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The true story of how federal law enforcement flipped the playbook and convicted a corrupt unit of Baltimore police. In 2015 and 2016, Baltimore was reeling after the death of Freddie Gray and the protests that followed. In the midst of this unrest, a violent, highly trained, and heavily armed criminal gang roamed the city. They robbed people, sold drugs and guns, and divided the loot and profit among themselves. They had been doing it for years. But these were not ordinary career criminals. They were the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF). Formed in 2007 to get the guns and criminals responsible for Baltimore's high crime rates off the streets, they went rogue and abu...
The reign of Basil II (976-1025), the longest of any Byzantine emperor, has long been considered as a 'golden age', in which his greatest achievement was the annexation of Bulgaria. This, we have been told, was achieved through a long and bloody war of attrition which won Basil the grisly epithet Voulgartoktonos, 'the Bulgar-slayer'. In this new study Paul Stephenson argues that neither of these beliefs is true. Instead, Basil fought far more sporadically in the Balkans and his reputation as 'Bulgar-slayer' was created only a century and a half later. Thereafter the 'Bulgar-slayer' was periodically to play a galvanizing role for the Byzantines, returning to centre-stage as Greeks struggled to establish a modern nation state. As Byzantium was embraced as the Greek past by scholars and politicians, the 'Bulgar-slayer' became an icon in the struggle for Macedonia (1904-8) and the Balkan Wars (1912-13).
This book provides a fresh examination of the Byzantine emperor Leo VI (886-912) and his reign. A consideration of personal and political relationships and internal and external affairs forms the basis of a reassessment of his achievements and kingship.
During the last years of his life, Leo Tolstoy kept one book invariably on his desk, read and reread it to his family, and recommended it to all his friends: a compendium of wise thoughts gathered over the course of a decade from his wide-ranging readings in philosophy and religion, and from his own spiritual meditations. It was banned under the Communists, and only one volume, A Calendar of Wisdom, drawn largely from the writings of other famous thinkers, has been published before in English. Wise Thoughts For Every Day is the volume comprising Tolstoy’s own most essential ideas about spirituality and what it is to live a good life. Designed by Tolstoy to be a cycle of daily readings, this book offers thoughts and aphorisms for every day according to a succession of themes repeated each month—such as God, the soul, desire, our passions, humility, inequality, evil, truth, happiness, prayer, and the blessings of love. At once challenging, comforting, and inspiring, this is a spiritual treasure trove and a book of great human warmth.