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Beginning with the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, this second volume of The Story of Christianity continues narrative history to the present. Historian Justo Gonzalez brings to life the people, dramatic events, and shaping ideas of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy during this period, keynoting crucial theological developments while providing fresh understanding of the social, political, and economic forces that influenced the formation of the church. In particular, the author notes recurring themes of unrest, rebellion, and reformation.

Gonzalez presents an illuminating record of the lives, impelling ideas, and achievements of such prominent figures as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin–movers and shapers in the emerging Protestant church. His biographical insights, in conjunction with vivid historical accounts, reveal how individual lives mirror and clarify core theological concerns and developments.

The interpretive overview of The Story ofChristianity includes a thorough and timely analysis of the growth and maturation of Christianity, including events in Europe, the United States, and Latin America–the latter an area too often neglected in church histories, yet increasingly vital to an understanding of Christianity’s historical development, present situation, and future, options.

Gonzalez’s richly textured study discusses the changes and directions of the church in the traditions of Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Christianity. The Story of Christianity covers such recent occurrences as the World Council of Churches, the Second Vatican Council, the movement toward Christian unity, and much more. It concludes with a thoughtful look at the major issues and debates involving Christians today.

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The Story of the World CD audiobook is a collaboration between Jim Weiss, whose voice is “liquid gold” (CNN TV), and Susan Wise Bauer, whose writing has been described as “timeless and intelligent” (Publishers Weekly). These spirited readings of the first volume in Bauer’s history series bring to life the stories and records of human history from ancient times to the present.

Written in an engaging, straightforward manner, this volume of the popular Story of the World series weaves world history into a storybook format. The first volume begins with the ancient nomads and ends with the last Roman emperor.

This audio CD edition may be used along with the print books, as a supplement to a traditional history curriculum, or independently. 6 audio CDs.
Story of the World, Volume 1: Ancient Times Audiobook CD: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor, Revised Edition

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Veuve Clicquot champagne epitomizes glamour, style, and luxury. In The Widow Clicquot, Tilar J. Mazzeo brings to life—for the first time—the fascinating woman behind the iconic yellow label: Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin, who, after her husband’s death, defied convention by assuming the reins of the fledgling wine business they had nurtured together. Steering the company through dizzying political and financial reversals, she became one of the world’s first great businesswomen and one of the richest women of her time.

As much a fascinating journey through the process of making this temperamental wine as a biography of a uniquely tempered woman, The Widow Clicquot is the captivating true story of a legend and a visionary.

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, October 2008: With its trademark fizz and sparkling taste, champagne has long been the beverage of choice for those in a celebratory mood. From the artillery of popping corks on New Year’s Eve to the clinking of newlywed glasses, a bit of the bubbly has locked arms with good cheer for centuries. Yet had it not been for the pioneering Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, the libation deemed “the wine of civilization” by Winston Churchill might today be available only to the excessively wealthy or extremely lucky. Author Tilar J. Mazzeo toasts the élan of Champagne’s Grand Dame with The Widow Clicquot, a fascinating story of the cunning bravery and good fortune that helped build the Veuve Clicquot brand. Widowed at age twenty-seven by the death of her husband François Clicquot, Barbe-Nicole assumed control of her family’s wine business amid the chaos of The Napoleonic Wars. That she became a prominent female leader in a male-dominated industry was one thing; building an empire amid savage political unrest was quite another. With passionate research and true admiration for her subject, Mazzeo pays homage to the beloved Widow from Reims and the remarkable weight her name still carries today. -Dave Callanan
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It

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This national best-seller chronicles the true story of two brothers coming of age in the Henry Horner public housing project in Chicago over a two-year period. Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers are eleven and nine years old when the story begins in the summer of 1987. Living with their mother and six siblings, they struggle to survive gun battles, gang influences, overzealous police officers, and overburdened and mismanaged bureaucracies.

Through extensive research, Kotlowitz brings us this classic rendering of growing up in the ‘jects’, selected by the New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important books of the twentieth century.Amazon.com Review
There Are No Children Here, the true story of brothers Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, ages 11 and 9 at the start, brings home the horror of trying to make it in a violence-ridden public housing project. The boys live in a gang-plagued war zone on Chicago’s West Side, literally learning how to dodge bullets the way kids in the suburbs learn to chase baseballs. “If I grow up, I’d like to be a bus driver,” says Lafeyette at one point. That’s if, not when–spoken with the complete innocence of a child. The book’s title comes from a comment made by the brothers’ mother as she and author Alex Kotlowitz contemplate the challenges of living in such a hostile environment: “There are no children here,” she says. “They’ve seen too much to be children.” This book humanizes the problem of inner-city pathology, makes readers care about Lafeyette and Pharoah more than they may expect to, and offers a sliver of hope buried deep within a world of chaos.
There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America

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On a calm May morning in 1815, Captain James Riley and the crew of the Commerce left port in Connecticut for an ordinary trading voyage, never imagining what awaited them. Shipwrecked off the African coast, captured by desert nomads and sold into slavery, they were dragged along on an insane journey through the heart of the Sahara in an unforgettable tale of survival, courage, and brotherhood.Amazon.com Review
Some stories are so enthralling they deserve to be retold generation after generation. The wreck in 1815 of the Connecticut merchant ship, Commerce, and the subsequent ordeal of its crew in the Sahara Desert, is one such story. With Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival, Dean King refreshes the popular nineteenth-century narrative once read and admired by Henry David Thoreau, James Fenimore Cooper, and Abraham Lincoln. King’s version, which actually draws from two separate first person accounts of the Commerce’s crew, offers a page-turning blend of science, history, and classic adventure. The book begins with a seeming false start: tracing the lives of two merchants from North Africa, Seid and Sidi Hamet, who lose their fortunes—and almost their lives—when their massive camel caravan arrives at a desiccated oasis. King then jumps to the voyage of the Commerce under Captain Riley and his 11-man crew. After stops in New Orleans and Gibraltar, the ship falls off course en route to the Canary Islands and ultimately wrecks at the infamous Cape Bojador. After the men survive the first predations of the nomads on the shore, they meander along the coast looking for a way inland as their supplies dwindle. They subsist for days by drinking their own urine. Eventually, to their horror, they discover that they have come aground on the edge of the Sahara Desert. They submit themselves, with hopes of getting food and water, as slaves to the Oulad Bou Sbaa. After days of abuse, they are bought by Hamet, who, after his own experiences with his failed caravan (described at the novels opening), sympathizes with the plight of the crew. Together, they set off on a hellish journey across the desert to collect a bounty for Hamet in Swearah. King embellishes this compelling narrative throughout with scientific and historical material explaining the origins of the camel, the market for English and American slaves, and the stages of dehydration. He also humanizes the Sahrawi with background on the tribes and on the lives of Hamet and Seid. This material, doled out in sufficient amounts to enrich the story without derailing it makes Skeletons on the Zahara a perfectly entertaining bit of history that feels like a guilty pleasure. –Patrick O’Kelley
Skeletons on the Zahara: A True Story of Survival