Mahatma Gandhi once chided a Christian friend, "All you Christians, missionaries and all, must begin to live more like Jesus Christ." And what Christian among us would disagree with him? After the holy wars and witch-hunts, after persecutions and political machinations, there is a broad sense today that the Church, however well-meaning, is on the wrong side of history. But do we really know our history? In this collaboration with historian Arnold Angenendt, best-selling German author Manfred Lütz dares to show us what contemporary historians actually say about Christianity's track record over the ages. This detailed overview begins with the ancient pagans, passing through Israel, the early Church martyrs, Constantine's Rome, the reign of Charlemagne, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Reformation, the Borgia popes, the Galileo affair, the conquistadores, the French Revolution, the slave trade, the Holocaust, the sex abuse crisis, and more. The Scandal of the Scandals separates myth from fact, giving us a candid portrait of Christendom with its scars and all. Prepare to be amazed at how little you really knew about Christianity.

Mahatma Gandhi once chided a Christian friend, "All you Christians, missionaries and all, must begin to live more like Jesus Christ." And what Christian among us would disagree with him? After the holy wars and witch-hunts, after persecutions and political machinations, there is a broad sense today that the Church, however well-meaning, is on the wrong side of history. But do we really know our history? In this collaboration with historian Arnold Angenendt, best-selling German author Manfred Lütz dares to show us what contemporary historians actually say about Christianity's track record over the ages. This detailed overview begins with the ancient pagans, passing through Israel, the early Church martyrs, Constantine's Rome, the reign of Charlemagne, the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Reformation, the Borgia popes, the Galileo affair, the conquistadores, the French Revolution, the slave trade, the Holocaust, the sex abuse crisis, and more. The Scandal of the Scandals separates myth from fact, giving us a candid portrait of Christendom with its scars and all. Prepare to be amazed at how little you really knew about Christianity.

While in Spain, Megan has a one night stand with Prince Stefano Barrali. Ten years later, they see each other again and Megan, whose daughter is the result of that one night, is hesitant to reignite her relationship with the prince.

Many have told of the East India Company’s extraordinary excesses in eighteenth-century India, of the plunder that made its directors fabulously wealthy and able to buy British land and titles, but this is only a fraction of the story. When one of these men—Warren Hastings—was put on trial by Edmund Burke, it brought the Company’s exploits to the attention of the public. Through the trial and after, the British government transformed public understanding of the Company’s corrupt actions by creating an image of a vulnerable India that needed British assistance. Intrusive behavior was recast as a civilizing mission. In this fascinating, and devastating, account of the scandal that laid the foundation of the British Empire, Nicholas Dirks explains how this substitution of imperial authority for Company rule helped erase the dirty origins of empire and justify the British presence in India. The Scandal of Empire reveals that the conquests and exploitations of the East India Company were critical to England’s development in the eighteenth century and beyond. We see how mercantile trade was inextricably linked with imperial venture and scandalous excess and how these three things provided the ideological basis for far-flung British expansion. In this powerfully written and trenchant critique, Dirks shows how the empire projected its own scandalous behavior onto India itself. By returning to the moment when the scandal of empire became acceptable we gain a new understanding of the modern culture of the colonizer and the colonized and the manifold implications for Britain, India, and the world.

A widely respected authority on national politics explores the world of post-Watergate Washington and provides the essential details to understand how government has become paralyzed by endless hearings and investigations. Updated to include new material on Clarence Thomas, Anita Hill, and Bill Clinton.

The Solomon Scandals is a provocative Washington suspense novel inspired by now-forgotten history. A deadly high-rise collapse happened in Northern Virginia, and a U.S. senator and a Supreme Court justice held stakes in a CIA-occupied building. In the novel, an audacious reporter for a crooked newspaper investigates the darker side of a popular real estate tycoon. One of the tycoon's rickety buildings houses hundreds of workers for a shadowy bureaucracy. The reporter's incendiary discoveries compel him to hide his related memoir for a century to shield those on the scandals' fringes. David H. Rothman's complex tale teems with memorable characters (some caught up in a classic Washington dilemma-friendship vs. duty): --Seymour "Sy" Solomon, the folksy, self-made real estate magnate, buys politicians but does so with far more class than the typical business buccaneer. --George McWilliams is a mysterious editor wealthy enough to have built a mini Versailles. --Wendy Blevin is a powerful but inwardly fragile gossip columnist from an Old Money family that has already suffered its share of tragedies. --Margo Danialson, a B.A. in medieval studies, is unhappily tethered to a corrupt federal agency. --Dr. Rebecca Kitiona-Fenton, a multiracial feminist, outspokenly annotates the newspaper memoir of her white great-granduncle, Jonathan Stone. This second edition of Scandals contains a revealing essay on historical connections, underscoring Rothman's reporting leading to a Congressional investigation and NBC and ABC exposés. Supreme Court ethics controversies make Scandals especially timely. Rothman blends history, ethics, and intrigue. His style is hardboiled and often satirical. Although Scandals includes strong language and some sexist and racist dialogue, Dr. Kitiona-Fenton's endnotes provide additional context in the second edition. Ted Scheinman, reviewing Rothman's first edition for the Washington City Paper, wrote: "We get to relish his chatty first-person narrator spinning characterizations of D.C. with the same dark zeal Hammett held for Frisco or Chandler had for Los Angeles." Kirkus Reviews says the second edition "captures the aura of dark nihilism in some quarters of the political world with great power … This is a riveting work, mordantly insightful and surprisingly entertaining."

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) spoke of the promiscuity of art and literature--the willingness of great artists and writers to scandalize their spectators through critical frankness, complexity, and beauty. Sontag's life and thought were no less promiscuous. She wrote deeply and engagingly about a range of subjects--theater, sex, politics, novels, torture, and illness--and courted celebrity and controversy both publicly and privately. Throughout her career, she not only earned adulation but also provoked scorn. Her living was the embodiment of scandal. In this collection, Terry Castle, Nancy K. Miller, Wayne Koestenbaum, E. Ann Kaplan, and other leading scholars revisit Sontag's groundbreaking life and work. Against Interpretation, "Notes on Camp," Letter from Hanoi, On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, I, Etcetera, and The Volcano Lover--these works form the center of essays no less passionate and imaginative than Sontag herself. Debating questions raised by the thinker's own images and identities, including her sexuality, these works question Sontag's status as a female intellectual and her parallel interest in ambitious and prophetic fictional women; her ambivalence toward popular culture; and her personal and professional "scandals." Paired with rare photographs and illustrations, this timely anthology expands our understanding of Sontag's images and power.

USA Today bestselling author Caroline Linden's third novel in her Scandalous series brings together a feisty heiress, a notorious rake, and a shocking book that could bring one woman the utmost despair— or the greatest pleasure. Penelope Weston does not like Benedict Lennox, Lord Atherton. He may be the suave and charming heir to an earl, as well as the most handsome man on earth, but she can't forget how he abandoned a friend in need— nor how he once courted her sister, Abigail. He's the last man she would ever marry. If only she didn't feel so attracted to the arrogant scoundrel . . . Once upon a time, Benedict thought he and Penelope got along rather well. Though he needs a wealthy bride to escape his cruel father's control, spirited Penelope just doesn't suit his plans for a model marriage—until a good deed goes awry, and scandalous rumors link his name to Penelope's. She might not be the quiet, sensible wife he thought he wanted, but she is beautiful . . . beguiling . . . and far more passionate than he ever imagined. Can a marriage begun in scandal become a love match, too?

Grace Sinclair has been callously cast out of her home. Despite the vicar and his wife taking her in years ago, her unsurpassed beauty makes it impossible for her to remain in the vicar's household--with two daughters of their own about to enter Society, the vicar and his wife see Grace as nothing but competition. Thankfully, Grace's estranged Aunt Bell from London has agreed to care for her. But Grace soon learns her situation has just gotten much worse. It takes only a moment's acquaintance for Grace to ascertain that her aunt has married a detestable rake. And Aunt Bell, recognizing the danger of having her lovely niece too near her husband, gives Grace an ultimatum: the young woman has two weeks to find a man to marry, after which she will be turned out. With no experience in the art of attracting a husband, Grace quickly realizes that a worthy suitor might not be so easy to ensnare.--

Combining history with comparative politics, Matthew M. Carlson and Steven R. Reed take on political corruption and scandals, and the reforms designed to counter them, in post–World War II Japan. Political Corruption and Scandals in Japan makes sense of the scandals that have plagued Japanese politics for more than half a century and attempts to show how reforms have evolved to counter the problems. What causes political corruption to become more or less serious over time? they ask. The authors examine major political corruption scandals beginning with the early postwar period until the present day as one way to make sense of how the nature of corruption changes over time. They also consider bureaucratic corruption and scandals, violations of electoral law, sex scandals, and campaign finance regulations and scandals. In the end, Carlson and Reed write, though Japanese politics still experiences periodic scandals, the political reforms of 1994 have significantly reduced the levels of political corruption. The basic message is that reform can reduce corruption. The causes and consequences of political corruption in Japan, they suggest, are much like those in other consolidated democracies.