book of the Year (2004), and The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus.

When Methodist minister Harley Camden loses his wife and daughter in a European terrorist attack, he spirals downward into grief and anger. The bishop forces him to move to a tiny church in small-town Occoquan, Virginia, to heal and recover. But all hope for serenity is quickly shattered by the mysterious murder of the daughter of the local Iraqi baker, followed by the threat of an attack by Islamic extremists. Harley tries to build bridges to his neighbors, including Muslims and Coptic Christians, and digs into the history of the ancient Galilean city of Sepphoris to find the secret to survival in a fractured and violent world. Past and present come together in surprising ways as Harley sets out to stop the violence and save his new flock. City of Peace is a gripping and fast-paced mystery that will engage people politically and spiritually, leaving them with fresh insight into how they can overcome polarizing divisions among people of differing cultures and faiths.

Documented Proof of the Prophetic Promises of God Revealed Thousands of years ago, the prophet Zechariah foretold that the once-revered city of Jerusalem would again shake off its dust and be revived in peace and security. He predicted it would not only become a center of thriving life and seat of international influence but also the place where God himself will return to dwell. This stunning new photo-comparison book and follow-up to Israel Rising documents the long-awaited and ongoing restoration of a city "set in the center of the nations" (Ezekiel 5:5). From its famed walls and gates to the beloved Old City and the new city rising up around it, view some of the oldest photos of Jerusalem ever taken (starting in the 1840s) and see them re-created from the same perspective today―some for the first time ever. Author Doug Hershey and adventure-travel photographer Edden Ram gained exclusive access to storied vantage points to reshoot the exact angles of these stunning and seldom-seen historical photos. The result is an awe-inspiring and groundbreaking collection that will captivate hearts and reveal the accuracy of the prophet's words. The book also features fascinating insights into Jerusalem's first photographers and firsthand accounts from pilgrims, locals, and would-be conquerors that capture the longing and desire for this treasured city, spanning almost 2,000 years. Indeed, the reawakening of the City of Peace is at hand.

When the heavens open on the small river town of Occoquan, Virginia, the streets flood and a candle shop is swept away. A Methodist pastor named Harley Camden witnesses the destructive deluge and then discovers, in the debris, a dead man with a crude carving of Satan’s claws in his back. Harley is drawn into the mystery of what caused the flood and who killed the man, while diving into questions of good and evil, body and spirit, humanity and the environment—especially questions about the change in climate that now threatens life around the globe. He discovers that there is a spiritual dimension to every social issue, whether it be the violence of Central American gangs or the racism that leads a black businessman to make a fateful choice. When the windows of the heavens open, surprising truths are revealed about how people can coexist in an interfaith, multicultural community, and how humans can establish a sustainable relationship with the natural world around them.

A biography of a young African-American man who escaped the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets when he returned home.

"A fresh and highly accessible history of the Holy Lands during the Middle Ages, revealing a rich and diverse culture and the fight to save Jerusalem from the Crusaders"--

From the late ’90s to the mid-2010s, American cities experienced an astonishing drop in violent crime, dramatically changing urban life. In many cases, places once characterized by decay and abandonment are now thriving, the fear of death by gunshot wound replaced by concern about skyrocketing rents. In Uneasy Peace, Patrick Sharkey, “the leading young scholar of urban crime and concentrated poverty” (Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class and The New Urban Crisis) reveals the striking effects: improved school test scores, because children are better able to learn when not traumatized by nearby violence; better chances that poor children will rise into the middle class; and a marked increase in the life expectancy of African American men. Some of the forces that brought about safer streets—such as the intensive efforts made by local organizations to confront violence in their own communities—have been positive, Sharkey explains. But the drop in violent crime has also come at the high cost of aggressive policing and mass incarceration. From Harlem to South Los Angeles, Sharkey draws on original data and textured accounts of neighborhoods across the country to document the most successful proven strategies for combating violent crime and to lay out innovative and necessary approaches to the problem of violence. At a time when crime is rising again, the issue of police brutality has taken center stage, and powerful political forces seek to disinvest in cities, the insights in this book are indispensable.

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