CHRISTIAN BERGER

La cerveza es una bebida universal y su uso se conoce desde la prehistoria: poción sagrada, bebida mitológica, fue compañera de los poderosos y los humildes, de los guerreros y los campesinos. Los autores de este libro, grandes expertos, presentan ante el lector un mundo de una enorme riqueza, el de la historia y la distribuición geográfica de la cerveza y, sobre todo el testimonio de la cultura y los hábitos de los hombres de ayer y de hoy en relación con esta bebida. El libro explica su proceso de fabricación, da una descripción de todos los tipos de cerveza y de una infinidad de marcas y, además de todo este cúmulo de informaciones, enseña cómo hay que disfrutar de la cerveza, pues ésta, símbolo de todo un arte di vivir, no puede paladearse a tontas y a l ocas: como ocurre con todos los grandes asuntos de la vida, para entrar en sumundo es preciso iniciarse...

Arnaud Calvez was born in Dinan in Brittany, the son of a spice merchant. But he longed for more than a quiet life in his fathers footsteps: he wanted to see the Holy Land. So, at the age of sixteen, he joins the Christian order of the Knights Templar and follows their call to defend Jerusalem in 1185. In this exciting journey through the High Middle Ages, he not only finds a new faith, but also love and a bowl that would change the fate of mankind forever.

Over the millennia, the determination of the prime meridian was not a question of power, but also a reflection of the limits of human imagination. Exemplary for the suffering, but also the joys, of the people who lived there, as well as their historical significance, individual places repeatedly emerge from the veil of history, bearing witness to the eventful destinies of some of humanitys greatest empires.

Africa, 16th century.Kobe Masalu, the youngest son of a chieftain, has proven his courage beyond doubt: he has defeated a lion in a nighttime duel. But his triumph is short-lived. When Portuguese slave traders raid his village on the Ogowe River, Kobe is taken awayin chains, across the sea, to a strange world. A world of vengeful gods and burning hearts. In the scorching heat of the tropics, a new chapter of his life begins: full of pain, resistanceand an inner strength that cannot be broken. Between colonial violence, lost homeland, and the longing for freedom, Kobe not only witnesses historyhe becomes part of a movement that changed the fate of the continent.