A prior, a master builder, and their community try to build a cathedral to protect themselves while Stephen and the Empress Maud fight for the crown of England. Set in twelfth-century England, this epic of kings and peasants juxtaposes the building of a magnificent cathedral with the violence and treachery that often characterized the Middle Ages.

Charles Ashworth, the Bishop of Starbridge, is a stalwart defender of the faith. However, his own faith is put to the test when his beloved wife dies. He is caught in a maze of grief and denial, and becomes estranged from his children, his colleagues, and his parishioners.

Armed monks ransack the massive Gothic cathedral in Cologne, Germany, ancient relics are stolen, and hundreds of people are murdered. Commander Gray Pierce and his team begin a harrowing search for the secrets to a mysterious ancient power.

This spellbinding creation by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi interprets the Gothic cathedral through Gaudi's visionary, modernist style. Study the striking sculpted decoration of the exterior portals, the dreamlike interior with its columns fashioned as stylized trees, and the powerful Christian iconography of this unique melding of the traditional and the radically new.

Beautifully illustrated with color photographs throughout, this joyous exploration of the history of Western civilization showcases the cathedral's central role in the European imagination. A masterful writer, Jenkins tells the stories behind these stone wonders: the architects that made them possible, the triumphs of engineering, the artists who enriched their décor, and the inevitable human follies of those who were involved in their building,...

"At the center of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 13th and 14th centuries in the Rhineland town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer to local merchants and lowly stonecutters, everyone, even the town's Jewish denizens, is implicated and affected by the...

One month after the end of WWII, Asher, a former assassin in the Resistance burdened by grief and guilt, arrives at le Château Guerin, where he discovers the redemptive power of art as he helps create glass windows for the bombed cathedrals of France. One month after the end of World War II, amid the jubilation in the streets of France, there are throngs of people stunned by the recovery work ahead. Every bridge, road, and rail line, every church...