Over 50 hands-on recipes to help you efficiently administer and maintain your games with Cocos2d-xAbout This BookBuild exciting games, apps, and other cross-platform GUI based interactive programs with Cocos2d-xExplore the nitty-gritty of the latest Cocos2d-x on the block, version 3.6A step-by-step guide that shows you the functionalities of Cocos2d-x followed by an explanation of how they work Who This Book Is For If you are a game developer and want to learn more about cross-platform game development in Cocos2d-x, then this book is for you. Knowledge of C++, Xcode, Eclipse, and how to use commands in the terminal are prerequisites for this book.What You Will LearnInstall and set up Cocos2d-x for your development environmentBuild, test, and release game applications for iOS and AndroidDevelop your games for multiple platformsCustomize Cocos2d-x for your gamesUse a physical engine in your gamesSave and load text, JSON, XML, or other formatsExplore the brand new features of Cocos2d-x In Detail Cocos2d-x is a suite of open source, cross-platform game-development tools used by thousands of developers all over the world. Cocos2d-x is a game framework written in C++, with a thin platform-dependent layer. Completely written in C++, the core engine has the smallest footprint and the fastest speed of any other game engine, and is optimized to be run on all kinds of devices. You will begin with the initial setup and installation of Cocos2d before moving on to the fundamentals needed to create a new project. You will then explore and create the sprites, animations, and actions that you will include in the game. Next you will look at strings and create labels, including a label with True Type Font (TTF) font support. Later, you will learn about layer and scene creation and transition. Then you will create the GUI parts essential for a game, such as buttons and switches. After that, you will breathe life into the game with background music and sound effects using the all new Cocos2d-x audio engine. You will then discover how to manage resource files and implement processes that depend on the operating system. Finally, you will polish your game with physics such as gravity and elevation, learn about tools that will help you make games more robust and stable, and get to know best practices to improve the game you have developed.Style and approach This book is an easy-to-follow guide with ample recipes to help you better understand Cocos2d-x.

Over 100 hands-on recipes to quickly prepare LaTeX documents of various kinds to solve challenging tasksAbout This BookWork with modern document classes, such as KOMA-Script classesExplore the latest LaTeX packages, including TikZ, pgfplots, and biblatexAn example-driven approach to creating stunning graphics directly within LaTeX Who This Book Is For If you already know the basics of LaTeX and you like to get fast, efficient solutions, this is the perfect book for you. If you are an advanced reader, you can use this book's example-driven format to take your skillset to the next level. Some familiarity with the basic syntax of LaTeX and how to use the editor of your choice for compiling is required.What You Will LearnChoose the right document class for your project to customize its featuresUtilize fonts globally and locallyFrame, shape, arrange, and annotate imagesAdd a bibliography, a glossary, and an indexCreate colorful graphics including diagrams, flow charts, bar charts, trees, plots in 2d and 3d, time lines, and mindmapsSolve typical tasks for various sciences including math, physics, chemistry, electrotechnics, and computer scienceOptimize PDF output and enrich it with meta data, annotations, popups, animations, and fill-in fieldsExplore the outstanding capabilities of the newest engines and formats such as XeLaTeX, LuaLaTeX, and LaTeX3 In Detail LaTeX is a high-quality typesetting software and is very popular, especially among scientists. Its programming language gives you full control over every aspect of your documents, no matter how complex they are. LaTeX's huge amount of customizable templates and supporting packages cover most aspects of writing with embedded typographic expertise. With this book you will learn to leverage the capabilities of the latest document classes and explore the functionalities of the newest packages. The book starts with examples of common document types. It provides you with samples for tuning text design, using fonts, embedding images, and creating legible tables. Common document parts such as the bibliography, glossary, and index are covered, with LaTeX's modern approach. You will learn how to create excellent graphics directly within LaTeX, including diagrams and plots quickly and easily. Finally, you will discover how to use the new engines XeTeX and LuaTeX for advanced programming and calculating with LaTeX. The example-driven approach of this book is sure to increase your productivity.Style and approach This book guides you through the world of LaTeX based on over a hundred hands-on examples. These are explained in detail and are designed to take minimal time and to be self-compliant.

Learn how to do more with the Android SDK with this advanced Android Application guide which shows you how to make even better Android apps that users will loveAbout This BookLearn how to design and build better Android apps to reach new usersExplore the latest features and tools in the Android SDK that will help you become a better developerFrom concurrency to testing – through to adding adverts and billing, this book ties together every element to help you deliver a high-quality Android application on Google Play Who This Book Is For Mastering Android Application Development is intended for Android developers that want insight on and guidance through the steps they need to take to give their creations the edge in a competitive market.What You Will LearnCreate an Android project with Android M featuresDesign the basic navigation for our app using the UI componentsSet up a cloud-based platform and store data on itImplement programming patterns such as Singleton and Observer to maintain your project code for future useDisplay lists and grids using Android RecyclerViewImplement user interface components and make your app look professionalHandle, download, and store images along with memory managementCreate the database and content providers to perform read-write operationsAdd notifications to the app and analytics to track the user’s usageShow a Google map view on your appConfigure minify to obfuscate the codeAdd adverts and create products for purchase in your app In Detail There are millions of Android apps out there for people to download – how do you make sure yours has the edgeIt’s not always about innovation and ideas – the most successful apps are those that are able to satisfy customer demands – they’re the ones that look the best, the fastest, and the easiest and most intuitive to use. This book shows you how to create Android applications that do precisely that – it has been designed help you consider and answer those questions throughout the development process, so you can create applications that stand out against the crowd. Learn how to create exemplary UIs that contribute to a satisfying user experience through the lens of Material Design, and explore how to harness the range of features within the Android SDK to help you. Dive deeper into complex programming concepts and discover how to leverage concurrency and navigate memory management and image handling. You’ll also find further guidance on testing and debugging so you can guarantee that your application is reliable and robust for users. Beyond this you’ll find out how to extend your app and add greater functionality, including notifications, location services, adverts and app billing (essential if you want to properly monetize your creation!). To make sure you have confidence at every stage in the process, the book also shows you how to release your app to the Play store – to make sure your maximising your efforts to create a popular Android application!Style and approach This is a step-by-step guide where theory and practice are merged in a way that helps you to put a new concept into practice with ease. By helping to focus on the end result, and showing all the technical steps you need to get there, you will be poised for development success!

Create a high-quality first person shooter game using the Unity game engine and the popular UFPS and Probuilder frameworksAbout This BookLearn how to use Unity in conjunction with UFPS and ProBuilder to create a high-quality game quicklyCreate both interior and exterior environmentsA step-by step guide to building a project with clear examples and instructions to create a number of interesting scenarios Who This Book Is For This book is for those who want to create an FPS game in Unity and gain knowledge on how to customize it to be their very own. If you are familiar with the basics of Unity, you will have an easier time, but it should make it possible for someone with no prior experience to learn Unity at an accelerated pace.What You Will LearnUse UFPS to build custom weapons with custom meshes and behaviorsExplore level design as you prototype levels, making use of Prototype to build levels out quicklyBuild environments that are realistic as possible while keeping peak performance and repetitiveness downReview tips and tricks on how to create environments using both terrain for outdoor areas and a modular workflow for interiorsDevelop a number of different encounters that your players can fight against, from a simple turret enemy to complex AI characters from Shooter AIDiscover how to create unique objects such as exploding barrels and objects you can interact withCreate a custom GUI to help your game stand out from the crowdPackage your game for release, create an installer, and get your game out into the world In Detail Unity, available in free and pro versions, is one of the most popular third-party game engines available. It is a cross-platform game engine, making it easy to write your game once and then port it to PC, consoles, and even the web, making it a great choice for both indie and AAA developers. Building an FPS Game in Unity takes readers on an exploration of how to use Unity to create a 3D first person shooter (FPS) title, leveraging the powerful UFPS framework by VisionPunk and Prototype/ProBuilder 2.0 by ProCore3D. After some setting up, you will start by learning how to create custom weapons, prototype levels, create exterior and interior environments, and breathe life into our levels. We will then add polish to the levels. Finally, we will create a custom GUI and menus for our title to create a complete package.Style and approach An easy-to-follow guide with each project containing step-by-step explanations, diagrams, screenshots, and downloadable material. Concepts in Unity and C# are explained as they are used and for the more inquisitive, there are more details on the concepts used with additional external resources to learn from.

Professor Tudor Parfitt, a real-life British Indiana Jones, has made the biggest discovery of the last 3,000 years – the secret location of the fabled Ark of the Covenant. In 2006, he made an incredible journey to its final resting place and in February 2008 he will reveal this to the world. This is the amazing story of his quest. This is the real-life account of Professor Tudor Parfitt's remarkable discovery – of the lost Ark of the Covenant that disappeared from the Temple of Jerusalem centuries ago. The holiest object in the world, the Ark of the Old Testament contains the tablets of law sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Scholar, orientalist and adventurer, Parfitt embarked on an incredible journey to discover where the Ark is hidden, and when he reveals his discovery history books will be rewritten forever. Parfitt's quest took him on an incredible detective trail across the Middle East and Africa. His search led him to ancient documents and codes in Oxford and Jerusalem, and even to discoveries in modern genetic science, for clues to take him closer to the Ark. But some people didn't want the Ark to be found. In the wilder reaches of the Yemen he narrowly escaped being kidnapped by Islamist fugitives. In Africa he was shot at, ambushed and arrested. Amongst crossing paths with a motley crowd of mystics, holy men, charlatans and politicians, he encountered a strange tribe in the mysterious lands of the Limpopo River who claimed that they knew the Ark's final resting place. When Parfitt finally set eyes on the Ark, it wasn't at all where he expected. His revelation of its whereabouts will cause an international story with an effect on Judaism, Islam and Christianity that may be the most controversial in history.

From the award-winning co-author of ‘I Am Malala’, this book asks just how the might of NATO, with 48 countries and 140,000 troops on the ground, failed to defeat a group of religious students and farmers? How did it go so wrong? Twenty-seven years ago, Christina Lamb left Britain to become a journalist in Pakistan. She crossed the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan with mujaheddin fighting the Russians and fell unequivocally in love with this fierce country of pomegranates and war, a relationship which has dominated her adult life. Since 2001, Lamb has watched with incredulity as the West fought a war with its hands tied, committed too little too late, failed to understand local dynamics and turned a blind eye as their Taliban enemy was helped by their ally Pakistan. Farewell Kabul tells how success was turned into defeat in the longest war fought by the United States in its history and by Britain since the Hundred Years War. It has been a fiasco which has left Afghanistan still one of the poorest nations on earth, the Taliban undefeated, and nuclear armed Pakistan perhaps the most dangerous place on earth. With unparalleled access to all key decision-makers in Afghanistan, Pakistan, London and Washington, from heads of state and generals as well as soldiers on the ground, Farewell Kabul tells how this happened. In Afghanistan, Lamb has travelled far beyond Helmand – from the caves of Tora Bora in the south to the mountainous bad lands of Kunar in the east; from Herat, city of poets and minarets in the west, to the very poorest province of Samangan in the north. She went to Guantánamo, met Taliban in Quetta, visited jihadi camps in Pakistan and saw bin Laden’s house just after he was killed. Saddest of all, she met women who had been made role models by the West and had then been shot, raped or forced to flee the country. This deeply personal book not only shows the human cost of political failure but explains how short-sighted encouragement of jihadis to fight the Russians, followed by prosecution of ill-thoughtout wars, has resulted in the spread of terrorism throughout the Islamic world

As in ‘Britain B.C.’ and ‘Britain A.D.’ (also accompanied by Channel 4 series), eminent archaeologist Francis Pryor challenges familiar historical views of the Middle Ages by examining fresh evidence from the ground. The term 'Middle Ages' suggests a time between two other ages: a period when nothing much happened. In his radical reassessment, Francis Pryor shows that this is very far from the truth, and that the Middle Ages (approximately 800-1550) were actually the time when the modern world was born. This was when Britain moved from Late Antiquity into a world we can recognize as more or less familiar: roads and parishes became fixed; familiar institutions, such as the church and local government, came into being; industry became truly industrial; and international trade was now a routine process. Archaeology shows that the Middle Ages were far from static. Based on everyday, often humdrum evidence, it demonstrates that the later agricultural and industrial revolutions were not that unexpected, given what we now know of the later medieval period. Similarly, the explosion of British maritime power in the late 1700s had roots in the 15th century. The book stresses continuous development at the expense of ‘revolution', though the Black Death (1348), which killed a third of the population, did have a profound effect in loosening the grip of the feudal system. Labour became scarce and workers gained power; land became more available and the move to modern farming began. The Middle Ages can now be seen in a fresh light as an era of great inventiveness, as the author examines such topics as 'upward mobility'; the power of the Church; the role of the Guilds as precursors of trade unions; the transport infrastructure of roads, bridges and shipbuilders; and the increase in iron production.

The dramatic untold story of the three tragic Grey sisters, all heirs to the Tudor throne, all victims to their royal blood. Lady Jane Grey is an icon of innocence abused. Remembered as the ‘Nine Days Queen’, she has been mythologized as a child-woman sacrificed to political expedience. But behind the legend lay a rebellious adolescent who became a leader, and no mere victim. Growing up in her shadow, Jane’s sisters Katherine and Mary would have to tread carefully to survive. The dramatic lives of the younger Grey sisters remain little known, but both women became heirs and rivals to the Tudor monarchs, Mary and Elizabeth I. To gain Queen Mary’s trust, teenaged Katherine ignored Jane’s final request not to change her religion, only to risk her life with a marriage that threatened Queen Elizabeth’s throne. While Katherine’s friends fought to save her, the youngest Grey sister, Mary, stayed at court. Though too poor and plain to be significant, she looked set to escape the burden of her royal blood. But then she too fell in love and incurred the Queen’s fury. Exploding the many myths of Lady Jane’s life, and casting fresh light onto Elizabeth’s reign, acclaimed historian Leanda de Lisle brings the Grey sisters’ tumultuous world to life: at a time when a royal marriage could gain you a kingdom, or cost you everything.

Please note that some images were unavailable for the electronic edition. The highly praised biography of an archetypal great house and the family who lived there for over 250 years. ‘The Big House’ is the biography of a great country house and the lives of the Sykes family who lived there, with varying fates, for the next two hundred and fifty years. It is a fascinating social history set against the backdrop of a changing England, with a highly individual, pugnacious and self-determining cast, including: ‘Old Tat’ Sykes, said to be one of the great sights of Yorkshire (the author’s great-great-great-grandfather), who wore 18th-century dress to the day of his death at ninety-one in 1861. His son was similarly eccentric, wearing eight coats that he discarded gradually throughout the day in order to keep his body temperature at a constant. He was forced to marry, aged forty-eight, eighteen-year-old Jessica Cavendish-Bentick – a lively and highly intelligent woman who relieved the boredom of her marriage by acquiring a string of lovers, writing novels and throwing extravagant parties (her nickname became ‘Lady Satin Tights’), all the while accumulating debts that ended in a scandalous court case. Their son, Mark, died suddenly whilst brokering the peace settlement at the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I; Sledmere was destroyed by fire shortly afterwards. But the rebuilt Sledmere rose from the flames to resound again with colourful, brilliant characters in the 1920s and 1930s including the author’s grandmother, Lily, who had been a celebrated bohemian in Paris. ‘The Big House’ is vividly written and meticulously researched using the Sykes’ own family’s papers and photographs. In this splendid biography of place and time, Christopher Simon Sykes has resuscitated the lives of his ancestors and their glorious home from the 18th- through to the 20th-century.

One small East African country embodies the battered history of the continent: patronised by colonialists, riven by civil war, confused by Cold War manoeuvring, proud, colorful, with Africa's best espresso and worst rail service. Michela Wrong brilliantly reveals the contradictions and comedy, past and present, of Eritrea. Just as the beat of a butterfly’s wings is said to cause hurricanes on the other side of the world, so the affairs of tiny Eritrea reverberate onto the agenda of superpower strategists. This new book on Africa is from the author of the critically acclaimed In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz. Eritrea is a little-known country scarred by decades of conflict and occupation. It has weathered the world's longest-running guerrilla war, and the dogged determination that secured victory against Ethiopia, its giant neighbour, is woven into the national psyche. Fascist Italy wanted Eritrea as the springboard for a new, racially-pure Roman empire, Britain sold off its industry for scrap, the US needed headquarters for its state-of-the-art spy station and the Soviet Union used it as a pawn in a proxy war. Michela Wrong reveals the breathtaking abuses this tiny nation has suffered and, with the sharp eye for detail that was the hallmark of her account of Mobutu's Congo, she tells the story of colonialism itself. Along the way, we meet a formidable Emperor, a guerrilla fighter who taught himself French cuisine in the bush, and a chemist who arranged the heist of his own laboratory. An arresting blend of travelogue and history, ‘I Didn't Do It For You’ pierces the dark heart of our colonial history.

A fascinating journey into the extraordinary world of the king of fish: the salmon. This beautiful book explores the natural history of this most mysterious of fishes. Michael Wigan explores the life cycle of the salmon, weaving his own experiences and stories of salmon fishing and spotting into an evocative narrative. Crucially, he addresses the pressing matter of conservation issues and human management, which in the past has led to fast decreasing populations. History suggests it is the pressure of human development which has narrowed down the survival zone of the salmon, and the author questions whether we can go on altering natural systems and freshwater rivers in order to make space for human populations, and do so in sync with fish needs. In his unique and passionate voice, the author transports us to another world – his writing is beautifully evocative and his excitement for the salmon palpable throughout.

An exhilarating and uplifting account of the lives of sixteen ‘warriors’ from the last three centuries, hand-picked for their bravery or extraordinary military experience by the eminent military historian, author and ex-editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sir Max Hastings. Over the course of forty years of writing about war, Max Hastings has grown fascinated by outstanding deeds of derring-do on the battlefield (land, sea or air) – and by their practitioners. He takes as his examples sixteen people from different nationalities in modern history – including Napoleon’s ‘blessed fool’ Baron Marcellin de Marbot (the model for Conan Doyle’s Brigadier Gerard); Sir Harry Smith, whose Spanish wife Juana became his military companion on many a campaign in the early 19th-century; Lieutenant John Chard, an unassuming engineer who became the hero of Rorke’s Drift in the Zulu wars; and Squadron Leader Guy Gibson, the ‘dam buster’ whose heroism in the skies of World War II earned him the nation's admiration, but few friends. Every army, in order to prevail on the battlefield, needs a certain number of people capable of courage beyond the norm. In this book Max Hastings investigates what this norm might be – and how it has changed over the centuries. While celebrating feats of outstanding valour, he also throws a beady eye over the awarding of medals for gallantry – and why it is that so often the most successful warriors rarely make the grade as leaders of men.

Adam Nicolson is the author of many books on history, travel and the environment. He is the winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, the British Topography Prize and the WH Heinemann Award. He lives on a farm in Sussex. This is his fith book for HarperCollins – his previous four being ‘Men of Honour’, ‘Sea Room’, ‘Power and Glory’ and ‘Seamanship’.

In one corner, a godless young warrior, Voltaire's heralded 'philosopher-king', the It Boy of the Enlightenment. In the other, a devout if bad-tempered old composer of 'outdated' music, a scorned genius in his last years. The sparks from their brief conflict illuminate a turbulent age. Behind the pomp and flash, Prussia's Frederick the Great was a tormented man, son of an abusive king who forced him to watch as his best friend (probably his lover) was beheaded. In what may have been one of history's crueler practical jokes, Frederick challenged 'old Bach' to a musical duel, asking him to improvise a six-part fugue based on an impossibly intricate theme (possibly devised for him by Bach's own son). Bach left the court fuming, but in a fever of composition, he used the coded, alchemical language of counterpoint to write 'A Musical Offering' in response. A stirring declaration of faith, it represented 'as stark a rebuke of his beliefs and world view as an absolute monarch has ever received,' Gaines writes. It is also one of the great works of art in the history of music. Set at the tipping point between the ancient and the modern world, the triumphant story of Bach's victory expands to take in the tumult of the eighteenth century: the legacy of the Reformation, wars and conquest, the birth of the Enlightenment. Brimming with originality and wit, 'Evening in the Palace of Reason' is history of the best kind - intimate in scale and broad in its vision.

Cross-Cultural Dialogues on Homelessness Reveal New Insights This groundbreaking book presents compelling narratives and innovative approaches for addressing the psychological traumas that can underlie homelessness and is the first to explore in-depth what the US and UK can learn from one another. Authors focus on understanding and applying the precepts of Pretreatment and "Psychologically Informed Environments," as well as effective ways to promote productive dialogue on all levels -- with clients, clinicians, advocates, policymakers, researchers, and others. Detailed case studies review and integrate "hands on" practice with Appreciative Inquiry, Open Dialogue, and Common Language Construction methods. "In Cross-Cultural Dialogues on Homelessness, Jay Levy and co-authors provide the conceptual tools, the hitherto 'missing language', needed by practitioners and policymakers working with excluded individuals. This book has been informed by the authors' practice and should come with a warning: it will revolutionise how you work -- irreversibly and, undoubtedly,for the better" -- Cliona Ni Cheallaigh, MB, MRCP, PhD, Senior Lecturer in Medical Gerontology, Trinity College (Dublin) "Jay distills many decades of his own street experience, and by cross comparing his brilliant schema of Pretreatment with the British model of Psychologically Informed Environments (PIE), he reveals the underlying common processes of effective street engagement. As a long-time practitioner of street medicine, I recommend this book to anyone who seeks that sacred place on the streets where healing begins." -- Jim Withers, MD, Founder and Medical Director and Operation Safety Net and the Street Medicine Institute (Pittsburgh) "Cross Cultural Dialogues on Homelessness is a timely and important collection of the latest thinking on how we should respond to the traumatic life experiences of so many homeless people. Levy and colleagues suggest a commitment to reflective dialogue will improve both the quality of frontline services and the way policy makers, managers and commissioners think about responding to the needs of people pushed to the margins of our societies." -- Alex Bax, Chief Executive, (London) Pathway - transforming health services for homeless people "This book is different because it is based on theory and practises, dialogue and the sharing of ideas - from both sides of the Atlantic. The human interest stories add great value to the book, which should be required reading for anyone interested in creating a better world for his/her fellow human beings. It should be read and debated by all with a vision for a better future for those who need services and those attempting to provide them." -- Alice Leahy, Director of Services Alice Leahy Trust (Dublin, Ireland) Learn more at www.JaySLevy.com From LHPress - www.LHPress.com

Concussion -- the biggest name in today's high-impact sports. As more and more high profile athletes come forward to share their stories of invisible suffering after head injuries, we as a culture are finally acknowledging this silent epidemic. The Concussion Repair Manual is written as a user’s guide for those suffering after head traumas and those that support them. ?It is one-part “textbook,” packed with the leading research on medical technologies for healing the injured brain, and one-part “workbook,” offering a step-by-step method for making and tracking a personalized recovery regimen. Dr. Dan Engle's background and passion for concussion repair stem from a three-decade investigation into the many modalities for healing his own traumas. ?When the usual medical treatments didn’t help, he explored what was possible, found what worked and put them into this manual - "the best of the best" in the medical arena for recovering from sports related head injury. Reviews "A game changer. This book is the most useful piece of literature I have ever read on concussion." - Matt Cook, MDFounder, BioReset Medical "(This) book can also be used as a simple tool to get smarter and think better, even if you haven't had a concussion. Whether you are a physician, a patient or simply an optimal health seeker, this book is a must-have for your personal health library." - Ben Greenfield, Human Performance Consultant, BenGreenfieldFitness.com "Dan's CRM is required reading for concussion patients, their caregivers, and all allied healthcare practitioners who care for these patients. There is a better way and this is it. "- Scott Sherr MD, Founder, Integrative HBOT, Head of Protocol and Innovation at Hyperbaric Medical Solutions, @hmsHBOT About the Author Dr. Dan Engle is Board Certified in Psychiatry and Neurology, with a clinical practice that combines functional medicine, integrative psychiatry, neuro-cognitive restoration and peak performance methods. He lectures and consults globally and is the medical advisor to Onnit Labs, the True Rest Float Centers and several international treatment centers using indigenous plant medicines for healing and recovery.

Every man is born with just one thing: his sovereignty - his power to respond to his environment and his circumstances. Unfortunately, most men have spent much of their lives giving away that sovereignty. Every time a man passes blame or shirks his responsibility, every time he makes excuses for his performance, and every time he trades his unlimited potential for a little perceived safety and security, he willingly submits himself to the mercy of others. Is it any wonder that men, in general, seem to have lost their way? You don’t have to look very far to recognize that men don’t seem to possess the same amount of vigor and purpose they once did. Take one sobering statistic—the rate of suicide in men—and you begin to see how damaging the effects of the voluntary subjugation of men to their families, their businesses, and their governments can be. It’s not hard to understand why we give up control to others—it’s easy and we’re expected to. Sovereignty: The Battle for the Hearts and Minds of Men?is a call for men to once again rise up and establish themselves as they once were—a revolution if you will. Inside the pages of this book, we’ll uncover the battle each man will inevitably engage in, the external forces fighting against the call to masculinity, and the internal struggle all men must overcome. But make no mistake, this revolution is not a call for men to go their own way and rally against society.?It’s a call for men to become fully the men they are meant to be so they may more adequately take care of themselves and those they are responsible for. Men have always been expected to protect, provide, and preside over themselves, their families, their businesses, and their communities. By embodying the thirteen Sovereign Virtues we detail inside, every man will be more capable of fulfilling his masculine duties and responsibilities. The words in this book go well beyond principle and theory, however, as we build the framework for establishing a battle plan to combat the external and internal threats to our masculine power and give every man the tools, resources, guidance, direction, and ability to reclaim what has always been his: his sovereignty.

James Davidson lectures in ancient history and the classical languages at the University of Warwick. He was previously a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.

An epic social history of steamship travel from the 19th-century to the ‘Lusitania’, the ‘Mauretania’ and the ‘Titanic’. The great transatlantic steamships became emblems of an age, of a Victorian audacity of spirit-cathedrals to man's harnessing of new technology. Through the innovations and designs of key engineers and shipping magnates – Samuel Cunard, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Edward Knights Collins – ‘the largest movable objects in human history' were created. To the wealthy, steamships represented glamorous travel, but to most they offered cheap passage out of Europe to the New World. At their peak, steamships delivered one million new Americans each year, transforming the world’s oceans from barriers into highways. In this fascinating history, Stephen Fox chronicles the tragedies that marked the evolution of the ocean liner, including the 1852 sinking of the ‘Arctic’, with the loss of three hundred and twenty-two lives, and the early 20th-century losses of the ‘Lusitania’ and the ‘Titanic’. Using contemporary records, diaries and writing, he penetrates the experience of transatlantic passage and examines the societies created on the vast floating cities, ‘a kind of third human environment, neither land nor sea but partaking of each, and bridging them in unprecedented ways’.

An epic history of the battle of Quebec, the death of General James Wolfe and the beginnings of Britain’s empire in North America. Military history at its best. Perched on top of a tall promontory, surrounded on three sides by the treacherous St Lawrence River, Quebec – in 1759 France’s capital city in Canada – forms an almost impregnable natural fortress. That year, with the Seven Years’ War raging around the globe, a force of 49 ships and nearly 9,000 men commanded by the irascible General James Wolfe, navigated the river, scaled the cliffs and laid siege to the town in an audacious attempt to expel the French from North America forever. In this magisterial first solus book, tying into the 250th anniversary of the battle, Dan Snow tells the story of this famous campaign which was to have far-reaching consequences for Britain’s rise to global hegemony, and the world at large. Snow brilliantly sets the battle within its global context and tells a gripping tale of brutal war quite unlike any fought in Europe, where terrain, weather and native Canadian tribes were as fearsome as any enemy. ‘I never served so disagreeable a campaign as this,’ grumbled one British commander, ‘it is war of the worst shape.’ 1759 was, without question, a year in which the decisions of men changed the world forever. Based on original research and told from all perspectives, this is history – military, political, human – on an epic scale.

Nearly eighteen years after the events of A Faerie’s Curse, a thrilling new adventure begins ... Emerson Clarke: Sarcastic. Independent. Possibly losing her mind Because that’s the only explanation for why she occasionally sees things that aren’t there, right? But one night, an impossible power erupts from her, and Em realizes the truth is crazier than she ever thought: she isn’t losing her mind she’s magical. Thrown into an entirely new world of faeries, enchantments—and the annoying guy from down the road who, it turns out, isn’t human either—Em barely has time to learn even the most basic of magic before another startling truth reveals itself: she has a Griffin Ability. A special kind of magic feared by fae. Now she’s at the top of everyone’s most-wanted list—including the mysterious glass faerie carrying out random attacks on fae. In this magical and terrifying world that she’s entirely unprepared for, Em must try to figure out who she really is, whom to trust, and how to stay alive long enough to get back to her normal life. Meet a new heroine and catch up with old favorite characters in this thrilling adventure packed with enchanting magic, unexpected twists, and a dash of romance. Includes the following THREE Creepy Hollow books: Rebel Faerie THE COMPLETE CREEPY HOLLOW SERIES CONSISTS OF THE FOLLOWING BOOKS: Violet's Story The Faerie Guardian The Faerie Prince The Faerie War Calla's Story A Faerie's Secret A Faerie's Revenge A Faerie's Curse Emerson's Story Glass Faerie Shadow Faerie Rebel Faerie