History

An eye-opening history of Britain and the Islamic world—a thousand-year relationship that is closer, deeper, and more mutually beneficial than is often recognized In this broad yet sympathetic survey—ranging from the Crusades to the modern day—Martin Pugh explores the social, political, and cultural encounters between Britain and Islam. He looks, for instance, at how reactions against the Crusades led to Anglo-Muslim collaboration under the Tudors, at how Britain posed as defender of Islam in the Victorian period, and at her role in rearranging the Muslim world after 1918. Pugh argues that, contrary to current assumptions, Islamic groups have often embraced Western ideas, including modernization and liberal democracy. He shows how the difficulties and Islamophobia that Muslims have experienced in Britain since the 1970s are largely caused by an acute crisis in British national identity. In truth, Muslims have become increasingly key participants in mainstream British society—in culture, sport, politics, and the economy.

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A revised and updated single-source reference book which accurately details the German field forces employed in Normandy in 1944 and their losses. Dr. Zetterling provides a sobering analysis of the subject matter and debunks a number of popular myths concerning the campaign (the effectiveness of Allied air power; the preferential treatment of Waffen-SS formations in comparison to their army counterparts; etc.). He supports his text with exhaustive footnoting and provides an organizational chart for most of the formations covered in the book. Includes numerous organizational diagrams, charts, tables and graphs.

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Words have always held great power in the Gaelic traditions of the Scottish Highlands: bardic poems bought immortality for their subjects; satires threatened to ruin reputations and cause physical injury; clan sagas recounted family origins and struggles for power; incantations invoked blessings and curses. Even in the present, Gaels strive to counteract centuries of misrepresentation of the Highlands as a backwater of barbarism without a valid story of its own to tell. Warriors of the Word offers a broad overview of Scottish Highland culture and history, bringing together rare and previously untranslated primary texts from scattered and obscure sources. Poetry, songs, tales, and proverbs, supplemented by the accounts of insiders and travellers, illuminate traditional ways of life, exploring such topics as folklore, music, dance, literature, social organisation, supernatural beliefs, human ecology, ethnic identity, and the role of language. This range of materials allows Scottish Gaeldom to be described on its own terms and to demonstrate its vitality and wealth of renewable cultural resources. This is an essential compendium for scholars, students, and all enthusiasts of Scottish culture.

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Rome’s foreign wars, nation by nation.Appian (Appianus) is among our principal sources for the history of the Roman Republic, particularly in the second and first centuries BC, and sometimes our only source, as for the Third Punic War and the destruction of Carthage. Born circa AD 95, Appian was an Alexandrian official at ease in the highest political and literary circles who later became a Roman citizen and advocate. He apparently received equestrian rank, for in his later years he was offered a procuratorship. He died during the reign of Antoninus Pius (emperor 138–161).Appian’s theme is the process by which the Roman Empire achieved its contemporary prosperity, and his unique method is to trace in individual books the story of each nation’s wars with Rome up through her own civil wars. Although this triumph of “harmony and monarchy” was achieved through characteristic Roman virtues, Appian is unusually objective about Rome’s shortcomings along the way. His history is particularly strong on financial and economic matters, and on the operations of warfare and diplomacy.Of the work’s original twenty-four books, only the Preface and Books 6–9 and 11–17 are preserved complete or nearly so: those on the Spanish, Hannibalic, African, Illyrian, Syrian, and Mithridatic wars, and five books on the civil wars.This edition of Appian replaces the original Loeb edition by Horace White and adds the fragments, as well as his letter to Fronto.

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Rome, from the beginning.Livy (Titus Livius), the great Roman historian, was born at Patavium (Padua) in 64 or 59 BC, where after years in Rome he died in AD 12 or 17. Livy’s history, composed as the imperial autocracy of Augustus was replacing the republican system that had stood for over five hundred years, presents in splendid style a vivid narrative of Rome’s rise from the traditional foundation of the city in 753 or 751 BC to 9 BC and illustrates the collective and individual virtues necessary to achieve and maintain such greatness.Of its 142 books, conventionally divided into pentads and decades, we have 1–10 and 21–45 complete, and short summaries (periochae) of all the rest except 41 and 43–45; 11–20 are lost, and of the rest only fragments and the summaries remain.The third decade constitutes our fullest surviving account of the momentous Second Punic (or Hannibalic) War, featuring a famous gallery of leaders Roman, Carthaginian, and Greek, all memorably drawn. It comprises two recognizable pentads: Books 21–25 narrate the run-up to conflict and Rome’s struggles in its first phase, with Hannibal dominant; Books 26–30 relate Rome’s revival and final victory, as the focus shifts to Scipio Africanus.This edition of the third decade, which replaces the original Loeb editions by B. O. Foster (Books 21–22) and Frank Gardner Moore (Books 23–30), offers a text based on the critical editions by John Briscoe (Books 21–25) and P. G. Walsh (Books 26–30), a fresh translation, and ample annotation fully current with modern scholarship.

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The Battle of the Bulge raises many questions which, until now, have not been adequately answered: How did the major tank types perform during the battle? What were the specific ‘lessons learned’ from the combat? And did these lessons result in changes to tanks in the subsequent months? Offering detailed answers to these questions, and many more, this book provides a survey of the principal tank and tank-equivalents (such as tank destroyers and Jagdpanzers) that took part in the Ardennes Campaign of December 1944–January 1945. Beginning with a basic overview of the campaign, accompanied by an order of battle of the major armoured units, it examines the opposing forces, covering the organization of the two tank forces to explain how they were deployed. Author Steven Zaloga also scrutinises the technical balance between the opposing sides, comparing armour, mobility and firepower as well as other important factors such as reliability, crew situational awareness, and tank layout/efficiency. Full of specially commissioned and highly accurate artwork plates of the tanks themselves, as well as fascinating technical data based on cutting-edge research, this title is the definitive guide to tank warfare in the Battle of the Bulge.

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From the time of Ancient Sumeria, the heavy infantry phalanx dominated the battlefield. Armed with spears or pikes, standing shoulder to shoulder with shields interlocking, the men of the phalanx presented an impenetrable wall of wood and metal to the enemy. Until, that is, the Roman legion emerged to challenge them as masters of infantry battle. Covering the period in which the legion and phalanx clashed (280–168 BC), Myke Cole delves into their tactics, arms and equipment, organization and deployment. Drawing on original primary sources to examine six battles in which the legion fought the phalanx – Heraclea (280 BC), Asculum (279 BC), Beneventum (275 BC), Cynoscephalae (197 BC), Magnesia (190 BC), and Pydna (168 BC) – he shows how and why the Roman legion, with its flexible organization, versatile tactics and iron discipline, came to eclipse the hitherto untouchable Hellenistic phalanx and dominate the ancient battlefield.

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The battles between British and French forces during the Peninsular War (1807–14) and the Hundred Days campaign of 1815 saw both sides deploy specialist units of skirmishers trained in marksmanship and open-order combat. These ‘light’ troops fulfilled several important roles on the battlefield, such as ‘masking’ large bodies of close-order troops as they manoeuvred in battle, firing upon enemy troops to provoke them into attacking prematurely, and harassing enemy artillery crews and senior officers with aimed fire. On occasion, the skirmishers were tasked with special missions requiring individual initiative, such as the capture or defence of key battlefield positions, especially those situated in difficult terrain. While Napoleon’s skirmishers carried the smoothbore musket, notoriously inaccurate and short-ranged, several elite units fighting for Britain were armed with the rifle, a far more accurate weapon that was hampered by a slower rate of fire. As well as the legendary 95th Rifles, Britain fielded rifle-armed German troops of the 60th Regiment and the King’s German Legion, while France’s light troops were fielded in individual companies but also entire regiments. In this study, David Greentree assesses the role and effectiveness of rifle-armed British troops and their French open-order opponents in three very different encounters: Roliça (August 1808), the first British battle of the Peninsular War; the struggle for a key bridge at Barba del Puerco (March 1810); and the bitter fight for the La Haye Sainte farmhouse during the battle of Waterloo (June 1815).

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Freemasonry has played a significant role in the history of Native Americans since the colonial era—a role whose extent and meaning are fully explored for the first time in this book. The overarching concern of Native American Freemasonry is with how Masonry met specific social and personal needs of Native Americans, a theme developed across three periods: the revolutionary era, the last third of the nineteenth century, and the years following the First World War. Joy Porter positions Freemasonry within its historical context, examining its social and political impact as a transatlantic phenomenon at the heart of the colonizing process. She then explores its meaning for many key Native leaders, for ethnic groups that sought to make connections through it, and for the bulk of its American membership—the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant middle class. Through research gleaned from archives in New York, Philadelphia, Oklahoma, California, and London, Porter shows how Freemasonry’s performance of ritual provided an accessible point of entry to Native Americans and how over time, Freemasonry became a significant avenue for the exchange and co-creation of cultural forms by Indians and non-Indians.

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The first comprehensive political history of the communist partyVanguard of the Revolution is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. A. James McAdams argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. He shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. Vanguard of the Revolution is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

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"A beautiful, beguiling journey to the ultimate queer utopia" - Olivia Laing "Clued-up but insatiably thirsty, poignant, packed with literary intrigue, Fire Island is a beaming beach read" - Jeremy Atherton Lin --- Fire Island: a slim strip of land off the coast of New York, and a place of hedonism, reinvention, liberation. Arriving on the island after a break-up back home in England, scholar and poet Jack Parlett was beguiled by what he found. Here were the halcyon scenes of Frank O'Hara's poetry; the bars where Patricia Highsmith got drunk; the infamous cruising sites; and the dazzling beaches where couples had fallen in and out of love, free for a sun-kissed moment to be themselves in the time before gay liberation. Tracing Fire Island's rich history, Parlett leads the reader through the early days of the island's life as a discreet home for same-sex love, to the wild parties of the post-Stonewall disco era, to the residents' confrontation with the AIDS epidemic, and into a present where a host of new challenges threaten the island's future. Lyrical and vivid, Fire Island is a hymn to an iconic destination, and to the men and women whose ardour and determination spread freedom across its shores.

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Exam board: AQA; OCRLevel: AS/A-levelSubject: HistoryFirst teaching: September 2015First exams: Summer 2016 (AS); Summer 2017 (A-level)Put your trust in the textbook series that has given thousands of A-level History students deeper knowledge and better grades for over 30 years.Updated to meet the demands of today's A-level specifications, this new generation of Access to History titles includes accurate exam guidance based on examiners' reports, free online activity worksheets and contextual information that underpins students' understanding of the period.- Develop strong historical knowledge: in-depth analysis of each topic is both authoritative and accessible- Build historical skills and understanding: downloadable activity worksheets can be used independently by students or edited by teachers for classwork and homework- Learn, remember and connect important events and people: an introduction to the period, summary diagrams, timelines and links to additional online resources support lessons, revision and coursework- Achieve exam success: practical advice matched to the requirements of your A-level specification incorporates the lessons learnt from previous exams- Engage with sources, interpretations and the latest historical research: students will evaluate a rich collection of visual and written materials, plus key debates that examine the views of different historians

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A graphic account of this long-running global drama, The Compact Guide: The Cold War is published in a new era of fear and uncertainty. It encompasses moments of high tension, such as the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 and the nuclear alerts of 1973 and 1983. At several times the world stood on the brink of nuclear Armageddon, but these dangerous moments all ended with both sides drawing back, until the long confrontation ended peacefully. Written by a leading American defence analyst, Dr Norman Friedman, The Compact Guide: The Cold War is supplemented with 60 photographs and documents that allow the reader to witness the events as they unfolded. Maps, diaries, letters and other items which, up till now, have remained filed or exhibited in the Imperial War Museum and other museum collections in Northern Europe and America include a 1963 nuclear attack protective booklet produced for homeowners by the British government and the official pack for US troops passing through Checkpoint Charlie, with practical advice on visiting Communist-controlled East Berlin.

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After the Second World War, Germany was an international pariah. Today, it has become a beacon of the Western world. But what makes this extraordinary nation tick? On Germany tells the story of a country reborn, from defeat in 1945 to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the painstaking reunification of 'the two Germanies', and the Republic's return to the world stage as an economic colossus and European leader. Giles MacDonogh restores these momentous events of world history to their German context, from the food and drink that accompanied them to the deep-rooted provincialism behind the national story. Full of vivid and often whimsical vignettes of German life, this is a Germanophile's homage to the culture and people of a country he has known for decades.

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THE GRIPPING SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'A vastly entertaining tale, bursting with astonishing stories and extraordinary characters ... A fascinating read' Sunday Telegraph'Brilliant ... An amazing story, one I hadn't heard too much about' Dan SnowIT IS THE DEPTHS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR.The Germans like to boast that there is 'no escape' from the infamous fortress that is Colditz.The elite British officers imprisoned there are determined to prove the Nazis wrong and get back into the war.As the war heats up and the stakes are raised, the Gestapo plant a double-agent inside the prison in a bid to uncover the secrets of the British prisoners. Captain Julius Green of the Army Dental Corps and Sergeant John 'Busty' Brown must risk their lives in a bid to save the lives of hundreds of Allied servicemen and protect the secrets of MI9.Drawn from unseen records, The Traitor of Colditz brings to light an extraordinary, never-before-told story from the Second World War, an epic tale of how MI9 took on the Nazis and exposed the traitors in their midst.

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Self-presentation is the oldest and most common component of ancient Egyptian high culture. It arose in the context of private tomb records, where the character and role of an individual—invariably a well-to-do non-royal elite official or administrator—were presented purposefully: published by inscription and image, to a contemporary audience and to posterity. Living Forever: Self-presentation in Ancient Egypt looks at how and why non-royal elites in ancient Egypt represented themselves, through language and art, on monuments, tombs, stelae, and statues, and in literary texts, from the Early Dynastic Period to the Thirtieth Dynasty. Bringing together essays by international Egyptologists and archaeologists from a range of backgrounds, the chapters in this volume offer fresh insight into the form, content, and purpose of ancient Egyptian presentations of the self. Applying different approaches and disciplines, they explore how these self-representations, which encapsulated a discourse with gods and men alike, yield rich historical and sociological information, provide examples of ancient rhetorical devices and repertoire, and shed light on notions of the self and collective memory in ancient Egypt.

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The remarkable story of how Greek-speaking writers and thinkers sustained and developed the intellectual legacy of Classical Greece under the rule of Rome. In 146 BC, Greece yielded to the military might of the Roman Republic; some sixty years later, when Athens and other Greek city-states rebelled against Rome, the general Lucius Cornelius Sulla destroyed the city of Socrates and Plato, laying waste the famous Academy where Aristotle had studied. However, the traditions of Greek cultural life would continue to flourish – across the eastern Mediterranean world and beyond – during the centuries of Roman rule that followed, in the lives and work of a distinguished array of philosophers, rhetoricians, historians, doctors, scientists, geographers and theologians. Charles Freeman's accounts of such luminaries as the polymathic physician Galen, the soldier-botanist Dioscorides, the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy and the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus are interwoven with 'interludes' that counterpoint and contextualise a sequence of unjustly neglected and richly influential lives. This is the story of a vibrant, constantly evolving tradition of intellectual inquiry across a period of more than five hundred years, from the second century BC to the start of the fifth century ad – one that would help shape the intellectual landscape of the Middle Ages and long after. The Children of Athena is a cultural history on an epic scale.

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This unique volume in the U-boat Aces series features the three German naval captains—Karl-Heinz Moehle, Reinhard Hardegen, and Horst von Schroeter—who commanded the U-123, a type IXB U-boat. In 12 patrols and 720 days at sea during its four-year WWII combat career, U-123 sank an incredible 44 Allied merchant and warships, ranking it with the third-most U-boat sinkings. Moehle, the first commander of U-123, successfully conducted three patrols in the North Atlantic and was awarded the Knight’s Cross. Hardegen sank the first ship in US waters and was eventually awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross. Schroeter, appointed U-123’s commander in June 1942, also received the Knight's Cross after four combat patrols. All 12 of U-123's combat patrols are discussed in detail, as well as its participation in the wartime propaganda film U-boats Westward! The featured rare photography comes from the German U-boat Archive in Cuxhaven, as well as from former crew members.

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In this colorful depiction of daily political life in Baroque Rome, Laurie Nussdorfer argues that the lay persons managed to sustain a civic government under the increased papal absolutism of Urban VIII (1623-1644), who oversaw both sacred and secular life. Focusing on the S.P.Q.R. (the Senate and the Roman People), which was ministered from the capitoline Hill, she shows that it provided political representation for lay members of the urban elite, carried out the work of local government, and served as a symbol of the Roman voice in public life. Through a detailed study of how civic authorities derived their sense of legitimacy and how lay subjects maneuvered in informal and disguised ways to block or criticize the papal regime, the author advances a new way of conceiving politics under an absolute ruler.As Nussdorfer analyzes the complex interactions between the lay administration and Urban VIII and his family, the papal administration, and Romans of the upper and lower classes, she also provides fresh insights into the actual practice of early modern government. She takes the plague threat of the early 1630s, the War of Castro (1641-1644), and the interregnum following the pope's death as important test cases of the state's power in times of crisis.Laurie Nussdorfer is Assistant Professor of History and Letters at Wesleyan University.Originally published in 1992.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

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A splendid – and necessary – publication…a great resource Iain SinclairCharles Booth’s landmark survey of life in late-19th-century London, published for the first time in one volume. In the late nineteenth century, Charles Booth's landmark social and economic survey found that 35 percent of Londoners were living in abject poverty. Booth's team of social investigators interviewed Londoners from all walks of life, recording their comments, together with their own unrestrained remarks and statistical information, in 450 notebooks. Their findings formed the basis of Booth's colour-coded social mapping (from vicious and semi-criminal to wealthy) and his seventeen-volume survey Inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People of London, 1886-1903.Organized into six geographical sections, Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps presents the hand-colored preparatory and printed social mapping of London. Accompanying the maps are reproductions of pages from the original notebooks, containing anecdotes and observations too judgmental for Booth to include in his final published survey. An introduction by professor Mary S. Morgan clarifies the aims and methodology of Booth's survey and six themed essays contextualize the the survey's findings, accompanied by evocative period photographs. Providing insights into the minutia of everyday life viewed through the lens of inhabitants of every trade, class, creed, and nationality, Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps brings to life the diversity and dynamism of late nineteenth-century London.

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From the dawn of history to the death of Cleopatra, ancient Egypt was home to larger-than-life personalities. Across one hundred lives, Toby Wilkinson explores the true character and diversity of human experience in the ancient world’s greatest civilization. Some of those profiled are famous: pharaohs and queens such as Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Ramesses II and Tiye. Others are lesser known but equally engaging: Imhotep, architect of the first pyramid; Perniankhu, the court dwarf; and the royal sculptor Bak. Equally illuminating are the lives of commoners, so rarely given their own voice: ordinary men and women who include a doctor, a dentist, a housewife, a musician – and a serial criminal.

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From their earliest encounters with Indigenous Pacific Islanders, white Europeans and Americans asserted an identification with the racial origins of Polynesians, declaring them to be racially almost white and speculating that they were of Mediterranean or Aryan descent. In Possessing Polynesians Maile Arvin analyzes this racializing history within the context of settler colonialism across Polynesia, especially in Hawai‘i. Arvin argues that a logic of possession through whiteness animates settler colonialism, by which both Polynesia (the place) and Polynesians (the people) become exotic, feminized belongings of whiteness. Seeing whiteness as indigenous to Polynesia provided white settlers with the justification needed to claim Polynesian lands and resources. Understood as possessions, Polynesians were and continue to be denied the privileges of whiteness. Yet Polynesians have long contested these classifications, claims, and cultural representations, and Arvin shows how their resistance to and refusal of white settler logic have regenerated Indigenous forms of recognition.

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The Staffordshire Hoard: An Anglo-Saxon Treasure tells the story of the Staffordshire Hoard’s discovery and acquisition, and the six-year research project that pieced its fragments back together, identified its objects and explored their manufacture. Key chapters discuss the decoration and meaning of the Hoard’s intricate ornament, the techniques of Anglo-Saxon craftsmen, the religious and historical background, and hoarding practice in Britain and Europe, to place this most exceptional find in context. Finally, the text explores the impact that the find has had locally, nationally and internationally in the twenty-first century.

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**SHORTLISTED FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES SPORTS BOOK AWARDS 2023**'Full of delightful anecdotes and interviews and fascinating historical tales' Mail on SundayA panoramic portrait of the wonderous vehicle whose passenger is also its engine.A toy, a tool, a liberator, or complete nuisance: the bicycle has been many things to many people over the decades, yet it endures as the most popular form of transport in the world. How has such a simple machine achieved so much?Combining history, travelogue and memoir, Jody Rosen reshapes our understanding of this ubiquitous vehicle from its invention in 1817 to its present-day renaissance as a 'green machine'. Readers meet unforgettable characters: women's suffragists who steered bikes to the barricades in the 1890s, a Bhutanese king who races mountain bikes in the Himalayas, astronauts who ride a floating bicycle in zero gravity.By examining the bicycle's past and peering into its future, Two Wheels Good forms a joyful ode to an engineering marvel of global importance.'Funny, precise, surprising' Adam Gopnik'Love for two-wheeled transport runs through every sentence' Economist'Wry, rich, deeply researched' Patrick Radden Keefe

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INCLUDES NEW MATERIALWRITTEN IN HISTORY celebrates the great letters of world history, creative culture and personal life. Acclaimed historian Simon Sebag Montefiore selects over one hundred letters from ancient times to the twenty-first century: some are noble and inspiring, some despicable and unsettling; some are exquisite works of literature, others brutal, coarse and frankly outrageous; many are erotic, others heartbreaking. The writers vary from Elizabeth I, Rameses the Great and Leonard Cohen to Emmeline Pankhurst, Mandela, Stalin, Michelangelo, Suleiman the Magnificent and unknown people in extraordinary circumstances - from love letters to calls for liberation, declarations of war to reflections on death. In the colourful, accessible style of a master storyteller, Montefiore shows why these letters are essential reading: how they enlighten our past, enrich the way we live now - and illuminate tomorrow.

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In this book, Guy D. Middleton explores the fascinating lives of thirty real women of the ancient Mediterranean from the Palaeolithic to the Byzantine era. They include queens and aristocrats, such as the Pharoah Hatshepsut and the Etruscan noblewoman Seianti; Eritha and Karpathia, Bronze Age priestesses from the Aegean; a Pompeiian prostitute called Eutychis; the pagan philosopher Hypatia and the Christian saint Perpetua, from North Africa, as well as women from smaller communities. Middleton uses a wide range of archaeological and historical evidence, including burials and funerary practices, graffiti, inscriptions and painted pottery, handprints, human remains and a variety of historical texts, as well as the latest modern research. His volume weaves together the stories of real women, placing them firmly in the spotlight of history. Engagingly written and up-to-date in its scholarship, Middleton's book offers new insights for students and researchers in Ancient History, Archaeology and Mediterranean Studies, as well as in Women's History.

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Roman Britain is usually thought of as a land full of togas, towns and baths with Britons happily going about their Roman lives under the benign gaze of Rome. This is, to a great extent, a myth that developed after Roman control of Britain came to an end, in particular when the British Empire was at its height in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In fact, Britain was one of the least enthusiastic elements of the Roman Empire. The northern part of Britain was never conquered at all despite repeated attempts. Some Britons adopted Roman ways in order to advance themselves and become part of the new order, of just because they liked the new range of products available. However, many failed to acknowledge the Roman lifestyle at all, while many others were only outwardly Romanised, clinging to their own identities under the occupation. Britain never fully embraced the Empire and was itself never fully accepted by the rest of the Roman world. Even the Roman army in Britain became chronically rebellious and a source of instability that ultimately affected the whole Empire. As Roman power weakened, the Britons abandoned both Rome and almost all Roman culture, and the island became a land of warring kingdoms, as it had been before.

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The 2020 National Outdoor Book Awards of the History of the YearShortlisted for the 2020 William Hill Sports Book of the Year'A gripping history' THE ECONOMIST 'The World Beneath Their Feet contains plenty of rollicking stories' THE TIMES'Gripping' THE SUNDAY TIMESOne of the most compelling international dramas of the 20th century and an unforgettable saga of survival, technological innovation, and breathtaking human physical achievement-all set against the backdrop of a world headed toward war.While tension steadily rose between European powers in the 1930s, a different kind of battle was raging across the Himalayas. Contingents from Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the United States had set up rival camps at the base of the mountains, all hoping to become recognized as the fastest, strongest, and bravest climbers in the world.Carried on across nearly the entire sweep of the Himalayas, this contest involved not only the greatest mountain climbers of the era, but statesmen and millionaires, world-class athletes and bona fide eccentrics, scientists and generals, obscure villagers and national heroes. Centered in the 1930s, with one brief, shining postwar coda, the contest was a struggle between hidebound traditionalists and unknown innovators, one that featured new techniques and equipment, unbelievable courage and physical achievement, and unparalleled valor. And death. One Himalayan peak alone, Nanga Parbat in Kashmir, claimed twenty-five lives in less than three years.Climbing the Himalayas was the Greatest Generation's moonshot--one shrouded in the onset of war, interrupted by it, and then fully accomplished. A gritty, fascinating history that promises to enrapture fans of Hampton Side, Jon Krakauer, and Laura Hillenbrand, The World Beneath Their Feet brings this forgotten story back to life.

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The Illustrated Histories of Everyday Inventions uncovers the fascinating, humorous, and often unbelievable origins behind the world's most overlooked innovations!Nobody knows the backstories behind our most taken-for-granted inventions, like credit cards, egg cartons, windshield wipers, and breakfast sandwiches! But the strange and wonderful origins of these inventions are far from ordinary: They are rooted in forgotten history. Inside this hardcover book, discover the extraordinary true stories of: The TOASTER actually the best thing before sliced bread The PASSPORT the original Facebook The TOOTHBRUSH so much more than bamboo + hog bristles The PIZZA SAVER no pie left behind since 1985 SLICED BREAD at first, no one wanted it And MANY, MANY MORE of history's most influential discoveries! Organized chronologically from 75,000 B.C. to today and illustrated with more than 200 pieces of original artwork, The Illustrated Histories of Everyday Inventions is as beautiful as it is entertaining and informative. Discover who invented BATHING, why some of the first-ever BEDS were naturally mosquito-repellant, how president Theodore Roosevelt's encounter with a black bear inspired the TEDDY BEAR, and why SELFIE STICKS might be older than you think!

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This is the first reference work to describe the history of embroidery throughout Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent from the medieval period through to the present. It offers an authoritative guide to all the major embroidery traditions of the region and a detailed examination of the material, technical, artistic and design dimensions of the subject, including its use by today’s fashion designers. For millennia, the peoples of Central Asian, the Iranian Plateau and the Indian Subcontinent have migrated and traded along the multiple strands of the Silk Road, both north–south and east–west. This history of contact has found rich expression within the arts and crafts of the region and particularly in the heritage of embroidery which has sat at the heart of the social and cultural lives of these diverse communities. Embroidery has been produced to decorate individuals, their families, their clients, their homes and public spaces and has reflected economic and political changes over time as well as social, religious and artistic contexts. Generously illustrated with 500 images (over 450 in colour) of clothes, accessories, and examples of decorated soft furnishings such as cushions, bed linen, curtains, floor coverings and wall hangings, the Encyclopedia is an essential resource for students and scholars of the subject. This volume is the second in the Bloomsbury World Encyclopedia of Embroidery series. The first volume, on embroidery from the Arab World, won the 2017 Dartmouth Medal, awarded by the American Library Association for a reference work of outstanding quality and significance.

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As elite troops, the German Fallschirmjager (paratroopers) were regularly engaged in front line combat during the Second World War. Their famed actions such as the fighting in Scandinavia, the taking of the Belgian fortress Eden-Emal in May 1940, and the Battle for Crete just a year later, have given them the reputation of being determined, courageous and loyal soldiers. This book continues the pictorial history of the Fallschirmjager, focusing on the period following the bloody Battle for Crete. Used as elite infantry, first in the USSR and then in Africa, the Fallschirmjager were able to reconnect with their glorious past, whether in Italy or on the Greek Islands, as they jumped from their Ju 52s to engage the enemy. Their hard fighting in Italy helped to cement the legend of 'the Green Devils', with the British General Harold Alexander describing them as 'tenacious, highly-trained men, hardened by their many actions and combats'. However, during the fighting in Normandy, the Ardennes and on the Eastern Front, the number of veterans decreased, meaning it was the young German paratroopers who finally surrendered the III Reich on 8 May 1945.

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Cold War nadir: January 1968 and in Czechoslovakia the new Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek has made it clear that this is the opportunity to loosen the Soviet stranglehold on the country. As the Prague winter slowly eases into a Prague spring, it really does seem as if Dubcek has judged it right. Reforms in oppressive censorship laws, improved housing, a lessening of totalitarian oppression, Dubcek promises and delivers on it all. The new regime in Czechoslovakia does seek to destroy communism but it does want to choose its own political destiny. And then, on the night of 20/21 August the Prague Spring is crushed by the Warsaw Pact invasion: 200,000 Communist troops, mostly Soviet but also Polish and East German, flood the country. The resulting protests and rallies against the invasion, mostly by young people, are violent and bloody. Hundreds die in clashes; self-immolation, in public and before the eyes of the world, brings home the horror and the depth of feeling in the Czech people. It is the end of the Prague Spring, the reformation of Czechoslovakia having ended in ruins. But despite the brutal crushing of Czech hopes and dreams, the events of 1968 lay the foundations for future change. It will take another two decades but it is, ultimately, where the unravelling of the Communist bloc begins.

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"When at last we were approaching the Harem, the Sultan, surely quite alarmed, said to me in a low voice (was that so the eunuch walking in front of us wouldn't hear, or because in this lonely and dark passageway he was frightened of his own voice?), Ne olacak? 'What is to become of things?'" Translated into English for the first time, this memoir provides fascinating first-hand insight into the personalities, intrigues, and inner workings of the Ottoman palace in its final decades. Written by Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil, who was First Secretary to Sultan Mehmed V and would go on to be one of Turkey's most famous novelists, On the Sultan's Service makes available to English readers the remarkable account of life and work in the Ottoman palace chancery—the public, "business" side of the palace—in its final incarnation. We learn of the court's new role under this second-to-last Sultan in post-Revolution Turkey. No longer exercising political power, the palace negotiated the minefields between political factions, sought ways to unite the empire in the face of sharpening nationalist aspirations, and faced with a kind of shocked despondency the opening salvos of the wars that were to overwhelm the country. Uşaklıgil includes interviews with the Imperial family and descriptions of royal nuptials, the palaces and its visitors, and the crises that shook the court. He delivers an insightful and moving portrait of Mehmed V, the elderly gentleman who reigned over the Ottoman Empire through both Balkan Wars and World War I.

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The White Horse at Uffington is an icon of the English landscape – a sleek, almost abstract figure 120 yards long which was carved into the green turf of the spectacular chalk scarp of the North Wessex Downs in the early first millennium bc. For centuries antiquarians, travellers and local people speculated about the age of the Horse, who created it and why. Was it a memorial to King Alfred the Great’s victory over the heathen Danes, an emblem of the first Anglo-Saxon settlers or a prehistoric banner, announcing the territory of a British tribe? Or was the Horse an actor in an elaborate prehistoric ritual, drawing the sun across the sky? The rich history of this ancient figure and its surroundings can help us understand how people have created and lived in the Downland landscape, which has inspired artists, poets and writers including Eric Ravilious, John Betjeman and J.R.R. Tolkien. The White Horse itself is most remarkable because it is still here. People have cared for it and curated it for centuries, even millennia. In that time the meaning of the Horse has changed, yet it has remained a symbol of continuity and is a myth for modern times.

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Of the millions of German soldiers who went to war, many were armed with their personal cameras and intent on photographically chronicling their Dienstzeit, or military service, via meticulously prepared albums or by turning their photos into postcards sent to family and friends or as a single photo to carry into battle. Others were professional photographers and film makers recruited by the military and the Nazi State propaganda ministry to produce images for their agendas. In the era before television, the video camera and satellite link-ups, no other group of combatants had documented a war with such a volume of images. The cameras included older 127 and 120 film formats as well as the new 35 mm still cameras and even 8- and 16-mm movie cameras, which at times the soldaten aimed with the same accuracy as their Mauser rifles and Krupp cannon. In turn the images reflect upon the photographers, a mirrored view of a mind-set clouded by a fatal arrogance, the eye of the beholder blinded by a cruel and rapacious ideology as yet unaware that such images would serve to document those darkest of times.

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This authoritative volume has been revised throughout and expanded, with stunning new images and accounts of the major discoveries of recent years. Recent findings have been added to expand our understanding of the Olmecs outside of their heartland, and new research on the legacy of the Maya offers a wider and more cohesive narrative of Mexico’s history. New co-author Javier Urcid has added greater coverage of Oaxaca and of Monté Alban, one of the earliest cities in Mesoamerica and the center of the Zapotec civilization, and a fully revised Epilogue discusses the survival of indigenous populations in Mexico from the Conquest up to the present. This longstanding classic now features full-colour photos of the vibrant art and architecture of ancient Mesoamerica throughout.

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What does an understanding of Jewish history contribute to the study of the Mediterranean, and what can Mediterranean studies contribute to our knowledge of Jewish history? Jews and the Mediterranean considers the historical potency and uniqueness of what happens when Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews meet in the Mediterranean region. By focusing on the specificity of the Jewish experience, the essays gathered in this volume emphasize human agency and culture over the length of Mediterranean history. This collection draws attention to what made Jewish people distinctive and warns against facile notions of Mediterranean connectivity, diversity, fluidity, and hybridity, presenting a new assessment of the Jewish experience in the Mediterranean.

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The story of I Canadian Corps’s crossing of the Emilia-Romagna plain, in the thirteenth instalment of the bestselling Canadian Battle Series.The Canadians called it the Promised Land. In late September 1944, the Emilia-Romagna plain before I Canadian Corps stretched to the far horizon—a deceptively wide-open space where the tanks could run free. Throughout British Eighth Army, hopes ran high that once it entered the plain, the Germans could be driven from Italy. As soon as the advance began, however, the plain’s true nature was revealed: the land was criss-crossed by rivers, canals and drainage ditches over which all bridges had been demolished. With higher command urging haste, the Canadians entered a long and nightmarish series of battles to win crossings over each waterway, whose high banks provided the Germans with perfect defensive positions. Early fall rains caused rivers to spill their banks and transformed the countryside into the worst quagmire the soldiers had ever seen. More than five months of battle followed, with weeks of hard fighting required to advance from one river to the next. Each month, conditions only worsened, and the casualty rates rose appallingly. As their comrades fell one by one, most soldiers sought merely to survive. Doing that much required every measure of stamina, courage and fighting skill they possessed. The fifth and final Canadian Battle Series volume set in Italy, The River Battles tells the story of this campaign’s last and hardest months. In riveting detail and with his trademark “you-are-there” style, Mark Zuehlke shines a light on this forgotten chapter of Canada’s World War II experience.

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Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died.' In one of the most famous and moving letters of the Civil War, Oliver Cromwell told his brother-in-law that on 2 July 1644 Parliament had won an emphatic victory over a Royalist army commanded by King Charles I's nephew, Prince Rupert, on rolling moorland west of York. But that battle, Marston Moor, had also slain his own nephew, the recipient's firstborn. In this vividly narrated history of the deadly conflict that engulfed the nation during the 1640s, Peter Gaunt shows that, with the exception of World War I, the death-rate was higher than any other contest in which Britain has participated. Numerous towns and villages were garrisoned, attacked, damaged or wrecked. The landscape was profoundly altered. Yet amidst all the blood and killing, the fighting was also a catalyst for profound social change and innovation. Charting major battles, raids and engagements, the author uses rich contemporary accounts to explore the life-changing experience of war for those involved, whether musketeers at Cheriton, dragoons at Edgehill or Cromwell's disciplined Ironsides at Naseby (1645).

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‘On the beach the Lieutenant asked if he could say a prayer before being shot. “Don’t be so bloody silly,” I replied, “get into the boat.”’ My Friends, The Enemy recounts the Falklands War from the viewpoint of the only Intelligence Corps in HQ 3 Commando Brigade and serving with its Intelligence Section of Royal Marines, It is a personal account supported by intelligence assembled since 1982. Nick van der Bijl was a Staff Sergeant and his role meant that he was expected to provide accurate intelligence to Brigade Headquarters and deploy specialist skills. Little was known about the Argentine threat and so the Intelligence Section was very heavily involved in collecting, collating and distributing intelligence from a variety of sources, initially from the UK and after landing at San Carlos Water, also from documents, prisoners of war, and a counter-intelligence operation. While the intelligence proved to be accurate throughout the campaign, some has been controversial, particularly relating to the Battle of Goose Green. Van der Bijl was one of the first into Stanley after the Argentinian surrender and was part of an intelligence operation that searched enemy HQs for documents and selected several hundred officers for further interrogation. My Friends, The Enemy is the first time that the story of intelligence operations has been told by a witness to events in the Falklands from the start of the campaign to the finish.

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For nearly two and a half years, from June 1940 until late 1942, Malta was subjected to one Axis air raid after another. The Mediterranean island was effectively beleaguered, reliant for defence on anti-aircraft guns and often-outnumbered fighter aircraft and dependent for survival on naval supply convoys. The Axis attempted to bomb and starve Malta into submission, attacking ports, military and industrial areas, leading to Malta becoming one of the most intensively bombed areas of the Second World War, with well over 3000 alerts before the end of hostilities. But against the odds, and at heavy cost, Malta was held. Malta was vital to Allied success in North Africa, dominating Axis supply routes to the region. It was a remarkable, intense campaign, a crucial turning point in the Second World War, and one of the Allies' greatest tactical and strategic victories. This is an account of that desperate time, as witnessed by those who were there and illustrated by their wartime photographs. Included is a special colour section focusing on reminders of the battle in a series of more recent images.

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