The Tricolor and the Scimitar is the first historical novel in a brilliant and compelling four-part series that recounts Napoleon Bonaparte and l’Armée d’Orient’s invasion and occupation of Egypt and the Holy Land between 1798-1801. The book opens with the conquest of Malta in June 1798 and then moves to Egypt and the death march to Cairo, the Battle of the Pyramids, and the annihilation by Admiral Nelson of the French Mediterranean fleet at the Battle of the Nile. In

Here, for the first time, in all its shocking detail, is the story of the desperate plight of Jews who are still living in Arab countries, not yet able to emigrate to Israel. Reported with the vividly accurate eye of an experienced newspaperman, it shows with stark clarity how the fulfillment of the Promised Land for many Jews means a death sentence for others.

Woman of Mystery The world knows her as an actress and courtesan, the mistress of one of Napoleon’s glittering inner circle, but Elza (aka Ida St Elme) is more than that. Only a few besides her beloved Michel know she is a secret agent in Napoleon’s service, a confidential spy who works directly for the Emperor himself. Even fewer know that she is also a Companion, an old soul who has lived many lives and whose flashes of clairvoyance have occasionally given her the edge she needed to unravel an unfathomable mystery. Now Elza faces her greatest challenge yet, but her past threatens to hinder rather than help. What ancient failure weighs heavy on her soul, and how does it complicate her current task for Napoleon? Will ignorance and fear lead them all to repeat past mistakes? Or can Elza overcome the shadow of the past to complete her mission – with no less than the government of France hanging in the balance? From the ballrooms of Warsaw to the streets of Rome, from blood-soaked snowy battlefields to the buried ruins of Pompeii, from palaces to prisons, Elza must face her past to claim her future.

As with all other forms of popular culture, comics in East Germany were tightly controlled by the state. Comics were employed as extensions of the regime’s educational system, delivering official ideology so as to develop the “socialist personality” of young people and generate enthusiasm for state socialism. The East German children who avidly read these comics, however, found their own meanings in and projected their own desires upon them. Four-Color Communism gives a lively account of East German comics from both perspectives, showing how the perceived freedoms they embodied created expectations that ultimately limited the regime’s efforts to bring readers into the fold.