European history Books

Book SynopsisThe Mongol Empire in Global History and Art History includes essays on topics from historical chronicles to contemporary historiography, and case studies from textile production to map-making and historical linguistics. Contributors include specialists of Mongol history and historiography as well as Islamic, East Asian, and European art.Trade ReviewThe various contributions are of high scholarly standard, yet accessible to nonspecialists as well, and the combination of historical and art historical approaches, with a large role for material culture, is a valuable one. -- Josephine van den Bent * Asian Review of World Histories *

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Book SynopsisA thought-provoking, authoritative biography of one of history’s most maligned rulersTrade Review“In a work which must currently rank as the definitive contribution to our understanding of Louis XVI as a man and a monarch, Hardman displays a quite extraordinary grasp of sources relating to the court and to the high politics of the ancien régime.”—P.M. Jones, English Historical Review"An up-to-date, immensely erudite and compelling study, the fruit of a lifetime’s work on the king. It is also crisply, sometimes brilliantly,written. Hardman’s style is accessible, often witty, and he has a gift for putting complex issues in a nutshell. Louis XVI remains one of the crucial characters in modern history . . . and this is now the best biography of him in any language."—Munro Price, Literary Review"Hardman has devoted much of his life to Louis XVI; some of the excellent illustrations are of objects in his own collection. He uses many new sources, such as papers of the Navy minister the Marechal de Castries, and the magnificent diary of the ambassador the Marquis de Bombelles, spanning the entire period 1780-1822."—Philip Mansel, Spectator"This is the product of a lifetime's research and writing on late eighteenth-century France by one of the foremost scholars of the era. Original, gripping and authoritative, it is the best biography in any language of Louis XVI, and a significant contribution to the history of the French Revolution."—Munro Price, author of The Perilous Crown: France Between Revolutions"John Hardman has written a highly readable, well-paced biography of Louis XVI which draws on the most recent scholarship on French kingship and court politics. He shows sensitivity and sympathy for a monarch who was not blind to what was happening around him but who felt increasingly trapped by forces he could not control."—Alan Forrest, author of Napoleon: Life, Legacy, and Image"This new life of Louis XVI, by the world’s leading authority, not only tells all the good stories with considerable verve, it also offers insightful analyses of the politics of this tragic life that began in the palace of Versailles and ended on the scaffold of the Revolution. It is simply the most authoritative biography of Louis XVI ever written."—Peter Campbell, former professor of French History, University of Versailles

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Book SynopsisIlluminates how new modes of artistic production in colonial India shaped the British state’s nationalisation of the East India Company, transforming the relationship between nation and empire This pioneering book explores how art shaped the nationalisation of the East India Company between the loss of its primary monopoly in 1813 and its ultimate liquidation in 1858. Challenging the idea that parliament drove political reform, it argues instead that the Company’s political legitimacy was destabilised by novel modes of artistic production in colonial India. New artistic forms and practices—the result of new technologies like lithography and steam navigation, middle-class print formats like the periodical, the scrapbook and the literary annual, as well as the prevalence of amateur sketching among Company employees—reconfigured the colonial regime’s racial boundaries and techniques of governance. They flourished within transimperial networks, integrating middle-class societies with new political convictions and moral disciplines, and thereby eroding the aristocratic corporate cultures that had previously structured colonial authority in India. Unmaking the East India Company contributes to a reassessment of British art as a global, corporate and intrinsically imperial phenomenon—highlighting the role of overlooked media, artistic styles and print formats in crafting those distinctions of power and identity that defined ‘Britishness’ across the world. Distributed for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British ArtTrade Review“[A] pioneering book. . . . Tom Young has risen to the challenge brilliantly. The book is lavishly illustrated and extremely well produced. . . . Every facet of this book is admirable.”—Charles Greig, Chowkidar“Unmaking the East India Company is theoretically engaged but eminently readable and beautifully illustrated.”—John Mcaleer, H Soz Kult

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Book SynopsisThe Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller''Breathtaking'' The Times''[The book that] made headlines around the world.'' IndependentThe former Prince of Wales has lived his whole life in the public eye, yet he remains an enigma. He was born to be king, but he aims much higher. A landmark publication, Charles: The Heart of a King reveals Charles in all his complexity: the passionate views that mean he will never be as remote and impartial as his mother; the compulsion to make a difference and the many and startling ways in which the Prince and now King of the United Kingdom and fifteen other realms has already made his mark.The book offers fresh and fascinating insights into the first marriage that did so much to define him and an assessment of his relationship with the woman he calls, with unintended accuracy, his ''dearest wife'': Camilla, now Queen Consort. We see Charles as a father and a friend, a sTrade ReviewA must-read … this important book is nothing short of a manual to our future King’s world-view ... and Mayer's book is the first comprehensive attempt to explore and explain what may lie ahead. * GQ *

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Book SynopsisThe first detailed and comprehensive record of the warship losses of the last 100 years. Much original research from primary sources. Indexes and cross referencing make for highly usable reference work.

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Book SynopsisOtto von Bismarck (1815-98) has gone down in history as the Iron Chancellor, a reactionary and militarist whose 1871 unification of Germany set Europe down the path of disaster to World War I. But as Volker Ullrich shows in this new edition of his accessible biography, the real Bismarck was far more complicated than the stereotype. A leading historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history, Ullrich demonstrates that the "Founder of the Reich" was in fact an opponent of liberal German nationalism. After the wars of 1866 and 1870, Bismarck spent the rest of his career working to preserve peace in Europe and protect the empire he had created. Despite his reputation as an enemy of socialism, he introduced comprehensive health and unemployment insurance for German workers. Far from being a "man of iron and blood," Bismarck was in fact a complex statesman who was concerned with maintaining stability and harmony far beyond Germany's newly unified borders. Comprehensive and balanced, Bismarck shows us the post-reunification value of looking anew at this monumental figure's role in European history

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Book SynopsisThe complete history of the Roman Empire - how it was created, how it was sustained in crisis, and how it shaped the world of its rulers and subjects, from the eighth century BCE to the dawn of the Middle Ages.Rome in the archaic age was a minor satellite between the Etruscan and Greek world. This book traces the expansion of Roman influence first within Italy, then around the Mediterranean world and finally, at breakneck speed, deep into Europe, out to the Atlantic, along the edge of the Sahara and down the Red Sea. There had been other empires that had expanded rapidly; what made Rome remarkable was that it managed to sustain its position for so long. Rome''s fall poses less of a mystery than its survival. Understanding this happened involves understanding the building blocks of imperial society - slavery, cities, the economy - and also the chaotic narrative of growth, civil war, stability, near disaster and then a managed downsizing. Rome: An Empire''s Story tells the tale of the grTrade ReviewReview from previous edition 'a magnificent achievement.' * Peter Jones,BBC History Magazine *'A fine foundation for further learning about the Roman Empire.' * Booklist *'[A] passionately told exploration of the history of Rome.' * Publishers Weekly *'This is a marvellous book. Woolf provides a sweeping history of Rome's rise and fall, and asks the big questions of why and how this happened. Better yet, he offers no simple or simplistic answers, but instead well considered discussion of the evidence and how we try to understand it.' * Adrian Goldsworthy, author of How Rome Fell *'Greg Woolf's new history will be a boon for the student and general reader alike.' * The Scotsman *'Makes for exceptionally interesting and provocative reading.' * Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post *'Could [this] be the best single-volume introduction to the history of ancient Rome? It is conceptual yet avoids the pitfalls of overgeneralizing, a difficult balance to strike. It also has a superb (useful rather than exhaustive) bibliography. A good measure of books such as this is whether they induce you to read or order other books on the same topic and this one did. A sure thing to make my "Best Books of 2012" list.' * Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution *'Greg Woolf's dazzling account of ancient Rome's story will entrance the general reader ... [and] will equally impress historians ... the best general history of ancient Rome available in English.' * Ronald Mellor, Times Higher Education Supplement *'A remarkable work of synthesis that describes the rise, flourishing and decline of the Roman Empire.' * David Gress, Wall Street Journal *'It's a swift and easy read, filled with the kind of rich details designed to illustrate the major trends of Roman history for a general audience.' * Weekly Standard *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations List of Maps Notes on Further Reading 1: The Whole Story 2: Empires of the Mind 3: Rulers of Italy 4: Imperial Ecology 5: Mediterranean Hegemony 6: Slavery and Empire 7: Crisis 8: At Heaven's Command? 9: The Generals 10: The Enjoyment of Empire 11: Emperors 12: Resourcing Empire 13: War 14: Imperial Identities 15: Recovery and Collapse 16: A Christian Empire 17: Things Fall Apart 18: The Roman Past and the Roman Future Notes Bibliography Glossary of Technical Terms Photographic Acknowledgements Inedx 1: The Whole Story 2: Empires of the Mind 3: Rulers of Italy 4: Imperial Ecology 5: Mediterranean Hegemony 6: Slavery and Empire 7: Crisis 8: At Heaven's Command? 9: The Generals 10: The Enjoyment of Empire 11: Emperors 12: Resourcing Empire 13: War 14: Imperial Identities 15: Recovery and Collapse 16: A Christian Empire 17: Things Fall Apart 18: The Roman Past and the Roman Future Notes Bibliography Glossary of Technical Terms Index

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Book SynopsisHitler was one of the few politicians who understood that persuasion was everything, deployed to anchor an entire regime in the confections of imagery, rhetoric and dramaturgy. The Nazis pursued propaganda not just as a tool, an instrument of government, but also as the totality, the raison d'etre, the medium through which power itself was exercised. Moreover, Nicholas O'Shaughnessy argues, Hitler, not Goebbels, was the prime mover in the propaganda regime of the Third Reich - its editor and first author. Under the Reich everything was a propaganda medium, a building-block of public consciousness, from typography to communiques, to architecture, to weapons design. There were groups to initiate rumours and groups to spread graffiti. Everything could be interrogated for its propaganda potential, every surface inscribed with polemical meaning, whether an enemy city's name, an historical epic or the poster on a neighbourhood wall. But Hitler was in no sense an innovator - his ideas were always second- hand.Rather his expertise was as a packager, fashioning from the accumulated mass of icons and ideas, the historic debris, the labyrinths and byways of the German mind, a modern and brilliant political show articulated through deftly managed symbols and rituals. The Reich would have been unthinkable without propaganda - it would not have been the Reich.Trade Review'A fascinating work on how the Nazis "sold" Hitler to the German people and vice-versa, almost like a modern commercial brand.' * Evening Standard (Best Books of 2016) *'Illuminatingly treats the Third Reich's deployment of myths, symbols, and rhetoric with the eye and ear of a theorist keenly tuned to the subtle plays of power and desire within the manufacture of the "spiritual-religious idea" that is Nazism ... A fresh take on an area of scholarship dominated by historians, Selling Hitler teems with insight.' * Los Angeles Review of Books *'[A] fresh, surprising and important look at a neglected aspect of the history of Nazi Germany. […] O'Shaughnessy boldly deconstructs the Nazi propaganda machine and its vast output.' * Jewish Journal *

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Book SynopsisThe ancient Greeks gave us our alphabet and much of our scientific, medical and cultural language; they invented democracy, atomic theory, and the rules of logic and geometry; laid the foundations of philosophy, history, tragedy and comedy; and debated everything from the good life and the role of women, to making sense of foreigners and the best form of government, all in the most sophisticated terms.But who were they? In Eureka!, Peter Jones tells their epic story, which begins with the Trojan War and ends with the rise of the Roman Empire, by breaking down each major period into a series of informative nuggets. Along the way he introduces the major figures of the age, including Homer, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Euclid and Archimedes; explores the Greek myths and the role of the gods;provides fascinating insights into everyday life in ancient times; and shows us the very foundations of Western culture. Eureka! is both entertaining and illuminating, and will delight anyone who ever wanted to know more about our ancient ancestors.Trade ReviewLike everything else Jones writes, Eureka! is packed with intriguing nuggets for novices and experts alike... He flits between the beautiful and the banal, never missing a good story, whether it is about glorious death or industrious donkeys. -- Natalie Haynes * The Times *I love the fact that a book like this exists: populist and inclusive in intention, cultured in execution, and often cheerfully abstruse in content... Jones is a storyteller at heart, unashamed to entertain while educating by stealth, as all the best teachers do. * Spectator *Entertaining... a meze of Hellenic civilization in 500 bite-sized portions * Daily Telegraph *An entertaining and informative read that will be enjoyed by dusty scholars, bright-eyed Classics newbies and general readers alike. A sheer joy of a book. * The Lady *

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Book SynopsisIncoherent, obsessive and violent, Hitler's ideas nonetheless found an audience of millions and led to one of the most horrific and devastating conflicts of the 20th century. Taking two of Hitler's texts as his starting point, Neil Gregor discusses 'this second-rate mind of great power' and helps the reader to understand the nature and popular reception of Hitler's crude but hugely influential writings.

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Book SynopsisCelebrating 250 years of male self-expression, investigating the portraiture and wardrobe of the fashionable British manTrade Review“Fashionistas will pore over the archive illustrations in Dandy Style, including many gorgeous close-ups of detailed embroidery and tailoring.”—Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, “Best Books of the Week”“This book does not aim to offer a chronological history of 250 years of menswear, rather an exploration of topics and methodologies, offering the reader a range of approaches and an invitation to think about menswear as a serious topic of investigation, as the product of social, economic and cultural factors.”—Rachel Church, Journal of Dress History“Supersedes previous books on the subject in a fabulous celebration of 250 years of male self-expression, reinvention and sartorial creativity”—Embroidery Magazine“Bursts at the seams...with rich background and visual material, the latter establishing and also tentatively inviting historical associations”—Gareth Wyn Davies, World of Interiors“A welcome addition to any elegant gentleman’s library...In a series of photographs, engravings and plates, Dandy Style explores the visual luxe of the Dandy.”—Robin Dutt, Savile Row Style“With copious illustrations and photographs, [the book] charts the progress of male self-expression down the centuries, covering the life stories of men’s clothes, why they still wear suits, men’s style and subversion and the sheer extravagance of wealthy male clothing in the 18th century.”—Deirdre McQuillan, Irish Times Weekend“[An] excellent contribution to the history of British men's fashion…Shaun Cole and Miles Lambert have elegantly traced this history through their book and exhibition catalogue by giving the kind of detailed, considered attention to men's style and dress that unfortunately is still unusual.”—Danielle Sprecher, Costume

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Book SynopsisIn this pathbreaking work, now available in paperback, Charles Tilly challenges all previous formulations of state development in Europe. Specifically, Tilly charges that most available explanations fail because they do not account for the great variety of kinds of states which were viable at different stages of European history, and because they assume a unilinear path of state development resolving in today's national state.Trade Review"Closely argued and thought-provoking book." Economic History Review "Tilly's thesis is presented with great lucidity... contributed to perform a service not merely for historians, but for mankind." French History "An important, provocative theory, with much originality and richly documented .... extremely well written." American Journal of Sociology "This is a good and important book. It is well written, and it presents the complex history of European state formation over a time span of one thousand years in a most understandable way. With a profound knowledge of history and an amazing compository skill, Tilly takes his readers by the hand and leads them." International Review of Social HistoryTable of ContentsPreface ix 1 Cities and States in World History 1 States in History 1 Available Answers 5 Logics of Capital and Coercion 16 War Drives State Formation and Transformation 20 Long Trends and Interactions 28 Prospects 33 2 European Cities and States 38 Absent Europe 38 States and Coercion 45 Cities and Capital 47 City–State Interaction 51 State Physiologies 54 Liaisons Dangereuses 58 Alternative Forms of State 62 3 How War Made States, and Vice Versa 67 A Bifurcation of Violence 67 How States Controlled Coercion 68 Wars 70 Transitions 76 Seizing, Making, or Buying Coercion 84 Paying the Debts 87 The Long, Strong Arm of Empire 91 4 States and their Citizens 96 From Wasps to Locomotives 96 Bargaining, Rights, and Collective Action 99 The Institution of Direct Rule 103 The French Revolution: From Indirect to Direct Rule 107 State Expansion, Direct Rule, and Nationalism 114 Unintended Burdens 117 Militarization = Civilianization 122 5 Lineages of the National State 127 China and Europe 127 States and Cities Reexamined 130 Coercive Trajectories 137 Capitalist Trajectories 143 Trajectories of Capitalized Coercion 151 6 The European State System 161 The Connectedness of European States 161 The Ends of Wars 165 Members of the System 170 The Creation of a State-Linked World 181 How Wars Began 183 Six Salient Questions 187 7 Soldiers and States in 1992 192 Political Misdevelopment 192 The Impact and Heritage of World War II 197 The Ascent of Military Men 203 Today’s Military in Historical Perspective 205 Military Buildup 209 Soldiers in Power 211 How Did the Military Gain Power? 217 Envoi 224 References 228 Index 263

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Book SynopsisGeorgia is the most Western-looking state in today’s Near or Middle East and, despite having one of the longest, most turbulent histories in the Christian or Near Eastern world, no proper history of the country has been written for decades. Eminent historian Donald Rayfield redresses this balance in Edge of Empires, focusing not merely on the post-Soviet era, like many other books on Georgia, but on the whole of its history, accessing a mass of new material from the country’s recently opened archives. Rayfield describes Georgia’s swings between disintegration and unity, making full use of primary sources, many not available before in an English-language book. He examines the history of a country which, though small, stands at a crossroads between Russia and the Muslim world, between Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and is a dramatic example of state-building and, also, of tragic political mistakes.Trade ReviewA Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2013; `The most comprehensive and up-to-date history of Georgia available in English. This tour de force explains why the small south Caucasus nation looks longingly to the west. A work of consummate erudition from Britain’s foremost expert on Georgian history and literature.’ – Tony Barber, `Books of the Year’, Financial Times; `Donald Rayfield’s Edge of Empires is a wonderful history of Georgia, lifting the lid on that country’s torrid, rambunctious past (and present). Impeccably researched, limpidly written and full of insight.’– William Boyd, Books of the Year, The Guardian; `Donald Rayfield’s panoramic Edge of Empires is an impressive work that helps us understand why this south Caucasus nation of 6.4m people lodged in a hostile and unstable neighbourhood looks so longingly to the West . . . Edge of Empires is the most wide-ranging and reliable history of Georgia one is likely to find for many years to come.’ – Financial Times; `[An] ambitious and comprehensive history of a complex country . . . Mr Rayfield’s powerful theme is of brief periods of prosperity and security, ended by invasion, conquest, looting and despoliation.’– The Economist; `Basing his account on Georgain chronicles, secondary literature and archival materials as well as his in-depth knowledge of Georgian language and literature, Rayfield unleashes a whirlwind of battles, victories and defeats, invasions and annexations, dynastic arrangements, political shenanigans, and social and cultural changes . . . accompanied by a helpful chronology, detailed maps and dynastic tables.’ – TLS; `Rayfield offers the most comprehensive and detailed survey history of the country of Georgia to date. Although David Marshall Lang (1962), William Edward David Allen (1932), Kalistrat Salia (1983), and Ronald Grigor Suny (1989) have all written survey histories of Georgia in the past, Rayfield’s is the only one that takes readers from the region’s prehistory all the way up to recent demonstrations in 2011 against Georgia’s current government under Mikheil Saakashvili . . . An excellent and indispensible reference for libraries, students, researchers, and general readers. Essential.’ – Choice; `in its depth and attention to detail of more or less the whole of recorded Georgian history, Rayfield has produced the definitive one-volume work.’ – European History Quarterly; `Rayfield begins with archaeology and finishes with the upheavals of 2012. Breathtaking and breathless, his book is the equivalent of watching Shakespeare’s history plays in fast-forward mode or being put on the back of a Georgian steed and charged across the mountains of Khevsureti at daredevil speed.’– International Affairs; `This is a valuable work on a country that has not generally received sufficient attention in the literature. Rayfield, an expert on the twentieth century, is an excellent choice for the volume.’ – European Review of History; `This is a courageous book. In four hundred pages or so, the author attempts to chronicle the history of Georgia and Georgians over two millennia, bringing us in its final chapter to the closing years of the Saakashvili era in 2009–10. There is no doubt that Donald Rayfield is the man to tackle this task, a linguist and historian who speaks Georgian and has studied its culture and politics for over three decades. The text is bright, straightforward and speckled with irony and humour . . . Rayfield takes us through two thousand years of Georgian history with pace and efficiency.’ – Slavonic and Eastern European Review; `This book will fascinate anyone interested in the turbulent, tangled past of the Georgians.’ – Reviews in History; `Donald Rayfield is the English speaking world’s incomparable guide to Georgia’s language, literature and history. He revels in its fascinating complexities and, as we read him, so do we.’ – Thomas de Waal, author of The Caucasus: An Introduction

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Book Synopsis"Titanic" delves into the astonishing facts surrounding the tragedy of 1912 and is essential for anyone wishing to separate myth from reality. With a range of trivia including facts about the construction of the vessel deemed to be 'unsinkable', the information is presented in an interesting and engaging way to embrace a wide variety of readers. The book would make the ideal gift for any Titanic fan, or those interested in the history of the ship. The "Amazing And Extraordinary Facts" series presents interesting, surprising and little-known facts and stories about a wide range of topics which are guaranteed to inform, absorb and entertain in equal measure.Table of ContentsIntroduction Harland and Wolff: Belfast's steely identity - The birthplace of Titanic From Liverpool to Southampton via bankruptcy - The White Star Line's chequered history Building for comfort not speed - Blue Riband takes a back seat American-financed, American-owned... - How British was Titanic? Heavy metal - The Olympic class on the stocks Slip sliding away - Launch day It's big - Largest moving man-made object on Earth Ill-starred sister? - The Olympic and the origins of the `unsinkable' description The epitome of safety at sea - Titanic's state of the art design philosophy The eerie foresight of Robertson and Stead - Predictions of the disaster? A doomed ship? - Nonsense or truth? A quick jaunt down the lough - Titanic's trials - and a baptism of fire? `Not very good material for a story' - The confident Captain Smith The embodiment of luxury afloat - Titanic's unique selling points Who sailed on the Titanic? - And where did they come from? How many? - And in what class? Proud point of departure - Southampton for the first and last time Biscuit and grog of the highest quality - Provisioning the world's most luxurious ship A room of one's own - Accommodation aboard Titanic The points of no return - Getting on at Cherbourg and Queenstown Unusual ways of boarding - Stories of stowaways and kidnappings Rearranging the deckchairs... - Pastimes aboard ship Fit to bust - What's for dinner? And where? Morse, Marconi and messaging - The value of wireless aboard ship Flags and call-signs - How Titanic identified herself at sea You have been warned - Ice warnings received - and ignored? `Ice, right ahead' - Up in the crow's nest with the lookouts The gash that was actually a buckle - What's the real damage? The chief designer of the Titanic, Thomas Andrews - There at the beginning, there at the end Bad tidings - The men in the mail room Binoculars and searchlights - Would they have made a difference? That iceberg - Where is it now? CQD or SOS? - Titanic's distress calls The show must go on - The Titanic's stoic musicians Signalling to the end - The scene in the wireless room Make that the last verse... - The musicians' last hurrah `Be British, boys, be British!' - The last words and deeds of Captain Smith `A queer feeling' - The unsettled chief officer, Henry Wilde The evacuation under way - The scandal of the half-filled lifeboats Women, children... - And Americans first? Titanic's last hour - The giant slips under the waves The Strauses - Together forever You can't take it with you... - John Jacob Astor IV From steerage to dressing Guggenheim - Bedroom steward Henry Etches Hypothermia or drowning? - Life expectancy in the North Atlantic The Carpathia to the rescue - Cunard collects the casualties The tragic inactivity of the Californian - What was she doing? The news spreads... - Inaccurately The Mackay-Bennett and Halifax - Bringing the dead back to shore Titanic's grim statistics - Who lived and who died The authorities investigate - The US and British inquiries Taking the rough with the smooth - How did White Star treat Third class passengers? Hindsight is a wonderful thing - The question of Captain Smith's negligence Anyone seen my Marmalade Machine? - The curious possessions lost aboard Titanic The tangled bureaucracy of death - Why the official tolls don't match up Southampton mourns - A fitting maritime memorial Cold steel - Was the Titanic's hull too brittle in cold water? It's all a question of luck - The indomitable Violet Jessop On the silver screen - Titanic in the cinema Titanic back under the hammer - The trade in memorabilia Secret assignment for Ballard - Cold War casualties are proving ground for Titanic search Scattered across the sea-bed - The resting places of the wreck The slumbering giant disturbed - The ethical questions of visiting the wreck The last survivors of the Titanic - Lillian Asplund and Millvina Dean Titanic sails up the Thames - Tragedy, tourism and trade `Rusticles' - What's eating the Titanic? Bibliography Web resources Index

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Book SynopsisMedicine and Healing in the Pre-Modern West traces the history of medicine and medical practice from Ancient Egypt through to the end of the Middle Ages. Featuring nearly one hundred primary documents and images, this book introduces students and scholars to the words and ideas of prominent physicians and humble healers, men and women, from across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. Each of the ten chronological and thematic chapters is given a significant historical introduction, in which each primary source is described in its original context. Many of the included source texts are newly translated by the editor, some of them appearing in English for the first time.Key Features The first history of medicine reader to cover both Antiquity and the Middle Ages in a single volume. Nearly one hundred primary sources, including several images. Each topic and reading is accompanied by an introduction from the editor, and explanatory annotations are included throughout to clarify unfamiliar concepts. Significant coverage of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim cultures in the Middle Ages. Many of the primary sources are newly translated, some of them available in English for the first time. Trade Review“We finally have a sorely needed volume of primary sources that illustrates the breadth, depth, vibrancy, and development of premodern medical thinking. Winston Black has assembled a remarkable collection of key texts and provided clear and concise introductions that contextualize the sources and highlight their significance. Unfamiliar terms and references are conveniently explained in the margins, making the already clear translations even more readable. Any course that addresses premodern health or healing will find this coherent, expertly curated, and accessible set of sources absolutely essential.” — Frederick Gibbs, University of New Mexico“Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West is a welcome addition to the growing corpus of primary-source collections dealing with the history of science and medicine. Providing an eclectic range of numerous documents from the earliest civilizations in the Mediterranean basin through the central Middle Ages, the book can serve as a general grounding in the subject, as a supplemental text for survey courses, or as a source for further individualized research. The source texts—many of which are translated into English for the first time—come prefaced with helpful thematic overviews, and each text receives its own introduction. Medicine and Healing presents a nuanced yet manageable selection of sources; students will find it eminently fascinating.” — Christine Senecal, Shippensburg University“Winston Black has chosen an intriguing array of primary sources on themes such as religious healing, ancient Egyptian medicine, the Islamicate world, surgery, women’s medicine, and charms and magical medicine. Clear headnotes, careful definitions of technical or unfamiliar terms, and topic overviews will help undergraduates and new graduate students alike. Teaching early medicine just got easier!” — Mary Fissell, Johns Hopkins University“In Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West: A History in Documents, Black draws on his strengths as a historian of medicine and religion to provide a concise and accessible treatment of the development of the medical arts from Antiquity to the Late Medieval Period. … As it is meant as an introduction to the topic, Medicine and Healing in the Premodern West does not stray from its path and for this reason it is a welcome exemplar of what can be achieved in future contributions of introductory works on the history of science and medicine.” — Michael Lawson University of California-Berkeley, Journal of the Southern Association for the History of Medicine and ScienceTable of Contents Introduction Chronology Questions to Consider Documents 1. The Earliest Medical Writings of the Near East and Mediterranean (ca.2000-700 BCE) 1. The Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus 2. Diagnosis in Ancient Egypt: The Ebers Papyrus 3. A Babylonian Spell against Fever 4. Plague as Divine Punishment in Homer’s Iliad 5. Gods as the Source of Disease: Hesiod, Works and Days 6. Violence and Healing in Homeric Greece 2. Medicine and Healing among the Ancient Greeks (ca.500 BCE – 200 CE) Rational Medicine in the Age of Hippocrates 7. Hippocratic Corpus, Nature of Man 8. Plato on the Nature of Disease: Timaeus 9. Thucydides and the Plague of Athens, 430 BCE 10. Hippocratic Corpus, Aphorisms 11. Hippocratic Corpus, Airs, Waters, and Places 12. Case Histories the Hippocratic Epidemics Asclepius, the God of Physicians 13. The Hippocratic Oath 14. Pindar: Apollo leaves Asclepius with Chiron the Centaur 15. Celsus celebrates Asclepius as a Man 16. A Greek anatomical votive plaque 17. Aelius Aristides dreams of Asclepius 18. An Egyptian God in Greek Dress in a Hellenistic Papyrus 3. Professional Medicine in the Roman Mediterranean (ca.1-300 CE) 19. Galen, On the Medical Sects 20. Aretaeus the Cappadocian on the Difficult Case of Tetanus 21. Rufus of Ephesus, Medical Questions: Interrogation of the Patient 22. Celsus: A Healthy Regimen without Doctors 23. Dioscorides and the Science of Pharmacology 24. Galen, the Boastful Practitioner: On the Affected Places 25. Galen, On Black Bile: Praising and Rewriting Hippocrates 26. Herodian on a plague in the Roman Empire 4. Practical Medicine for the Roman Family and Home (ca.100-500 CE) 27. Varro, De re rustica: An early germ theory? 28. Vegetius, De re militari: Preserving the Health of Imperial Troops 29. The Legend of Agnodike, a Greek midwife and physician 30. Soranus of Ephesus: Instructions for Midwives 31. Cato the Elder’s Roman remedies: Cabbage, Wine, and Magic 32. Pliny the Elder’s homespun medicine: Remedies derived from Wool 33. Popular medicine in verse: Liber medicinalis 5. Distilling Classical Medicine in Late Antiquity (ca.300-700 CE) 34. Oribasius: A Galenic Diet in the Later Roman Empire 35. Anthimus to King Theoderic, On the Observance of Diet 36. A Medieval Primer in Ancient Medicine by St. Isidore of Seville 37. Medicine of Pliny for the Informed Traveler 38. The Herbarius of Apuleius Platonicus 39. Marcellus and His Empirical Handbook of Medicines 40. The Drug Theory of Paul of Aegina 6. Medical Diversity in the Early Middle Ages (ca.600-1000 CE) Monotheism and Medicine 41. The Oath of Asaph, a Jewish Physician’s Oath 42. A Christianized Hippocratic Oath 43. Medicine and Diet in the Rule of St. Benedict 44. Roman Doctors as Christian Saints: Cosmas and Damian 45. Islamic Medicine of the Prophet: Sunan Abu Duwud Early Medieval Responses to Plague and Pestilence 46. Evagrius Scholasticus on the Plague of Justinian 47. Gregory of Tours on Epidemic Disease and the Sickness of Kings 48. A Votive Mass against Pestilence Old English Medicine: Superstition or Empiricism? 49. The Nine Herbs Charm, from the Old English Lacnunga 50. Bald’s Leechbook: Herbal remedies for eye problems 51. Medical Prognostics in Anglo-Saxon England 7. The Arabic Tradition of Learned Medicine (ca.900-1400 CE) 52. An Introduction to Rational Medicine: Hunayn ibn Ishaq’s Isagoge 53. Avicenna, The Canon of Medicine 54. Avicenna on Prognosis through Urine 55. Maimonides and Galen on the Meaning of the Pulse 56. Al-Razi, Case Studies in the Spirit of Hippocrates 57. Usamah ibn Munqidh: A Muslim view of Frankish Medicine 58. Al-Razi on Diagnosis and Treatment for Smallpox and Measles 59. Pilgrim Medicine: Qust? ibn L?q? on “The Little Dragon of Medina” 60. Ancient Greeks in Later Medieval Prophetic Medicine: al-Tibb al-nabawi 8. Learned Medicine in High Medieval Europe (ca.1000-1400 CE) Humours, Complexion, and Uroscopy 61. A Clever Duke and a Cleverer Physician in the Tenth Century 62. Constantine the African, Pantegni: Understanding Complexion 63. Humoural Medicine in Verse: The Salernitan Regimen of Health 64. A Medieval Urine Wheel 65. Constantine the African with a Urine Glass Explaining Diseases 66. Diagnosing Lovesickness: Constantine the African’s Medicalized Emotions 67. Platearius on Leprosy in Theory and Practice 68. Guy de Chauliac’s personal experience with the Black Death Observation and Authority 69. Trota of Salerno as a Medical Master 70. Medical Education in High Medieval Europe (Three Accounts) 71. Licenses for Male and Female Surgeons in Medieval Naples 72. A Woman Physician on Trial in Medieval Paris, 1322 9. Medical Practice in the High Middle Ages (ca.1000-1400 CE) Herbalism and Pharmacology 73. Macer Floridus, On the Virtues of Herbs 74. Henry of Huntingdon, Herbalism in The English Garden 75. Matthaeus Platearius: Rationalizing Simple and Compound Medicines Arabic and Latin Surgery 76. Learned Surgery: Albucasis on the Treatment of Cataracts 77. Applying Medical Theory to Wound Treatment: Guy de Chauliac 78. Training and Decorum for the Learned Surgeon Medieval Obstetrics and Gynecology 79. Copho: Anatomy of the uterus, learned from a pig 80. A Brief Guide to Uroscopy of Women 81. Contraceptives in the Canon of Avicenna 82. St. Hildegard of Bingen: A Moralized Explanation of Menstruation 83. Trotula: Treating Retention of the Period in Medieval Italy 84. A Medieval Hebrew Treatise on Difficult Births 10. Medicine and the Supernatural: Competitors or Partners? (ca.1000-1400 CE) 85. A Doctor and a Saint in Early Salerno 86. The Life of Saint Milburga: Physicians and Saints, Healing Together? 87. Doctors and Miracles in the Canonization of Lady Delphine 88. Medieval Jewish Magical Medicine 89. Medieval Christian Healing Charms 90. John Arderne, Astrological Instructions for the Surgeon 91. Image: Astrological Bloodletting Man

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Book SynopsisReveals a little-known history of 1917: the Ukrainian anarcho-communist MakhnovistsTrade Review'Utilising numerous sources, some only recently available, Colin Darch produces an admirably lucid account of complex events, supported by penetrating analysis' -- Gary Littlejohn, author of 'A Sociology of the Soviet Union' (1984)'A timely and welcome contribution. Detailed and balanced, Darch's narrative succumbs to neither a romanticisation nor demonisation of Makhno. Readers will encounter a multifaceted Makhno attempting to navigate his movement through the furies of revolution and civil war' -- Sean Patterson, author of 'Makhno and Memory: Anarchist and Mennonite Narratives of Ukraine’s Civil War, 1917-1921''Before Rojava, before Spain, there was Ukraine. Darch's brilliant study recovers the intertwined stories of the anarchist Nestor Makhno, factory worker and son of freed serfs, and the revolution that swept Ukraine. This highly recommended study of an epic time shows another revolution was possible’ -- Lucien van der Walt, Professor of Economic & Industrial Sociology, Rhodes UniversityTable of ContentsList of Maps List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements The Deep Roots of Rural Discontent: Guliaipole, 1905–17 The Turning Point: Organising Resistance to the German Invasion, 1918 Brigade Commander and Partisan: Makhno’s Campaigns against Denikin, January–May 1919 Betrayal in the Heat of Battle? The Red–Black Alliance Falls Apart, May–September 1919 The Long March West and the Battle at Peregonovka Red versus White, Red versus Green: The Bolsheviks Assert Control The Last Act: Alliance at Starobel’sk, Wrangel’s Defeat, and Betrayal at Perekop The Bitter Politics of the Long Exile: Romania, Poland, Germany, and France, 1921–34 Why Anarchism? Why Ukraine? Contextualising Makhnovshchina Epilogue: The Reframing of Makhno for the Twenty-First Century Notes Index

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Book SynopsisGreen men are figures or heads that were carved in churches, abbeys and cathedrals from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. This book discusses the origins and definitions of these figures and traces their many declines and revivals throughout history. It is suitable for any church history enthusiast.Table of Contents?Origins and Definitions /Romanesque Churches /Gothic Architecture /Church Furnishings /After the Reformation /Further Reading /Places to Visit /Indexr

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Book SynopsisThe Italian Renaissance has come to occupy an almost mythical place in the popular imagination. The outsized reputations of the best-known figures from the period—Michelangelo, Niccolo Machiavelli, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Pope Julius II, Isabella d'Este, and so many others—engender a kind of wonder. How could so many geniuses or exceptional characters be produced by one small territory near the extreme south of Europe at a moment when much of the rest of the continent still labored under the restrictions of the Middle Ages? How did so many of the driving principles behind Western civilization emerge during this period—and how were they defined and developed? And why is it that geniuses such as Leonardo, Raphael, Petrarch, Brunelleschi, Bramante, and Palladio all sustain their towering authority to this day? To answer these questions, Kenneth Bartlett delves into the lives and works of the artists, patrons, and intellectuals—the privileged, educated, influential elites—who created a rarefied world of power, money, and sophisticated talent in which individual curiosity and skill were prized above all else. The result is a dynamic, highly readable, copiously illustrated history of the Renaissance in Italy—and of the artists that gave birth to some of the most enduring ideas and artifacts of Western civilization.Trade Review"An elegant tour of the republics and princely courts where the Italian Renaissance flourished. Bartlett presents a survey of glittering cultural, literary, and artistic achievements, never losing sight of the important political contexts in which they were made. The whole sweep of the Italian Renaissance—the fabulous wealth of its merchants, the ruthless schemes of its princes, the high ideals of its poets and writers, the astonishing works of its artists and architects, the struggles of its visionaries and reformers—comes into focus." —Margaret Meserve, University of Notre Dame"Bartlett looks at the Renaissance in a new and original way. Instead of tracing a history of the Renaissance in Italy, as do most of the studies available today, Bartlett's book is focused on key people and city states, from Petrarch and his era to the 'End of the Renaissance in Rome,' during the pontificate of Pope Sixtus V from 1585 to 1590. The twenty-two chapters are exhaustive and provide an excellent and novel view of the Italian Renaissance. This book is well thought out, clearly developed, and beautifully written. I recommend it to anyone interested in the culture of one of the most interesting periods of early modern European history." —Massimo Ciavolella, University of California, Los Angeles"A lively study informed by the latest international scholarship. Building on his years of experience as a teacher and a guide for travelers to Italy, Bartlett has created a well-written and up-to-date history of the high culture of the period, 'an exploration of the Italian Renaissance guided by particular moments and men—and a few remarkable women.' Bartlett shows how the unique artistic and cultural flowering of the Renaissance fit with the interests and outlooks of the elites who dominated the various Italian cities. His case studies range well beyond the usual Florentine and Roman experiences to include many of the smaller, but equally exciting, courts of northern and central Italy. The studies themselves are freestanding and could easily be used by travelers as introductions to these various cities." —Duane Osheim, The University of Virginia"Kenneth Bartlett (Univ. of Toronto, Canada), a prolific writer on Italy, the Renaissance, and humanism, and Gillian Bartlett, an author and educator, have produced a volume that will appeal to many scholars. Their book is organized as a series of biographies of prominent figures from the period—including Petrarch, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo, among others—and each chapter concludes with examples of appropriate works of art, accompanied by useful commentaries. The authors begin with Petrarch, describing how he introduced and popularized concepts that defined humanism. Geographically, Bartlett and Bartlett also focus more on minor states, such as Naples, than is customary, although they ultimately chart their narrative to Counter-Reformation Rome, where humanism died, leaving its traces in art and architecture. Happily, the spirit of humanism also survived elsewhere, to enrich our lives today. . . . [T]hose with some background knowledge will be fascinated by this beautifully written text, and will hopefully appreciate the poetic rhythm of the prose, appropriate for a book that celebrates Cicero, the ultimate Latin stylist. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readership levels." —W. L. Urban, emeritus, Monmouth College (IL), in Choice"Kenneth R. Bartlett and Gillian C. Bartlett have produced an original and elegant history of the Renaissance in Italy by concentrating on significant figures and city states from the time of Petrarch to that of Pope Sixtus V. The structure of the book is clear and illuminating. The five parts and twenty-two chapters are informative and allow some depth; they are focused and not the usual survey."—Jonathan Locke Hart, Shandong University, in Renaissance and Reformation"Kenneth Bartlett and Gillian Bartlett have executed a fine accomplishment. They have gathered together an enormous amount of history into a volume of 364 pages, including a tasty selection of source documents, and an extensive bibliography and index. The writing is elegantly compact without sacrificing style or clarity and carries the Renaissance narrative with color and interest while not omitting essential detail. This book would be ideally recom­mended as a text for a survey course of Italian, especially Florentine, history, or to any reader seeking to understand the complicated issues of a complicated period of seminal artistic expression and unprecedented political clashes."—David R. Bass, in Sixteenth Century Journal"From a pedagogical standpoint, The Renaissance in Italy is an extremely effective introduction to the politics, thought, culture, and production of early modern Italy. The book could easily serve as a foundational text for an undergraduate history elective on the Italian Renaissance; its frequent use of images and quotations from primary sources make the text extremely readable. Likewise, the book’s chapters could easily be excerpted for an introduction to the Renaissance within the context of a larger European civilization core or survey course. The first two parts in particular, on humanism and Florence, seem written with a direct eye towards providing a generalist audience with a comprehensive yet understandable introduction to the period. The Bartletts’ writing style is engaging and, most importantly, narrativized." "The Renaissance in Italy is an exceptional beginner’s introduction to the Italian Renaissance, suitable for the particular pedagogical challenges facing teachers of early modern Italy. . . . [I]t clearly succeeds in what I take to be its primary goal: to get those who have a cursory knowledge of the Italian Renaissance to care about the period and to instill in those newcomers a passion to learn more—a very worthy goal, well-achieved." —John-Paul Heil, in Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching (SMART)

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Book SynopsisEncompasses the entire life of Ivan the Terrible and views him in the context of his own time. Notorious for a policy of unrestrained terror - and for killing his own son - his reign was devastating for Russia and her people. This book illuminates the reign and the politics, as well as Ivan's marriages and disordered personality.Trade Review"A simply brilliant book... a colossal achievement of magisterial scholarship, beautifully readable prose and superb characterisation... Professor Isabel de Madariaga remains the empress of Russian historians" Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard "Almost every page of de Madariaga's magnificent biography is illuminated by the wisdom gained by its author from a lifetime of learning and reflection about the place of Russia in the wider world." Orlando Figes, New York Review of Books "A significant biography of the 16th-century Russian czar... Likely to become the definitive work on Ivan for some time." Publishers Weekly (starred review) "De Madariaga addresses knowledgeable readers, but the beautiful prose of this great book will tempt all others. Highly recommended." Choice"

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Book SynopsisTalented historian Maya Jasanoff offers an alternative history of the British Empire. It is not about conquest but rather a collection of startling and fascinating personal accounts of cross-cultural exchange from those who found themselves on the edges of Empire.A Palladian mansion filled with Western art in the centre of old Calcutta, the Mughal Emperor's letters in an archive in the French Alps, the names of Italian adventurers scratched into the walls of Egyptian temples: in this imaginative book, Maya Jasanoff delves into the stories behind artefacts like these to uncover the lives of collectors in India and Egypt who lived on the frontiers of European empire. Edge of Empire' traces their exploits to tell an intimate history of imperialism.Written and researched on four continents, Edge of Empire' tells a story about the making of European empires, ones that break away from the grand narratives of power, exploitation, and resistance, to delve into the personal dimensions of imperTrade Review‘Maya Jasanoff…triumphs in this memorable debut. This is partly because, mirroring her subject, she has adopted a vivacious methodology that defies category. Jasanoff’s investigation of the world that made her evokes the midday sun, the unforgettable stench and blare of the East, but populates it with characters to whom the reader can relate, as strange as fiction, but actually found in real life.’ Robert McCrum, Observer ‘This is a very clever and wonderfully researched and written book which illuminates French as well as British imperial existence, artifacts and culture, and which looks at all the actors invoved in a vivid and nuanced fashion. An original new voice.’ Linda Colley ‘This is an extraordinary debut. Maya Jasanoff is one of the most exciting historians to emerge in years. Her crackling prose and outstanding research have resulted in a ground-breaking book. “Edge of Empire” is a “must-read”.’ Amanda Foreman, author of ‘Georgina Duchess of Devonshire’

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Book SynopsisA family story of blood and memory and the haunting power of the past.2018 WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER EWART-BIGGS MEMORIAL PRIZE2017 WINNER OF THE NON-FICTION IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARDA SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERAfter nearly three decades reporting conflict from all over the world for the BBC, Fergal Keane has gone home to Ireland to tell a story that lies at the root of his fascination with war. It is a family story of war and love, and how the ghosts of the past return to shape the present.Wounds is a powerful memoir about Irish people who found themselves caught up in the revolution that followed the 1916 Rising, and in the pitiless violence of civil war in north Kerry after the British left in 1922.It is the story of Keane's grandmother Hannah Purtill, her brother Mick and his friend Con Brosnan, and how they and their neighbours took up guns to fight the British Empire and create an independent Ireland. And it is the story of another Irishman, Tobias O'Sullivan, who fought against them as a policeman because he believed it was his duty to uphold the law of his country.Many thousands of people took part in the War of Independence and the Civil War that followed. Whatever side they chose, all were changed in some way by the costs of violence. Keane uses the experiences of his ancestral homeland in north Kerry to examine why people will kill for a cause and how the act of killing reverberates through the generations.Trade Review‘Few books this year have been as moving Keane’s account of his family’s experience during the conflicts that tore Ireland apart… Keane writes with an impeccable eye for details and a profound sensitivity to human suffering’ Books of the Year, Sunday Times, Dominic Sandrook ‘While Keane is acutely aware of the allure and the danger of myth, he also has an objective reporter’s eye for the human tragedies of those caught up in the heightening viciousness … Ireland has not always borne in mind all its dead. To its great credit, this deeply absorbing book does’ The Times ‘Couldn’t put down the brilliant, moving, eye-opening book Wounds by Fergal Keane. You don’t need interest in Irish history to be swept away by characters who leap off page, facing impossible choices in the struggle for dignity and independence’ Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell ‘A fine and troubling book … Keane is a gifted writer whose scarifying experiences in war zones have not coarsened his humanity. Nor does his emotional reaction to terrible cruelty lessen his determination to tell the truth. He admits here to just one bias: “a loathing of war and of all who celebrate the killing of their fellow men and women”. He has unsparingly used his family history to show how many of us, in certain circumstances, might be killers and worse. Even in our own backyards’ Sunday Times

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Book SynopsisAS SEEN IN THE TIMES AND UPDATED WITH NEW MATERIALThe Sunday Times and New York Times bestsellerTHE ROYAL BOOK OF THE YEAR' Daily MailTHIS CRISIS IS AS BIG AS THE ABDICATION SAYS LACEY, HISTORICAL ADVISOR TO THE CROWN.The world has watched Prince William and Prince Harry since they were born. Raised by Princess Diana to be the closest of brothers, how have the boy princes grown into very different, now distanced men?From royal expert and bestselling author Robert Lacey, this book is an unparalleled insider account of tumult and secrecy revealing the untold details of William and Harry's early closeness then estrangement. It asks what happens when two sons are raised for vastly different futures one burdened with the responsibility of one day becoming king, the other with the knowledge that he will always remain spare.How have William and Harry each formed their idea of a modern royal's duty and how they should behave? Were the seeds of damage sowed as Prince Charles and Diana's marriTrade Review PRAISE FOR BATTLE OF BROTHERS ‘They were dubbed the Fab Four, but with a smitten Harry exploding at perceived slights to Meghan, the Princes were torn apart by anger that survives today, as Robert Lacey reveals in the royal book of the year’Daily Mail ‘You've read Finding Freedom – now discover the whole story’Tatler ‘A riveting, well researched book’Piers Morgan ‘A portrayal of the royal heir and the spare that rebalances our perceptions of both … It may also convince some readers that Harry made the right decision’Sunday Times ‘A poignant account of the princes’ unhappy childhood’The Times PRAISE FOR ROBERT LACEY’S PREVIOUS BOOKS 'Robert Lacey is the King of royal biographers'Kitty Kelley 'A unique insight… Respected for the depth and extend of his research and contacts, Robert Lacey knows arguably more about the Queen than any other commentator writing today'Daily Mail 'Robert Lacey makes you feel like you're right there, in the palace, in the castle’Vanity Fair ‘Lacey has arranged his material beautifully; not one of these 400 pages is tiresome or dull’Evening Standard ‘[Lacey] has an eye for the telling image … Smart, thorough and well crafted, it is absolutely of its time’Scotsman ‘Has bestseller written all over it’Observer ‘Compulsively readable’Sunday Telegraph 'Beautifully written and thought-provoking … Robert Lacey has written a highly accomplished book which should go into the bags of anyone who has to travel to the kingdom'Literary Review 'Incisive … The real triumph of this book … is the way it peels away the layers of mystery that shroud a civil society of which we have almost no knowledge'Sunday Times

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Book SynopsisGyles Brandreth's is a varied career, from his role as Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major's government to Children's publisher with Andre Deutsch. Brandreth's Breaking the Code: Westminster Diaries has been described as 'by far the best political diary of recent years, far more perceptive and revealing than Alan Clarke's' Times. His last book, Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage, published by Century, was a Sunday Times bestseller. He lives with his family in London.Trade ReviewBOOK OF THE YEAR ... Riveting, gossipy and touching * Mail on Sunday *Could this be the best book ever written about the Royal Family? ... A masterpiece. * Sunday Express *Utterly fascinating * Andrew Marr, Start the Week *Highly accomplished ... there is much here to entertain and inform * Sunday Telegraph *Completely fascinating - written by the man who really knows * Richard and Judy *

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Book SynopsisBad Faith tells the story of one of history''s most despicable villains and conmen - Louis Darquier, Nazi collaborator and ''Commissioner for Jewish Affairs'', who dissembled his way to power in the Vichy government and was responsible for sending thousands of children to the gas chambers. After the war he left France, never to be brought to justice. Early on in his career Louis married the alcoholic Myrtle Jones from Tasmania, equally practised in the arts of fantasy and deception, and together they had a child, Anne whom they abandoned in England. Her tragic story is woven through the narrative. In Carmen Callil''s masterful, elegiac and sometimes darkly comic account, Darquier''s rise during the years leading up to the Second World War mirrors the rise of French anti-Semitism. Epic, haunting, the product of extraordinary research, this is a study in powerlessness, hatred and the role of remembrance.Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.Trade ReviewA superb exploration of the fractured mind of French anti-Semitism -- Simon Heffer * Literary Review *The story she has uncovered is so strange and powerful that it would be an unusual reader who was not profoundly moved -- Kathryn Hughes * Mail on Sunday *A work of phenomenally thorough, generous and humane scholarship....Callil understands anguish, and lays bare its causes with clarity and precision. Bad Faith exemplifies what Primo Levi called the 'continuous intellectual and moral effort' that is the only adequate response to the events described here -- Hilary Spurling * Daily Telegraph *Bad Faith is a book of passion and anger which, nonetheless, manages to keep its head as a significant work of history -- Mark Bostridge * Independent on Sunday *We cannot know what Anne Darquier would have thought of Callil's book, but my guess is that she would have been as moved, astonished and impressed as any other reader -- Ruth Scurr * The Times *

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Book SynopsisThis is the incredible rise and unbelievable fall of a woman whose energy and ambition is often overshadowed by Napoleon's military might. In this triumphant biography, Kate Williams tells Josephine's searing story, of sexual obsession, politics and surviving as a woman in a man's world.Abandoned in Paris by her aristocratic husband, Josephine''s future did not look promising. But while her friends and contemporaries were sent to the guillotine during the Terror that followed the Revolution, she survived prison and emerged as the doyenne of a wildly debauched party scene, surprising everybody when she encouraged the advances of a short, marginalised Corsican soldier, six years her junior. Josephine, the fabulous hostess and skilled diplomat, was the perfect consort to the ambitious but obnoxious Napoleon. With her by his side, he became the greatest man in Europe, the Supreme Emperor; and she amassed a jewellery box with more diamonds than Marie Antoinette's. But as Trade ReviewKate Williams' entrancing biography of Josephine is a sparkling account of this most fallible and endearing of women. * Daily Mail *Williams is the Cole Porter of 18th century history. Her serious and thorough investigation is presented in an accessible and playful way. * The Times *A whirlwind tour of French history. -- Virginia Rounding * Telegraph *Scintillating . . . Williams illuminates [Josephine's character] with skill. * Country Life *

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Book SynopsisA powerful prescient memoir of life in 1970s Britain for a child of Windrush generation parents. ''This book is a classic'' Sunday TelegraphTo his fellow West Indians who assemble every weekend for the all-night poker game at Mrs Knight''s, he is always known as Bageye. There aren''t very many black men in Luton in 1972 and most of them gather there: Summer Wear, Pioneer, Anxious, Tidy Boots - each has his nickname. Bageye already finds it a struggle to feed his family on his wage from Vauxhall Motors, but now his wife Blossom has set her heart on her sons going to private school and she will not settle for anything less.This is the story of a father seen through the eyes of his ten-year-old son. It's a wry and gentle comedy about unfulfilling day jobs and late night poTrade ReviewI loved every word * Independent *[A] vivid and bittersweet window into a vanished world of 1970s suburbia * Metro *A quietly unforgettable book * Guardian *A fabulous example of storytelling * Glasgow Herald *A classic * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisAlex Kershaw is the author of seven previous books, including the bestsellers The Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter. He has written for several British newspapers, including the Guardian, Independent and Sunday Times. Born in York, England, he now lives in America with his wife and son.Trade ReviewExceptional... A worthy addition to vibrant classics of small-unit history like Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. * Wall Street Journal *Gripping… Kershaw has produced another gem, with vivid combat scenes and an admirable character in the leading role. * Express *A poignant war story that culminates in the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp of Dachau… [A] fast-paced examination of a dedicated officer navigating – and somehow surviving – World War II. * Washington Post *

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Book SynopsisSimon Heffer was born in 1960. He read English at Cambridge and took a PhD in modern history at that university. His previous books include: Moral Desperado: A Life of Thomas Carlyle, Like the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell, Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII, Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention of England, Vaughan Williams, Strictly English, A Short History of Power, Simply English and High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain. In a thirty-year career in Fleet Street, he has held senior editorial positions on The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, and is now a columnist for The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.Trade ReviewA riveting account of the pre-First World War years . . . A gloriously rich history . . . Balanced and judicious . . . The Age of Decadence is an enormously impressive and enjoyable read. -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *Heffer has given us a magnificent account of a less than magnificent epoch . . . Vital and energetic. -- Jonathan Meades * Literary Review *Magisterial. -- Sam Leith * Spectator *The Age of Decadence is an impressively well-constructed book . . . Heffer weaves his wonderfully diverse strands of inquiry into a devastating critique of prewar Britain . . . Heffer’s criticism of unbridled traditionalism is devastating and convincing. It’s also disturbingly relevant to the world in which we live. * The Times *Mr Heffer combines a scholar’s command of the primary literature with a journalist’s eye for detail. He writes with admirable sensitivity about both music and literature: a better account of Elgar or Arnold Bennett would be hard to find. He does a brilliant job of exposing the rot beneath the glittering surface of late Victorian and Edwardian Britain . . . He writes with such exuberance – indeed with such Edwardian swagger – that he leaves the reader looking forward to his next volume. * The Economist *

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Book Synopsis''This extraordinary book brings to life an astonishing place. Beautiful prose renders brutality vivid'' The Times - BOOK OF THE WEEK From Peter the Great to Putin, this is the unforgettable story of St Petersburg one of the most magical, menacing and influential cities in the world. St Petersburg has always felt like an impossible metropolis, risen from the freezing mists and flooded marshland of the River Neva on the western edge of Russia. It was a new capital in an old country. Established in 1703 by the sheer will of its charismatic founder, the homicidal megalomaniac Peter-the-Great, its dazzling yet unhinged reputation was quickly fashioned by the sadistic dominion of its early rulers.This city, in its successive incarnations St Petersburg; Petrograd; Leningrad and, once again, St Petersburg has always been a place of perpetual contradiction. It was a window on to Europe and the Enlightenment, but so much of the glory of Russia Trade Review'This extraordinary book brings to life an astonishing place. Beautiful prose renders brutality vivid.' -- Gerard DeGroot * The Times - BOOK OF THE WEEK *So fluent, so textured is Jonathan Miles’s ease with prose and argument that his vivid dissection of 300 years of St Petersburg’s history should be devoured in captive sittings... Investigating the artistic life of St Petersburg, he also explores the melodrama and blood on the streets and the effects of continuing political disarray and corruption on ordinary people. This is a storyteller entranced with his subject, who makes its brilliant portrayal look deliriously easy. -- Susan Sheahan * Guardian *[A] lively and entertaining biography... full of sparkling storytelling and well drawn characters... a delight. -- Victor Sebestyen * The Sunday Times *Jonathan Miles’s cinematic telling of the 300-year history of ... St Petersburg shows how the drama, the absurdity, the splendour and the squalor of the imperial capital all found their way into Russia’s finest s, operas and paintings... Miles peels back the layers of myth in which the city is swaddled, while never losing sight of its haunting grace. -- Daniel Beer * Observer *Recently there has been a plethora of new books on Russian history in all its guises, … so why more? Jonathan Miles’ narrative is a lot of more, … His history has a substantial foundation, but what makes it special is the sheer inescapable momentum of Miles’s prose, powered by the captivating intensity of his attachment to his subject. This is a story told by a writer enthralled – and disillusioned, as he sees no redemption in sight... A dazzling history of a dazzling city. -- Marina Vaizey * The Arts Desk *

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Book Synopsis''A masterpiece of social history'' Daily MailThere is nothing quite as beautiful as an English country house in summer. And there has never been a summer quite like that Indian summer between the two world wars, a period of gentle decline in which the sun set slowly on the British Empire and the shadows lengthened on the lawns of a thousand stately homes. Real life in the country house during the 1920s and 1930s was not always so sunny. By turns opulent and ordinary, noble and vicious, its shadows were darker. In The Long Weekend, Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the truth about a world half-forgotten, draped in myth and hidden behind stiff upper lips and film-star smiles. Drawing on hundreds of memoirs, on unpublished letters and diaries, on the eye-witness testimonies of belted earls and unhappy heiresses and bullying butlers, The Long Weekend gives a voice to the people who inhabited this world and shows how the image of the country house was carefully protected by its occupants above and below stairs, and how the reality was so much more interesting than the dream.Trade Review[A] fantastically readable and endlessly fascinating book… Delicious, occasionally fantastical, revealing in ways that Downton Abbey never was. It is as if Tinniswood is at the biggest, wildest, most luxuriantly decadent party ever thrown, and he knows everyone. -- Rachel Cooke * Observer *Tinniswood and his publishers should be congratulated for issuing this elegant, encyclopedic and entertaining history… We are in the company of a confident and skilled historian who understands the mores of his era and wears his learning lightly… This is a handsomely illustrated pick’n’mix of mansions, manors, castles and palaces…. Tinniswood expands our Sunday evening viewing with the kind of detail you can’t invent… Deserves to be on every costume drama producer’s bookshelf. -- Virginia Nicholson * The Times *He has produced a luscious, summery book, full of amiable anecdotes and photographs of striking interiors, celebrating headstrong optimists who defied the defeatism of the times. The Long Weekend resembles a well-kept hothouse festooned with fruit ripe for the plucking. -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Sunday Times *Wonderfully opulent, richly textured… The opening chapters of The Long Weekend paint an evocative picture… In telling us how the English country house changed, he is, of course, telling us how England changed too. -- Xan Brooks * Sunday Telegraph *[A] masterpiece of social history. -- Roger Lewis * Daily Mail *Many of Tinniswood’s anecdotes are extraordinary… Painstakingly researched detail that makes The Long Weekend so entertaining… A rich, multilayered and well-illustrated account of a style of live that disappeared with the Second World War. Lovers of…Brideshead Revisited will relish it. -- Charlotte Heathcote * Sunday Express *[A] deliciously jaunty and wonderfully knowledgeable book… Tinniswood displays a terrific insider’s grasp of gossip, while cramming his text with the stories of sport, sex, food, royalty, design, ruination and joy that defined these mansions… Meticulous, irresistible story. -- Juliet Nicolson * Spectator *This delicious book achieves completely what it sets out to do. -- Marcus Berkmann * Daily Mail *Tinniswood gives us many entertaining stories about the whimsical extravagances of the new country-housers… The Long Weekend is a celebration of fantasy and yearning cunningly wrapped up in pragmatism and practicality: about ancient castles with top-notch plumbing. -- Lucy Lethbridge * Financial Times *Almost indecently enjoyable… Splendidly contrary book… [Tinniswood has a] sharp pen and a squirrel’s eye for detail… Erudite, funny and oddly poignant. -- Miranda Seymour * Literary Review *

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Book Synopsis___________''This excellent book demands the attention of anyone concerned about civil liberties in the United Kingdom'' Guardian1969 was a year of rising tension, violence and change for the people of Northern Ireland. Rioting in Derry''s Bogside led to the deployment of British troops and a shortlived, uneasy truce. The British army soon found itself engaged in an undercover war against the Provisional IRA, which was to last for more than twenty years. In this enthralling and controversial book, Martin Dillon, author of the bestselling The Shankill Butchers, examines the roles played by the Provisional IRA, the State forces, the Irish Government and the British Army during this troubled period. He unravels the mystery of war in which informers, agents and double agents operate, revealing disturbing facts about the way in which the terrorists and the Intelligence Agencies target, undermine and penetrate each other''s ranks. The Trade ReviewThis excellent book demands the attention of anyone concerned about civil liberties in the United Kingdom * Guardian *Grippingly written with the pace of a thriller * Financial Times *Makes Cold War duplicity a la Deighton and Le Carre seem positively endearing * Guardian *

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Book Synopsis“The best introduction I have ever read to Ancient Greece. The author’s liveliness of mind and style has enabled him to make a mass of information appetizing and digestible” –Ray Mortimer in the Sunday Times The Greeks were extraordinary not least because they evolved a totally new conception of what human life was for. Justifying and elaborating on that claim, H.D.F. Kitto explores the life, culture and history of classical Greece, bringing to his subject the passion, wit and insight that have made this brief introduction a world-famous classic. “Professor Kitto is a model historian – lively, accurate, and fully acquainted with the latest developments in the subject . . . never vague . . . often witty and always full of vigour.”—The Times Educational SupplementTable of Contents1 INTRODUCTION2 THE FORMATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE3 THE COUNTRY4 HOMER5 THE POLIS6 CLASSICAL GREECE: THE EARLY PERIOD7 CLASSICAL GREECE: THE FIFTH CENTURY8 THE GREEKS AT WAR9 THE DECLINE OF THE POLIS10 THE GREEK MIND11 MYTH AND RELIGION12 LIFE AND CHARACTERINDEX

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Book SynopsisThis book studies the evolution of the family from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century and how the process radically influenced child-rearing, education, contraception, sexual behaviour and marriage.

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Book SynopsisIstanbul's history is a catalogue of change, not least of name, yet it has managed to retain its own unique identity. John Freely captures the flavour of daily life as well as court ceremonial and intrigue. The book also includes a comprehensive gazetteer of all major monuments and museums. An in-depth study of this legendary city through its many different ages from its earliest foundation to the present day - the perfect traveller's companion and guide.

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Book SynopsisRenaissance diplomat and part-time spy, William Hakluyt was also England''s first serious geographer, gathering together a wealth of accounts about the wide-ranging travels and discoveries of the sixteenth-century English. One of the epics of this great period of expansion, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation describes, in the words of the explorers themselves, an astonishing era in which the English grew rapidly aware of the sheer size and strangeness of their world. Mingling accounts of the journeys of renowned adventurers such as Drake and Frobisher with descriptions by other explorers and traders to reveal a nation beginning to dominate the seas, Hakluyt''s great work was originally intended principally to assist navigation and trade. It also presents one of the first and greatest modern portraits of the globe.

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Book SynopsisIn The War with Hannibal, Livy (59 BC-AD 17) chronicles the events of the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, until the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. He vividly recreates the immense armies of Hannibal, complete with elephants, crossing the Alps; the panic as they approached the gates of Rome; and the decimation of the Roman army at the Battle of Lake Trasimene. Yet it is also the clash of personalities that fascinates Livy, from great debates in the Senate to the historic meeting between Scipio and Hannibal before the decisive battle. Livy never hesitates to introduce both intense drama and moral lessons into his work, and here he brings a turbulent episode in history powerfully to life.Table of ContentsThe War with Hannibal - Livy Translated by Aubrey de Selincourt and Edited with an Introduction by Betty RadiceIntroductionBook XXIBook XXIIBook XXIIIBook XXIVBook XXVBook XXVIBook XXVIIBook XXVIIIBook XXIXBook XXXMapsChronological IndexIndex

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Book SynopsisThis comprehensive collection includes Asser's Life of Alfred, extracts from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Alfred's own writings, laws, and will.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Book SynopsisThe cradle of Western civilisation, Ancient Greece was a land of contradictions and conflict. Intensely quarrelsome and competitive, the Greek city-states consistently proved unwilling and unable to unite. Yet, in spite of or even because of this internal discord, no ancient civilization proved so dynamic or productive. The Greeks not only colonized the Mediterranean and Black Sea areas but set standards of figurative art that endured for nearly 2500 years. Charting topics as diverse as Minoan civilization, The Persian Wars, the Athenian Golden Age and the conquests of Alexander the Great, the book traces the development of this creative and restless people and assesses their impact not only on the ancient world but also on our own attitudes and environment. The authoritative narrative, illustrated with over sixty full colour maps and over seventy plates, makes this an indispensable handbook for history students and enthusiasts alike.Table of ContentsPart 1 Crete, Mycenae and the heroic age: origins; King Minos and Knossos; the Mycenaean world; bronze age trade; the seas people controversy; the collaspe of the Mycenae; the Trojan wars; Minoan and Mycenaean art. Part 2 Dark age to Athenian ascendancy: dark age Greece; rise of the city-states; migration and colonization; Egypt and Kyrenaica; the Greeks in Italy; rise of the tyrants; Athens ascendant; the classical myths. Part 3 The Persian rival: Persia and the west; kingdom of Macedonia; Persian campaigns I and II; the continuing rivalry; the rise of Sparta; ancient explorers; Greek literature and thought. Part 4 Perikles to Phillip: Perikles and the Athens empire; Peloponnesian War - the Aegean, Sicily; Sparta and Thebes; Kingdoms of Northern Greece; decline of Athens; Philip and Macedonian expansion; Greek warfare. Part 5 Alexander and after: campaigns of Alexander; Alexander the general; Alexander's spoils; consolidation of the kingdoms; new kingdoms, new rivalries; kingdoms in crises; Roman conquest; architecture of Ancient Greece.

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Book SynopsisMartin Davidson, who has two degrees from Oxford University, is an award-winning filmmaker and author specializing in historical and cultural subjects. His many director credits include: Simon Schama's A History of Britain, Albert Speer: The Nazi Who Said Sorry (A&E); Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Lie (BBC); and The Nazis and 'Degenerate Art' (BBC). He is the author of five previous non-fiction books. At present he is the commissioning editor for history and business at the BBC.

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Book Synopsis''A gripping analysis of the final days of peace ... indispensable'' M. R. D. Foot, The TimesRichard Overy''s 1939: Countdown to War re-creates hour-by-hour the last desperate attempts to salvage peace before the outbreak of World War Two.24 August 1939: The fate of the world is hanging in the balance. Hitler has ambitions to invade Poland and hopes Stalin will now help him. The West must try to stop him. Nothing was predictable or inevitable. The West hoped that Hitler would see sense if they stood firm. Hitler was convinced the West would back down. And both sides acted knowing that they risked being plunged into a war that might spell the end the end of European civilization.Trade ReviewOvery is one of the great historians of the second world war -- Bryan Appleyard Sunday Times This country's most distinguished historian of the Second World War ... Overy's book is easily the best account of Europe's descent into the death and destruction that were Hitler's element -- Michael Burleigh Evening Standard Nail-biting ... with rare narrative verve, he documents the ultimatums, emissaries, letters and increasingly desperate proposals that shuttled across Europe in the countdown to war -- Ian Thomson Independent Even those who think they know it all about how war broke out will learn something from Richard Overy's book -- Simon Heffer Literary Review One of the great historians of this conflict -- Simon Garfield Observer

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Book SynopsisAndre Hue was a daredevil. By the age of twenty the Anglo-Frenchman had survived shipwreck and years undercover in France, sabotaging German supply lines. Returning to Britain, he was recruited by SOE to parachute behind enemy lines on 5 June 1944, to unite resistance forces in Brittany and paralyse local German troops during the Allied invasion. Though Hue''s mission was fraught with difficulty - he missed his landing site, his secret base camp became the site of a pitch battle and a band of Cossacks tried to hunt him down - he knew that thousands of lives depended on his success or failure . . .

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Book SynopsisSHORTLISTED FOR THE MARK LYNTON HISTORY PRIZE 2020A DAILY TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019A revelatory new biography of Adolf Hitler from the acclaimed historian Brendan SimmsAdolf Hitler is one of the most studied men in history, and yet the most important things we think we know about him are wrong. As Brendan Simms''s major new biography shows, Hitler''s main preoccupation was not, as widely believed, the threat of Bolshevism, but that of international capitalism and Anglo-America. These two fears drove both his anti-semitism and his determination to secure the ''living space'' necessary to survive in a world dominated by the British Empire and the United States. Drawing on new sources, Brendan Simms traces the way in which Hitler''s ideology emerged after the First World War. The United States and the British Empire were, in his view, models for Germany''s own empire, similarly founded on appropriation of land, racism anTrade Review[Hitler] challenges some of our longstanding ideas about the man who ruled Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945 ... Highly provocative. -- Robert Gerwarth * Financial Times *If many Hitler books are scarcely worth reading, this one commands attention through its originality and sheer intelligence ... A thoroughly thought-provoking, stimulating biography which all historians of the Third Reich will have to take seriously. -- Richard Overy * Irish Times *Casts new light on the dictator ... Crisp, well-written, extensively researched ... A valuable contribution. -- Simon Heffer * Daily Telegraph *[Simms] builds on previous scholarship to make a bold thesis - that Hitler's principal obsession was not communism but rather 'Anglo-America' and global capitalism ... A vigorous, original study that adds to the ongoing scholarship. * Kirkus *A radically new assessment of the Fuhrer's world view and the motivation for his plunging the world into a terminal struggle for survival. * Daily Mail *Impressive and intriguing ... By drawing our attention to the centrality of historical emigration to Hitler's racial vision of a Great Germany, Simms adds a new dimension to our understanding of the thinking that drove history's most notorious figure. Crisply written and well-researched, there is much in this book that enlightens and stimulates. * The Interpreter *Compelling and original. -- Christopher Clark * London Review of Books *Essential reading. -- Christopher Bray * The Tablet *Simms ... challeng[es] much recent scholarship ... A preoccupation with Anglo-American capitalism, he contends, drove the Third Reich's ideology in its formative years, more than the oft-cited obsession with Bolshevism ... He has made sound use of the Bavarian archives. * The Observer *Hitler: Only The World Was Enough is modern political history at its very best: thorough, impeccably well researched, and opinionated without descending into histrionics. The Dublin-Cambridge historian writes with authority, flare, style and convincing conviction - consistently favouring thematic analysis over the simple retelling of facts. -- JP O'Malley * Irish Independent *

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