Books published by publisher Didactic Press

William of Orange, once a Catholic, converted to the Protestant cause and eventually rose to lead the Protestant rebellion against Spanish rule in Netherlands. He ultimately sacrificed his life, his wealth, and his family for the cause of religious toleration and inspired the Netherlands to revolt against Spanish rule. Contents include:Prelude-Masters of the SeaThe Dawning CareerAccession of PhilipThe InquisitionThe Rising StormAlva's Reign of TerrorThe Horrors of HaarlemThe Relief of LeydenAssassination of William of Orange

• The book includes 10 unique illustrations that are relevant to its content.Little Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888). The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869. The novel follows the lives of four sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March – and is loosely based on the author's childhood experiences with her three sisters. The first volume, Little Women, was an immediate commercial and critical success, prompting the composition of the book's second volume, entitled Good Wives, which was also successful. Both books were first published as a single volume entitled Little Women in 1880. Alcott followed Little Women with two sequels, also featuring the March sisters: Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Little Women is one of the best loved books of all time. Lovely Meg, talented Jo, frail Beth, spoiled Amy: these are hard lessons of poverty and of growing up in New England during the Civil War. Through their dreams, plays, pranks, letters, illnesses, and courtships, women of all ages have become a part of this remarkable family and have felt the deep sadness when Meg leaves the circle of sisters to be married at the end of Part I. Part II, chronicles Meg's joys and mishaps as a young wife and mother, Jo's struggle to become a writer, Beth's tragedy, and Amy's artistic pursuits and unexpected romance. Based on Louise May Alcott's childhood, this lively portrait of nineteenth-century family life possesses a lasting vitality that has endeared it to generations of readers.

The prelude to a philosophy of the future, Friedrich Nietzsche's masterpiece "Beyond Good and Evil" draws upon key ideas from his previous work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Helen Zimmern, Beyond Good and Evil excoriates past philosophers for erecting huge metaphysical mausoleums, and then destroys these houses of the dead only to create something new and vibrant and real. Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most important philosophical works ever written, and should be devoured by anyone seeking to escape the stranglehold of status quo. Illustrations added to enhance the reading experience, this eBook is formatted for Kindle devices and the Kindle for iOS apps.

"This volume is intended as an historical reader, as an elementary text-book in the history of our country from the framing of the Constitution to the present day, or as an introduction or supplement to any of the excellent text-books on United States history now in use.Although complete in itself, and hence quite independent, it is nevertheless a sequel to The Story of the Thirteen Colonies, for it takes up the thread of the narrative at the point where it was dropped in that book, and carries it on unbroken to the present date.No pains have been spared to interest children in the history of their country, to explain its gradual development, to teach them to love, honor, and emulate our heroes, and to make them so familiar with the lives and sayings of famous Americans that they will have no difficulty in understanding the full meaning of the numerous historical allusions so frequently found in the newspapers and elsewhere.While a special effort has been made to cultivate a spirit of fairness and charity in dealing with every phase of our history, the writer's main object has been to make good men and women of the rising generation, as well as loyal Americans."-Helene Guerber

The stories in this book are of heroes who lived hundred of years ago. They caught sight of a beautiful dream and lived and died to make it come true.Their eagerness swept along with them not only men who had never dreamed the dream and who did not know for what end they fought, but bad men also who only wished to get what they could for themselves.The Crusades are long past, yet to-day there are men who see visions of good and who wish to bring them down to earth. With them are others who fight selfishly as did Bohemond and Baldwin long ago. But there are still men like Francis, who carry goodwill with them, and great knights like Tancred and like Louis, who live to fight for the poor and the weak...

Terrorists are known to use the Internet for communications, planning, recruitment, propaganda, and reconnaissance. They have shown interest in carrying out cyberattacks on U.S. critical infrastructures, although no such serious attacks are known publicly to have occurred. The discovery of the Stuxnet malware in July 2010, and its analysis over the next several months, was widely believed to have been a landmark event in cybersecurity, because it showed that cyberattacks against industrial control systems, hypothesized for a long time, are actually possible. After Stuxnet, there were public concerns that terrorists might be encouraged to acquire capabilities for similar cyberattacks.This monograph examines cyberterrorism before and after Stuxnet by addressing questions of:1.Motive—Are terrorists interested in launching cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructures?2.Means—Are terrorists building capabilities and skills for cyberattacks?3.Opportunity—How vulnerable are U.S. critical infrastructures?It is noted that no serious cyberterrorism attacks have occurred after Stuxnet. This can be explained from a cost-benefit perspective that has not changed since Stuxnet. It can be argued that U.S. policies can really address vulnerabilities only by strengthening defenses of critical infrastructures.

An excellent introduction to the history of the Amazons, a fierce group of women warriors from the ancient world. Illustrated throughout to enhance the reading experience. Contents include:INTRODUCTORYTHE AMAZONS OF ANTIQUITYTHE AMAZONS OF ANTIQUITY--(continued)AMAZONS IN FAR ASIAMODERN AMAZONS OF THE CAUCASUSAMAZONS OF EUROPEAMAZONS OF AFRICAAMAZONS OF AMERICATHE AMAZON STONESCONCLUSION

Roland, the nephew of the Charlemagne of romance, and his companion in all great enterprises, is unknown to history. Yet he is the typical knight, the greatest hero of the middle ages. His story, as I shall tell it you, is not a mere transcript of the old romances. The main incidents have been derived from a great variety of sources, while the arrangement and the connecting parts are of my own invention. I have culled the story from the song-writers and poets of five centuries and of as many languages. Sometimes I have adhered closely to the matter and spirit, and even the words, of the originals; sometimes I have given free rein to my own imagination; and throughout I have endeavored so to arrange and retouch the individual parts of the story as lend interest to its recital, and adapt it to our own ways of thinking, and our modern notions of propriety. The oldest story of Roland was doubtless that which was sung by the minstrel of William the Conqueror, in 1066. Wace, in his account of the battle of Hastings, says, "Taillefer, who sang very well, rode before the duke, singing of Charlemagne and of Roland and Oliver, and of the vassals who died at Roncevaux." The song which Taillefer sang must have been the "Chanson de Roland," written by one Turold, perhaps as early as the tenth century. It is by far the finest of all the "tales of France." More than twenty years after the battle of Hastings, there appeared a Latin work, entitled, "The Life of Charles the Great and of Roland," which, it was claimed, had been written by Archbishop Turpin, the father-confessor of Charlemagne. The falsity of this claim is too apparent to need any proof; and yet the work, having been sanctioned by Pope Calixtus, and placed by him upon the roll of canonical books, exerted no small influence over the poetical literature which followed it, and supplied materials and suggestions to many later romancists. In England, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, there appeared several rhyming romances relating to our hero. Among these were "Sir Ferumbras," an adaptation of a French poem, entitled "Fierabras," "Otuel," and "Roland and Ferragus." One of the first books printed in our language was a legendary history of Charlemagne, entitled "The Lyf of Charles the Great, fynysshed in the reducing of it into Englysshe in the xvii day of Juin MCCCCLXXXV. Explicit per William Caxton." In our own time, Mr. John Malcolm Ludlow, in his "Popular Epics of the Middle Ages," has given us a valuable critical analysis of some of the most noticeable legends of Roland and Charlemagne. In Germany, we find an adaptation of the "Chanson de Roland" in an old poem, entitled, "Ruolandes Liet," which appeared, probably, as early as 1177, and has recently been edited by William Grimm. Karl Simrock's "Kerlingisches Heldenbuch" contains some of the most delightful traditions of Roland and Charlemagne; and the "Kaiserchronik," published in 1849, gives a complete legendary history of Charlemagne and his peers from a German point of view. In Italy the story of Roland was long a most fertile and attractive theme, and gave rise to more than one great poem. The legends relating to his parentage and boyhood are contained in the "Innamoramento di Milone d'Anglante," printed in the sixteenth century, and in several other poems much older; the "Orlando Innamorato" of Boiardo tells us of the marvellous adventures of our hero in Fairyland and in the Far East; the "Orlando Furioso" of Ariosto tells of his prowess as a knight, his disappointment in love, his madness and ultimate recovery; the "Morgante Maggiore" of Pulci relates the story of his later adventures and his death. In the mediæval romances of Spain the name of Roland is of frequent occurrence; and the story, modified to suit the prejudices of Spanish readers, is found in numerous old songs and poems, some of them as early as the twelfth century.

The year 1914 will stand out prominently in future history as the date of the most stupendous war in the history of mankind. In its special character, also, it may come to be regarded as the most atrocious of all wars, at least of all fought by civilized nations. Flashing out suddenly like a bolt from the blue, unannounced, unexpected, unexplained, unprecedented in suddenness and enormity, it hurled nearly the whole of Europe within a week's time from a state of profound peace into one of continental war. The ringing of church bells was drowned by the roar of cannon, the voice of the dove of peace by the blare of the trump of war, and throughout the world ran a shudder of terror as these unwonted and ominous sounds greeted men's ears.But in looking back through history, tracing the course of events during the past century, following the footsteps of men in war and peace from that day of upheaval when medieval feudalism went down in disarray before the arms of the people in the French Revolution, some explanation of the great European war of 1914 may be reached. Every event in history has its roots somewhere in earlier history, and we need but dig deep enough to find them.Such is the purpose of the present work. It proposes to lay down in a series of apposite chapters the story of the past century, beginning, in fact, rather more than a century ago with the meteoric career of Napoleon and seeking to show to what it led, and what effects it had upon the political evolution of mankind. The French Revolution stood midway between two spheres of history, the sphere of medieval barbarism and that of modern enlightenment. It exploded like a bomb in the midst of the self-satisfied aristocracy of the earlier social system and rent it into fragments which no hand could put together again. In this sense the career of Napoleon seems providential. The era of popular government had replaced that of autocratic and aristocratic government in France, and the armies of Napoleon spread these radical ideas throughout Europe until the oppressed people of every nation began to look upward with hope and see in the distance before them a haven of justice in the coming realm of human rights.These new conceptions took time to disseminate themselves. The oppressed peoples had to fight their way upward into the light, to win their progress step by step to the heights of emancipation. It was a hard struggle. Time and again they were cast downward in their climb. The powers of privilege, of the "divine right of kings," fought hard to preserve their ascendency, and only with discouraging slowness did the people move onward to the haven they so earnestly sought. The story of this upward progress is the history of the nineteenth century, regarded from the special point of view of political progress and the development of human rights. This is definitely shown in the present work, which is a history of the past century and of the twentieth century so far as it has gone. Gradually the autocrat has declined in power and authority, and the principle of popular rights has risen into view. But the autocrat has not been fully dethroned. Medievalism still has its hold on a few of the thrones of Europe, notably those of Germany, Russia and Austria. Is the present war a final effort of medievalism to regain its hold, to put down the doctrine of popular rule and replace it by the old system of absolute government? This, at least, in the absence of apparent causes for the present war, may be offered as one conceivable explanation. If so, we can but hope that the prediction given at the end of this work may come true, and that the close of the war may witness the complete downfall of autocracy as a political principle and the rise of the rule of the people in every civilized nation of the earth.