History

In Truevine, Virginia, in 1899 everyone the Muse brothers knew was either a former slave, or a child or grandchild of slaves. George and Willie Muse were just six and nine years old, but they worked the fields from dawn to dark. Until a white man offered them candy and stole them away to become circus freaks. For the next twenty-eight years, their distraught mother struggled to get them back. But were they really kidnapped? And how did their mother, a barely literate black woman in the segregated South, manage to bring them home? And why, after coming home, would they want to go back to the circus?In Truevine, bestselling author Beth Macy reveals for the first time what really happened to the Muse brothers. It is an unforgettable story of cruelty and exploitation, but also of loyalty, determination and love.

Read more less

Featuring 60 beautiful and detailed maps, Atlas of Empires tells the story of how and why the great empires of history came into being, operated, and ultimately declined, and discusses the future of the empire in today's globalized world. Atlas of Empires tells the story of how and why the great empires of history came into being, operated and ultimately declined, and discusses the future of the empire in today's globalized world. Featuring 60 beautiful and detailed maps of the empires' territories at different stages of their existence and organized thematically to reflect the different driving forces behind empires throughout history (such as faith, nomadic culture, nationhood and capitalism), each section discusses the rise and fall of the empires that existed in a region: their government and society, wealth and technology, war and military force, and religious beliefs. From the earliest empires of the Sumerians and the Pharaohs to the modern empires of the USSR and the European Union, this is a story that reveals how empires are created and organized, how later empires resolve the problems of governance faced by earlier empires, and how the political and cultural legacies of ancient empires are still felt today.

Read more less

On August 3rd, 2014, the Islamic State attacked the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, sweeping down into Iraq’s Nineveh province. Islamic State struck the ancient Yazidi people, citizens of Iraq who had lived in the country’s north for centuries. Within minutes, more than 150,000 members of this pre-Abrahamic faith fled their homes. Fifty thousand sought refuge on the nearby holy Mount Sinjar, a dry, desolate, treeless mountain, where they were stranded, surrounded by the militant jihadists, without food or water in temperatures over 110 degrees. What convinced the Obama Administration and the U.S. military to go back into the quagmire of Iraq after leaving it three years earlier in a hasty pull-out? How did this obscure ethnic group seize headlines and hold the world's attention? How did a small sub-office of the U.S. State Department emerge as a source of crucial intelligence, eclipsing the CIA and the NSA? How were new Yazidi immigrants working from a Super 8 motel in Maryland able to help defeat the warriors of Islamic State on the battlefield? This is the extraordinary tale of how a few American-Yazidis in Washington, DC, mobilized a small, forgotten office in the American government to intervene militarily in Iraq to avert a devastating humanitarian crisis. While Islamic State massacred many thousands of Yazidi men and sold thousands more Yazidi women into slavery, the U.S. intervention saved the lives of 50,000 Yazidis.

Read more less

THE THIRD EDITION OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER, REVISED AND UPDATED'A rich, galloping narrative that spans the Arab world...outstanding, gripping and exuberant...full of flamboyant character sketches, witty asides and magisterial scholarship, that explains much of what we need to know about the world today' Simon Sebag Montefiore'Anyone who seeks to understand why the Islamic world bears a grudge against the West should read The Arabs' Sir Alaistair HorneStarting with the Ottoman conquests in the sixteenth century, this landmark book follows the story of the Arabs through the era of European imperialism and the Superpower rivalries of the Cold War, to the present age of unipolar American power. Drawing on the writings and eyewitness accounts of those who lived through the tumultuous years of Arab history, The Arabs balances different voices - politicians, intellectuals, students, men and women, poets and novelists, famous, infamous and the completely unknown - to give a rich, complex sense of life over nearly five centuries.Rogan's book is remarkable for its geographical sweep, covering the Arab world from North Africa through the Arabian Peninsula, and for the depth in which it explores every facet of modern Arab history. Charting the evolution of Arab identity from Ottomanism to Arabism to Islamism, it covers themes including the conflict between national independence and foreign domination, the Arab-Israeli struggle and the peace process, Abdel Nasser and the rise of Arab Nationalism, the political and economic power of oil and the conflict between secular and Islamic values.This multilayered, fascinating and definitive work is the essential guide to understanding the history of the modern Arab world - and its future.

Read more less

The Isle of Wight has a fiercely proud history with monarchs, merchants, militiamen, smugglers, soldiers and sons of the plough all leaving their indelible mark. Rescued from skips and found in boxes in attics, these pictures bring the Isle of Wight to life in a special way. With the majority of them never having been published before, these archive photographs with informative captions will be of great interest to all who know this fascinating island.

Read more less

No one knows a city like the people who live there – so who better to relate the history of Paris than its inhabitants through the ages? Taking us from 1750 to the new millennium, Graham Robb's Parisians is at once a book to read from cover to cover, to lose yourself in, to dip in and out of at leisure, and a book to return to again and again – rather like the city itself, in fact.For this collection of true stories the City of Paris awarded Graham the Medal of the City of Paris. 'Quirky, amused and très British' Julian Barnes, author of The Sense of an Ending.

Read more less

Anyone interested in military history or indeed history in general will find it fascinating to read.' Spectator. What If? is a collection of counterfactual essays dealing with military events. Concentrating on some of the most intriguing military history turning points of the last 3,000 years, twenty celebrated historians, including Alistair Horne and John Keegan, have come together to produce a group of essays that enhance our current understanding of decisive events. 'Pure, almost illicit pleasure. What makes these essays tremendously diverting is how little they strain one's sense of credibility.' Andrew Roberts, Sunday Telegraph. 'These informed, elegant essays authoritively analyse incidents over the past 3,000 years.' The Times. 'One of the delights of the book is that broad speculative analysis is built from a mass of exciting detail. This make for a top-class bed-side read.' Financial Times

Read more less

How is the Holocaust remembered in Romania since the fall of communism? Alexandru Florian and an international group of contributors unveil how and why Romania, a place where large segments of the Jewish and Roma populations perished, still fails to address its recent past. These essays focus on the roles of government and public actors that choose to promote, construct, defend, or contest the memory of the Holocaust, as well as the tools—the press, the media, monuments, and commemorations—that create public memory. Coming from a variety of perspectives, these essays provide a compelling view of what memories exist, how they are sustained, how they can be distorted, and how public remembrance of the Holocaust can be encouraged in Romanian society today.

Read more less

A sweeping history of the United States through the lens of empire—and an incisive look forward as the nation retreats from the global stage A respected authority on international relations and foreign policy, Victor Bulmer‑Thomas offers a grand survey of the United States as an empire. From its territorial expansion after independence, through hegemonic rule following World War II, to the nation’s current imperial retreat, the United States has had an uneasy relationship with the idea of itself as an empire. In this book Bulmer‑Thomas offers three definitions of empire—territorial, informal, and institutional—that help to explain the nation’s past and forecast a future in which the United States will cease to play an imperial role. Arguing that the move toward diminished geopolitical dominance reflects the aspirations of most U.S. citizens, he asserts that imperial retreat does not necessarily mean national decline and may ultimately strengthen the nation‑state. At this pivotal juncture in American history, Bulmer‑Thomas’s uniquely global perspective will be widely read and discussed across a range of fields.

Read more less

Throughout Britain's history, one factor above all others has determined the fate of the nation: its navy. N. A. M. Rodger's definitive account reveals how the political and social progress of Britain has been inextricably intertwined with the strength - and weakness - of its sea power, from the desperate early campaigns against the Vikings to the defeat of the great Spanish Armada. Covering policy, strategy, ships, recruitment and weapons, this is a superb tapestry of nearly 1,000 years of maritime history.'No other historian has examined the subject in anything like the detail found here. The result is an outstanding example of narrative history' Barry Unsworth, Sunday Telegraph

Read more less

A brilliantly witty book about the intertwined lives of psychoanalyst Ernest Jones, surgeon Wilfred Trotter and the guru of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Welsh-born psychoanalyst Ernest Jones was Sigmund Freud's closest associate and most fervent disciple. Clever, self-confident and intensely ambitious, Jones promoted psychoanalysis as a kind of secular religion. Meanwhile, his intimate friend Wilfred Trotter – a celebrated surgeon who saved the life of George V, and who took on Freud as a patient during his London exile – refused to yield to the seductions of the new Freudianism. A quintessentially English figure, Trotter was unimpressed by slick medical careerists, distrusted grand theories and lacked pomposity and self-regard. From the first psychoanalytic congress in Salzburg in 1908 to the illness of King George in the late 1920s and the meeting of Freud and Trotter in 1939, Seamus O'Mahony tells the story of these three figures and their intertwined lives with his customary wit and erudition. Not only the story of the development of psychoanalysis, this is a book about the sexual obsessions of intellectual and bohemian circles in London, Cambridge and Vienna, of Bloomsbury, of doctors in pursuit of wealth and fame. It covers a pivotal thirty years in European history, and reveals how and why the writings of a failed neurologist from Vienna became so influential.

Read more less

This fascinating new book covers the ancient history of the Celts, from Ireland to Italy, from France to Greece. A fascinating picture is given of the origins, migrations, allegiances, society and culture, from the Hallstatt Era' to Christianization, as well as the myths, literature and legacy of this wide-ranging group of peoples.

Read more less

With a special focus on the first two decades of Manuel II Palaiologos' rule, 1391 1417, Leonte offers a new understanding of the imperial ethos in Byzantium by combining rhetorical analysis with investigation of social and political phenomena.

Read more less

Picta nilotica romana si occupa dell’analisi della pittura romana raffigurante il paesaggio nilotico. L’obiettivo è quello di presentare una metodologia di catalogazione dei reperti da una prospettiva iconografico-archeologica, che permetta di individuare modelli figurativi ricorrenti nel bacino del Mediterraneo, di localizzare le reti di scambio culturale tra le diverse province romane e di analizzare l’evoluzione di questo tema iconografico tra il I secolo a.C. e il VI secolo d.C. Il catalogo pittorico approntato si basa su specifici criteri scientifici e sulla classificazione in tre categorie in base alla composizione iconografica. Ai dati del corpus fanno seguito uno studio dei contesti archeologici in cui sono ubicate queste pitture, un’analisi dell’iconografia nilotica e una definizione di ‘paesaggio nilotico’.

Read more less

After their independence and civil wars, Americans never faced a greater threat than the sixteen years of global depression followed by global war from 1929 to 1945. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the president for the last dozen of those years, during which he led the nation first to alleviate the Great Depression then led an international alliance that vanquished the fascist powers during the Second World War. Along the way, he established the modern presidency with centralized powers to make and implement domestic and foreign policies. He was naturally a master politician who eventually, through daunting trials and errors, became an accomplished statesman. For all that, historians regularly rank Roosevelt among the top three presidents. Yet, most historians and countless others criticize Roosevelt for an array of things that he did or failed to do. Conservatives lambast him for creating a welfare state and trying to pack federal courts with liberal judges while liberals condemn him

Read more less

From the vantage point of the United States or Western Europe, the 1970s was a time of troubles: economic “stagflation,” political scandal, and global turmoil. Yet from an international perspective it was a seminal decade, one that brought the reintegration of the world after the great divisions of the mid-twentieth century. It was the 1970s that introduced the world to the phenomenon of “globalization,” as networks of interdependence bound peoples and societies in new and original ways.The 1970s saw the breakdown of the postwar economic order and the advent of floating currencies and free capital movements. Non-state actors rose to prominence while the authority of the superpowers diminished. Transnational issues such as environmental protection, population control, and human rights attracted unprecedented attention. The decade transformed international politics, ending the era of bipolarity and launching two great revolutions that would have repercussions in the twenty-first century: the Iranian theocratic revolution and the Chinese market revolution.The Shock of the Global examines the large-scale structural upheaval of the 1970s by transcending the standard frameworks of national borders and superpower relations. It reveals for the first time an international system in the throes of enduring transformations.

Read more less

The exemplar of Indo-Persian history, at once a biography of Emperor Akbar and a chronicle of sixteenth-century Mughal India.Akbarnāma, or The History of Akbar, by Abu’l-Fazl (d. 1602), is one of the most important works of Indo-Persian history and a touchstone of prose artistry. Marking a high point in a long, rich tradition of Persian historical writing, it served as a model for historians across the Persianate world. The work is at once a biography of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) that includes descriptions of his political and martial feats and cultural achievements, and a chronicle of sixteenth-century India.The third volume details the first eight years of Akbar’s reign, when he consolidated his power, quelled the rebellion of his guardian Bayram Khan, conquered Malwa, and married a Rajput princess.The Persian text, presented in the Naskh script, is based on a careful reassessment of the primary sources.

Read more less

In The Business of Alchemy, Pamela Smith explores the relationships among alchemy, the court, and commerce in order to illuminate the cultural history of the Holy Roman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In showing how an overriding concern with religious salvation was transformed into a concentration on material increase and economic policies, Smith depicts the rise of modern science and early capitalism. In pursuing this narrative, she focuses on that ideal prey of the cultural historian, an intellectual of the second rank whose career and ideas typify those of a generation. Smith follows the career of Johann Joachim Becher (1635-1682) from university to court, his projects from New World colonies to an old-world Pansophic Panopticon, and his ideas from alchemy to economics. Teasing out the many meanings of alchemy for Becher and his contemporaries, she argues that it provided Becher with not only a direct key to power over nature but also a language by which he could convince his princely patrons that their power too must rest on liquid wealth. Agrarian society regarded merchants with suspicion as the nonproductive exploiters of others' labor; however, territorial princes turned to commerce for revenue as the cost of maintaining the state increased. Placing Becher's career in its social and intellectual context, Smith shows how he attempted to help his patrons assimilate commercial values into noble court culture and to understand the production of surplus capital as natural and legitimate. With emphasis on the practices of natural philosophy and extensive use of archival materials, Smith brings alive the moment of cultural transformation in which science and the modern state emerged.

Read more less

Established in 221 BCE, the Chinese empire lasted for 2,132 years before being replaced by the Republic of China in 1912. During its two millennia, the empire endured internal wars, foreign incursions, alien occupations, and devastating rebellions--yet fundamental institutional, sociopolitical, and cultural features of the empire remained intact. The Everlasting Empire traces the roots of the Chinese empire's exceptional longevity and unparalleled political durability, and shows how lessons from the imperial past are relevant for China today. Yuri Pines demonstrates that the empire survived and adjusted to a variety of domestic and external challenges through a peculiar combination of rigid ideological premises and their flexible implementation. The empire's major political actors and neighbors shared its fundamental ideological principles, such as unity under a single monarch--hence, even the empire's strongest domestic and foreign foes adopted the system of imperial rule. Yet details of this rule were constantly negotiated and adjusted. Pines shows how deep tensions between political actors including the emperor, the literati, local elites, and rebellious commoners actually enabled the empire's basic institutional framework to remain critically vital and adaptable to ever-changing sociopolitical circumstances. As contemporary China moves toward a new period of prosperity and power in the twenty-first century, Pines argues that the legacy of the empire may become an increasingly important force in shaping the nation's future trajectory.

Read more less

For Ibn Batuttah of Tangier, being medieval didn't mean sitting at home waiting for renaissances, enlightenments and easyJet. It meant travelling the known world to its limits. Seven centuries on, Tim Mackintosh-Smith's passionate pursuit of the fourteenth-century traveller takes him to landfalls in remote tropical islands, torrid Indian Ocean ports and dusty towns on the shores of the Saharan sand-sea. His zigzag itinerary across time and space leads from Zanzibar to the Alhambra (via the Maldives, Sri Lanka, China, Mauritania and Guinea) and to a climactic conclusion to his quest for the man he calls 'IB' - a man who out-travelled Marco Polo by a factor of three, who spent his days with saints and sultans and his nights with an intercontinental string of slave-concubines.Tim's journey is a search for survivals from IB's world - material, human, spiritual, edible - however, when your fellow traveller has a 700-year head start, familiar notions don't always work.

Read more less

Captain Cook is generally acknowledged as the first great European scientific explorer. His voyage of exploration to the Pacific in HM bark Endeavour, commencing in 1768, lasted almost three years, recorded thousands of miles of uncharted lands and seas – including New Zealand, the east coast of Australia and many Pacific islands – and tested all Cook’s skills as a navigator, seaman and leader. His voyages were among the first to take civilian scientists, notably Sir Joseph Banks, and they revealed to European eyes the mysterious and exotic lands, peoples, flora and fauna of the Pacific, never before seen. But while Cook understandably dominates the story of 18th-century Pacific exploration, the achievements of those who followed him on many voyages of science and exploration into the Pacific have been neglected and deprived of the greater attention they deserve. Correcting this imbalance, Pacific Exploration explores the European voyages that continued Cook’s work not only of charting but also starting to exploit and control the Pacific. These voyages, by William Bligh, George Vancouver, Matthew Flinders, Malaspina, Lapérouse and Arthur Phillip, span a period that saw Britain becoming the world’s leading maritime power, a situation well in place by the time that Charles Darwin’s voyage in Fitzroy’s Beagle laid the basis of even greater understanding of the development of life on earth. Recounting and illustrating these achievements and legacies using fascinating text and beautiful illustrations and artworks from the period, this book explores topics of scientific discovery, engagement with indigenous peoples, the use of shipboard artists and scientists, the growing professionalism of the hydrographic service, the vessels used and the colonial, commercial and imperial contexts of the voyages.

Read more less

While many books examine specific wars, few study the history of war worldwide and from an evolutionary perspective. A Global History of War is one of the first works to focus not on the impact of war on civilizations, but rather on how civilizations impact the art and execution of war. World-renowned scholar Gerard Chaliand concentrates on the peoples and cultures who have determined how war is conducted and reveals the lasting historical consequences of combat, offering a unique picture of the major geopolitical and civilizational clashes that have rocked our common history and made us who we are today. Chaliand's questions provoke a new understanding of the development of armed conflict. How did the foremost non-European empires rise and fall? What critical role did the nomads of the Eurasian steppes and their descendants play? Chaliand illuminates the military cultures and martial traditions of the great Eurasian empires, including Turkey, China, Iran, and Mongolia. Based on fifteen years of research, this book provides a novel military and strategic perspective on the crises and conflicts that have shaped the current world order.

Read more less

The creators of the podcast The Dollop present illustrated profiles of the weird, outrageous, NSFW, and downright absurd tales from American history that you weren''t taught in school.The United States of Absurdity presents short, informative, and hilarious stories of the most outlandish (but true) people, events, and more from United States history. Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds cover the weird stories you didn''t learn in history class, such as 10-Cent Beer Night, the Jackson Cheese, and the Kentucky Meat Shower, accompanied by full-page illustrations that bring each historical milestone to life in full-color. 

Read more less

Travel back in time with the latest instalment in the bestselling Big Ideas series, in a brand new portable format.The Little Book of History charts world history from the dawn of civilisation to the modern culture we live in today. From the origins of homo-sapiens to the release of Nelson Mandela, from the French Revolution to the Space Race, The Little Book of History is a stunning exploration of the human timeline up to and including modern Islam, the world wide web, and the global financial crisis.The Little Book of History tackles big historical ideas with stunning visuals, key quotes, and important themes that are woven throughout world history. Discover events from the assassination of Caesar to World War I and see the people and events come to life with The Little Book of History, perfect for students, adults, or anyone who wants to understand our fascinating past.

Read more less

The acclaimed Penguin Monarchs series: short, fresh, expert accounts of England's rulers - now in paperbackHenry II (1154-89) through a series of astonishing dynastic coups became the ruler of an enormous European empire. One of the most dynamic, restless and clever men ever to rule England, he was brought down both by his catastrophic relationship with his archbishop Thomas Becket and his debilitating arguments with his sons, most importantly the future Richard I and King John. His empire may have ultimately collapsed, but in Richard Barber's vivid and sympathetic account the reader can see why Henry II left such a compelling impression on his contemporaries.Richard Barber has written for Penguin The Penguin Guide to Medieval Europe, The Holy Grail and Edward III and the Triumph of England. He is a major figure in medieval studies, both as a writer and as a publisher.

Read more less

" . . . a book about healing revivalists that takes them seriously and treats them fairly." —Journal of Southern History" . . . will be a definitive work for some years to come." —Reviews in American History"Harrell has obviously attended countless rallies, read sheafs of literature, and personally interviewed many of the principals. He . . . tell[s] the story in a largely biographical format. This makes for lively reading." —Harvey G. Cox, New York Times Book Review" . . . will attract readers interested in the reasons behind the various fat and lean periods among revivalists." —Publishers Weekly"All Things Are Possible is the first book to tell the story of the enterprisers who have personal followings. The narrative is full of surprises: of seriousness and scandal strangely blended. Professor Harrell has done a staggering amount of research in hard to discover sources; his scholarship is impressive and he is eminently fair-minded. Here is a missing link in the chain of American religious movements." —Martin E. Marty, The University of Chicago Divinity School"Harrell's book will doubtless be the definitive work on the subject for a long while—who else will wade through Healing Waters and Miracle Magazine with such fastidious care?" —The Kirkus ReviewsThis is the first objective history of the great revivals that swept the country after World War II. It tells the story of the victories and defeats of such giants of the revival as William Branham, Oral Roberts, Jack Coe, T. L. Osborn, A. A. Allen. It also tells of the powerful present day evangelists who are carrying on the revival, including Robert Schambach and Morris Cerullo. The book includes pictures of Schambach, Allen, Cerullo, Branham, Roberts, Osborn, Coe and many others. Those who lived through the great revival of the 1950's and 1960's will be thrilled to read about those exciting days. Those who do not remember those days need to read this book to see what has led us up to this present moment in time.David Edwin Harrell, Jr. is a professor of history at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He has tried to write this book in an objective way, although you may not agree with all that he says. Dr. Harrell has visited Schambach revivals.

Read more less

The Wehrmacht used reconnaissance and support vehicles widely in the Second World War and this book sets out to show the full range of both categories using over 200 rare images and descriptive text and captions in true Images of War Series fashion. Both tracked and wheeled vehicles were employed for reconnaissance and screening. These included light tanks mainly comprising of the Pz.Kpfw.I, armoured cars such as the six and eight wheeler Sd.Kfz.231,232,233,234 and its variants, 263, the Sd.Kfz.221,222,223,234 and 247, motorcycles such as the famous BMW R75, the Zundapp KS750. In addition to their recce role they would, when possible, engage similar or light units. Support vehicles such as the tracked Sd.Kfz.2 Kettenkrad, and the renowned Sd.Kfz.251 halftracks were used in the follow-up role, frequently with mounted grenadiers to mop up over-run enemy positions. The book fills a gap by outlining the full range of such equipment including the variety of armaments and power plants, and the crews that performed these missions.

Read more less

British nuclear testing took place at Maralinga, South Australia, between 1956 and 1963, after Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies had handed over 3,200 square kilometres of open desert to the British Government, without informing his own people. The atomic weapons test series wreaked havoc on Indigenous communities and turned the land into a radioactive wasteland. How did it come to pass that a democracy such as Australia suddenly found itself hosting another country's nuclear programme? And why has it continued to be shrouded in mystery, even decades after the atomic thunder clouds stopped rolling across the South Australian test site? In this meticulously researched and shocking work, journalist and academic Elizabeth Tynan reveals the truth of what really happened at Maralinga and the devastating consequences of what took place there, not to mention the mess that was left behind.

Read more less

"One of the best analyses of the impact of Tiananmen throughout China in the years since 1989." The New York Times Book Review

Read more less

From beer labels to literary classics like A River Runs Through It, trout fishing is a beloved feature of the iconography of the American West. But as Jen Brown demonstrates in Trout Culture: How Fly Fishing Forever Changed the Rocky Mountain West, the popular conception of Rocky Mountain trout fishing as a quintessential experience of communion with nature belies the sport’s long history of environmental manipulation, engineering, and, ultimately, transformation. A fly-fishing enthusiast herself, Brown places the rise of recreational trout fishing in a local and global context. Globally, she shows how the European sport of fly-fishing came to be a defining, tourist-attracting feature of the expanding 19th-century American West. Locally, she traces the way that the burgeoning fly-fishing tourist industry shaped the environmental, economic, and social development of the Western United States: introducing and stocking favored fish species, eradicating the less favored native “trash fish,” changing the courses of waterways, and leading to conflicts with Native Americans’ fishing and territorial rights. Through this analysis, Brown demonstrates that the majestic trout streams often considered a timeless feature of the American West are in fact the product of countless human interventions adding up to a profound manipulation of the Rocky Mountain environment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKMwEkKj9jg

Read more less

Selected as the Sunday Times History Book of the Year for 2012, this is a meticulous work of scholarship from the foremost historian of 20th-century Spain. The culmination of more than a decade of research, ‘The Spanish Holocaust’ seeks to reflect the intense horrors visited upon Spain during its ferocious civil war, the consequences of which still reverberate bitterly today. The brutal, murderous persecution of Spaniards between 1936 and 1945 is a truth that should have been told long ago. Paul Preston here offers the first comprehensive picture of what he terms “the Spanish Holocaust”: mass extra-judicial murder of some 200,000 victims, cursory military trials, torture, the systematic abuse of women and children, sweeping imprisonment, the horrors of exile. Those culpable for crimes committed on both sides of the Civil War are named; their victims identified. ‘The Spanish Holocaust’ illuminates one of the darkest, least-known eras of modern European history.

Read more less

“The armed rebellion of poor peasants that began fifty years ago in Naxalbari, India, continues to this day. Bernard D'Mello sets out the story of its origins and uneven development, in historical context. The armed struggle lives on because the conditions that gave rise to it not only persist, but are yet more severe. To understand the present and future of India, this story is essential. And Bernard D’Mello's brilliant account has no equal.”—John Mage, International Lawyer Although the 1967 revolutionary armed peasant uprising in Naxalbari, at the foot of the Indian Himalayas, was brutally crushed, the insurgency gained new life elsewhere in India. In fact, this revolt has turned out to be the world’s longest-running “people’s war,” and Naxalbari has come to stand for the road to revolution in India. What has gone into the making of this protracted Maoist resistance? Bernard D’Mello’s fascinating narrative answers this question by tracing the circumstances that gave rise to India’s “1968”decade of revolutionary humanism and those that led to the triumph of the “1989” era of appallingly unequal growth condoned by Hindutva-nationalism, the Indian variant of Nazism. Will what remains of India’s continuing “1968” bring twenty-first-century “New Democracy” to the collective agenda? Or will the ongoing regression of “1989” lead the way to full-blown semi-fascism and sub-imperialism? India after Naxalbari is far more than a simple history of the ongoing Naxalite/Maoist resistance; it is a deeply passionate and informed work that not only captures the essence of modern Indian history but also tries to comprehend the present in the context of that history – so that the oppressed can exercise their power to influence its shape and outcome.

Read more less

Niall Ferguson's acclaimed bestseller on the highs and lows of Britain's empireOnce vast swathes of the globe were coloured imperial red and Britannia ruled not just the waves, but the prairies of America, the plains of Asia, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Arabia. Just how did a small, rainy island in the North Atlantic achieve all this? And why did the empire on which the sun literally never set finally decline and fall? Niall Ferguson's acclaimed Empire brilliantly unfolds the imperial story in all its splendours and its miseries, showing how a gang of buccaneers and gold-diggers planted the seed of the biggest empire in all history - and set the world on the road to modernity.'The most brilliant British historian of his generation ... Ferguson examines the roles of "pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts" in the creation of history's largest empire ... he writes with splendid panache ... and a seemingly effortless, debonair wit' Andrew Roberts 'Dazzling ... wonderfully readable' New York Review of Books'A remarkably readable précis of the whole British imperial story - triumphs, deceits, decencies, kindnesses, cruelties and all' Jan Morris 'Empire is a pleasure to read and brims with insights and intelligence' Sunday Times

Read more less

Do you know where you came from? Who Do You Think You Are? has been a BBC hit since its first series in 2004, which ignited an extraordinary boom in researching family history in the UK. Since then, the world of genealogy has transformed and while our sources of information remain the same, our ways of accessing them have multiplied and changed beyond recognition. In this practical, easy-to-use handbook, the WDYTYA? team share their experience and expertise, essential for anyone who would like to discover their family’s history.Drawing on celebrity stories to illustrate and inspire, and providing hints, tips and practical step-by-steps this pocket handbook will bring family history to life for fans of the show, and for any amateur sleuths starting out on their own journey of discovery.

Read more less

Build, reinforce and assess students' knowledge throughout their course; tailored to the 2016 CCEA specification and brought to you by the leading History publisher, this study and revision guide combines clear content coverage with practice questions and sample answers.- Ensure understanding of the period with concise coverage of all Unit content, broken down into manageable chunks- Develop the analytical and evaluative skills that students need to succeed in A-level History- Consolidate understanding with exam tips and knowledge-check questions- Practise exam-style questions matched to the CCEA assessment requirements for every question type- Improve students' exam technique and show them how to reach the next grade with sample student answers and commentary for each exam-style question- Use flexibly in class or at home, for knowledge acquisition during the course or focused revision and exam preparation

Read more less

“The Guard Attacks!”. The Imperial Guard, this glorious phalange, the fruit of the Emperor Napoleon’s greatest attention, was almost an army within the “Grande Armée”. This study of the Guard’s organisation, uniforms and equipment is fully comprehensive.Vol. I: Discover the uniforms, equipment and weaponry of the Old Guard, often the last resort to be thrown into battle at the decisive moment. The illustrator and researcher, André Jouineau presents here a fully comprehensive overview of all aspects, regiments, etc. of the French Imperial Guard.Vol. II Continues where vol. I ended with a wealth of images to conclude this fully comprehensive overview of the Imperial Guard.

Read more less

During the Revolutionary War, forts in New York were instrumental in initiating and maintaining America’s desire for independence and helped the nascent nation to eventually prevail.These forts saw crucial, campaign-determining naval battles, and pivotal land engagements between battle-hardened well-led British troops and unproven American militia. In both land and sea engagements the garrisons deployed a range of weapons including different calibers of smooth-bore cannon, howitzers, musket, bayonets, and even tomahawks.Covering Amsterdam, Clinton, Fort Clinton at West Point, Dayton, Decker, Flagstaff, Au Fer, Brooklyn, Defiance, Franklin, Golgotha, Herkimer, Jay, Klock, Montgomery, Niagra Old Stone Fort, Salonga, Stanwix, Ticonderoga, Wadsworth, and Washington, this expert text discusses design, armament, and current status of the forts. It explores their garrisons, commanders, and the battles fought, as well as the spatial and military dependent relationships these forts had with one another.

Read more less

The Age of Revolution (1776-1848) destroyed the main slave regimes of the Caribbean but a 'Second Slavery' surged in the US South, Cuba and Brazil, powered by demand for plantation produce and a system of financial credit that leveraged the value of the slaves. By 1860, more than 6 million captives of African descent toiled to produce the cotton, sugar and coffee craved by global consumers. This 'Second Slavery' mimicked capitalist disciplines, intensified slavery's racial character and launched half a century of headlong economic growth.On the eve of the American Civil War, the Slave Power seemed invincible. The slaveholding elite entrenched their 'peculiar institution' in the fabric of the Union only to risk everything on secession. Nobody solicited the slaves' wishes until it became clear that, wherever they could, they were deserting the plantations and joining the Union forces.Abolition radicals destroyed the Second Slavery and victory for the North also spelled defeat for slavery in Cuba and Brazil. But in each of these societies racial oppression was to be reconfigured by 'Black Codes', Jim Crow and toxic doctrines of racial destiny.Slavery leaves an indelible mark on many Atlantic nations. The Reckoning charts the historic impact of slavery and anti-slavery, of black and white activists, of fugitive slaves, feminists, writers, clerics and soldiers. Notwithstanding much unfinished business, the anti-slavery struggle retains its capacity to illuminate and inspire.

Read more less