Michelle P. Brown – författare

This book arose out of a challenge. The challenge was made by Bob Geldof to the British academic and historian Michelle Brown. Pop singers raise huge sums of money for Band Aid and touch the hearts of people from all walks of life. But to give money can be an easy way out. How does the so called intellientsia respond with their minds(not just their hearts and pockets) to the appalling disparities in the conditions of members of the human race. This a challenge that a number of notable and gifted people have responded to enthusiastically. They range from John Simpson and Martin Bell to Former President Mary Robinson and the noted US feminist intellectual Charlotte Bunch. Other noted authors include Sir David Ramsbothom, Ricardo Navarro, Founder of the Friends of the Earth and Simon Counsell, Director of The Rainforest Foundation. Ultimately the purpose of this book is to make people think and connect wires, to encourage them to question their own place within the world , to acknowledge personal and collective responsibility and to discuss a range of situations and issues that have been changed by individuals. The book is also published to coimcide with Britian's Presidenct of the G8 and EU and ther associated drive to focus on issues of global social justice through the newly established Commission for Africa.

The kingdom best remembered for Offa and his famous dyke was not only a dominant power on the island of Britain in the eighth century, but also a significant player in early medieval European politics and culture. Although the volume focuses on the eighth and ninth centuries when Mercian power was at its height, it also looks back to the origins of the kingdom and forward to the period of Viking settlement and West Saxon reconquest. With state-of-the-art contributions from experts in palaeography, art history, archaeology, numismatics and landscape - as well as from historians - this book establishes a new baseline for Mercian scholarship, by covering the rise and fall of the kingdom, its major institutions, relations with other political entities as well as its visual and material culture.

What is a historiated initial? What are canon tables? What is a drollery? This revised edition of Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms offers definitions of the key elements of illuminated manuscripts, demystifying the techniques, processes, materials, nomenclature, and styles used in the making of these precious books.Updated to reflect current research and technologies, this beautifully illustrated guide includes images of important manuscript illuminations from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum and beyond. Concise, readable explanations of the technical terms most frequently encountered in manuscript studies make this portable volume an essential resource for students, scholars, and readers who wish a deeper understanding and enjoyment of illuminated manuscripts and medieval book production.

This book investigates the life and world of Bede (c. 673–735), foremost scholar of the early Middle Ages and ‘the father of English history’. It examines his notable feats, including calculating the first tide-tables; playing a role in the creation of the Ceolfrith Bibles and the Lindisfarne Gospels; writing the earliest extant Old English poetry and the earliest translation of part of the Bible into English; and composing his famous Ecclesiastical History of the English People, with its single dating system. Despite never leaving Northumbria, Bede also wrote a guide to the Holy Land. Michelle P. Brown, an authority on the period, describes new discoveries regarding Bede’s handwriting, his research programme and his previously lost Old English translation of St John’s Gospel, dictated on his deathbed.

Illumino explores the history of medieval Britain through the biographies of twelve remarkable illuminated manuscripts and of their creators and owners. The manuscripts each serve as portals into these lives and as springboards into the era of their production. For illuminated manuscripts are among the most intricate and fascinating forms of evidence for the Middle Ages, blending the fruits of human intellect – the arts, the sciences, politics, philosophy and faith – with the materiality of their production. By undertaking the detective work needed to determine the nature of each project and the underlying human-interest stories, this book reveals their manifold social, economic and cultural contexts and charts the exchange of ideas, techniques and materials over time and space. Featuring more than a hundred beautiful illustrations, this is a unique and accessible introduction to Britain’s history, art history and book history across a thousand years.