This history of practitioners of "service magic" in medieval and early modern Europe reveals the central place they occupied in everyday life and how they helped soothe the anxieties of both commoners and nobles.

"An epic people's history of Europe's fraught East-West divide, by an intrepid author who followed its path from the Arctic to Turkey"--

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize • Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award • One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
“Impressive . . . Mr. Judt writes with enormous authority.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Magisterial . . . It is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive, authoritative, and yes, readable postwar history.”...

Padraic Kenney is Professor of European History at the University of Colorado. He is the author of Rebuilding Poland: Workers and Communists, 1945-1950. This is the first history of the revolutions that toppled communism in Europe to look behind the scenes at the grassroots movements that made those revolutions happen. It looks for answers not in the salons of power brokers and famed intellectuals, not in decrepit economies--but in the whirlwind...

"He wasn't civilized or tame. He had his own code and he lived by it. Monk. Bounty hunter. Vampire slayer. Andre Boroi has spent centuries battling the undead, holding out against the dark with honor. But now, gravely wounded by master vampire Costin Popescu, Andre will be easy to track--his spilled blood marking the killing trail for Popescu and his hungry band of underlings. Andre's only chance is to disappear into the gray mist of the Carpathians....

"There will be no museums! And no art galleries! Just Europeans having lots of fun. Across Europe, festival traditions go back centuries and are filled with time honored pageantry and ritual. Entire communities hurl themselves with abandon into the craziness. We'll careen all over Europe: the Palio horse races in Siena, the Highland games near Edinburgh, the colorful masquerade of Carnival in Venice, Slovenia, and Luzern, Easter festivities in Andalucía,...

"The Penguin History of Europe series reaches the twentieth century with ... Ian Kershaw's long-anticipated analysis of the pivotal years of World War I and World War II. The European catastrophe, the long continuous period from 1914 to 1949, was unprecedented in human history-- an extraordinarily dramatic, often traumatic, and endlessly fascinating period of upheaval and transformation. This new volume in the ... series offers comprehensive coverage...

"Although Europe is the second smallest continent in size, it's the third largest in population. It's home to dozens of countries and a number of bustling cities. Readers of this engaging volume travel on a journey through this one-of-a-kind continent, learning about its people, geography, unique characteristics, and much more along the way. Eye-catching photographs help readers visualize each location, while age-appropriate text helps reinforce key...

Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the Franco-British writer Violet Paget (1856-1935). For over 50-years, Paget churned out works of both fiction and nonfiction at the rate of nearly a book a year. Perhaps best remembered today for her supernatural short stories, Paget produced a number of books with essays about travel and place. Genius Loci: Notes on Places (1899) was her first. Genius Loci is not a guidebook or a novel, but an intimate diary or,...

"This book traces the development of exorcism in Catholic Christianity from the fourth century to the present day, and seeks to explain why exorcism is still so much in demand. This is the first work in English to trace the development of the liturgy, practice and authorisation of exorcisms in Latin Christianity. The rite of exorcism, and the claim by Roman Catholic priests to be able to drive demons from the possessed, remains an enduring source...