Books by "David A. Christie"
9 books found
From Jack Henry Abbott, who stabbed a waiter through the heart for not allowing him to use the toilet, to the "Zodiac," an unknown California serial killer who may have murdered as many as 37 people, this reference work details 280 of the most famous murder cases of the twentieth century. Each entry contains, when applicable, birth and death dates, aliases, occupation, location of the murders, weapons used, number of victims, and the time period when the killings occurred. Films, plays, television shows, videos and audio programs based on or inspired by the case are then cited, followed by a brief overview of the murder case and a bibliography of English-language works related to it.
Islamic Arms and Armor in The Metropolitan Museum of Art
by David G. Alexander
2015 · Metropolitan Museum of Art
Armor and weaponry were central to Islamic culture not only as a means of conquest and the spread of the faith, but also as symbols of status, wealth, and power. The finest arms were made by master craftsmen working with the leading designers, goldsmiths, and jewelers, whose work transformed utilitarian military equipment into courtly works of art. This book reveals the diversity and artistic quality of one of the most important and encyclopedic collections of its kind in the West. The Metropolitan Museum's holdings span ten centuries and include representative pieces from almost every Islamic culture from Spain to the Caucasus. The collection includes rare early works, among them the oldest documented Islamic sword, and is rich in helmets and body armor, decorated with calligraphy and arabesques, that were worn in Iran and Anatolia in the late fifteenth century. Other masterpieces include a jeweled short sword (yatagan) with a blade of "watered" steel that comes from the court of Süleyman the Magnificent, a seventeenth-century gold-inlaid armor associated with Shah Jahan, and two gold-inlaid flintlock firearms belonging to the guard of Tipu Sultan of Mysore. Presenting 126 objects, each handsomely photographed and richly documented with a detailed description and discussion of its technical, historical, and artistic importance, this overview of the Met's holdings is supplemented by an introductory essay on the formation of the collection, and appendixes on iconography and on Turkman-style armor.
Contemplative reading is a spiritual practice developed by Christian monks in sixth- and seventh-century Mesopotamia. Mystics belonging to the Church of the East pursued a form of contemplation which moved from reading, to meditation, to prayer, to the ecstasy of divine vision. The Library of Paradise tells the story of this Syriac tradition in three phases: its establishment as an ascetic practice, the articulation of its theology, and its maturation and spread. The sixth-century monastic reform of Abraham of Kashkar codified the essential place of reading in East Syrian ascetic life. Once established, the practice of contemplative reading received extensive theological commentary. Abraham's successor Babai the Great drew upon the ascetic system of Evagrius of Pontus to explain the relationship of reading to the monk's pursuit of God. Syriac monastic handbooks of the seventh century built on this Evagrian framework. 'Enanisho' of Adiabene composed an anthology called Paradise that would stand for centuries as essential reading matter for Syriac monks. Dadisho' of Qatar wrote a widely copied commentary on the Paradise. Together, these works circulated as a one-volume library which offered readers a door to "Paradise" through contemplation. The Library of Paradise is the first book-length study of East Syrian contemplative reading. It adapts methodological insights from prior scholarship on reading, including studies on Latin lectio divina. By tracing the origins of East Syrian contemplative reading, this study opens the possibility for future investigation into its legacies, including the tradition's long reception history in Sogdian, Arabic, and Ethiopic monastic libraries.
Inspecting Psychology takes a sleuth’s magnifying glass to the interplay between psychology, psychiatry and detective fiction to provide a unique examination of the history of psychology. As psychology evolved over the centuries, so did crime writing. This book looks at how the psychological movements of the time influenced classic authors from Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle to Dorothy Sayers and Georges Simenon, to reveal an enduring connection between psychology and the human need to solve mysteries. Some key puzzles. Why did Agatha Christie make so many doctors killers in her books? Why did Simenon not become a psychiatrist? Did Lord Peter Wimsey have all the charm, passion and tenderness no lover gave Dorothy Sayers? Beginning with the earliest origins of psychology in Greek literature alongside the Oedipal story and the ideas of Aristotle, the book travels through to the late 18th and 19th centuries and the work of Edgar Allan Poe who wrote the first detective story proper. With the birth of modern psychology in the late 19th century, the growing fascination with understanding behaviour coincided with the popular whodunnit. Readers are whisked through the development of psychology in the 20th century and beyond, from the impact of shell shock in the First World War and the early understanding of mental illness through to the growth of psychoanalysis and the ideas of Freud, behaviourism and attachment theory. At every stop on this original rattle through history, David Cohen reveals the influence these psychological movements had on crime writers and their characters and plots. The result is a highly enjoyable, engaging read for those interested in how the unique pairing of the history of psychology with the history of the detective novel can unveil insights into the human condition. It should appeal to anyone interested in psychology who wants their subject served with a thriller on the side.
Mehera-Meher is the story of an intimate, Divine Romance between the Beloved and his closest disciple. The three-volume hardbound set draws deeply from Mehera's firsthand narrative gathered from over 200 hours of tape recordings made by the author, David Fenster, from the years 1974 to 1982. To this he painstakingly researched and added other historical material from Mehera and those close to her to create an epic, 1700–page biography of Avatar Meher Baba's foremost woman disciple. This is the latest, revised edition, and contains numerous corrections and additions to previous editions.
An entertaining, revealing and beautifully illustrated walking guide to London's horrific history, Bloody London features walks that take in everything from Jack the Ripper's haunts, to the 'Route of the Damned' from Newgate Prison to Tyburn, to Gangland London, to the plague outbreak hotspots and burial pits, to the key places involved in the Great Fire of London, plus many many more iconic and delightfully gruesome moments in London's history. Each walk is beautifully illustrated with a map and gorgeous illustrations, and the book is perfectly pocket-sized so you can easily take it around with you as you go. David Fathers is the king of London walking guides, and Bloody London will delight both those who live in London and those visiting who are looking for a walking guide that's a little bit different.
The Lawn Road Flats
by David Burke (Historian of intelligence and international relations)
2014 · Boydell & Brewer Ltd
The story of a modernist building with a significant place in the history of Soviet espionage in Britain, where communist spies rubbed shoulders with British artists, sculptors and writersThe Isokon building, Lawn Road Flats, in Belsize Park on Hampstead's lower slopes, is a remarkable building. The first modernist building in Britain to use reinforced concrete in domestic architecture, its construction demanded new building techniques. But the building was as remarkable for those who took up residence there as for the application of revolutionary building techniques. There were 32 Flats in all, and they became a haunt of some of the most prominent Soviet agents working against Britain in the 1930s and 40s, among them Arnold Deutsch, the controller of the group of Cambridge spies who came to be known as the "Magnificent Five" after the Western movie The Magnificent Seven; the photographer Edith Tudor-Hart; and Melita Norwood, the longest-serving Soviet spy in British espionage history. However, it wasn't only spies who were attracted to the Lawn Road Flats, the Bauhaus exiles Walter Gropius, László Moholy-Nagy and Marcel Breuer; the pre-historian V. Gordon Childe; and the poet (and Bletchley Park intelligence officer) Charles Brasch all made their way there. A number of British artists, sculptors andwriters were also drawn to the Flats, among them the sculptor and painter Henry Moore; the novelist Nicholas Monsarrat; and the crime writer Agatha Christie, who wrote her only spy novel N or M? in the Flats. The Isokon buildingboasted its own restaurant and dining club, where many of the Flats' most famous residents rubbed shoulders with some of the most dangerous communist spies ever to operate in Britain. Agatha Christie often said that she invented her characters from what she observed going on around her. With the Kuczynskis - probably the most successful family of spies in the history of espionage - in residence, she would have had plenty of material. DAVID BURKEis a historian of intelligence and international relations and author of The Spy Who Came In From the Co-op: Melita Norwood and the Ending of Cold War Espionage (The Boydell Press, 2009).
David Eller is an American missionary in Venezuela, married to missionary nurse, Christie. Together they rescue homeless children in Caracas. But for David, that isn't enough. The supply of homeless children is endless because of massive poverty and the oppressive policies of the Venezuelan government, led by the Hugo Chavez- like Armando Guzman. In a moment of anger, David publicly rails against the government, unaware that someone dangerous might be listening- a revolutionary looking for recruits. David falls into an unimaginable nightmare of espionage, ending in a desperate, life-or-death gamble to flee the country with his wife and son, with all the resources of a corrupt dictatorship at their heels.