Author: Paul Robbert Rijkens
Publisher: Paragon Publishing
ISBN: 1782225811
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
This is an investigative novel that starts by asking the simple but pertinent question: since there are no sources whatsoever testifying that the saint, or his remains were in Spain, then who invented all this, and why? I became interested in this issue after having read a tiny sentence in the official history book of St. James, which casually states that the Cathedral of Compostela lost the relics of St. James for nearly three hundred years, from 1588 to 1879. Lose the most important relics in Christendom? I surmised that they didn’t lose them, because they never had them in the first place. That also would despatch the implausible tale of how the saint’s remains had travelled by stone vessel, steered only by the wind, in eight days, from Jerusalem to Galicia in Spain, in 44 A.D. Still, St. James’ legends gave rise to the largest pilgrimage in European history. A riddle indeed. Challenged by a publisher, I decided to investigate this story not as most historians have, namely to accept the Church’s version, but instead, to follow a journalistic approach; to search for those who benefitted - who had ulterior motives. Banking on my business experience, and art historical knowledge, I hoped to solve this riddle whilst walking part of the route, the so-called ‘camino’, between Burgos and Santiago de Compostela. In so doing I also aimed to find out why people should want to do this arduous journey today, as ca. 300,000 annually do. It resulted in this travel account and investigative analysis, and a very defensible solution to the riddle of St. James. The Church employed fear to persuade Christians to seek penance and forgiveness at an empty shrine in Spain. This exploit I have called a conspiracy. A serious accusation, but in my view, also a defensible claim. Once underway something strange happened. An English former banker was shot in front of my eyes. Whilst this incident is fictional, it strangely fits in my fact-based investigation of what happened between the 9th to 16th centuries when literally millions upon millions of pilgrims took a year off to visit Compostela. The pilgrimage led to a colossal industry, and the strange shooting incident pointed me to some of its present-day benefactors.
Author: Jessica Murphy
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1532017618
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340
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Book Description
Mackellan Kirby, professor of Ancient Religious Studies, with some ongoing connection to the British SAS, is enjoying retirement in Ireland, when he discovers an anomaly in the Dead Sea Scroll he has been entrusted with translating. Always ready to solve any mystery, he enlists the aid of his American niece and nephew. Their search takes them to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, in northern Spain, the goal of thousands of pilgrims every year. But their holiday jaunt immediately turns deadly when other factions become interested in their search. The artifact they recover, in the cellars of the cathedral, brings together writings from the first century A.D. about a charismatic leader who escaped from Judaea with his wife Mary; the story of the eleventh century bishop entrusted with the construction of the cathedral; and the truth of the Conspiracy of St. James--a cover-up of a secret so significant that its exposure could rock the modern Christian church to its knees. If only Kirby and his young relatives live long enough.
Author: Francois Soyer
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004395601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 331
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Book Description
In Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories in the Early Modern Iberian World: Narratives of Fear and Hatred, François Soyer offers the first detailed historical analysis of antisemitic conspiracy theories in Spain, Portugal and their overseas colonies between 1450 and 1750. These conspiracy theories accused Jews and conversos, the descendants of medieval Jewish converts to Christianity, of deadly plots and blamed them for a range of social, religious, military and economic problems. Ultimately, many Iberian antisemitic conspiracy theorists aimed to create a ‘moral panic’ about the converso presence in Iberian society, thereby justifying the legitimacy of ethnic discrimination within the Church and society. Moreover, they were also exploited by some churchmen seeking to impose an idealized sense of communal identity upon the lay faithful.
Author: Jaron Harambam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000059332
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 211
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Book Description
In this ethnographic study, the author takes an agnostic stance towards the truth value of conspiracy theories and delves into the everyday lives of people active in the conspiracy milieu to understand better what the contemporary appeal of conspiracy theories is. Conspiracy theories have become popular cultural products, endorsed and shared by significant segments of Western societies. Yet our understanding of who these people are and why they are attracted by these alternative explanations of reality is hampered by their implicit and explicit pathologization. Drawing on a wide variety of empirical sources, this book shows in rich detail what conspiracy theories are about, which people are involved, how they see themselves, and what they practically do with these ideas in their everyday lives. The author inductively develops from these concrete descriptions more general theorizations of how to understand this burgeoning subculture. He concludes by situating conspiracy culture in an age of epistemic instability where societal conflicts over knowledge abound, and the Truth is no longer assured, but "out there" for us to grapple with. This book will be an important source for students and scholars from a range of disciplines interested in the depth and complexity of conspiracy culture, including Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Communication Studies, Ethnology, Folklore Studies, History, Media Studies, Political Science, Psychology and Sociology. More broadly, this study speaks to contemporary (public) debates about truth and knowledge in a supposedly post-truth era, including widespread popular distrusts towards elites, mainstream institutions and their knowledge.
Author: Catherine Gasquoine Hartley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art museums
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
Author: Paul Preston
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0008522138
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR From the preeminent historian of 20th century Spain Paul Preston, Architects of Terror is a new history of how paranoia, conspiracy and anti-Semitism was used to justify the military coup of 1936 and enabled the construction of a dictatorship built on violence and persecution.
Author: Brian Latell
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1137278412
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
"In this riveting Cold War history, highly acclaimed author Brian Latell offers us a new and surprising look at Fidel Castro. Latell draws his narrative on personal interviews with high level defectors from Cuba's intelligence, many of whom have not spoken out for over nearly five decades. The result is a vivid and revelatory account that revises our understanding of how Fidel operated, what his goals were, and how he imagined the future for his tiny island nation. Latell takes us from from the crimes Fidel allegedly committed as a youth in the anti-Battista movement, to how quickly he built up an intelligence system that rivaled the Soviet Union's KGB and Britain's M15 in effectiveness, and how that translated into a feud with JFK's administration and the CIA, and the ultimate confrontation during the Cuban Missile Crises that brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust"--
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1032
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Book Description
Author: Mark Juergensmeyer
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 0761927298
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 1529
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Book Description
Presents entries A to L of a two-volume encyclopedia discussing religion around the globe, including biographies, concepts and theories, places, social issues, movements, texts, and traditions.
Author: Cristina Sánchez-Carretero
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331920212X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222
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Book Description
This book presents research concerning the effects of the Camino to Finisterre on the daily lives of the populations who live along the route, and the heritagization processes that exploitation of the Camino for tourism purposes involves. Rather than focusing on the route to Santiago de Compostela and the pilgrimage itself, it instead examines a peculiar part of the route, the Camino to Finisterre, employing multiple perspectives that consider the processes of heritagization, the effects of the pilgrimage on local communities, and the motivations of the pilgrims. The book is based on a three-year research project and is the result of a multidisciplinary collaboration between anthropologists, sociologists, historians and archaeologists. Instead of ending in Santiago, as the rest of the Caminos do, this route continues to the cape of Finisterre on the Galician Atlantic coast. This part of the Camino de Santiago is not officially recognized by the Catholic Church and does not count as part of reaching Compostela, the recognition granted by the Catholic Church to those pilgrims who have walked at least 100 km. For this reason, as well as its relationship with the sun cult, many pilgrims call this route “the Camino of the atheists.” In fact, the Catholic Church is a strong force for the heritagization of the rest of the Caminos, and maintains a clear ignoratio strategy concerning the Finisterre route: Officially, the church neither opposes nor recognizes this route.
