A provocative critique of the pieties and fallacies of our obsession with economic growthWe live in a society in which a priesthood of technically trained economists, wielding impenetrable mathematical formulas, set the framework for public debate. Ultimately, it is the economists who set the agenda for how much we can spend on our schools, public libraries, and defense, to how much unemployment is acceptable to whether it is right to print money or to bail out profligate banks. The backlash we are witnessing suggests that people are turning against the economists and their faulty representation of our lives. Despite decades of steady economic growth, many citizens feel more pessimistic than ever, and are voting for candidates who voice undisguised contempt for the technocratic elite. For too long, economics have spoken in a language which fails to resonate with people's lived experience, and we are now living with the consequences.In this powerful...

"William came over the sea, with bloody hand came he..."1069 AD. Three years after the Battle of Hastings, William of Normandy had yet to crush resistance in England. To the north, the people of the Danelaw refused to bow to the Norman yoke. In the east, the famous Hereward waged savage resistance in the fens of Lindsey. Meanwhile the sons of Harold Godwinnsson, backed by a Viking fleet, planned to return and avenge their father.The tale of this bloody and brutal time is written by Thorkell Skaldsson, once a bard in the service of Waltheof, the last English earl. In old age, thousands of miles from England, he still mourns the conquest of his homeland. Before he dies, Thorkell has vowed to write the truth...of Duke William, Harold Hardrada and Sweyn of Denmark, of the Emperor Alexios and the mighty city of Micklegarth...of the fall and rise of the English.The Northman has one last saga to tell...THE NORTHMAN (THE BLOODY HAND SAGA BOOK 1) is by David...

1453 AD. The great city of Constantinople, last remnant of the once-mighty Roman Empire, falls to the Ottoman armies of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. An English knight named Sir John Page is taken prisoner by the Ottomans, and forced to entertain the Sultan with tales of the West. Page chooses to tell the story of his own long career as a soldier of fortune in France, Bohemia and the Italian city-states. Page’s tale begins in the year of Agincourt, Henry V’s famous victory over the French. As the bastard son of Thomas Page, a famous mercenary captain known as The Half-Hanged Man or The Wolf of Burgundy, Page soon acquires the nickname of The Wolf Cub. After slaying his cousin in a duel, Page flees his home and joins a band of outlaws in the forests of Sussex. At last - tired of the brutality of his companions - he decides to leave England and join the English army in Normandy. There he endures brutal sieges, vicious combats, torture, betrayal and imprisonment, all to win glory and redeem his father's name. Trapped in the Sultan’s prison, Page must hope his story is enough to save him from the executioner’s blade....at least for another three days... **